College Admissions Counseling Blog

Yes, seniors, it is already time to think about starting your college application for next year. I know you are still enjoying your summer vacation but the more you can get accomplished on your application, the better your senior year will go. And trust me on this, you will have many better things to do your senior year than work on your college application.

So what can you do to get your application going? If the colleges in which you are interested accept the commonapp, go to their website, register and start to fill out the general information portion of the form. Although most colleges don't have their supplemental applications available, most will have them available in the next few weeks. Moreover, many colleges don't change their supplemental applications much from year to year and by looking at last year's supplement, you can get a feel for what information they will want this year. If you can get most of your essays accomplished before school starts in the fall, you will be well ahead of the pack. If the college doesn't use the commonapp, go to the college's web site and see when they are posting this year's application. Most will tell you when it is available. Again, you can often look at last year's application to see what information will be required and what type of essay questions you might have to answer.

Now is the time to think about who you are going to ask to write your recommendations and what information would be helpful for them to have in writing your recommendation. Does your school offer interviews? If so, you should take advantage of this opportunity to better communicate to the college why they are a great match for you and to find out more information about the personalty of the college that you might be able to use on the essays. Interview times at many schools fill up completely, so now is the time to be arranging an interview.

If you have completed your SAT or ACT and have scores that you are comfortable with, good for you. If not you still have time to do some more studying before retaking the exams this fall.

I hope you are all having a great time this summer doing what you want to do. But spending a little time this summer working on all aspects of your search for the right college will make life much more enjoyable next year. Then you can sit back and wait..... until admissions come out.

I recently published a new article discussing the issues to consider when trying to decide whether to take the SAT or ACT for college admissions purposes. The article has been published at College Basics as well as my own site. One of the first suggestions is to take a practice test of each exam to see on which test you do better. If you find that you don't do as well as you would like on either test then you might want to consider some of the many great colleges that don't require testing at all. If that is the case, head over to FairTest for their list of test optional colleges.

There are a number of other suggestions that all students starting the college search process should review. If you are not looking at a test optional college then the score you get on the SAT or ACT can sometimes make the difference between admission or rejection.

Goucher College, a selective liberal arts college in Baltimore, announced today that they are joining the ranks of colleges that will no longer require standardized tests for admissions. The other day Merrimack College, a selective Catholic college near Boston announced that they were also eliminating the testing requirement for admissions. This brings the current total of colleges that don't require testing to over 740 according to Fairtest.

Students with good test taking abilities can still submit test scores to most of the colleges that don't require them but for those students that don't do as well on standardized tests, the test optional schools provide some reassurance that you can still find a good college for your needs.

Following in the footsteps of Davidson College earlier this year, Amherst College has announced that they are eliminating loans for all students effective with the Class of 2012. Eight years ago Amherst eliminated loans for families making less than $40,000 a year but they are taking a further step by eliminating all loans. We congratulate Amherst and Davidson on making the move to eliminate loans for all students. While not every college has the resources to make such a move there are a number of other colleges that could afford to eliminate loans if they choose to do so.

Students often look for a comprehensive source of what colleges require or recommend the SAT subject tests. Here is a list put together from another blog, Admission Source. The information appears correct but of course, you should check with any particular college in which you are interested to verify their testing requirements. These requirements are subject to change and you can only be assured of correct information by talking to the admissions department of the college itself.

For those of you who are fascinated by college rankings there is an interesting new article put out by the Institute for Higher Education Policy. The article, entitled College and University Ranking Systems, Global Perspectives and American Challenges, first examines the historical background of the US News ratings and then looks at university rankings from countries around the world. Finally, there is a review of the impact these rating systems have had on student's choices of colleges particularly in the United States.

The article puts a more global view on ratings and their impact on students around the world than is normally seen in articles discussing college rankings. While there is not much disclosed that hasn't already been known, the synthesis of all of this information into one source provides a good overview of the college ranking systems.

Now is a great time for those students interested in pursuing a science field in college. A number of major research universities have announced new science building initiatives in the past year or two to be able to accommodate their future needs in the areas of science and engineering. A recent New York Times article discussed many of these projects including Yale's recent announcement that they have acquired existing science and laboratory buildings very near their main campus.

Several of the colleges gearing up their existing science facilities, such as Yale, have in the past not been known for their strong science programs. With the investment that the colleges are putting into science facilities those students entering the science fields will be able to benefit from these improved resources. This is an example of a benefit that a student can receive when colleges compete with each other in various ways.

Students often debate the question of whether the prestige of a college makes a difference in getting a job after college. In a new study out by Accountemps only 13 percent of the chief financial officers polled felt that the prestige of the undergraduate was very important. However, another 38% felt that prestige was somewhat important. Basically 1/2 of the people polled felt that there was some importance to the prestige of the college you attended. Obviously that also means that 1/2 of the people polled felt that the prestige of the college was not at all important.

While some people, like some students, feel that prestige is important, I continue to suggest to students that it is much better to have a good fit in the college you attend than to go to a college simply because it is prestigious. If you want to consider the prestige of the college as one of the factors to consider that if fine; just don't make it the only criteria.

Inside Higher Ed had an interesting article today regarding the approach that Tufts University is taking in their admissions process. Basically Tufts is still using grades and test scores as a filter to determine automatic admits and automatic application rejections. However, for the vast middle group of applicants, Tufts is asking students to respond to additional essay questions specifically designed to identify applicants with abilities that Tufts would find attractive in a student. The essay questions are meant to identify students who are creative, possess practical skills or who have wisdom about how to promote the common good.

It will be interesting to see how this approach to admissions works but the early indications from Tufts is that they are still getting high quality students who have that something extra that colleges are looking for in students. Moreover, this approach has increased the number of under represented students on campus. According to the article, at least one other college, the University of Washington is examining Tufts approach to see if it can be used at other colleges. We'll see if this is a new trend in how to evaluate students.

Good recommendations are important for students applying to college, particularly those who seek admission to the most selective colleges. There are many ways to make sure you get good recommendations. Some of these include the following.

1) Ask the recommender if they can give you a good recommendation
2) Ask teachers who know you well inside and outside the classroom if possible.
3) Ask in advance for the recommendation so that the person has adequate time to prepare the recommendation.
4) Check with students in the grade above you for their opinion on who writes strong recommendations.
5) Provide each recommender a bio sheet about you and your accomplishments including any pertinent information about your performance in that teachers classroom.

However, there are certain ways NOT to get a recommendation. One of these is discussed in a recent blog at The Right Thing. In essence a parent of a student sent a teacher who had been asked to do a recommendation some suggested language to use in the recommendation.

Most colleges want a true evaluation of you from the people who are writing your recommendations. Yes, they understand that generally these will be good recommendations but they are not looking for your parents appraisal of you. Besides insulting the person you asked to write the recommendation, writing your own recommendation is unethical and should never be done.

Finding the right college isn't about cheating to do so. You want to find the right college for you based on who you really are.

The Annapolis Group, a group of many of the selective liberal arts colleges, has put out a group statement on college rankings. Basically this group of colleges have agreed to develop a format to present data to students and parents that will provide much of the same information as available in the US News rankings, without actually ranking the colleges. Moreover, the majority of the presidents of the colleges at the meeting agreed to not participate in the peer rating requested by US News for their college ranking edition. This is significant because the peer rating accounts for 25% of the US News ranking formula and is the most important piece of the formula. Losing this information, particularly for some of the most selective liberal arts colleges will put the validity of the rankings further into question.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am not a fan of individualized rating systems like US News. While the information available is helpful, people get too wrapped up in differentiating between the No. 2 college and the No. 5 college. This is ridiculous. Look at the factors that are important to you in choosing a college and then find colleges that meet that criteria. If you want to rank your colleges based on the information you find important, go ahead and do so.

There is a new way to apply to some colleges called the Universal College Application. The people behind the Universal College Application are the people that created the Common Application. While this may not sound significant, particularly since only 13 colleges are currently using this type of application, its importance can be better shown by looking at some of the colleges accepting this type of application: Harvard, Duke, Johns Hopkins and Washington University in St. Louis.
The Universal College Application is seeking a bigger market than the Common Application which limits its members to those who use essays and recommendations in the admission process. Because many public colleges don't consider such factors, they have not become members of the Common Application group. The Universal College Application does not have such requirements and hopes to provide students applying to public colleges many of the same benefits as students applying to the Common App colleges. Keep an eye on the Universal College Application as it may just become the best way for future students to apply to a wider array of colleges.