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.