College Admissions Counseling Blog

Boston.com has a good article about the hazards of getting too much help writing the college essay. The article makes it clear that with the increasing competition for students to gain admissions to their dream colleges, admissions officers are paying more attention to the essay to discern whether the applicant actually wrote it.

Students can, and should, discuss possible topics for the essay with a trusted adviser whether they be parents, teachers or private counselors. They can, and should, have an adviser review and possibly edit the essay for such issues as syntax and spelling. However, the essay must come from the student with the student's voice coming through. Not only is this the honest approach but if the student's voice is not coming through in the essay, the student is not giving the college an accurate view of who they are. To find the right college, the student must communicate to the college who they really are.

The executive director of the Common Application, Rob Killion, has released the numbers of applications through January 15. According to him the Common Application had 1,281,196 applications this year (a 40% increase) from 367,994 unique applicants. This means the average applicant this year submitted about 3.5 applications through the Common Application. This number is consistent with the number of applications submitted per student in the past several years. This means that the increase in application numbers is due to more students using the Common Application which is consistent with the increasing number of colleges using the Common Application and the fact that the majority of the most selective colleges use this form for their applications.

These facts seem to confirm that the stories of students submitting 15, 20 or more applications is not the norm among students submitting college applications.

The Common Application also announced that 23 new colleges which will begin using the Common Application next year.

Many of the most selective colleges are starting to release their application numbers and as expected the number of applications at many of these colleges again set records. Here is the bad news:

Harvard applications are up 18% to more than 27,000
Princeton applications are up 6% to 20,188
Stanford applications are up 2.5% to 24,564
Brown applications are up 7.5% to 20,505
Duke applications are up 5.4% to 20,250
University of Virginia applications are up 3.8% to 18,776
University of Chicago applications are up 18% to 12,267
Northwestern applications are up 12% to more than 25,000
Amherst applications are up 17%
Dartmouth applications are up 10%

But enough of the bad news because there is some good news also. According to a survey of 386 colleges by the National Association for College Admission Counseling the average college acceptance rate is still 69%. In other words, as long as you are willing to consider a school outside the most selective colleges, there is still a reasonable acceptance rate with most colleges. As always, don't get hung up on the name of the college. Find the best college for your needs and if it one of the most selective, have a good safety.

It is that time of year again. Some applicants to colleges are submitting more than the requested applications. The Boston Globe discusses some of the items sent to admissions offices in the hope that they would improve the applicants chance at admissions.

Let's keep this simple. DON'T do this. The message you are sending along with the gimmick is that your application is not strong enough on its own to allow you to gain admission. Instead, work on your grades, prepare for standardized tests, spend time at your favorite extracurricular activity and if you really have some extra time, spend it on polishing the application and essay. Doing these things will help your chances of admissions. Submitting something to make you the joke of the admissions office will not help your chances.

Here is an interesting take from another college admissions counselor who also happens to be a lawyer. Steve Goodman, a counselor in Washington DC advises students to make a small mistake on their college application to convey authenticity to the colleges. Since colleges are looking for the "real" you, making a mistake, which no one would purposely do, makes you seem more authentic.

Although I understand why Mr. Goodman is making such a recommendation, I would advise against such a tactic. Students should be trying to convey who they are to the colleges without the use of the pretend mistake. Writing a strong essay, getting appropriate recommendations, and properly completing your application are all ways to communicate the real you. Besides, mistakes are common enough without trying to make a mistake that you might come off looking like you didn't care enough in the application to avoid all of the mistakes. Moreover, this is a very fine line to walk. You want a little mistake, but not too big a mistake. What spelling error is appropriate and what makes you look uneducated? The biggest problem I have with this is by faking a mistake you are not conveying who you are but rather try to fake who you really are.

Do colleges play games in the application process? Sure they do. But that doesn't mean that you need to play games such as fake mistakes to convey the person behind the application.
Be yourself and you are more likely to be accepted at and enjoy attending the right college for your needs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There was an interesting article in a recent American Prospect online edition. The author argues that contrary to the popular media, it is not more difficult to get into the top colleges now compared to several years ago. The argument is that the number of applicants to the top colleges is not really increasing, it is the number of applications that is increasing. This is a function of students on average applying to more colleges now than they did a number of years ago. In fact, the author states, the most elite colleges in the nation sent out more acceptance letters in 2006 than they did in 2002.

The reality, however, is that the number of acceptances, is still extremely low considering the number of well qualified students applying to a limited number of colleges. The solution, in part, as we have talked about before, is for students applying to college to learn that there are more than 50 colleges in this country. Although the "name" colleges get most of the publicity, there are many more wonderful choices available for any student.

With all of the recent news about the record low admission rates at some of the countries best known colleges I thought it might be a good time to discuss the future of college admissions. The National Association for College Admission Counseling recently issued their 2006 report on the state of college admissions which discusses many factors surrounding college admissions.

One of the more discouraging facts is that college enrollments are expected to continue to increase until 2014. That means for at least the next 7 years the number of students applying to college will increase and the acceptance rates at many of the well known colleges will continue at levels that make acceptance extremely difficult even for the best qualified students.

Several other facts may be important to students applying to college in the future. The number of women applying to college again greatly exceeded the number of men applying. For the most recent year reported, women submitted 58% of the applications nationally while men only submitted 42%. Many colleges seek to have a fairly balanced ration of women and men which means that men may find acceptance somewhat easier at many colleges.

Almost 50% of the applications were submitted online and the trend is for that number to continue to increase in the future. This should ease the concern of those people who have been hesitant in the past to file their applications online.

Finally, my favorite statistic is that despite the increase in the number of students applying to college, the average four year college acceptance rate is still at 70%. While the colleges that accept fewer than 30% of their applicants make all of the headlines on the dire nature of college admissions, there are thousands of colleges where admission is not such a difficult proposition.

If you are applying to one of the highly selective colleges, good luck. Just make sure that you have a safety college chosen from among those colleges with higher acceptance rates.

A new book entitled "The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges" has just been released. This book argues that the meritocracy that Yale and other elite colleges have been pushing as the new reality is not as available as the colleges would suggest. Here is the description of the book from its publisher, Stanford University Press.

"It is widely assumed that admission to elite U.S. universities is based solely on academic merit—the best and brightest are admitted to Harvard, Yale, and their peer institutions as determined by test scores and GPA, and not by lineage or family income. But does reality support those expectations? Or are admissions governed by a logic that rewards socioeconomic status while disguising it as personal merit?

The Power of Privilege examines the nexus between social class and admissions at America’s top colleges from the vantage point of Yale University, a key actor in the history of higher education. It is a documented history of the institutional gatekeepers, confident of the validity of socially biased measures of merit, seeking to select tomorrow’s leadership class from among their economically privileged clientele. Acceptance in prestigious colleges still remains beyond the reach of most students except those from high-income professional families. Ultimately, the author suggests reforms that would move America’s top schools toward becoming genuine academic meritocracies."

I have not yet had a chance to read this book but it looks like an interesting read.

Another recent study about who attends college was issued by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. This study was reported on by boston. com.

Issues of how much a college have changed are always subject to subjective arguments. However, for students considering admission to an elite college, the issue of who may be admitted is a very real issue. For such students the more information available the better.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that colleges are getting more aggressive in making sure that the information they receive from applicants is accurate. For years colleges have relied on students to be honest in the information provided in applications. Now, because of some identified problems, and because more information is available, colleges are in part able to try to verify information submitted by students.

The University of California system now conducts random spot checks asking about 10% of applicants to verify their activities, grades and facts from personal essays. Harvard has added a professional background checker to their undergraduate admissions staff.

The bottom line is don't lie or exaggerate the information you provide on your college applications. Yes, you should present yourself in the best possible light. But communicate who you really are, not some person you created to get admitted.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling has reprinted the whole article.