Admissions Blog

Undergraduate Admissions Uncensored

Eight things I learned at NACAC 2017

Posted on by Leave a Comment

NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) had its annual conference in Boston this September, and it was chock full of educational sessions, networking opportunities, speeches by respected thought leaders, and four full days of morning, afternoon, and evening receptions. While it’s always nice to get together in one place a group of people who work in one industry, there are also drawbacks to attempting such a feat (NACAC has over 15,000 individual, institutional, and organizational members from around the world). Below is a summary of the top eight things I, one of the thousands of attendees, took away from NACAC 2017.

8. It’s great to get to know colleagues from around the U.S. and around the world: I think the greatest strength of having a NACAC conference once a year is that it brings together people from all corners of the world who work in the same field. Getting to know individuals who do what I do but do so in a different time zone or different language certainly helps put things in perspective and contextualizes the work that we all do. We all enjoy unique benefits from performing this line of work and we all face unique challenges in our individual positions, organizations, or locations. I think coming together each year is an invaluable way in which to reflect on what unites us and learn from what differentiates us.

7. Boston is beautiful: Boston, especially in September, is a great place to be. Taking in the sights, the local colleges, and scenery was certainly rejuvenating as we head into another admissions cycle. Kudos to NACAC Conference organizers for picking Boston and thank you to Boston for rolling out the red carpet to so many of us. South Boston is unrecognizable from just a few years ago, and conference goers certainly must have left town realizing that far from being just an amazing college town, Boston is a city on the move.

6. I need to do more cardio training and leg workouts: The convention center was so big and the conference and its satellite receptions covered so much physical territory in Boston that I am suffering from shin splints. Being a college counselor is clearly dangerous for one’s health, as sitting in front of a computer and meeting with families all day does not provide enough time for flexing ones muscles. I feel like I did more walking in Boston than I did during a recent trip to Disney World, and that’s saying a lot. In all seriousness, I can’t imagine how hard this was on many counselors who are severely out of shape and who tried to squeeze in as many sessions and events as possible during this conference. I’m no gym rat, but I’m also not in bad shape; yet, even I had a hard time traversing this conference on foot. I hope the organizers think long and hard about how they can create a more compact conference in the future. Maybe it’s time for more virtual elements? Or fewer and higher quality breakout sessions so there is more of a common experience for all participants at the end of the conference. At the very least, I need to take more breaks during every work day in order to stretch, walk, go up and down the stairs, and generally work out so that I won’t be limping during the waning hours of NACAC 2018 in Salt Lake City.

5. Resources seem misaligned: For all the backslapping and glad-handing taking place in Boston this week, what is abundantly clear is that students are not at the center of the college admissions industry. Rather, the people who run it are: the enrollment deans, the admissions officers, the college counselors, and the vendors there to grease the skids. If students were at the center of the process, so many dollars would not be spent once each year on various groups of adults wining and dining other groups of adults. While I love my new University of Texas Austin socks, I can’t help but think that the money spent to produce them would have been better served back in Austin reducing student-professor ratios or increasing student financial aid offers. Clemson can spend thousands of dollars on a glitzy reception for conference goers each September, but couldn’t Clemson get higher quality and more diverse applicants by instead spending less on desserts and spending more on plane tickets for its admissions officers to travel out to the furthest reaches of the the U.S. and world like so many other peer institutions do? Colleges and vendors in particular need to lead on returning students to the center of this process and that means less $tyle and more substance.

4. Many speakers weren’t very impressive: Considering this is the one big shot each year to get so many admissions and college counseling leaders together, I was struck by just how little new information I learned. Much of what I sat through in a session or was told by an admissions officer during the college counselors’ fair was information I’ve known for quite a while. The issue is compounded when speakers don’t speak very well or don’t even seem to realize that the information they are sharing is pretty stale stuff. As usual, I was most impressed by many of the senior admissions deans and officers and least impressed by those in their twenties who, with all due respect, give many of these institutions a bad name. Maybe send the rookies to the regional conferences to get their sea legs before inviting them to majors? With that said, there were some exceptional newbies, but they were indeed the exceptions. Also, just because one is a keynote speaker does not make one a good speaker. I also prefer keynote speakers who challenge the audience to think differently than they usually do. The keynote speaker at NACAC 2017 was preaching to the choir. The vendors as usual were particularly a mixed bag. Many seemed to be right out of a boiler room. Others seemed simply bored.

3. The Common App keeps finding new ways to disappoint: What happens when a group of poor planners decide to invite all conference attendees to their company’s reception? Food runs out only an hour in, leaving a lot of folks crammed into a damp tent together drinking and yelling at the person next to them just to be heard. It’s disturbing to know that the ‘brains’ behind the application used by over 700 colleges and universities can’t even successfully throw an average party. Experiencing the Common App’s 2017 NACAC reception explains why and how an application that was once a true revolutionary product (when designed by the innovative and down-to-Earth team now running the Universal College App) now seems past its sell-by date. No organization or company can expect continued success when it’s running on fumes and depends most of all on its past successes/reputation. Bring in new and unimaginative people and you get relatively uninspired output on all that they touch.

2. Counselors need to stop complaining about Hobsons/Naviance/RepVisits: It seems like every day on counselor forums and in conversations by phone and email high school counselors constantly complain about Hobsons, the company that owns Naviance and RepVisits. The fact is that counselors’ jobs would be so much harder without Naviance and RepVisits. Hobsons’ booth at this year’s conference was manned by earnest and kind professionals who really helped a lot of us. I had a major problem that was time-sensitive that I never expected to get resolved, and it was resolved by a wonderful Hobsons rep in thirty minutes! That is impressive. Hobsons is not perfect, but it’s far closer to perfect than the inept image lots and lots of complaining counselors would paint for you in order to make you believe that Hobsons is a complete mess. With RepVisits integration, Naviance now efficiently and effectively accomplishes what I used to spend a good half of my job doing. This allows me to spend more time providing personalized guidance to students and parents. College counselors should be kissing the feet of each and every Hobsons rep they encounter. Show some gratitude. Thank you Hobsons!

1. The Big 10 reception was great: As much as I feel sort of skeazy for attending (and enjoying some of) these networking (supposedly informational) receptions at which colleges or organizations throw products, drinks, and/or food at attendees, I can’t help but admit, in a year of pretty weak and tasteless party planners, the brains behind the Big 10 reception did a bang up job. The food was awesome, the music and lighting were spot on (I have to believe Rutgers had a large hand in the Jersey Shore-vibe that came across as more fun than kitschy), and the give-aways were non-generic school-specific items that reflected the true personalities of these very fine medium and large institutions. Loved the dumplings and guacamole. Props.

Next year in Salt Lake!

The Importance of Demonstrating Interest

Posted on by Leave a Comment

One factor in college admissions that many students and their families sometimes overlook is the impact of demonstrating interest. Although the bigger state schools and top-tier colleges often do not track demonstrating interest, many colleges and universities are increasingly monitoring the engagement levels of prospective students.

Colleges are trying to protect their most important statistic called “yield.” A university’s yield is the percentage of students who attend the college out of the number who were admitted to the college. In other words, what are the chances that a student attends if given the opportunity? Colleges like to boast higher yield percentages for obvious reasons: it makes the school seem more desirable and elite. With more high school students than ever before applying to colleges, admissions offices need to distinguish between those students who actually want to attend their institution and those who are just applying as a back-up option. Regardless of how much you want to attend any given school, it’s in your best interest to make each and every college on your list believe that you are seriously considering them as a great option if admitted. And the truth is, you should only apply to colleges that meet your needs. Why apply to a college if you wouldn’t consider attending? If you do get into a college you have no interest in attending, you are potentially taking a seat away from another student who has that school on his or her dream list. Additionally, it creates difficulty for admissions offices when they cannot discern who has their institution high on the list. If colleges think you are likely to attend if granted admission, they may be more likely to admit you.

Anecdotally, I have seen top applicants with straight As and super high standardized test scores get deferred, waitlisted, or even rejected at colleges where they should have been accepted because these students didn’t show such ‘likely’ colleges their interest. Whereas, some of my “B” level students with reasonable but not stellar scores, have gained admissions to these same schools by periodically expressing their interest to these colleges. This is not particularly hard to do but it does add another step to the college admissions process. When a college receives an application from a student after having zero prior contact with that student, many admission officers will call such an applicant a “stealth applicant.” Many colleges are wary of admitting such students.

Demonstrating interest assists colleges in determining prospective students’ likelihood to attend, and it can take on many forms. The most obvious ways of demonstrating interest are visiting the school, signing in with admissions, and taking part in an information session and tour of the campus; however, there are so many other ways to demonstrate interest that you may not have even considered. Once you get your contact information (name and email) onto a college’s “prospective student” list, the school may send you links and pamphlets as a means of helping you learn more about it. Although it may be hard to imagine, some colleges are actually tracking if you open each email, if you click on the links they provide, and how long you spend on the site. Even little, seemingly insignificant actions such as taking time to read a college’s course catalog may count as demonstrating your interest.

Other ways you can demonstrate interest include reaching out to professors within your area of intended major at each school and meeting with them if you are able to visit campus. You can also email admissions counselors merely to express your interest in the school – but you certainly want to take great care not to overdo it or annoy admissions or other college departments and offices. Be as specific as possible regarding why you would like to attend that school. Your email will likely be filed under your name within the prospective students at the college, and by the time you actually apply to the college, your file can be filled with all kinds of demonstrated interest.

It is important to remember that demonstrating interest can help distinguish you from thousands of other applicants if done the right way. Informing colleges of your interest in attending can improve your chances in admission; therefore, do not underestimate the significance of demonstrating interest.

Igniting Your Extracurricular Spark: Actionable Tips

Posted on by Leave a Comment

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. For Part 1, which details how the author found her extracurricular spark, click here

You have read my story, now it is time to create your own. Let’s figure out what you might be interested in – beyond video games, Facebook, ESPN, WhatsApp, Instagram, and/or Snapchat!

HOW TO GET STARTED?

1. Go with your gut. STOP listening to the chatter. STOP worrying about what “they” (your parents, friends, spin instructor) might think about what you want to do. If it interests YOU then it is okay.

2. Think about your current interests. Do you want to sustain them? Perhaps you are involved with scouting, or art, or music. Do you want to continue with those activities? It is fine if you do, but you need to really WANT to. Don’t stick with it just because it is easy or familiar. If you’ve been on swim team but hate every minute of it, then quit. If you have played the violin for five years and still aren’t very good – and you’ve given it a good effort – then quit. NOW is the time to quit and move on. Cut your losses. DO WHAT YOU LIKE.

3. Warning For Musicians Only: If your passion is music, and you dream of being a music major or attending a conservatory, you need to start researching that now. Many conservatories require competency in more than one instrument as well as proficiency in reading and composing. Do you homework and PRACTICE. I will write more about music in a later post.

4. Make your choice and jump in. You don’t have to become an expert, just give something a try. By “give it a try” I mean stick with it for at least three months. After that, if you aren’t having fun, try something else. No one is keeping track. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. If you choose to take up some super technical sport or difficult instrument, it may well take more than three months to start enjoying it, but you get my point.

WHEN TO GET STARTED?

1. SUMMER is a great time to explore your interests. There are all sorts of camps and workshops and programs geared towards getting teens excited about everything from medical research to writing the next great novel. Summer is also the time when employment opportunities abound, and don’t overlook those chances to volunteer. Colleges aren’t looking for students who take the summer off. Make good use of that time to learn more about yourself.

2. The next best time to try new things is at the beginning of the school year. Create a new you. Join a new club. START a new club.  Get involved in a community project at a deep level. Let’s say that your school’s Key Club does one of thosse Rise Against Hunger programs where everyone gathers to package up thousands of meals. If that sort of helping activity is interesting to you, make a point of seeking out the organizers. Ask them how you can get more involved. Find out how to help organize this type of event or sign on with the organization itself. There are countless opportunities to help out on a deeper level in your community.

EXAMPLES

Maybe theatre is your thing, or dance, or music. Instead of just joining the band or trying out for the play, take a stab at stage managing, or lighting, or sound. Maybe you want to write or direct or choreograph? You will be shocked at how welcoming and encouraging teachers and community members will be when you propose your ideas. Most will jump at the chance to help you. Besides, what’s the worst thing that can happen? That they say no. You will be no worse off than you were when you started! If someone turns you down (and they will), simply thank them for their time and move on. Don’t hold grudges or burn bridges though, because in all likelihood the reason for them turning you down had nothing to do with YOU, and they may be able to help you in the future.

Maybe sports are more your thing, and you are involved at the varsity or club level. First of all, read my blog post on athletics. Then if you are STILL involved at the varsity or club level, find a way to double dip. In other words, since you are already at the pool or gym or wherever, find a way to further your interest or passion in the sport beyond your training. Maybe you could help coach younger kids? If you are interested in pre-med perhaps you could shadow the athletic trainer or help him or her organize his or her space or maintain the weight room? Maybe you could learn more about exercise science or nutrition? If you are interested in training and/or nutrition, try to expand your interests so that they are not totally self centered. Explaining how you got yourself to 14% body fat will not make you jump off the page, but showing how you developed an eating plan that helped the team lose fat and gain muscle mass will get people talking.

These are just two suggestions. Choose one or two things that you’d like to explore (or keep exploring) and go and and DO IT. If you don’t get to sign up at the start of the year, that doesn’t mean you need to sit it out. Most clubs and community organizations welcome new members at any time. That first step is the hardest. Once you try one activity it makes it easier to join the next one. Just take that first step. You’ll be glad you did and it will help you get noticed.

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. For Part 1, which details how the author found her extracurricular spark, please click here.

Colleges continue to welcome applicant résumés

Posted on by

Vanderbilt University allows resumes on both the Common App and the Coalition application.

High school students who invest time creating résumés may be handsomely rewarded in the college application process. Of 689 Common Application member colleges and universities that are “live” as of this writing, at least 224 — or about one-third — have made specific provisions for or even require the submission of this handy document.

This hasn’t always been the case. In fact, there remains a lingering controversy over the appropriateness of asking students to develop and maintain résumés throughout high school. And many colleges are very deliberate about not including them as part of their applications.

In her blog on college admissions at the University of Virginia, Jeanine Lalonde makes a point of repeating every year, “The Common App has a resume upload function and lets each school decide whether they want to use it. We are one of the schools that turned that function off. We prefer the Common App activity section to the various ways people choose to present their activities on resumes.”

But many college advisers and lots of colleges very much disagree.

“Almost as soon as I start guiding a student through college planning, I learn about the student’s interests and hobbies and discuss the importance of extracurricular commitment in and out of school – both for college admission and life enrichment. That naturally leads to an analysis of student engagement and the creation and continual updating of a résumé,” said Judi Robinovitz, a Certified Educational Planner in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Florida. “The résumé becomes far more than a list of activities. Rather, it highlights a student’s accomplishments about what she has done, why, how, and, most especially, how these actions have impacted lives (hers and others’).”

Robinovitz adds, “Here’s an important secret: when you share a thoughtfully prepared and detailed résumé with anyone who will write a recommendation, you’re likely to get a stronger and more anecdotal piece of writing that supports your application. Plus, through résumé creation now, we lay critical groundwork for undergraduate summer job and internship applications – and ultimately, for graduate school and vocational opportunities.”

In other words, a résumé represents an opportunity to collect, keep track of and reflect on accomplishments. And it’s likely to be a document the student will have to maintain, using different formats and styles, through college and beyond.

Most school-based and independent college counselors agree there’s no reason to include a résumé with a college application if it totally duplicates information contained in other parts of the application, unless of course, the school specifically asks for one. And plenty of colleges outside of the Common App system do, such as Georgetown University, Virginia Tech, MIT and the University of Texas at Austin.

For students using the Common Application, basic extracurricular-related information may be presented in the Activities section, which provides space to describe involvement in ten activities. Within each activity, the Position/Leadership blank allows 50 characters to give a solid indication of your position and the name of the organization in which you participate. A second box allows 150 characters to provide insight into what you’ve done and any distinctions you earned.

The Coalition provides space for extracurricular activities in the Profile section of the application. Students may enter up to eight activities and are asked to specify “the two primary activities that have taken up most of your extracurricular time during high school.” For each activity, the student is allowed 64 characters for the activity name (Cashier, Wegmans Grocery Store, Fairfax VA), as well as 255 characters for “one brief sentence describing the primary function of this activity” and an additional 255 characters to “[L]ist any positions/honors/awards received in this activity, if any.”

Students using the Universal College Application (UCA) may enter up to seven “Extracurriculars, Personal and Volunteer Experience[s]” and up to five employers or job-related activities.  While the characters allowed are more limited (35 for extracurricular and 32 for jobs), students are encouraged to provide more details in the Additional Information section.

But for some students, these activities sections are still limiting and don’t provide enough of an opportunity to showcase specific accomplishments or direct attention to relevant online content. In this case, the applicant has a couple of options.

 

First, check member questions for additional opportunities to provide details about extracurricular activities. This is where some Common App members have made provisions for an upload of a fully-formatted résumé. These include:

  • Boston College
  • Brandeis University
  • Brown University
  • Bucknell University
  • Claremont McKenna College
  • Colgate University *
  • Cornell University
  • Dartmouth College*
  • Davidson College**
  • George Mason University
  • George Washington University
  • Howard University
  • Johns Hopkins University**
  • Kenyon College
  • Lafayette College
  • Macalester College
  • Mount Holyoke College
  • Northeastern University
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Santa Clara University
  • Trinity College
  • Tulane University
  • Union College*
  • University of Cincinnati
  • University of Massachusetts-Amherst
  • University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
  • University of Pennsylvania*
  • Vanderbilt University*
  • Washington University in St. Louis*

Another option is to see if the college offers an alternate application that allows for résumé uploads. For example, the UCA provides for fully-formatted résumés by allowing PDFs to be uploaded in the Additional Information section of the application. Before going forward with this plan, however, it’s wise to check with the college first to see if they’d like a copy of your résumé as part of your application for admission. They may not!

A résumé can be a very powerful document for pushing your college candidacy forward. It can serve to color between the lines or provide extra detail beyond what may be crammed into a standardized application form.

If given the opportunity, use it. But make sure it reflects well on you and contains accurate and up-to-date information.

*     This school also made provisions for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.
**  This school does not specifically provide for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.

Common App introduces an improvement that largely goes unnoticed

Posted on by Leave a Comment

Pepperdine University

For nearly a decade, the Universal College Application (UCA) has offered students the opportunity to include on their applications a “live” link or URL to online content such as YouTube, LinkedIn, personal websites, blogs, etc. In this regard, the UCA was way ahead of the competition, offering an option that both colleges and students seemed to want. Despite repeated calls to include a similar field on their application, the Common App opted to strengthen partnerships with outside vendors like SlideRoom (frequently charging applicants a separate fee) and resisted signs that colleges were increasingly transitioning to inclusion of digital credentials as part of the admissions process.

With the debut of the Coalition platform, the idea of making digital media available as part of the college application became more institutionalized. Videos, audio presentations and pictures can be easily uploaded to the Student Locker and transferred to applications for colleges requesting them. And most Coalition colleges opted to also use the upload function for the personal statement—something the Common App dropped a couple of years ago in favor unwieldy “text boxes,” which definitely limit an applicant’s ability to control format, embed live links and use different characters or pictures as part of their essays.

As the Coalition built on a precedent established by the UCA and opened students to the possibility of introducing colleges to their digital sides, the Common App responded by creating a relationship with ZeeMee, originally an online resume-building site high on visuals and low on written content. In the spring of 2016, the Common App introduced the new partnership with an “infomercial” at their annual conference and offered colleges the opportunity to have a field dedicated to ZeeMee included in their “member questions.” A number of colleges accepted the offer, some by stridently advertising for and recruiting students to the ZeeMee platform. Others were moderate in their requests and still fewer (one or two) suggested that students could include a link to ZeeMee or other online media if they chose.

But the times are changing. Without any promotion or advertisement from the Common App, many member colleges adopted the more “generic” URL field in their 2017-18 applications and are using this opportunity to encourage students to provide links to any site—not just ZeeMee. In fact at least 45, or about six percent of Common App members with live applications at this point, intentionally give students a wider opportunity to provide a link to a website of their choosing.

For the record, an additional 125 Common App members (as of this writing) appear to limit their requests to or provide dedicated fields for ZeeMee URLs—some with very strong marketing language.

But this welcome application development seems to have largely gone unnoticed. Perhaps it would be even more welcome if the link were “live” and a reader could click on the URL and go directly to the site—an opportunity the UCA has offered students and admissions readers for close to ten years! Unfortunately, the current state of Common App technology apparently requires readers to copy and paste the URL into an internet browser to access content. Nevertheless, the inclusion of a more general question in the bank of member questions is an acknowledgment of the value of this information to the admissions process.

Here is a sample of Common App members electing to move away from promoting a single site to opening their application to the inclusion of any URL:

  • Antioch College
  • Brown University
  • Centre College
  • Colorado College
  • Earlham College
  • Eckerd College
  • Florida Institute of Technology
  • Florida Southern College
  • Hampshire College
  • Kenyon College
  • Lafayette College
  • Marist College
  • Occidental College
  • Pepperdine University
  • Pitzer College
  • Texas Christian University
  • Union College
  • WPI

Franklin and Marshall, Hamilton and the University of Mary Washington make similar requests on the Coalition application.

And while the URL requests are fairly generic and don’t steer applicants in any particular direction, the award for best wording by a Common App member goes to the University of Mary Washington:

“Some applicants maintain an electronic profile (such as ZeeMee) that exhibits talents, creativity or other information to share with the Admissions Committee. If you maintain such a site, and would like the Admissions Committee to view it, please enter the URL here.”

The cleverest college award goes to SUNY Purchase, which gets around the deficiency in Common App technology by instructing applicants to be creative about uploading a document containing a link:

“For video submissions, post your video to YouTube or Vimeo and submit a document here with the URL link to the video.”

Note: For the nearly one-third of Common App members providing for submission of fully-formatted résumés, you can include URLs on those documents, upload them as PDFs and assume the links will be conveyed as live, thereby providing direct access to any online content you wish readers to see. Click here for more information on colleges that welcome your résumé.

Igniting that Extracurricular Spark

Posted on by Leave a Comment

I often write about developing your interests or igniting the spark. For some of you this may be all you need to start down that rosy path to passion, but for others, all that talk of interest and discovery might just be feeding your frustration.

“I have no interests,” you might be saying.

“My child just wants to lie on the couch and play video games 24/7,” you could be thinking.

I feel your pain. I too, have a more than one child who would love nothing more than to rot his brain in the supine position for the rest of his days. We won’t go there right now, but let me tell you how I discovered my own interests and passions back in the days of yore.

Every person has a different spark.

When I was eleven, I loved horses. This is a typical girl thing, right? Every Christmas I placed the word PONY first and foremost on my Christmas list. I begged for riding lessons, I had a collection of Breyer horses complete with barn and tack room. The summer after fifth grade my mother signed me up for summer camp at the Pony Palace Riding Club, which would involve a week of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. riding and horsey-ness.

Two weeks before pony  amp, I developed appendicitis. Post-surgery I was forbidden from any rigorous exercise for six weeks. SIX WEEKS. Luckily the Pony Palace Riding Club owner was a shrewd as I was desperate and she agreed that I could perform “light barn chores” instead of the more vigorous riding elements of the camp. I spent five days mucking stalls, bathing and grooming horses, cleaning tack, and measuring out feed. I saddled everyone up at the beginning of the day and put everything away at the end. I learned more about what goes into caring for horses – and what comes out of them – than I ever could have by simply galloping around the ring, and I loved every second of it. I spent most of my middle school years mucking around (literally) at that barn; I earned my riding lessons and hauled more manure than I care to remember, but just being around those animals was enough for me.

Fast forward to my high school years. Was I an equestrienne? No. Did I own a horse? No. Was this going to be my life’s work? No again. So what was the point? Working at that barn taught me all kinds of things. I was responsible for the well being of more than one relatively expensive living creature. The horses, and their owners, depended on me; and though I knew that I was never going to be a champion rider, I did know that I would always want to be around animals. The connections I forged at Pony Palace helped form my interest and passion for animals and the outdoors.

During my summer vacations in high school I worked as both a lifeguard and camp counselor. I started as a junior counselor after ninth grade and by graduation I worked my way up to being the Director of Aquatics. I needed to keep more than 500 campers from drowning each day, and I did not take that responsibility lightly.

That passion for the outdoors led me to try rowing as a sport. I went to a boarding school in New Hampshire that happened to have a large rowing program. When I tried it in the spring of my freshman year, I happened to be pretty good at it and was the only freshman (thanks to an upperclassmen getting suspended) to make the varsity second boat. For the next four years, rowing, even though it only took up a dozen weeks of my year, was my favorite thing about school. We did well as a team, we got some decent recognition, and I ended up at a Nationals after my junior year. That DID help me get noticed by colleges, but my passion for rowing also helped me make lifelong friendships. It taught me how to connect with my adult coaches who also helped me along the way.

Rowing is the ultimate sport in terms of teaching stick-to-itiveness. So it wasn’t so much about my talent as a rower, in fact I am very small for an oarsman, and at 5’5″ I wound up coxing in college. What rowing instilled in me was the knowledge that I could be passionate about something. Just like that summer at Pony Club, I could use my time rowing to remind myself that there are some pretty awesome moments in life, and you just have to keep trying for them.

As a senior at my school, you had the option of completing an Independent Study Project (ISP).  I still loved animals so I came up with the crazy notion of doing my ISP at the Los Angeles Zoo as an intern zookeeper. I wrote my proposal and sent it off, never imagining that it would work out. Lo and behold, the folks at the zoo cooked up an amazing program in which I could work on all of the various animal “strings” and also take the volunteer docent course at the same time. It was my dream come true.

Long story longer,  there isn’t any set formula for finding or pursuing what interests you. My path certainly was unpredictable and a little non conventional. Did I end up as a veterinarian or Olympic rower? Obviously not, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I followed the things things that interested ME. Not my parents, not my friends, ME. The key to getting noticed is to discover and follow YOUR passions and interests.

If you are a parent: I am sure that you can think back on your journey to adulthood and come up with your own version of the road that led you to where you are now. We all take a series of steps – and missteps – as we shape our lives. What is important for your child (or you, if you are the student) is to discover what INTERESTS them. Let their interests lead the way. While you’re at it, let their talents lead the way as well. While there is much to be said to sticking with a project (or lessons, or whatever) there is NO point in forcing a child to continue in an activity for which they have no real talent or passion. There is no use in continuing with the swim team or flute lessons if every practice session is a battle. Let them move on. I realize that you may have invested a lot of money into that particular activity, but I urge you to cut your losses. If your child doesn’t love it by the end of middle school, let them find what they do love.

My own two daughters started off in elementary school with the violin and the cello. They did the whole Suzuki thing. They learned to read music (sort of). I forced them to practice. We went to recitals. I kept them at it through middle school, by which time one had discovered chorus and the other soccer and track. They loved their new activities. They were GOOD at their new activities. They both hated their respective stringed instruments. Despite protestations from both my husband and my mother in law (who had only recently purchased two rather expensive instruments), I allowed them to move on.

As it turned out, one went on earn a place in the All State Chorus on three different occasions, and today she sings with a local opera company and is a paid section leader in a local church choir. The other competed at the state level in her track event and was recruited by several DIII schools. Let students follow their own path. Allow students to ignite that spark that they all have inside of them.

I promise you it will all work out.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. For Part 2, which includes specific actionable tips about how to start igniting your spark, please click here. 

How and Why ZeeMee Updated Your 2017-18 College Admissions Video

Posted on by 1 Comment

Use the ZeeMee app to feature your activities on your college application!

Think of the ZeeMee digital video as a live resume for your college application. It’s an opportunity to introduce yourself, show your personality and share your story, as well as make a more personal connection with your application reader. The student story, says ZeeMee co-founder Adam Metcalf, “has defined us as a company.” A former high school teacher, Metcalf says he is “very passionate about each student being seen as more than a score.”

However, says Metcalf, 80% of the several hundred thousand students who built a ZeeMee page last year “indicated difficulty in creating video and unique content that allowed their story to come to life.” And college partners told ZeeMee they often received a video that was partially or completely blank. To remedy this, ZeeMee made some changes for the 2017-18 application season.

All About the Smartphone (No Web)

The free Zeemee video is now created exclusively using the ZeeMee App on an iOS or Android smartphone. (It can still be viewed — in fact, it is intended to be viewed — on the web.)

“Our students consistently asked for an easier way to share their story through mobile,” says Metcalf. “The idea of posting a video on the web was foreign to Gen Z.” By eliminating the web platform, ZeeMee can focus on how to improve the student story via their smartphone app.

Furthermore, this means access to ZeeMee is now uniform and equitable: all students will use the same platform to create their video. “Students who don’t have access to professionally edited videos can share their story just as easily as someone who does,” says the ZeeMee team. “We needed to create an experience where everyone was on equal footing…. it is less about shooting an award winning film and more about being authentic and true to who you really are.”

Pre-recorded Prompts to Scaffold Videos

“Students also asked for an easier way to know what to share,” says Metcalf. “As a result, we introduced question prompts.” The prompts are asked  on the Chat tab of the app — just tap on Questions.  Students will occasionally receive push notifications for a new prompt they can consider, such as: Talk about a time you accomplished something you previously thought you couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Or: Who would win, Superman or Batman?

Students can skip over prompts until they are ready to record their answer to a question they prefer. They can change their minds or rerecord their answers as many times as they wish. They can also create their own questions to answer. The idea is for students to answer the one or more prompts they think will best showcase their character and values.

Responses to prompts will be limited to 26 seconds each. This may seem arbitrary, but the ZeeMee team says, “The response time was informed by data we collected as to average viewing time of videos.” The takeaway here is to keep your points succinct. You want your video to be viewed; the enforced time limit will make that more likely to happen.

Captions Can Be More than Captions

Previously, activities were described using up to 350 characters in one section; and photos with short captions were presented in another section. But colleges reported to ZeeMee that many times either the content would be redundant; or students might provide great detail in their activities section and then skip the photo captions, leaving viewers to wonder what was going on.

In response, ZeeMee has merged these two sections by eliminating the activity section while expanding the writing space for photos to as many as 5000 characters. “Thus,” says Metcalf, “the ability to write, to add photos and to create video are all still an integral part of the ZeeMee process.”

How to Deal

Students who have already opened a ZeeMee web account can download the app on their smartphone to access their accounts. ZeeMee has not deleted any video or picture content; to restore access, students just need to link their old account to the app.

When linking accounts, students must select their high school from a drop-down menu. The list is being updated, so there is a chance a student might not find their school. If trying an alternate spelling does not help, ZeeMee director Ethan Lin offers this workaround: select an available high school to proceed through linking the accounts; once that’s completed, immediately open the student profile to switch back to the correct school. “I recognize that’s not a perfect solution,” says Lin, “but it should work in the meantime and will help students get into their account.”

Another possible hangup: while students who had already completed the now deleted activities sections can still get access to their text, they will need to contact ZeeMee in order to do so. The ZeeMee team is online for live chats via the App’s  My Story tab  — click on settings (the gear icon) in the top left corner, then click on Contact Us. Also on the settings tab — an FAQ with answers, explanations and instructions. (This same information is accessible at ZeeMee.com, as well, via the Support tab.) For further assistance, ZeeMee’s Discover tab features prerecorded instructions about the transition; and information about upcoming capabilities, such as how to delete video.

So far, the ZeeMee team is pleased with student response to their new platform. “For this period of time in August, compared with last year, we have had many more students create video through the new experience, which we believe speaks to the ease of the content creation.”

“Students want their story heard,” says Metcalf. “We strongly believe that… the new experience is absolutely the right step for students being able to share their stories.

Want to get recruited to play your sport in college? It’s a Hail Mary.

Posted on by Leave a Comment

I work with a lot of athletes in both my private practice and at the school where I work as a college counselor. Each year a few of them do earn spots – some with scholarships, some without – on college teams; however, if you are betting on athletics getting you into – and paying for – your dream school, or indeed, any school, you are probably throwing your money away. Hate me if you will, but if you are an athlete or the parent of one you would do well to keep reading.

There is nothing wrong with playing a sport. There is nothing wrong with being an athlete in high school and aspiring to be a student-athlete in college, but do not believe, not for one little second, that athletics are a golden ticket for anyone but a very select few.

In the good old days you could play two or even three varsity sports in high school and still have time for homework, for friends, for clubs, and for a life. Unfortunately, these days, families are pressured to place their children in year-round club soccer, volleyball, baseball, or swimming starting as young as elementary school with the hopes of grooming that child for the elusive college scholarship.  Parents spend thousands of dollars on coaching, hotels, travel, club dues, uniforms, trainers, and eventually medical specialists so that their child can play at an elite level. School teams, with the exception of football, often play second fiddle to more specialized club or travel teams that an offer “better exposure” to college recruiters. Every year I work with families that have been down this path, for years, often at great financial and emotional sacrifice, only to find out that their child is not, in fact, college athlete material.

Let me save you a lot of heartache. Your child is probably NOT college athlete material. Does that mean that they shouldn’t participate on their school team? Of course not. They SHOULD be on their school teams. They should be on MORE THAN ONE school team if that is what they are passionate about, but not with the sole purpose of using that sport as a ticket.

I am going to give you a bunch of statistics in a minute that will bear this out. But if you don’t want to read those, here is an easier way of knowing whether or not little Johnny or Susie is going to be playing for Clemson or UCLA or Michigan any time soon. If your child is a sophomore and hasn’t been contacted by a coach (unofficially of course) or some other employee of a university, then he or she is probably not going to be. There are exceptions to this, of course. Perhaps your child is a swimmer and didn’t go to any big meets, or their track times aren’t in the main databases. Easy enough to check the websites of those dream schools and see what the stats are for recently recruited students. If your student’s times are in the ballpark, then great, reach out to coaches and start filling in those athletic questionnaires. If, however, you child plays a sport in which he or she has to be SEEN, like baseball, volleyball, football, lacrosse, and basketball, and they haven’t been seen by sophomore year, then they still might play, but it isn’t going to be at a school you have heard of.  If you are unsure as to whether or not your child is likely to be recruited, and at what level, ask your coach. They should be able to: 1) help you make connections with colleges and 2) give you a realistic appraisal of your child’s talent.

If you want some more concrete information about college athletics. Check out these resources:

First, read this brief run down of how college scholarships work.

Now, look at the statistics (straight from the NCAA) of how many high school athletes go on to college and professional sports.

I am not trying to be Debbie Downer. I am NOT trying to rain on every athlete’s parade. Yes, there are Division III schools where many, many student athletes are successful, but then there isn’t any money at stake, and those coaches do not have as much pull with admissions as you might imagine.  My own daughter was a decent high school 400 M runner. We live in Southwest Florida, a tough district for track with some very talented young women. My daughter was running the 400 in just under one minute with very little coaching or training, and that was good enough for her to run at all but the very top DIII schools. We made a few visits, and since she also had the academic credentials for those schools the coaches were very encouraging. Yet, we had ALSO been told that even though there were no athletic scholarships, “the money” would come to us in some magic fashion though our financial aid packaging. That did not happen. What DOES happen is that DIII schools are all audited each year and if athletes get better packages than the rest of the student population, the entire athletic department takes the heat.

In the end she chose a D1 school and so her illustrious track career came to an end with a medal at the state meet in her senior year (see photo below). She still loves running, and I am secretly relieved that it never became the chore that it might have should she have chosen a different path.

What actually happens much more often in my practice has nothing to do with the colleges at all. It is the student. Some sustain career ending injuries like a torn ACL or rotator cuff. Others simply burn out. They are tired of being tired. They don’t want to spend the next four years devoting eight or nine hours a day to their sport any more. They have been at it sometimes for ten or more years. They are done. And where does that leave them? If you have spent every free moment and every vacation at camps and clinics and tournaments… and now you want to quit. What other interests have you pursued? What community connections have you made? What else might you be passionate about? You have no idea, and THAT is the problem because now your activity list is looking pretty sparse.

Sure, you showed dedication and you can work with a team. Sure, you have some awesome essay ideas about how you lost the “big game” and it taught you to be resilient. I don’t doubt it. Do you know why? Because that is the same story that thousands of other applicants are telling on thousands of applications. Being an athlete, short of an Olympic one, does not get you noticed. There are a specific number of spots in college classes for athletes. Once those are taken, admissions committees are looking for folks with other interests.

If you are a recruited athlete, great. If you aren’t, you need figure out what else makes you special. Don’t worry, something does, you just need time to figure that out. If you are a high school junior, you might want to figure that out a little bit faster than if you are in eighth grade, but it is NEVER too late.

—

Bonus: What are the odds of playing your sport professionally? Find out by clicking here.

Admissions and Financial Aid Statistics to Keep Close at Hand | UPDATED

Posted on by Leave a Comment

Stanford University

Students and parents often find transparency in short supply when navigating the US college admissions process and when trying to determine the methodologies American colleges and universities use award financial aid. Many students and parents will spend hours – if not days – trying to splice and dice statistics gleaned from various college websites and guide books in order to determine their chances of earning admission and/or aid to colleges on their lists.

Sadly, colleges and  universities themselves have done relatively little create user-friendly transparency; however, that hasn’t stopped independent educational consultants Jennie Kent and Jeff Levy from trying to bring a degree of order and transparency to the task of gauging one’s relative likelihood of earning admission to and aid from American colleges. In recent years the two consultants have put out annual lists with the latest statistics in three distinct categories:

  1. Early Decision vs. Regular Decision Acceptance Rates: Excel | PDF
  2. Domestic Undergraduate Need-Based Aid and Merit Aid: Excel | PDF
  3. Financial Aid for Nonresident Alien Undergraduates: Excel | PDF

While entire articles could be written – and one great one by Nancy Griesemer already has – about the valuable nuggets of knowledge found within these lists, of particular note are the three following findings:

– Many of America’s most selective colleges continue to have Early Decision acceptance rates that are triple their Regular Decision acceptance rates. This continues to spur the movement motivating students to apply using binding plans early in their senior years of high school. Some particularly high ED Acceptance Rate to RD Acceptance Rate ratios of note include University of Pennsylvania (3.3 to 1), Middlebury College (3.4 to 1), Claremont McKenna College (4.7 to 1), Carleton College (3 to 1), Amherst College (3.2 to 1), and American University (3.7 to 1).

– Domestic undergraduate applicants should look very carefully at the average need met by colleges and universities on their lists, especially if these colleges are public universities or somewhat selective private colleges, as they appear to have the widest range of disparities concerning how much need they meet. While hyper-selective colleges (Ivies and their immediate peers) meet 100% of domestic applicants’ demonstrated need, public schools meet between 45% to 99% of domestic applicants’ demonstrated need and selective private colleges generally meet between 60% to 100% of domestic applicants’ demonstrated need.

– International students have more need-based aid options than they did years ago, but the majority of aid opportunities for international applicants still derive from merit-based aid and not need-based aid. Public and private colleges awarded no aid to international applicants (Auburn, Clemson, Boston College, and Carnegie Mellon University among others), only merit-based aid to international applicants (Baylor University, Boston University, Cooper Union, Rice University, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign among others), only need-based aid to international applicants (all Ivies, Colgate University, Reed College, and Villanova University among others), or both merit-based and need based aid to international applicants (Brandeis University, Bringham Young University, Grinnell College, and Skidmore among others).

AdmissionsIntel.com has included links to all three lists above and on our Resources page.

‘Early decision’ stats every applicant should see

Posted on by 1 Comment

Last year, Claremont McKenna filled 68% of its incoming class with early decision candidates.

Binding early decision (ED) is one of several tools colleges employ to control evaluative metrics like “selectivity” and  “yield” used by outside organizations seeking to rank or otherwise pass judgement on the quality of an institution.

By agreeing to apply ED to any one of many schools offering these plans, students are promising to attend an institution if admitted.  In other words, they are not only giving up the freedom to choose among future offers of admission but they are also providing colleges with virtually a 100 percent chance of “yielding” them into the institution.

And for colleges concerned about where they stand on the U.S. News pecking order of “best” colleges, this is a powerful device for crafting a class “to spec.”  So important, in fact, that much time is spent tinkering with enrollment management strategies to ensure optimal effectiveness of these plans.  And make no mistake.  Effectiveness is assessed by how well it works for the institution and not for the applicant.

Some of the considerations that go into deciding how to structure an early decision policy include target students (legacies, athletes, top academics) and their credentials, deadlines, percent of class to be filled, and what the competition is doing.

In other words, early decision gives colleges a great deal of control and they love it.  Even those schools publicly professing concern about the level of stress the admission process is causing high school students are quietly increasing the percent of class filled by these plans, moving deadlines around, and adding clever alternatives like ED II—a second chance to pledge undying love to an institution and guarantee a yield for the class.

So how can the average applicant regain some small part of control over a process that looks to be increasingly out of control?  First, by understanding what benefits colleges offer in terms of admissions advantage for early decision candidates. Obviously, a successful applicant will have a decision and lock in their college long before others in the regular decision pool. That’s good, but more importantly, some colleges sweeten the deal by appearing to admit a greater percent of early decision applicants. These schools might argue that the early decision pool is typically very strong and represents the best and most committed applicants.

The ED pool can also contain a disproportionate number of target students (athletes and legacies) making analysis of the admissions advantage even more complicated. But the deciding factor could ultimately be how much of the entering class is filled early decision. If that number approaches or exceeds 50 percent, an applicant electing not to go that route may be severely disadvantaged.

Other issues confuse the early decision strategy, and many of those focus on financial aid. Despite what they say, it’s hard to believe that a college that has admitted a student through early decision has much incentive to provide an overly generous financial aid package either in terms of total dollar amount or composition—balance of grant aid vs. loans and work study.

It’s only by understanding policies, gathering facts about how colleges use early decision and reviewing outcomes that students can begin to decide if applying early is in their best interests.

To help counselors as well as students and their families analyze and compare various early decision plans, Jennie Kent and Jeff Levy have assembled an amazing chart documenting early decision vs. regular decision acceptance rates at colleges and universities offering early decision.  They are making the chart available, free of charge, on their respective websites (see instructions below on how to access the chart).

“What we have learned from the data we compiled was that several trends in college admission are more concerning than we thought,” said Jeff Levy, an independent educational consultant (IEC) based in Los Angeles. “But we also found institutions standing firm against these trends and we were encouraged.  It turns out that the only generalization that holds true is that college advisers must really know the schools they are recommending or risk misleading students when talking to them about their chance of admission.”

The chart, based on data that is readily available to anyone taking the time to do the research, is organized alphabetically by college or can be downloaded and sorted by individual criteria.

According to Jennie Kent, an IEC working in Bogotá, Colombia, “This chart includes four main metrics:  early decision acceptance rate, regular decision acceptance rate,  percent of class filled from early decision, and the ratio of ED to RD acceptance rates.”

You won’t find anything like this analysis anywhere else. Levy and Kent meticulously research the data and spend hours putting it together. They provide an incomparable service to anyone with a need to know or desire to understand.

And some of their findings are startling.  For example, some schools give a very large advantage during early decision (ED vs. RD) include:

  • Claremont McKenna College: 32% ED to 7% RD
  • American University: 85% ED to 23% RD
  • Middlebury College: 43% ED to 13% RD
  • University of Pennsylvania: 23% ED to 7% RD

Some schools go in the opposite direction and actually have a lower admit rate for early decision:

  • University of Denver:  31% ED to 54% RD
  • Southern Methodist University (SMU): 31% ED to 50% RD
  • Virginia Tech: 47% ED to 74% RD
  • Goucher College: 67% ED to 79% RD
  • Northeastern University: 27% ED to 29% RD
  • NYU – 30% ED to 32% RD

Some schools practice a more equitable balance:

  • Carnegie Mellon University: 26% ED to 21% RD
  • Boston University: 32% ED to 29% RD
  • Brandeis University: 35% ED to 34% RD

Some schools fill a huge percent of their class early decision:

  • Claremont McKenna College: 68%
  • Bates College: 66%
  • Middlebury College: 66%
  • Carleton College: 64%
  • Others that fill more than 50% of their class from ED include Davidson, Washington and Lee, Vanderbilt, Wesleyan, Penn, Lehigh and Emory

Others—not so much:

  • Clark University: 5%
  • Goucher College: 5%
  • Northeastern University: 9%
  • Ithaca College: 10%
  • Ohio Wesleyan University: 10%
  • University of Denver: 11%
  • SMU: 17%
  • Carnegie Mellon University: 22%

And the schools with some of the lowest early decision admit rates include:

  • Harvey Mudd College: 18%
  • Pomona College: 20%
  • Brown University:  22%
  • Rice University:  23%
  • University of Pennsylvania:  23%
  • Duke University: 24%
  • Vanderbilt University: 24%

This is all enormously valuable information to use when making the decision whether or not to commit to an early decision application.

To access the complete chart, visit either one of Jennie Kent’s or Jeff Levy’s websites: