College Admissions Counseling Blog

There is an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times recently about colleges, particularly those in California, revoking admissions to students who let their senior year grades slide too much.

This isn't necessarily big news but every year some students just don't get it that they need to keep their grades up particularly if accepted at a selective college. Colleges don't like to "unaccept" students, but they will if the student indicates that they don't have the maturity to continue to get strong grades. If there is something else that has caused a drop in grades, most colleges will look at the explanation before automatically rejecting the student. But don't take that risk. Continue to work during the senior year so that you don't have to explain to the college that accepted you why they should continue your acceptance.

A new study out by the University of California suggests that grades are the most important indicator of performance through all four years of college. At the same time SAT scores have very little predictive value for college performance.

An excellent summary of the study was published in Inside Higher Education by reporter Scott Jaschlik. We would encourage anyone interested in the topic of the importance of grades vs. test scores to read this article. While test scores will probably always have some importance, their influence seems to be under almost constant attack the past few years as more and more colleges go test optional and the College Board continues with problems with the SAT.

Because of the large scope of this study, many colleges will look seriously at the results. Hopefully the result is a moderating of the influence of standardized test scores on the entire college admissions process.

A poster at CollegeConfidential recently posted a resource that could be very helpful for students interested in participating in college sports. The NCAA, National Collegiate Athletic Association, requires Division I schools to perform a self study every 10 years. These self studies often contain information regarding test score data and breakdowns on freshman classes by gender and racial catagories.

The poster then provides links to a wide variety of Division I schools where this self study information can be found. If you are a potential student athlete you should investigate this information to see if the colleges you are interested in have recently performed a self study.

Thanks to Papa Chicken for this information.

Carleton College's alumni magazine recently featured an article taking an inside look at the admissions office at Carleton. Carleton is a highly selective liberal arts college in Minnesota for those who might not be familiar with it. I also happen to be the father of a rising senior at Carleton.

It is generally helpful to see these articles that talk about the admissions process at different colleges particularly the selective colleges. Back in March I wrote about several other articles looking at selective college admissions offices. I would suggest anyone that is considering a selective college view some of these articles before applying to get a better feel for the type of student these colleges are looking to admit. However, also keep in mind, that there are no guarantees with applying to highly selective colleges and you should always have a safety college that you like in mind.

The Harvard alumni magazine recently published an article on students that Harvard rejected in the past but probably wished they hadn't.

Getting rejected from Harvard or any other "big name" college hurts when it happens. But this article makes it clear that one need not attend a prestigious college to be successful. Keep that in mind when making the decision on where to apply. Look for the right fit for you and your wants, and don't worry about the name of the college. You too can be successful even if you don't go to Harvard.

You may be wondering why you should care if Dartmouth College wants to reconsider the way its trustees are elected. Dartmouth elects its trustees, the governing board of the college, in one of two ways. Members are elected by each other and by elections by alumni. The problem, at least for Dartmouth, is that the recent alumni elected trustees have not been the officially nominated candidates. Rather, they were elected by alumni who are critical of the administration of the college and the way it is being run. In an effort to control such criticism by trustees the administration is seeking a review of the way trustees are elected.

This is yet another example of one of the issues that a student may want to consider in deciding where to apply to college. If the administration of the college is not open to critical comments from its trustees, are they going to be willing to listen to criticism from its students? And remember that the trustees in question are alumni of Dartmouth, not some strangers unfamiliar with the culture of the college.

Issues like the one facing Dartmouth are faced by colleges all the time. You as a prospective student need to be aware of such issues to make an informed decision in the selection of where to apply. Like most other issues, there are no right or wrong answers to the search for the right college. But each student needs to consider issues like the one facing Dartmouth in their search for the right college for that student.

Vassar College has announced that they will be need blind for all freshman admissions. Vassar was need blind until 10 years ago when they went to a need aware policy for some freshman admissions.

For those people confused by the difference, a need blind college makes all of their admissions decisions regardless of the financial circumstances of the applicant. In other words, it doesn't matter whether you apply for financial aid, you will be considered equally with all other applicants. A need aware college admits most students without regard to their financial aid status. However, a certain percentage of students will have their financial aid status considered when the college decides which students to admit. Typically this meant that if you were one of the last students to be considered by the college, you might not be admitted simply because you had a need for financial aid. At Vassar, this usually meant about 2% of students were admitted giving consideration to their financial aid status. Colleges use a need aware aid policy to save money in their limited financial aid budget. While it is understandable why a college would use their limited resources in this manner, it is unfortunate that the ability to pay for a college is considered in the admissions process.

We applaud Vassar for returning to a need blind admission policy. This is a great way to ensure that the best students are being admitted to a college.

A recent article in the New York Times tells the story of a young man from Pennsylvania who had no help and yet got into George Washington University. The focus of the article is on how wonderful it was that this young man was able to get into a college without help. I will be the first to admit that many students are able to find a good college without using professional help. However, the real question is whether the college is a good college for that student.

In reading through this story several items jump out at me. First is the list of schools to which this young man applied. He applied to Columbia, Delaware, Skidmore, Boston University and George Washington. All fine schools but all very different colleges. We have colleges in the middle of New York City to rural colleges. Large universities and small colleges. Extremely competitive to much less competitive. And the feel of each of these colleges is going to be very different from each other. These are colleges that do not normally compete for students with the other colleges on the list. Maybe there was some factor that made each of these colleges make sense for this young man but it appears to be a random list of colleges whose only similarity is that they are all on the East coast.

The second thing that struck me was the apparent lack of understanding of how financial aid works. The colleges this young man applied to range from one that provides 100% of need to one which only provides 79% of need. And many of these colleges have limited merit awards. With a middle income parent he did not have a financial safety college and may be paying more to attend college than he would otherwise need to if he had investigated the financial aspects of attending college.

Was this a good list of colleges for this young man? Possibly. But I suspect that this is really a story about a typical student who had inadequate guidance and ended up applying to various colleges without investigating who he has and what he wanted from a college. Without doing such self reflection a student ends up at a college that may be adequate for their wants and desires but won't be the best fit.

I don't see this story as a triumph of the little guy against those who had professional help. Rather, I think this story further illustrates the failure of most students to understand what it takes to find an appropriate college for each student. Do all students need professional help? No. But if they don't have such help they must take the time to understand the process of finding the right college and the basics of financial aid. Otherwise, they face the very real possibility of finding the wrong college for their needs and paying too much for college.

I was recently at an admissions event when the dean of admission mentioned inappropriate email addresses that the college routinely receives. You know the ones; partygirl@xxx or icarryguns@zzz. The dean made it very clear that they routinely reject such applications based simply on the applicant's email address.

Yes, I know people like to be different and sometimes shocking with their email addresses. But when you are applying to a college that is not how you want to be thought of. Colleges are looking for interesting students but that doesn't mean they want to admit someone who they feel might be a security risk or a student who will spend all of their time partying. If you want an interesting email address, use some version of your favorite activity as your email name. laxguy123@zzz if you are an avid lacrosse player for instance. This has the added advantage of letting the college know that you really are serious about your activity if you use an email address such as this.

For college application purposes, and later in life when you are looking for a job, having a more routine email address will make life much easier.

Many colleges offer summer programs for high school students. These programs are typically viewed as enrichment programs for the high school students interested in a particular field or topic. A recent article from the Palo Alto High School journalism program points out another advantage to such programs; the ability to get the experience of living on a college campus before actually moving away from home.

There are some wonderful summer programs sponsored by the colleges and if that is an option I often encourage students to consider attending a program that meets their interests. However, attending such a program should only be done if the family can afford the program and if the student really wishes to attend the program. As the article points out, the simple experience of attending such a program does not necessarily mean that your ability to gain acceptance at that particular college will be enhanced. Some student do gain an advantage in the admissions process because by spending several weeks on a campus they begin to have a better feel for what that colleges values are. This may translate into better admission essays and thus enhance your likelihood of admission.

But the reality is that most students attending selective colleges have not had such an experience and yet were able to gain admission. If you are not able to attend such a program at one of the colleges in which you have an interest, you simply need to make sure that you understand that college's culture by other means such as talking to current students or faculty in departments of interest.

A new report out from the Women's Sports Federation shows that women are significantly underrepresented in college athletics. The report claims that women made gains in participation during the 1990's but that the gains have slowly during the past 7 years. The report even provides a report card evaluating colleges on the gap they have between men and women athletes.

If you are a prospective female athlete, you might be able to use the report card to help find colleges where your skills might be desired and where you may have an increased chance of admittance. For instance, a college that gets a poor score on the report card may be inclined to increase the number of female athletes in its programs to better comply with any claims of discrimination under Title IX. This may make admission to such colleges easier for women athletes for a period of time. Of course you should also consider whether the culture of that college's athletic programs are in fact biased against women which might have an effect on your enjoyment of attending that college.

As I have noted on many occasions, there are many factors to consider in choosing the right college and this is just one more factor that the student athlete needs to consider.