Admissions Blog

Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough in College Admissions Either

Posted on April 22, 2019 by Patrick O'Connor

Earlier this month, I was trying to figure out what day it was. Rather than look at the calendar, I simply looked at the College Admissions Facebook page on my computer screen. There was one story about the record low admit rates at Ivy League colleges, four stories about how most colleges admit a vast majority of their applicants, and two or three reminders that it’s all about what you do in college, not where you do it.

“So” I said to myself, “it must be April 10^th.” And I was right.

There is something equally comforting and disturbing about the college admissions grieving cycle. It begins in late March, when we all bemoan it’s easier to get struck by lightning than to get admitted to a selective school. Even the recent admissions scandal, replete with movie stars and lots of cash, played right into the timing of the “ain’t it awful” phase.

Early April gives way to requests for help with aid packages and muffled cries for some kind of reform from the madness of the application process. Mid-April begins the search for schools willing to accept great kids who somehow ended up with “nowhere” to go, and late April finds us back in the trenches, asking about colleges for really bright juniors who want to study Hungarian and elephants.

This is our version of thoughts and prayers. Like legislators tackling school safety, we look at the misshapen blob college admissions has become long enough to be horrified, only to get swept away by the need to make the broken system work just one more time, if only for the benefit of next year’s hardworking seniors. Major changes are just too far out of reach, and minor changes make no palpable difference, so we sigh and carry on, hoping a thoughtful social media post or two will somehow turn the tide. Real change, it seems, is beyond our grasp.

It isn’t. Like anything else that’s out of shape, moving in a new direction requires a little bit of time, and a ton of vision. No one in this profession is short on vision; they’re stymied by how to bring that vision to life. Here are some starter ideas.

College Admission Personnel who want to open up college access have all kinds of small projects that, when regularly tended to, can take on lives of their own.

Buy lunch for someone on your student success team, and get an overview of their work. What students are doing well once they’re on campus, and which ones aren’t? Is there anything your institution can learn from the success of Georgia State, understanding that student success is far more than a cut and copy endeavor? What does any of this mean about who you’re recruiting—and, more important, if they have no idea who’s succeeding and why, why not?
If you have two counselor fly-in programs, cut it to one. Use the new-found money to hold a three-day College Counselor Workshop for any school counselor in your area with less than five years’ experience. As a rule, counselor graduate programs teach nothing meaningful about college counseling. You know the counselors who know their stuff, and you have a NACAC affiliate at your disposal. Bring them in, and let them train your local rookies.
As long as you’re at it, have coffee with the director of your graduate counseling program, and ask them if you can have a three-hour class period to talk about college admission. Most counselor educators will have the humility to admit they’ve been out of the college admissions game too long, so they’ll give you the time. Bring along two of your favorite counselors, and the grad students will be begging for more. If you don’t know what you’d do with those three hours, I have a program that’s in the box and ready to present, and you can have it.
Call a test-optional college that looks like yours and ask how it’s going. The argument that test optional is a ruse to raise average test scores means nothing to the bright kid heading to University of Chicago this fall who can’t even spell SAT. If colleges that look like yours have figured out test scores mean nothing in the application of a straight A student– and they have– maybe your school could open things up, too.

High School Counselors have eight bajillion kids on their caseloads and duties that have nothing to do with counseling. That said, find a way to get to work twenty minutes early once a week, and pick one of these projects to work on:

Shoot an email to the professional development chair of your NACAC affiliate and volunteer to be a mentor. Less than thirty graduate programs in the country devote a course to college counseling, and it’s showing. What you know about this profession will be an oasis to a new counselor, and most of the mentoring can occur through email and phone calls.
Look at your messaging about college options. Do you tell students and parents about test optional colleges, community colleges, or state colleges with amazing residential programs? Use this time to bring yourself up to speed on the paths your students aren’t taking, then put together a plan for spreading the word to parents and students.
When’s the last time you talked college with your middle school and elementary mental health partners? Opening up postsecondary options is as much a matter of changing the mindset of parents as it is presenting options to students—and if that’s starting in ninth grade, forget it. Ask your NACAC affiliate for grant opportunities to strengthen your K-8 postsecondary curriculum, and build the partnerships needed to make it work.

No one in this business was surprised last month to discover the wealthy have an advantage applying to college. What may come as a surprise is how much we can change that dynamic by throwing our hearts behind that change with twenty minutes a week, giving tangible shape to our thoughts, prayers, and deepest hopes for this profession.

The ‘reading advantage’ in college admissions

Posted on November 30, 2018 by Nancy Griesemer

In an increasingly connected world, reading beyond what pops up on a mobile devise is dropping to the bottom of priority lists for many teenagers. And for those of us dedicated to books and the power of reading to educate, inform and entertain, this is REALLY bad news.

It’s hard to think how anyone can build fundamental communication skills without dedicating significant time to reading, whether for pleasure or information gathering. And it’s not just about developing an interesting mind or expanding vocabulary. Students who aren’t readers often don’t write well. They have a hard time imagining as well as organizing thoughts, developing arguments, and articulating ideas.

For college-bound students, this is more than just bad news—it’s a crisis. Colleges not only care that you read, they also care what you are reading as well as what you have learned from the experience.

These concerns play out in many different ways in the admissions process, and the most successful applicants are often those who set aside time in their busy schedules to read. And not just what appears on your daily “feed.”

For high school students, being aware of the reading advantage in college admissions is key. Here are five excellent reasons you would be wise to make time for reading:

Academics: It’s no secret that many of the most academically challenging courses in high school require strong reading skills—the ability to absorb and retain a large volume of material in a relatively short amount of time. Advanced Placement (AP) as well as International Baccalaureate (IB) curricula in social studies, literature, and language are notoriously reading-intensive. And colleges want not only to see you’re taking these courses but also that you’re succeeding with good grades.

Summer is usually a great time to “study forward” by obtaining AP/IB texts and reading beyond what is assigned or expected by the first day of school. Get ahead and stay ahead of the reading. You’re bound to see results in terms of improved reading skills, better grades, and less stress.

Test Scores: You can pay thousands of dollars to the best test prep company in town, but nothing improves test scores like being an active reader. Both ACT and SAT are designed to challenge reading skills both in comprehension and interpretation. And those students who didn’t stop reading in middle school are bound to be more successful test-takers.

Push your reading level higher by mixing pleasure reading with more academic magazines, journals, or texts. Challenge yourself by not only reading from AP/IB course materials but also taking the time to annotate texts and look up vocabulary words. A little extra time devoted to reading can pay off in a big way in terms of improved test scores—ACT, SAT, and AP.

Applications: Colleges have learned that a good way to get to know a student in the application process is to ask about their reading habits. For example, one of the supplemental essay prompts required by Columbia University during 2018-19 asked, “List the titles of the books you read for pleasure that you enjoyed most in the past year.” In fact, Columbia asked three questions designed to probe applicants’ reading tastes and interests. Stanford, Wake Forest, Princeton, Emory, Colgate, Davidson and a number of other schools have their own versions of questions designed to probe reading habits.

Knowing these kinds of essay questions may be in your future, why not dive into a wide variety of literature? Don’t limit yourself to a single genre or to reading only fiction or nonfiction. Mix it up. Go a step further and read something that relates to potential career and/or academic interests. And be sure to keep track of what you have read noting best books or interesting magazines as well as favorite authors.

Interviews: If you’re applying to a college that either recommends or requires a personal interview, you had better come prepared with at least one favorite book about which you can knowledgeably speak. The “reading” question appears in many different forms, but the bottom line is that if you stumble here and can’t come up with a title or are forced to reach back to middle school, you could be in a bit of trouble. And you wouldn’t be alone. It’s shocking to interviewers how often students can’t remember the last book they read for pleasure or respond with cheesy middle school novellas. And worse, they might remember the title of something read for class, but they either have the story all wrong or simply can’t remember any element of the plot.

Avoid the embarrassment and read some good books as you have time. Take notes, think about what you read, and even talk over the best books with friends or family. Know why you would recommend a book. And get feedback on your recommendations. Don’t think you have to re-brand yourself as an intellectual by only reading great literature. Interviewers can have fairly ordinary literary tastes. And don’t try to “fake it” by suggesting a book you think will make you seem smart. If you’re honest about what you like, you might be surprised to find that you and your interviewer share tastes in authors to the point that an interesting conversation ensues.

Stress: All kinds of research shows that reading is way more effective at reducing stress than listening to music, drinking a cup of tea or even taking a walk in the woods. Significant side benefits include an increase in emotional intelligence and empathy—character traits increasingly shown to be wanting in adolescents. And reading also turns out to be a very good way to focus energy and improve concentration.

But if none of the above moves you to pick up a book, then focus on this: readers live longer! ‘Nuff said.

12 Reasons Scattergrams Lull Students Into a False Sense of Security

Posted on August 18, 2018 by Craig Meister

Scattergrams, the ubiquitous x/y axis graphs that have caught on like wildfire over the last twenty years because of their inclusion in Naviance Student, the online college counseling tool used by thousands of American high schools, purport to show a student’s chances of admission at different colleges and universities by plotting previous students from a particular high school on an x/y axis graph based on such students’ GPAs on one axis and their test scores (ACT or SAT) on the other.

Below is an example of a scattergram for a particular high school showing current students (and parents) at that high school how alumni from that high school fared when applying to University of Maryland College Park from 2010 through 2014.

Note that the below scattergram plots the SAT on the x-axis using the old 2400 SAT scale; however, the SAT is now scored out of 1600. Similarly, the high school in question clearly plots GPA based on a 4.0 scale, but some schools’ scattergrams will have very different numbers of the y-axis because scattergrams can have any sort of GPA scale on them (100, 20, 6, etc.) depending on a school’s grading scale.

The typical student seeing the above scattergram assumes, if he or she has a 3.6 GPA and an SAT score of 1860 he or she is definitely going to get into University of Maryland College Park. Most of the rest of students with that combination of grades and scores would assume, after seeing the above scattergram, that Maryland is at least a huge safety college for them. After all, all students from this high school in the past few years who land in that GPA/score range got into Maryland, as illustrated by all of those green squares.

STOP RIGHT THERE!

The problem is a student with this GPA/score combination could easily get rejected from University of Maryland College Park for any number of reasons that a scattergram will not be able to display. The most common reasons scattergrams lull students into a false sense of security are as follows:

Many selective colleges get more selective every passing year, rendering antiquated past years’ admissions statistics.
Scattergrams don’t show the quality of past applicants’ extracurricular resumes.
Scattergrams don’t show the quality of past applicants’ essay writing skills.
Scattergrams don’t show past applicants’ demographics (rich, middle-class, poor, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, International, etc.). College admissions officers for American colleges – especially selective institutions – often care quite a lot about their applicants’ demographics.
Scattergrams don’t show incredibly important (again, in the eyes of college admissions officers) background information about past applicants’ beyond their demographics. Here we are talking about characteristics like an applicant’s legacy status (Did a past applicant’s mom or dad attend the same college?), athletic prowess (Was a past applicant a highly-sought athletic recruit?), and/or his or her parents’/grandparents’ proclivity for giving money to the college on the scattergram in question.
Most high schools set their scattergrams to hide from current students/parents whether or not past applicants to the college in question applied Rolling Decision, Early Decision, Early Action, Priority Admission, and/or Regular Decision. That’s important information! This is because colleges that offer different admissions plans/deadlines often have very different standards for each such plan/deadline. You can also forget about a scattergram showing whether a past applicant applied for and/or was accepted to the college for fall, spring, or winter term (if such varied options exist at the college in question).
Scattergrams don’t show the quality of past applicants’ teacher and counselor recommendation letters/evaluations.
Scattergrams likely don’t account for whether or not past applicants submitted their ACT scores, SAT scores, both, or neither (in the case of test-optional colleges) to the colleges’ scattergrams on which they are plotted.
Unless the scattergram’s GPA axis is a weighted GPA, the GPA axis is not capable of communicating to students and parents the past applicants’ curricular rigor.
Scattergrams don’t show past applicants’ grade trends in high school (colleges care so much about this).
Scattergrams show past applicants’ final GPAs in high school, not their GPAs when they applied to college (usually in the beginning of a student’s senior year). Senior slumps in the final months of past applicants’ senior years often slightly (and sometimes greatly) deflate their final GPAs relative to what their GPAs were in October of their senior years.
Directors of college counseling (the leaders of college counseling offices) can be applicants’ best advocates or worst enemies depending on whether or not these directors have written a strong and compelling high school profile and done everything else they can do to encourage particular colleges to accept their students. Scattergrams don’t note when certain directors’ regimes began and ended; therefore, in a field where many directors of college counseling only stay in their roles for a few years before moving on, a five- or ten-year scattergram could be capturing admissions statistics for students applying from a particular high school under very different college counseling regimes. Some directors write bang-up high school profiles (which are sent to all colleges to which students apply in a particular admissions cycle) and some don’t. Sadly, at some schools, the high school profile is written and designed by the communications team and/or individuals in the admissions, advancement, development, head of school, principal, and or central office! The further removed from college counseling the writers of the high school profile are the more likely the profile will not provide college admissions officers the information they are looking for in a high school profile. Meanwhile, some directors of college counseling make calls for their students or their colleagues’ students, others simply don’t. Some are on a first-name basis with Ivy League admissions officers, some don’t know any. Some act as PR agents for their students, others are real in their recommendation letters, which leads to such letters carrying more weight with admissions officers than those that only share glowing reviews. Scattergrams lull students and parents into thinking (just like point #1 above) that each student plotted on the scattergram had the same college counseling team behind him or her and faced the same college admissions rates from year to year. The fact is, high schools change and colleges change, and as a result, scattergrams fail at capturing subtle or quite large subjective changes to students’ chances from year to year based on how high schools and colleges change.

In summary, so much of what colleges will ultimately base their admissions decisions on is NOT captured in scattergrams; therefore, don’t use them as the end all be all when it comes to determining whether a particular college on your list is a Safety, Possible, or Reach. Any college counselor, student, or parent who tells you otherwise has no idea what he or she is talking about.

I frequently get irate parents telling me that I am too pessimistic about their student’s chances at a particular college or university based on what the family sees on a particular college’s scattergram on Naviance Student. I remind them that I often know the back story on each applicant on the scattergram and/or that there are at lease twelve reasons why the scattergram is only part of the story – especially at the country’s most selective colleges and universities. Sadly, this does not often calm the parents down, and as a result, a few parents hold months-long bouts of resentment towards me – usually until all admissions decisions are released in April, at which point reality sets in – for good or ill. With that said, I am happy when I have a student get into a college that I classified as a Reach that the parents and student thought I should have classified as a Possible or a Safety. It’s my job to help turn all colleges on a student’s list into offers of admission; yet, I need the student’s cooperation and effort if I can make this happen. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Scattergrams are trustworthier for colleges that primarily base their admissions decisions on applicants’ grades and scores only. Theses types of colleges are usually those that accept over 50 of applicants and/or large state universities that ask for the perfunctory essay and extracurricular list but which don’t have the actual manpower to review these subjective aspects of students’ applications. Such colleges usually simply default to determining whether or not to accept a student based on his or her scores and grades. Yet, even in such cases, a student who is quite deficient or exceptionally strong in one or more of the twelve areas listed above could easily become an exception to the rule that the scattergram seems to convey.

Bottom line: strong college counselors always explain this important, complex, and as you can now see, somewhat time-consuming information to students and parents. Such college counselors tend to lean towards being more conservative with their Safety, Possible, and Reach classifications for colleges on their students’ lists than those college counselors who take a relatively two-dimensional approach (x,y axis, anyone?) to college acceptance/rejection prognostication. If you are a student or parent going through the college application process now or in the future, please remember to be skeptical of scattergrams. Though they have valuable data on them, scattergrams only capture some objective data, and they certainly don’t capture the subjective strengths or weaknesses of past college applicants or their college applications.

Common App Exceeds 800 Members On August 1

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Admissions.Blog

The Common Application will open its 2018-2019 application on August 1, 2018, and for the first time this year the increasingly used undergraduate application will be accepted at over 800 college and universities around the world.

Notable big name additions to the Common App this year include Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh, Florida State University, University of Kansas, University of Iowa, and University of Mississippi.

New Members of The Common Application for 2018-2019

New England
Bridgewater State University (MA)
Eastern Nazarene College (MA)
New Hampshire Institute of Art (NH)

Mid-Atlantic
Cairn University (PA)
California University of Pennsylvania (PA)
CUNY Queens College (NY)
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (PA)
Penn State (PA)
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (PA)
St. Francis College (NY)
University of Pittsburgh (PA)
Webb Institute (NY)
West Chester University of Pennsylvania (PA)

South
Asbury University (KY)
Bellarmine University (KY)
Florida State University (FL)
Lipscomb University (TN)
Mary Baldwin University (VA)
Mississippi State University (MS)
North Carolina A&T State University (NC)
Ole-Miss The University of Mississippi (MS)
Radford University (VA)
South Carolina State University (SC)
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise (VA)
The Wilkes Honors College of FAU (FL)
Tusculum University (TN)
University of New Orleans (LA)
University of North Carolina at Charlotte (NC)
University of North Carolina Greensboro (NC)
University of West Florida (FL)
Wilkes Honors College of FAU (FL)

West
Dharma Realm Buddhist University (CA)
Oregon State University (OR)
The Evergreen State College (WA)
The University of Utah (UT)
Warner Pacific University (OR)

Midwest
Bluffton University (OH)
CCAD – Columbus College of Art & Design (OH)
Concordia University, St. Paul (MN)
Franklin University (OH)
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) (IN)
Lewis University (IL)
Lindenwood University (MO)
Michigan State University (MI)
Milwaukee School of Engineering (WI)
Morningside College (IA)
Olivet College (MI)
Quincy University (IL)
Rockhurst University (MO)
Southeast Missouri State University (MO)
The University of Kansas (KS)
University of Central Missouri (MO)
University of Cincinnati – Blue Ash College and Clermont College (OH)
University of Iowa (IA)
University of Mount Union (OH)
Walsh University (OH)
Wright State University (OH)

Hawaii
Chaminade University of Honolulu

Puerto Rico
Universidad del Este (UNE)

International
Arts University Bournemouth (United Kingdom)
Temple University, Japan Campus (Japan)

Overall The Common App is accepted by colleges in 49 U.S. states and 19 countries, which includes more than 170 public institutions, 50 minority serving institutions, and 64 international institutions. The full list of colleges that accept the Common App can viewed here.

Many now associate August 1, the date when the new Common App goes live each year, with the unofficial start of the undergraduate admissions season. With 800 Common App members this year, it’s easy to see why. Other applications accepted by multiple colleges include the Coalition Application (with 140 members) and our favorite, yet, clearly not colleges’ favorite, the University College Application (with 15 members). These non-Common App applications have actually been open for the 2018-2019 admissions cycle since July 1.

Demonstrated Interest: Ten Ways to Connect with Colleges

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Sandy Clingman

Colleges want to admit students who will accept their offer of admission. Doing so increases their yield (the percentage of admitted students who enroll). A high yield is not just a marker of popularity for the college and a way to boost its rankings; it also strengthens a college’s ability to shape its freshmen class, because a greater number of admitted students can be counted on to attend.

But colleges don’t just rely on yield averages to predict how many students will accept an offer of admission — they also consider an individual applicant’s efforts to forge a relationship with the college. This effort by the student is known as demonstrated interest. Be certain not to underestimate its significance. Demonstrated interest can represent a critical factor for an otherwise qualified applicant, with an increasing role in admissions decisions.

Colleges know that to some extent, substantial demonstrated interest signals a student’s intentions to enroll if admitted. After all, it’s difficult to dedicate the time and genuine interest it takes to make an impact at more than a handful of colleges. Think carefully about which few schools will receive your greatest time and attention.

To enhance your application efforts, look for opportunities to demonstrate your interest by developing your connection with the college and the people who represent it. Here are ten ways to help you get started:

1. Visit the college’s website, find the Admissions page, and submit a request for information. Open — and at least scan — any subsequent email the school sends you. (Yes, the college can track whether or not you opened the email!)

2. While you are on the website, visit the college’s official social media page. Some schools may simply provide a link to, for example, their Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and/or iTunes University page. Others may have a more robust social media presence.

Amherst College, for example, provides a grid with social media options for not only the College, but also academic departments, athletic teams, services, and even Amherst’s president. Syracuse University boasts a Social Media Directory with more than 100 listings — you can follow their study abroad programs, residence life, recreation services, sustainability efforts, bookstore, honors program, Greek Life, and much more.

At a minimum, follow the colleges you will be applying to on your favorite social media sites. But also consider more specific selections when they are available — you can share a lot about yourself with the college, and help them to get to know you, by following programs and activities that reflect your interests.

3. Contact your school counselor early in the year to find out when representatives from colleges you are interested in will be visiting your high school. Register for and attend the visit. Before the visit, do some investigating online so you can ask a good question or two.

(A good question is one that is not readily found online and is pertinent to you. Examples are: “I’m planning to major in Computer Science but I’d also like to continue my interest in theatre — are non-majors able to audition for performances?” and “I’m planning to apply for the nursing program. What test scores would make me a strong applicant?”)

Finally, be sure to get the representative’s business card during the visit so you can ask additional questions later. The goal here is to establish a relationship so the representative can get to know you and will recognize the depth of your interest.

4. Register for and attend a college fair. You can find out when and where at NACAC, CTCL, by doing a search for college fairs in your area, by asking your school counselor, and/or by following the college’s social media (number 2 above). At the fair, you’ll speak to the college representative (who may also have visited your school already), ask a good question or two, and pick up their business card if you don’t already have it.

5. Drop a note (email is best) to your regional representative. If you haven’t had a chance to meet them yet, you can often find their contact information on the college website. (If not, call the admissions office and ask them.) In your note, introduce yourself — some basic information would include your name, hometown, high school, and fields of interest. Ask the rep to look for your application in the fall.

The summer before senior year is a great time to do this. You can then ask questions such as if the rep plans to visit your school in the fall; or if you should alter your senior course selections to make you a stronger applicant for admission. Another good time is a few weeks before your campus visit — you can ask if your rep will be on campus and if you can meet with them.

Other good opportunities to send a note are after meeting them (you can thank them for their time and reference something you discussed with them) or after a campus visit (you can tell them how much you enjoyed it and why).

6. Visit the college’s campus if at all possible. This effort is absolutely crucial for students who live within a 3-4 hour drive of the campus. Since a visit could be accomplished in one day, it will be very noticeable if you do not make this effort, especially if it does not present a financial hardship. If you can’t visit, use the online tour feature on the college’s website.

7. If you are able to visit, make the most of it by planning ahead. Request to meet with faculty of the department you are interested in, get a department tour, and/or sit in on a class; eat in the dining hall; chat with current students; and if available, register for an interview or even an overnight visit, where you can stay in a residence hall with a current student. Also check the college’s website for open house days or special tours for specific majors. (If you’re unable to visit, you can still email faculty to ask questions and/or ask your school counselor if they can connect you with a current student.)

8. Visit campus again, if you can, during the fall of senior year.

9. Write a well-considered supplemental essay that highlights what a good fit you are for the school. If you’ve done most of the things listed above, this will be much easier to do.

10. Submit your application for admission well before the deadline. An early application shows you are organized, eager, and most important, a more serious applicant.

Washington University Adds Essay and Early Decision II

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Craig Meister

Julie Shimabukuro, Director of Admissions at Washington University in St. Louis has announced some major changes to the first-year application process for admission to the selective Gateway City university.

Washington University in St. Louis “will be implementing a supplemental essay in addition to the Common Application or Coalition Application essay. This will allow students to further express their interest in their academic area of choice.” wrote Shimabukuro in an email to high school counselors.

While that sounds all well and good, this news is clearly aimed at separating serious applicants (those who will surely claim to bleed Wash U. red and green) to the university from those just using the school as a great school that requires no extra work, which many high-achieving students have been doing for years because Washington University in St. Louis had no supplemental essay writing requirement beyond what many high-acheving students were already completing for other Common App and Coalition App colleges to which they were applying.

Shimabukuro went on to add that the new essay will also be used as the merit-based scholarship essay for scholarships offered by Washington University’s undergrad divisions.

It’s worth noting that applications for the John B. Ervin, Annika Rodriguez, and Danforth Scholars programs will continue to be awarded through a separate processes, which include more essay writing.

On top of this big news, Shimabukuro added the more curious news that Washington University in St. Louis will also add an Early Decision II application deadline for the first time this upcoming admissions cycle.

This means that Wash U.’s new deadline schedule is as follows for those students hoping to matriculate in Fall 2019:

Application Deadlines	Scholarship & Financial Assistance Deadlines
Early Decision I – Nov. 1, 2018	Need-based Financial Assistance (ED) – Nov. 15, 2018
Early Decision II – Jan. 2, 2019	Need-based Financial Assistance (EDII) – Jan. 15, 2019
Regular Decision – Jan. 2, 2019	Need-based Financial Assistance (RD) – Feb. 1, 2019
	Merit Scholarships – Jan. 2, 2019

Washington University in St. Louis is clearly trying to shake things up, but no reason was given for why EDII is being implemented. It will be interesting to see if Wash U. proactively communicates the acceptance rates for both of their ED rounds this time next year. The university has been one of the most successful users of ED as a means of loading up its classes early each admissions cycle.

Coalition prompts won’t change for 2018-19—applicants are invited to think outside the textbox

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Nancy Griesemer

Courtesy Nancy Griesemer

The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success announced last week that Coalition essay questions will not be changing for 2018-19.

“As you introduce the college application process to new students and parents, please know that the Coalition Essay questions will remain the same for next year,” said Annie Reznik, the Coalition’s executive director in a message targeted to college counselors.

This announcement follows a similar one from the Common Application advising that prompts for the Common App personal statement would also remain the same in the fall. Not surprisingly, the decision not to make modifications to either set of prompts was most welcome in an industry that’s become increasingly exhausted by what seems to be continuous change.

In fact, the prompts for the two applications are not terribly different from one another. They seem to be trying to get at the same kinds of responses. AND both sets of prompts provide a “topic of your choice” option—a great fallback position for essays that don’t quite answer one of the questions posed.

But looks can be deceiving. The wise applicant will closely review the two sets of prompts and think about how differences in instructions and allowable format may have an impact on the way an essay appears or presents itself to the reader.

At a minimum, consider the allowable length. The Common App, last year, set essay length at between 250 and 650 words. This restriction was firmly enforced by limiting essay submission to a textbox, maintaining a hard word cutoff as well as inviting a handful of quirks and formatting issues.

The Coalition, on the other hand, allowed colleges to set their own word limits and choose whether to locate the essay in a textbox among college-specific questions or in the upload section of the application.

Note that not everyone is totally sold on the idea of giving colleges so much freedom to structure applications how they wish because it potentially causes confusion and/or may result in extra work for applicants. But others saw the Coalition as providing an opportunity for applicants to think outside the textbox and produce essays with attractive fonts, symbols, links to online media and illustrations.

With an upload, hard word cutoffs don’t really exist. Instead of word or character counts, the essay is generally limited by kilobytes (KB). The essay may be converted to a PDF, thereby guaranteeing that it looks the way the applicant wants it to look and allowing readers to click live links provided within the text.

The Common App used to do it that way, and the Universal College App has always given students the choice of whether to use the textbox or upload their essays. The Cappex Application provides for a similar choice. So while the Common App might be the most visible and familiar of the application providers, it’s clearly in the minority when it comes to flexibility in formatting the personal statement.

During the 2017-18 application cycle, about 55 Coalition members out of 102 with live applications used Coalition prompts and located the essay in the upload section. Only just under 15 members located personal statements in textboxes. A handful slavishly reproduced Common App requirements by not only locating personal statements in textboxes but exactly replicating prompts and word limits. And when asked why, colleges uniformly responded that they thought it was only fair to stick to one set of rules.

Agree or disagree with colleges giving students a choice of applications as well as application formats and requirements, it’s important to be aware of differences—advantages as well as disadvantages. While neither application has so far announced major platform changes for the coming year, it may make sense to begin considering the difference between an essay confined to a textbox vs. one that encourages creativity through an upload.

For the record, the 2018-19 Coalition essay questions are as follows:

Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution.
Has there been a time when you’ve had a long-cherished or accepted belief challenged? How did you respond? How did the challenge affect your beliefs?
What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What’s the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?
Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.

The Common Application announces essay prompts for 2018-19 and looks to the future

Posted on January 27, 2018 by Nancy Griesemer

Much to the relief of the cottage industry that’s grown up to support college essay preparation, the Common Application recently announced that the 2018-19 prompts for the personal statement will remain the same as the 2017-18 prompts.

According to the Common App, by conducting a review process every other year, rather than annually, the organization is able to reach out for feedback from admissions officers, as well as from applicants, parents and counselors about “the effectiveness” of the prompts.

With the early release of the essay prompts and the announcement that student accounts created now will rollover to 2018-19, the Common App is furthering a practice designed to give counselors and others the opportunity to get a jump on preparing students for a process many find increasingly stressful.

At the same time, the Common App’s Board of Directors Strategic Planning Committee has launched an internal “creative and collaborative process” by engaging Tomorrow Partners, a California-based design team, to support a project “to begin reimagining the college preparation and application experience.”

“In this rapidly evolving higher education landscape, we are eager to engage our members, counselors, students, and other important stakeholders in envisioning the Common App’s future in support of its mission to promote access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process,” said Jenny Rickard, Executive Director of The Common Application.

So while essay prompts remain the same for the coming application cycle, it should come as no surprise that the Common Application may be looking to make future changes in product and operations. And unlike the experience of the recent past with CA4, the Common App is bringing in stakeholders early enough to voice opinions and respond to proposed changes long before anything new is launched.

For the record, the 2018-19 Common Application prompts will inspire essays on the following topics:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

4. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma – anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

The Blueprint of a Great College Essay

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Craig Meister

Today we are sharing a fun little exercise aimed at helping give a little perspective to those in the throes of college application essay writing. Students should take this as an opportunity to assess if they have paced themselves and structured their essays correctly.

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Examine the three key segments of three different drafts of the same college essay. As you read through the excerpts of the Good, Bad, and Ugly drafts, ask yourself why the examples in question are Good, Bad, or Ugly. Some reasons are obvious, some are not. Try to fill in the “…” of each section to actually complete the Good, Bad, and Ugly essays.

The vast majority of good college essays follow the same format. You still have control over the topic of the essay, but why reinvent the wheel if the most successful essay format already exists? Before you ever write an essay, really think about the question. Don’t just start writing. Make sure you answer the question fully by the end of the essay and have done so in a grammatically correct, structurally sound, and entertaining manner. Once you start writing, your essay should include:

The Introductory Paragraph

You don’t want to answer the question here. It would be too soon. Rather, you want to launch into your story full force. Weak essays simply repeat the question. Strong essays take control of the question by answering it, but without being hemmed in by dry, repetitive language. By the end of this paragraph you want to have a powerful thesis.

Ex Question: Describe a meaningful experience in your life.

Good: August 12, 2005 started out like any other day for me as I prepared for my duties as a camp counselor for disadvantaged city youth…It was the last time I would enter that coffee shop as a child because in the next two minutes I would learned the hard lessons of an adult.

Bad: The most meaningful experience in my life to date was when I crashed through the window at…Clearly someone had to do something, and I decided it had to be me.

Ugly: I have had many meaningful experiences in my life….Crashing through the window made me realize my past mistakes.

The Body

This is where you go in-depth and tell the riveting, meaningful story. Always employ the rule of “Show, don’t tell,” so you won’t create an essay that is too bland. You want to include only important details and describe them well. The body is the one to three paragraph section of the essay where you serve the meat – but make sure it’s lean beef. This is also the fly-over territory where it’s easiest to miss errors. Proof-read!

Ex. Describe a meaningful experience in your life.

Good: As I looked up at the menu, I noticed a tall man enter the shop out of the corner of my eye…By time lunch had arrived I had already been questioned by police, been on the local news, and interviewed by the third largest newspaper in the country. Yet, despite all of the excitement, I could only think about how much I wanted to be with my campers.

Bad: I hit the man over the head with the six-pack of iced coffee that the punk-rocker had just moments before placed on the counter (she was now unconscious by the bookstand)…The second reporter was even more blunt, “How does it feel to know you stood up to the Skokie Slayer?” I didn’t know what to say.

Ugly: This clearly effected me greatly…When I laid down the night before I never thought this is how I would be spending the morning.

The Conclusion

Tie it up in a nice little bow and make sure you have shown some sort of progression from the start of the essay to the end. This is the place it’s best to draw your own conclusions that go beyond, yet still support the thesis you posited at the end of your introduction. Bad essays have their thesis at the end!

Ex. Describe a meaningful experience in your life.

Good: Notwithstanding my prior derision at my “ordinary” summer job, I had learned there were far more important things in life than the exotic nature of summer employment…Standing up for right over wrong, showing courage in the face of adversity, and always looking out for those who can’t defend themselves are nice ideas, but it’s rare that we are actually asked to put them into practice. On that August day, I was proud to know that I not only knew the right thing to do, but that I actually did it.

Bad: I longed to be back at my regular routine helping children learn to play baseball… When school started again in September, nobody had such an amazing story of summer exploits and I realized that it never would have happened if I had not done the right thing – not just on August 12, but in May by taking the job at the camp in the first place.

Ugly: If I had had the chance to go to Argentina to act as a summer analyst or the opportunity to go to Costa Rica to rebuild the hurricane ravaged countryside, I never would have had this happen to me…I am thankful that this happened to me and I now, more than ever, believe in fate.

Note to Parents: Do Not Write Your Student’s College Admission Essay

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Sandy Clingman

Is it difficult for college admission officers to tell when a student has not written his own application essay?

No, it often isn’t difficult at all. Admission officers read thousands of college essays, year after year. It’s easy for them to tell the difference between a seventeen-year old voice and a forty-something one; a middle-aged dad with writing finesse sounds like a middle-aged dad with writing finesse. Natural phrasing and word choice are generation-specific and difficult to disguise. Even subtle differences will stand out to seasoned readers. And these differences are apparent even when they are only a few insertions here and there throughout an otherwise student-written piece. Suspicious readers, whether they are sure about subterfuge or not, will certainly be disposed to scrutinize the rest of the application more diligently or to add a comment to the student’s file.

In addition, remember that an application reader has a student’s grades from English classes in hand, as well as SAT or ACT scores; and/or writing samples from supplemental essays. There may also be a letter of recommendation from the student’s eleventh grade English teacher — a letter that will specifically address the student’s aptitudes and abilities. (Some teachers even provide a short sample of the student’s work.)

Furthermore, parents sometimes forget to conceal what they are doing, or simply don’t realize how obvious they are. For example, during their turn at impersonating Junior, we slips in for I, and me becomes us, as in: “We were so worried when I was in the emergency room; the doctor told us I was lucky we came in immediately.” There also tend to be notable references to what Mom or Dad did, thought or said — “Dad breathed a sigh of relief” or “My Mom was very anxious.” Spell check won’t catch those types of errors for you.

Besides being perceptible to others, when you take over you may as well be saying he can’t do it without your help. What’s more, a parent’s product stands a higher chance of being superficial, pedantic and boring. It may be grammatically correct, but a boring essay adds nothing to the application. It is, therefore, a wasted opportunity to enhance the student’s admission possibilities.

It’s also a wasted opportunity when students do not set aside some time before college digging deep in self-reflection. Taking this time to reflect helps students find structure in their life stories and meaning in the person they have become. The writing process can also help students articulate their interests and aspirations in this context of self-understanding — wonderful preparation for all those future internship and job interviews they’ll face. (Mom, Dad, you won’t be there for those!)

Working hard on and completing a thoughtful college essay can boost a student’s self-confidence and spark his excitement about starting college the next year. What more could parents want than for their college-bound teen to realize that he is his own best resource, ready to take on college and life as he transitions into adulthood? Do your seventeen-year old a favor and step aside… you may be surprised at what a genuine and heartfelt self-narrative junior will write.