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Demonstrated Interest: Ten Ways to Connect with Colleges

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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

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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.

The Importance of Demonstrating Interest

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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.

Colleges continue to welcome applicant résumés

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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

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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.

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

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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.

University of California Application: 10 Rules about the Arts Requirement Out-of-State Students Don’t Know

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UC Berkeley

Applicants to the University of California (UC) must complete fifteen college-prep courses for admission to any UC campus. One of those courses must be from Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).

The VPA requirement can be confusing to out-of-state students, because many high schools do not require completion of an arts course to graduate; and many students were not planning to take one.

But UC’s “overarching goal is to ensure incoming freshmen are adequately prepared to undertake university study.” The UC criteria for completion of the requirement are specific. Make sure you understand these rules as early as possible during high school if you are planning to apply.

1.The grade in the course must be a C or better to meet the requirement. (A grade of C- would be counted as a C, since pluses and minuses are not considered.)

2. The course must be a full high school year; or two one-semester courses from the same discipline of  dance, drama/theater, music, visual art or interdisciplinary arts.  (Neither both semesters of the yearlong course nor the two one-semester courses need to be taken in the same academic year.)

3. If the choice is two one-semester courses, they not only must be from the same discipline, but also must “demonstrate a sequential relationship of some sort,” whether  because one is a stated prerequisite to another, or because one reasonably serves as a good foundation to another. (For example, Drawing 1 and 2, not Drawing 1 and Ceramics 1.)

However, if the high school does not offer more than one semester of VPA courses, the student may mix and match two one-semester VPA courses. Nonetheless, the two courses must still be from the same discipline.  (For example, two Fine Arts courses or two Dance courses.)

4. Private competition, instruction, or learning, does not count.

5. A course the student’s high school counts as PE (such as Marching Band), does not count.

On the other hand, a course the student’s high school counts as fulfilling an arts course requirement, even if it is not considered as such at other schools (an example might be computer graphics), will satisfy the requirement. Your school counselor can verify this for you with the UC admission office.

6. Concurrent courses will satisfy the requirement. (For example, Drawing 1 and Drawing 2, taken during the same semester.)

7. New for 2017-18: UC approved VPA online courses will satisfy the requirement! Current approved courses are listed on UC’s Online Publishers page. For example, Arts Anywhere, LLC offers six UC-approved survey courses in music, media arts, studio arts or theatre; and iCEV offers one: Art and the History of Floral Design. These specific courses are annotated with UC approved through 2020-21.

8. A score of 3, 4 or 5 on the AP History of Art, Studio Art or Music Theory Exam; or a score of 5, 6 or 7 on any one IB HL exam in Dance, Film, Music, Theatre Arts or Visual Arts will satisfy the requirement.

9. A 3-semester or 4-quarter transferable college course, that “clearly falls within one of four visual/performing arts disciplines: dance, drama/theater, music or visual art,” will satisfy the requirement.

10. Admission by Exception is an option for unusual circumstances in lieu of meeting the requirement.  Examples of who might qualify include home-schooled students and those who’ve experienced hardships. UC suggests that students who believe they qualify “use the personal insight questions or additional comments section of the admission application to explain (their) unique story.”

There is still one more way a student can be considered for admission without meeting the UC minimum requirements, and that’s through Admission by Exam. Unique circumstances that may qualify a student for this option include non-traditional education or long-term illness.  The student must achieve minimum scores on either the SAT with essay or the ACT with writing, as well as two subject exams. A chart on the UC website can provide the information necessary to determine if your scores, totaled and converted to UC Scores, will qualify you.

The most important point is to review the rules as early as possible in your high school career. If you check in regularly with your school counselor or college advisor and carefully follow the UC website guidelines, you can plan ahead to avoid a last minute scramble to meet UC admission requirements when you are ready to apply!

Bonus: Read Sandy Clingman’s University of California Application: 10 Requirements Out-of-State Students Don’t Expect to learn more about the UCs unique admissions requirements. 

University of California Application: 10 Requirements Out-of-State Students Don’t Expect

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UCLA

Are you California dreaming? Do you want to spend your undergraduate years on a University of California (UC) campus?

The news is good — in spite of growing protests in recent years from many Californians (who believe resident students are being squeezed out), the percentage of out-of-state (and international) freshmen across all UC campuses is at an all-time high.

Out-of-state applicants, in fact, are now admitted at a higher rate than in-state applicants — to any UC campus, including flagship UC Berkeley. (In 2017 UC Berkeley admitted 22.1 % of out-of-state applicants versus 19.7% of in-state. At UC Davis,  72.2 % of out-of-state applicants were admitted, versus 35.9% of in-state!)

And although the UC Board of Regents has approved a policy to now limit nonresident enrollment to 18% on five of the UC campuses, more latitude will be given to UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC San Diego, which “will be grandfathered in”  per 2017-18 enrollment results. (Considering last year’s numbers, these percentages will likely be between 20 and 25%.)

If you’d like to take advantage of the opportunity and apply to be a part of next year’s University of California freshmen class, there are some specific UC requirements you’ll need to know about.

1. You will complete the unique UC application, which allows you to apply to more than one UC campus. And no matter how many campuses you choose, you will only need to submit one official test score. Each campus you apply to, however, will require a separate application fee — $70 per school for 2017-18 applicants.

2. The only time you can submit the application is between November 1 and November 30. It’s available as of August 1, so you can carefully complete each section well before the submission window opens.

3. You will NOT send an official transcript at application, but instead, will self-report your grades. Make sure to report them directly from your transcript — if you later accept an offer of admission, your official high school transcript will be required… and must match up!

4. Do not include letters of recommendation with your application. They are not required and will not be considered.

However, some applicants to any campus this year may be given the option  — or, as the UC website states, invited — via email to send up to two letters of recommendation, due by January 15. (Note: For the past two admission cycles, UC Berkeley alone has invited letters from some applicants; those who chose to take advantage of the opportunity were admitted at a slightly higher rate than those who did not.)

5. You will need to take the additional writing section of standardized tests — that’s the SAT with essay or the ACT with writing. You will select this option when you register for the exam. (Subject tests are not required, but certain programs on some campuses recommend them, so be sure to check your desired program on each school’s website.)

6. There is a minimum GPA requirement for application — and it’s higher for non-residents at 3.4, versus 3.0 for residents. (For the most selective UC campuses, both residents and nonresidents must have a GPA well above 3.4 in order to be truly competitive for admission.)

7. This minimum GPA is calculated using only your high school grades from the summer before your sophomore year to the summer after your junior year; and only your grades from any of fifteen specified college-prep courses. Grades in AP and IB courses will be weighted. GPAs are not rounded up; and pluses and minuses are not counted.

8. Completion of the fifteen college-prep courses, with a grade of C or better, are required for admission. Eleven of the fifteen courses must be taken prior to your senior year.

9. There are alternate ways to meet the college-prep courses requirement, such as taking a one-semester community college course (equivalent to a year-long high school course); earning certain scores on SAT, Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams; admission by exam; or admission by exception.

10. Instead of writing an essay, you will select four of eight possible personal insight questions; each response is limited to 350 words. The admissions website provides writing tips and techniques, as well as a worksheet with suggestions for each question.

There is also a step-by-step guide for completing the entire application; the guide takes you through each question to help you understand how best to present yourself.

Considering the favorable odds, the time is right for out-of-state applicants who meet the academic criteria. If you can manage the additional nonresident tuition and want to apply, California (still) wants you, too!

Bonus: Read Sandy Clingman’s University of California Application: 10 Rules about the Visual and Performing Arts Requirement Out-of-State Students Don’t Know to learn more about the UCs unique admissions requirements. 

Wisest Ivy League Major for 2017-2018 Admissions Cycle

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It’s a question undecided applicants are always asking: what should I put down as my intended major on my college applications? The answer of course will depend on the exact colleges one is applying to and the potential majors one will consider; however, this year, 2017, as students get ready to apply during the 2017-2018 admissions cycle for Fall 2018 freshmen spots at America’s most selective colleges, there is one major that certainly deserves your attention more so than others. Drumroll please….

Yale finds creative use of technology opens new possibilities for admissions

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Yale University.

Yale University is experimenting with the role digital media can play in college admissions. Using technology advanced last year by the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success, Yale’s admissions readers in some cases became admissions viewers and experienced what will likely become a third dimension in college admissions—the creative use of media to present the case for admission to a highly selective institution.

Staying on the cutting edge of technology is challenging in any field, but changes in college admissions since the introduction of the electronic application are almost beyond description. Stacks of manila folders tucked into walls of file cabinets have been replaced by application “platforms” configured to align with enrollment management software, which oversees a process that is increasingly data-dependent and data-driven.

 

And the work has become less cyclical and more continuous as applicants have the luxury of starting applications earlier by entering information that “rolls over” from one year to the next.  Marketing begins with the administration of the first PSAT, with even the earliest scores sold to colleges anxious to get their names before potential applicants. There’s hardly a moment to reflect on successes and failures before it’s time to gear up for the next group of recruits turned applicants.

But as almost anyone involved in college admissions would agree, something isn’t quite right with this picture—the entire college admissions process is due for a major overhaul. And a handful of deans and enrollment management experts are ready to try.

“Technology has transformed how we process applications and how we read applications, but not how we create content for these applications,” commented Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admission.

Like many others charged with overseeing admissions, Quinlan felt the time had come for Yale to experiment with application content that responded to the pervasiveness and availability of digital media.  While the Common Application set the standard, others saw a market ripe for innovation.

“I really felt we needed to make a change. We were looking at more and more essays that felt like they had been written by 47-year olds and not 17-year olds,” said Quinlan. “We thought we needed more material—different material—in the review process.”

Enter the Coalition application. Born out of concern that reliance on a single electronic application was a risky proposition and developed with a view toward attracting a wider, underserved audience, the Coalition application as built by CollegeNet looked for ways to integrate creativity and give colleges the kind of basic flexibility they wanted in an application platform.

“After the fall of 2013, we needed to bring more options into the application space,” Quinlan explained. “We thought giving students a choice of applications would be better for colleges and better for applicants.”

One of over 90 colleges that originally joined the Coalition and 47 that actually launched applications for 2016-17, Yale viewed this as an opportunity to design a substantially different set of application specifications from those contained in the Common Application.

Students applying to Yale could choose to write two additional 200-word essays (beyond the personal statement and other short-answer questions) for the Common Application or they could choose to write one 250-word essay and provide an upload related to that essay on the Coalition application.

While many Coalition members chose to simply replicate requirements laid out on the Common Application, Quinlan decided to offer alternate but not totally different requirements on Yale’s Coalition application. He kept the prompts the same for both applications, but used the Coalition application’s functionality to support links to digital media.

“It was critical to our review process that we not give preference to one application type over another. Our results from the first year bear this out; the rate of admission for students who submitted the Common Application and for students who submitted the Coalition Application were nearly identical.”

Nevertheless, the results were exciting. While only about one percent or 300 of Yale’s applicants used the Coalition application, the advantage of providing students with a choice of how to present themselves was clear. In some cases, the online media helped “separate” a student or verified some element of the application that didn’t come through strongly enough in a recommendation or through a student’s writing.

“We found certain situations, for example, where a video component made a difference—showed examples of kinds of characteristics we’re looking for.”

To illustrate his point, Quinlan talks about an application Yale received from Justin Aubin, an Eagle Scout who lives and attends high school in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Justin’s recommendations were excellent, and he was an outstanding student. But Yale has lots of those applicants.

What made Justin stand apart was a video his older brother filmed to document the construction of Justin’s Eagle project. In this distinctly amateurish record of decisions made as the work progressed, the Yale admissions office could easily see how Justin managed and supervised younger scouts and how he exhibited compassionate leadership, which inspired respect from the group as a whole.

The additional essay Justin provided put the video in context. But most importantly, he presented information that highlighted and underscored character traits Yale values and wants to bring to campus in the classes they admit. Other information on the application suggested this was possibly the case, but the video nailed it.

Justin Aubin was eventually admitted and will be attending Yale in the fall as a member of the class of 2021. And Quinlan credits Justin’s creative use of digital media—submitting the video—as making the difference

In all fairness, Yale isn’t the first institution to allow videos and other digital media to be submitted as part of an application for admission. Goucher College in Maryland and George Mason University in Virginia and others have video options available through institutional applications.

And it’s not all that unusual for colleges to offer several different application formats with differing requirements. In fact, smaller colleges make clear that their institutional applications are often more popular than the standardized Common Application.

In addition, last year’s applicants could use ZeeMee, an online resume promoted in questions on the Common Application, or SlideRoom—a Common App partner—to provide more visual support for their talents and interests.

But the difference for colleges using the Coalition application was that they could design their own questions and media integration. They didn’t have to rely on a third-party website that might encourage more “freeform” or off-message responses.

Yale’s new application was no more difficult for staff to review than the two-essay Common App version and could be scripted to allow for comparable responses across applicants using either platform. Linking the digital media to an essay prompt was key to the success of the experiment.

“Staff enjoyed doing something else. It was a way to experiment with new ways of interpreting new kinds of application content.”

Quinlan has a great deal of respect for the Common Application and has no interest in changing that relationship, which has worked very well for Yale. But he does want to offer students a choice of application platforms.

“We want the two applications to be different so students can be thoughtful about which they use and what they decide to present to us.”

While he expects to “tweak” the essay prompts offered in the Yale supplement, Quinlan will continue to provide the digital media option in the Coalition application. “We will maintain the two applications for next year with the same set-up.”

And students will be free to choose the application platform that best presents their credentials and makes their case for admission to Yale University.

For the record, the Coalition application will make available new functionality on June 15. And for the coming year, the roster of institutional members will grow to 135.  After July 1, colleges can open individual applications according to their own timelines.