College Admissions Counseling Blog

Juniors who haven't started to look for the right college for them need to start as soon as possible. Will the world end if you don't. Nope. But by starting now you have a much better opportunity to find a college that meets your needs, will accept you and one you can afford. In fact, I often recommend that students begin early in their junior year thinking about what needs to be done.

So if you have been ignoring the process so far, what do you need to do at this point. Here are a few short tips.

First, if you haven't already taken one of the standardized tests, either the SAT or ACT, you should sign up immediately to take the June test. By taking at least one test before fall you will have some background on the level of selectivity to consider in colleges. If you do well on that first test you also be able to avoid having to retake another standardized test.

Second, visit some colleges. If you already know the type of college you are interested in, ie. small, big, urban, rural, preppy, crunchy then focus on those colleges near you that may have some of the characteristics you are seeking. Don't know what type of college you might enjoy? Visit a variety of types of colleges. Chances are, you will find some you like and some you don't. That can help narrow down the colleges you are looking at.

Third, think about who you are. This relates to number two above. You want to find the right college for you. Not your best friends right college and not mom and dad's right college. You are an individual. Think about what makes you...well, you.

Fourth, before school lets out for summer talk to your favorite junior year teacher to see if they will write you a recommendation in the fall if it is required by the colleges. This seems really early but it gives the teacher more opportunity to think about what makes you unique and also makes you look like someone who is on top of things. Also, many popular teachers get too many requests for recommendations and put a limit on who they can write for.

Fifth, spend some time this summer investigating colleges on the internet, in college guidebooks, talking to friends, or all of the above. If you can come up with a rough list of colleges to which you wish to apply this fall, your senior year will be a lot more relaxed.

Sixth, most colleges will have their applications available later in the summer. Find out when the application comes out for the colleges you are interested in and work on the essays this summer.

Seventh, have fun during the summer. Just spend a little time each week working on 5 and 6. You will glad you did when the busy senior year starts.

UCLA recently allowed a reporter from the Los Angeles Times to sit in on a training session for admissions readers. New training was required after UCLA decided to take a more holistic approach to admissions.

This article from the LA Times allows a student to have a small look into what occurs in the admissions office when decisions are being made.

To see the full article, go to the LA Times.

There have been several other colleges that have allowed reporters access to the admissions process. In June 2004, Amherst College allowed a reporter from PBS to be involved in the process.

In 1998 the University of Pennsylvania allowed a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor to sit in on admissions decisions.

Each of these articles can be helpful for a student wondering what actually occurs when a college makes decisions on who to admit. What each of these articles reflect is a honest attempt by all of the parties involved in choosing a freshman class to balance the needs of the college with the many talented students that apply to selective colleges each year.

A MIT professor who has been critical of the new writing section of the SAT recently spoke at a conference on college composition. His comments were reported in todays Inside Higher Ed in an article by Scott Jaschik.

Among the highlights of the article were several suggestions on how to write the SAT prompt to get a good score. These included using "examples from the arts and history, but not worrying whether they make sense), and including key words that the SAT scoring teams are thought to favor ("plethora” and “myriad” are both considered tops".

We would urge students to review this article before taking future SAT exams.

The whole text of the article can be found at Inside Higher Ed.

Have you wondered, maybe worried, about what goes on behind the doors of a colleges financial aid office. At this time of the year, when financial aid awards are coming out, there is an interesting behind the scenes look at financial aid offices. This look is provided by the magazine University Business which is designed for use by financial aid professionals.

The article entitled Financial Aid Appeal Pitfalls lists 5 potential problem areas for financial aid professionals.

1. Low balling the original financial aid offer. This implies that some schools intentionally start by sending inadequate financial aid offers in the hopes that the families won't appeal.

2. Having a lack of clearly defined policy. Apparently some admissions offices and financial aid offices aren't on the same page with what the colleges policies may be regarding appeals. In other words, if you have a desire to appeal your financial aid award you are probably better off going directly to the financial aid office rather than approaching admissions.

3. Allowing negotiation vs. professional judgment. All colleges are allowed to use professional judgment in the award of financial aid. Basically this means that they don't need to follow the rules set down by the federal government under special circumstances. The question of what is professional judgment vs negotiating is often blurred. This suggests, as has been discussed before, that if you are a strong candidate for that college, they may be more willing to discuss an appeal of your financial aid award than if you are a weaker candidate.

4. Cutting off communication. The article discusses reasons the college might not want to cut off discussions of an appeal such as better explaining the award to the family. I would also suggest, however, that if the college financial aid office won't talk to you as a prospective student, that does not bode well for future communications if you decide to attend that college. No, they may not be willing to look at an appeal and that is the college's right. But if they won't even talk to you about the issue, consider your other college options carefully.

5. Forgetting to track and analyze the data. This won't have much affect on you but it does give you some insight into how closely the whole financial aid award process if tracked. This is big business for most colleges and you should not forget this in dealing with a particular college.

Here is the whole article for you to review.

Darthmouth College recently announced that they would be discontinuing on campus interviews. This leaves Yale as the only Ivy League college to still do on campus interviews that are considered in the admission process. Harvard also does on campus interviews but they are not considered in the admissions process.

Many colleges have discontinued on campus interviews because of a perceived bias towards those students who can afford to come to campus for the interview. I understand the argument that there is potentially bias involved but as long as the college doesn't give preference to a student interviewing on campus compared to a student doing an alumni interview I don't believe there is a problem.

I also believe that, for several reasons, it is to the students benefit in most cases to do an on campus interview if they are able to get to the campus. Actually setting foot on a campus provides a much better feel for a college than any description a guide book or your best friend can ever provide. The quality of the interviews also tend to be better with on campus interviews as the person doing the interview generally has more experience with such interviews and is also more subject to quality controls than an off campus interviewer. To be fair, there are some wonderful off campus interviewers but the consistency is not as great. Finally, if the student lives within a reasonable distance of the campus, it can appear odd to the admissions staff why that person would do an alumni interview rather than come to campus for an on campus interview.

If you are interested in any college, do an interview. If the college offers on campus interviews, and if you can get to campus without a great deal of cost, do the on campus interview.

Kiplinger magazine has just released their latest list of the private colleges that provide the best value. Kiplinger attempts to assign certain values to the quality of the colleges compared to the cost after discounting related to financial aid considerations. While any ranking of colleges is problematic this list provides some helpful information regarding the quality measures and financial aid measures for the colleges listed.

This year, for the first time, Kiplinger broke the list into private universities and private liberal arts colleges. We think this is a helpful move as the two types of colleges are often difficult to compare on many levels.

Kiplinger's list of the Best Value in Public Colleges was released several months ago and provides similar information.

There was an interesting article in the the Chicago Maroon, the official student newspaper of the University of Chicago regarding legacy admissions. The title of the article indicates that there is no admissions advantage at Chicago by being a legacy. However, comments by dean of admissions, Ted O'Neill, don't seem to support that view at all. In fact, the article quoted O'Neill as follows:

“It is most accurate to say that we wish to treat alumni children with the same care and respect we treat all applicants, and, when it comes to doing the kind of reading we do—careful, painstaking, comprehensive—we do not ignore the fact that a student has a connection to the University that may be meaningful,” O’Neill said in an e-mail interview. “Of course, the meaning has to be conveyed in the kind of application a prospective student writes.”

O'Neill seems to be saying that legacy status is indeed considered by the University of Chicago in the admissions process. But as is the case at most colleges, you need to bring something to the application process besides just being a legacy. In other words, you can't rely on your legacy status to compensate for poor grades or poor test scores.

These statements by O' Neill seem to reinforce the common believe that legacy status is indeed one of the factors examined by colleges in making its admissions decisions.

For the text of the whole article go to the Maroon's online edition for March 6, 2007.

This past Saturday MIT issued their admissions decisions. Here is the information from the blog of Matt McGann of MIT admissions.

"This year, we received 12,443 applications for freshman admission, a record number for us and a 9% increase over last year. We admitted 1533 students total (including the 390 from early action) for an overall admit rate of 12.3%, or fewer than one of every eight applicants. We offered 499 students a place on the waiting list."

It doesn't look like admissions 2007 will be any kinder for students considering the highly selective colleges. Fortunately, there are many colleges available that will provide an excellant education but with more reasonable admissions standards.

We will keep you advised as we learn about other colleges admissions decisions.

Welcome to the new blog for College Admissions Partners. We hope to provide additional helpful information to those interested in the college admissions process.

Questions? Comments? Let us hear from you.