Welcome to The Admission Game (TAG) College Planning Blog, an ongoing discussion of the factors that impact the college planning process. This space will keep you abreast of critical planning strategies, introduce you to key resources and comment on timely issues that relate to your college planning effort. I look forward to staying in touch and seeing your comments as we progress through the college planning process together. An extensive listing of past articles as well as those written by other authors can be found in The College Planning Library, a feature of the Best College Fit Resources.
As the college application process picks up steam, no credential sparks more consternation among applicants than standardized testing. The following are a few tips to consider as you get ready to apply for admission.
You have options! Review your testing experience to determine which scores (SAT, ACT or both) you want to send to each school. Colleges will receive both the SAT and the ACT, so submit the set of results that puts you in the most competitive light.
Decide which tests you will take this fall. If you have already taken the SAT two times and are disappointed by the results, you may be facing a point of diminishing returns. You might be better off turning your attention to the ACT. Achieving a respectable score on the ACT means that admission officers have options with regard to the test results they might use to rationalize offering you a place in their respective classes.
Colleges strongly prefer to receive test results (SAT, ACT) directly from the testing services. Make arrangements with the appropriate testing service to have your results sent directly to the colleges to which you are applying.
If you are taking tests this fall, you may want to wait until you have seen the results before deciding to have official score reports sent to colleges. This is an option afforded you by “Score Choice” by both testing agencies (College Board, ACT) in acknowledgement of the fact that you own the results and can control where they are sent.
Remember that admission officers will look at the best combination of scores. If you have taken the SAT 2-3 times, your best Critical Reading score might have come on your third test while your best math might have come on your second test. In order for colleges to pull results from different test administrations for a “superscore,’ you will need to submit scores from each.
Don’t hold off on submitting your applications for admission until you have all of your results from tests taken this fall or to be taken this winter. You shouldn’t have to report actual scores on your applications. As long as you register with the testing service to have your scores sent to the colleges in question, the results will be forwarded automatically within 3-4 weeks.
Consider the “test optional” opportunities that might exist among the colleges to which you are applying. Compare your results with the range of scores reported for each test optional college. If your scores fall in the bottom 50% of the score ranges, logic would suggest that you elect not to submit your scores, as they will do nothing to enhance your application. A complete list of test optional colleges can be found at www.FairTest.org.
Make sure you are choosing colleges at which your testing profile is a good fit. Remember, colleges are fond of reporting high scores for their entering classes. The further your scores fall below the mid-point of the reported range of scores at a college, the less likely you will be admitted at that college.
The start of a new academic year signals the beginning of the high stakes college application process for hundreds of thousands of young people around the country. After months, if not years, of thought and preparation, it’s now time to begin pulling credentials together so they can be ready for submission to a short list of colleges later in the fall.
While the process of assembling application materials would seem straightforward, it is not. In fact, it is fraught with complexity and procedural land mines such that even the most diligent students find completing the process to be an onerous task on top of the regular demands of the classroom. Your objective should be to get from where you are to where you want to be as a college applicant with minimal disruptions to your daily routine.
When students run into trouble in completing applications, it is usually because they lack focus, are poorly organized or fail to take ownership of the process. The following “Five Steps to Organizing Your College Applications” will give you a better chance of getting through the application process unscathed and emerging with happy outcomes.
Get organized—today! Read the directions on each application. Know what is required of you and when it is required. Enter this information on a planning calendar. Record meaningful dates/deadlines you must meet in completing your applications. Decide which standardized tests you want/need to take and enter the test dates as well as the registration deadlines. Finally, post the calendar some place where it is easily referenced by you and your parents such as your refrigerator or a family bulletin board.
Give yourself and others time to do a good job. Work back from the application deadlines by at least one week to establish your deadlines for sending in the materials. Then, from those deadlines, work backward to establish dates by which you need completed essays and letters of recommendation. Allow plenty of time (6-8 weeks) for these documents to be generated. With those dates established, mark your calendar to indicate the dates by which you want to ask for letters of recommendation. By waiting until the last minute to get things started you give up control of the process and lose your ability to put your best foot forward.
Keep things simple. Eliminate schools from your list that are there because 1) you think it would be cool to see if you can get in or 2) you’d feel better with a few more back-up schools. You shouldn’t need to apply to more than eight schools—six is an even better number. Focus your energies on the applications for schools you have researched thoroughly and about which you really care—they fit you best. Time and energy are of essence over the next three months. Invest in the applications for the schools that are truly important to you.
Establish a game plan. Know how you want to come across to the admission committees at each school and take stock of the opportunities you have with their respective applications to make your case. Develop a theme that speaks to who you are and pulls together the sum of your parts. Keep that theme in mind as you prepare the different elements of each application.
Stay focused in the classroom. With all of the traditional senior year and college planning activities going on around you it will be easy to lose track of the work you need to be doing in the classroom. Believe it or not, the work you do in your senior year could turn out to be your most important credential. Make it count!
Your senior year should be one of good times and fond memories. The college application process is daunting but it can be managed effectively. My objective is to give you strategies that will help ease the stress and keep a smile on your face as you work to get from where you are to where you want to be!
Editor’s note: I am happy to post a guest blog by Dodge Johnson, President, Independent Educational Consultants Association
Economist Richard Vedder recently published a piece titled “In Defense of College Rankings,” in TheChronicle of Higher Education, 08/06/1.
Here he defends the soon-to-be-released U.S. News rankings, anticipating that “many in the Education Establishment will [trash] them… They will be labeled as non-scientific, elitist, poorly constructed, etc. etc.” even though they are “meeting a human need.”
I can’t agree with much in Mr. Vedder’s piece, except that the rankings are popular and that they sell. But I’m happy to be among those who will trash them – not for Mr. Vedder’s reasons, but rather because they are pernicious.
He cites Consumer Reports as a model. But colleges do not lend themselves to consumer-reports-style rankings, where measurements of quality are known in advance and can be quantified: for example, how clean a washer will get your clothes and how often on average it will need repair.
Much of what makes colleges effective cannot be measured in numbers. Every college is a unique amalgam with its own personality and community that places its stamp on education—on faculty who teach there and on students who go there. And more than anything, it is these subtleties that shape students’ attitudes, learning, and experiences.
These are considerations that rankings can’t even attempt to deal with, let alone compare from college to college. Moreover, the non-quantifiable part, the “reputational survey,” is a not only a joke, but there is also clear evidence that contributors try to manipulate it.
Let’s take Mr. Vedder’s example: “If you are paying $50,000 a year to send your kid to either Harvard or George Washington U, other things equal, the quality of education is likely to be superior at Harvard.”
He offers no basis for this statement other than the implication that because Harvard is ranked higher, Harvard is inherently superior. Is teaching better? Rankings won’t tell you that, because good teaching depends on a blend of factors, many of which are subtle and can’t be quantified. Just ask colleges; they’ve struggled forever to measure teaching effectiveness as part of tenure and promotion.
Yes, rankings sell. And since colleges mostly don’t change rapidly, to have a rankings farrago annually, U.S. News has to tweak the formula annually so that rankings will remain in the forefront and they can present a picture of colleges battling it out to move up the ladder.
But rankings are not merely imperfect because formulas are manipulated or because they are unscientific or whatever. They are pernicious because, although they may be attractive, they are not a good tool to help answer questions that at bottom matter most to a student, “Which schools will be the best match in terms of my needs and plans?”
None of their fatal shortcomings would matter much if ranking if colleges were a harmless pastime. But they are not harmless. They have transformed how trustees and the public judge a college’s effectiveness. They encourage students to make prestige the centerpiece of their college search instead of figuring out what they truly want for themselves. And they are the foundation of the marketing engine driving multi-billion dollar enterprises that have transformed applying to highly ranked schools from a ‘best match’ process into a trophy hunt.
Some have unfairly lumped independent educational consultants with those enterprises. It’s true that educational consultants are flourishing in this new climate, but that’s because we are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Our job is to help families sort through the hype and reduce anxiety by focusing on basics: helping students figure out what they want in a college, and then figure out who has it. And then help students master the skills of showing their best selves to colleges so that good matches can take place.
It’s that time of the year to play the college rankings sweepstakes. The Princeton Review’s annual review of 373 “best colleges” hit the newsstands earlier this month. U.S News & World Report has since released its “America’s Best Colleges” edition and the parade of ranking guides goes on as editors ply the “science” of their surveys on an audience of consumers eager for a scorecard that quantifies the mythical pecking order of colleges.
Before you get out your credit card or rush to printout a list of the “best” colleges, take a moment to ask yourself three questions:
Who is defining the “best” and what does this definition mean to me? References to the “best” in any context are heavily value-laden and offered from the perspective of the person making the statement. Be discriminating. Know that the definitions of “best” that are thrown around to sell magazines may not—and, in fact, should not—be the beginning point for your own definition.
What do the editors of ranking guides know about me/my student? Where, for example, do they talk about the colleges that are best for the bright but timid student who wants to study classical archaeology or the student who learns best through engagement in the classroom or the young person whose sense of self and direction is still emerging? What tangible takeaways do college rankings offer that apply to your situation?
Where is the evidence that rankings will make a difference in our college planning outcomes? More specifically, ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?” Unlike the purchase process with regard to other commodities (cars, appliances, etc.), the ultimate choice of a college is the product of a mutual selection process. Rankings don’t get kids into college nor do they point you in the direction that is best for you.
Over the last 25 years, the college-going process has been turned upside down by ranking guides. Whereas the focus should be on the kids—and what is best for them—college ranking guides put the focus on destinations that are presumed to be most desirable. In reality, they are artificial metrics for quality in education that detract from sensible, student-centered decision-making.
Herein lies the disconnect. If ranking guides are truly useful to consumers, why do so many students apply to schools where the chances of gaining admission are less than one out of four? And where is the usefulness of college ranking guides when barely half of the students entering college this fall will graduate from any college in 4-5 years?
Frankly, the rankings phenomenon is growing wearisome. The notion that all of America’s best colleges can be rank ordered in any context (“party schools,” academic reputation,” etc.)—that the mythical pecking order can actually be quantified—is foolhardy. It makes too many wandering assumptions about people and places, cultures and values, quality and—believe it or not—fit.
Among other things, rankings promote a destination orientation and an obsessive approach to getting into highly ranked colleges. Where the student might be headed becomes more important than what is to be accomplished or why that goal might be important or how the institution might best serve the student. When distracted by the blinding power and prestige that rankings bestow upon a few institutions, it is easy to lose sight of one’s values and priorities as well as the full range of opportunities that exist.
Keep rankings in perspective as you proceed with college planning. Resist the temptation to obsess on a set of numbers. Instead, focus on developing a list of colleges based on who you are, why you want to go to college and what you want to accomplish during your undergraduate years. And don’t lose sight of how you like to learn. Stay student-centered and you will discover the colleges that are best for you.
I will address this topic in greater detail during the August 23 Web-Side Chat webcast, “Making Sense of College Rankings (7:00 PM ET). In particular, I will reveal the flaws in the ranking methodologies and discuss alternatives for making critical distinctions between institutions. To join the conversation, sign up at Best College Fit.
What is the right number of college applications to submit? It’s a fairly common question at this time of the year. After all, families have been receiving literature, researching schools and visiting campuses for much of the summer. As September approaches, it is time to pare down the long list of colleges to a short one that includes places that represent the best “fit” for the student.
Despite the seeming logic of the winnowing out process, a lot of students find it difficult to exercise a degree of restraint when it comes to sending out applications. And it’s easy to understand why that might be the case. Colleges are pushing hard to attract applications. Many offer application fee waivers to students who apply online or who submit applications during their campus visits.
Some schools are sending “pre-completed” applications that require little more than the student’s signature and an application fee. Others offer VIP status (no essays or letters of recommendation required) to students who apply early in the fall.
Combine these marketing tactics with the ease of applying online or through one of the application groups (Common Application, Universal Application) that make it possible to complete one application form that can be sent to multiple schools and you see why many students are tempted to expand their short lists of schools.
So, what is the right number? While there isn’t a magic number, 6-8 is a good range to target. You may find that your search has produced a shorter list of schools with which you are very comfortable and that’s great. You may even decide that one of those schools is your absolute first choice in which case Early Decision may be a viable option. If you have visited the campus and find there are no caveats (including financial) to your commitment to enroll if accepted, then go for it (more on ED in later postings).
It is popular in some circles to categorize the college list by rating (“reach,” “target” and “safety”) the chances of gaining admission. I am not a fan of this approach as it detracts from efforts to find colleges that represent the best fit for the student (check out the College Planning Blogarchives for articles written earlier this summer about “fit”). As a reality check, “fit” is not defined by prestige! Among the factors that do define fit is the institution’s commitment to the student.
The best colleges for you are those that demonstrate that they value you for what you have accomplished as well as the promise of even greater achievements you may bring to their campuses. In short, you fit into their competitive profiles and your chances of gaining admission are at least 50:50. Focus your applications on a group of these schools and you’ll be fine.
Pushing the application number higher, though, especially to include more “reach” schools “just in case” you might be able to get in is rarely productive and there are several reasons why that is the case. For one, colleges are looking beyond your application credentials to determine not only your level of interest (are you likely to enroll if accepted?), but the degree to which you have examined the appropriateness of that learning environment given your needs and ambitions. By applying to larger numbers of schools, you dilute the strength of the messaging that is delivered to any one of them. Think about it. In addressing the requirements of each additional application you detract from the dedicated effort that would otherwise be given to the applications submitted to your target schools that make the most sense for you. As a result, you risk appearing to those who read your application as a “ghost applicant” or someone who is not very thoughtfully engaged in that school’s environment.
By the way, if you are drawn in by the notion that the greater the number of applications submitted—especially to high profile schools—the greater is the likelihood of getting in, you will discover that the math doesn’t work that way! Focus on schools that are good fits for you and you’ll be fine with 6-8 applications, even if financial aid is important to you.
Finally, should you be successful with a strategy of applying to many more colleges, you’ll find the “high “ of gaining acceptances to many places is offset by the “low” of having to make a rash of difficult decisions during the month of April. In effect, you’ll have four weeks to weigh options that could or should have been considered more thoroughly earlier in the process.
As you compile your college list, it’s clear you can do whatever you want. For best results, however, research schools carefully within the context of “fit,” as well as your personal educational priorities, and exercise discipline with regard to the number of schools to which you apply.
Having talked with a fair number of rising high school seniors over the last six weeks, I am coming to the conclusion that these can be the “dog days” of the college application process. This is especially true for those who have identified target schools and are beginning to grapple with their essay assignments!
If this sounds like you, the good news is you recognize the need to be thinking and acting upon your college applications in a timely manner. That recognition, however, doesn’t lessen the anxious avoidance you experience—or the nights of fitful sleep—or the extended periods of time you spend staring at an unresponsive keyboard! The words and the critical messages they convey will not materialize out of thin air. You can’t will a good essay to completion!
I’d like to offer a few suggestions, then, that can help you work through the creative blues to a points of clarity, if not inspiration, as you get started in the essay writing process.
Resist the temptation to buy the “best college essays” book. It will only contribute to the “paralysis by analysis” you are experiencing. The essays you will find in those books are not only well-written, but they also fit the context of someone else’s life story. Instead, focus on your own storyline.
Identify key themes and/or messages you want to convey. Are there two or three things you want to make sure the readers of your application know about you? In answering this question, go beyond the obvious. Don’t restate information that can be found elsewhere in your application. This is your opportunity to provide insight and interpretation. Coming to grips with the objective of your message will help you find the most effective form for presenting it.
Reflect on your most memorable life experiences. How have they shaped you? I know a group of students who just returned from a two-week tour of Europe. They came home with great pictures and wonderful stories. Two years from now when they begin writing their college applications, they should reflect less on where they went and what they saw—and more on how some aspect of the experience changed them.
Find the story within the story. Quite often, metaphors are effective in framing key messages in college application essays. If you have identified themes or messages to be conveyed in your application, think about vignettes or moments of revelation or clarity that speak to the bigger picture of your developing perspective. What were you feeling at the time? How did you react? What has been the impact of that experience on how you see yourself in the world?
Show—don’t tell. You should be getting the impression that it is best not to recite the facts of your life. Instead, take the reader between the lines to understand you as a thinking person better. Not long ago, a parent member of an audience who also happens to be a college professor asked me to remind college applicants that colleges value diversity of thought in their classrooms. The essay is your opportunity to reveal that element of diversity that can be found within you.
Keep a pen/pencil and paper beside your bed. You may wrack your brain all day trying to come up with clever ideas but invariably the best stuff emerges in those hazy, subconscious moments just before you drift off to sleep! If you can, push back the sleep long enough to jot down your new inspirations.
Read—a lot! Quite often, essay writers are consumed with a myopia that limits their ability to understand their place in the world in which they live. Break out of that shell by reading news stories and editorials. Better yet, read books that make you think. It’s not too late and biographies are great sources! I have found increasing inspiration from the life stories of people who have risen from relative obscurity to make significant contributions as thinkers and doers. Contact me if you would like some book ideas: Peter@TheAdmissionGame.com.
Take advantage of the time you are giving yourself. Resist the temptation to write a college essay in a single draft. Good writing—and editing—is a process. Manage it well to your advantage!
For more tips about college essay writing, subscribe to the Best College Fit™ where you can access the July 7 Web-Side Chat, “Essay Prep—Keys to Developing a Winning Essay,” in the BCF archives.
By Tom Willoughby, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment, University of Denver
Editor’s note: At a time when it is becoming harder to find a college that offers interviews to prospective applicants, the University of Denver makes them mandatory. Vice Chancellor for Enrollment, Tom Willoughby, talks about the value of the interview in the admission process at DU.
At the University of Denver we value the opportunity to meet students face to face. That’s why we send faculty and staff to 30 cities every fall and every spring to team up with alumni to interview our applicants.
We learn so much more about a student during the interview process that goes beyond what their application tells us. Being able to put a face with an application adds another dimension for us to consider which most often enhances a student’s application.
At the University of Denver we are interested in learning more about a student’s motivation for learning, their openness to new ideas and their sense of integrity –all important values to our community.
Selecting a college or university that is a good match increases the likelihood of a more fulfilling and rewarding experience in college. The interview process in my mind only enhances the opportunity for the college to make better decisions about who might be a good fit for their learning community.
One of the highlights of my career has been the opportunity to meet and interview so many different students from all over the country. These students have always given me great confidence in the future. Clearly the students that have done best in the interview process were the ones who made the conscious decision to be who they are and to give the best of who they are in the interview. Too often we are all tempted to try to please others by trying to be something we are not. In the end, that often leads to a poor match.
In summary the real values of an admission interview are the following:
It allows the reader of your application or the admission committee to know you as a person—who you are, how excited you are about learning and embarking on new experiences, what you’re passionate about and what you value.
It allows you the student to make the reader of your application or the admission committee aware of any special circumstance about you or your academic record that deserves or needs explanation.
It allows you the student to express your level of interest in the college. Expressed interest is a factor that more colleges have recently given greater consideration to in their admission decision.
Remember that the interview is only one of many factors that a college may consider when making an admission decision. However in some instances, especially when the decision is close, it can mean the difference.
Did you know that barely half of the students who enter college each year will graduate in 4-5 years? That statistic is numbing when you consider the potential costs involved—your time, your parents’ money, and the lost opportunity to you as a wage earner upon graduation. Over the last five postings in this space, I have given you ideas about how to identify the colleges that are best for you—places that are likely to attract and keep you through graduation. Before we wrap up this discussion, it might make sense, then, to address some of the common pitfalls that lead to unproductive college choices—colleges that do not fit well.
Scenario #1: Love I hate to break it to you but the best college for you is not the place that your love interest attends! Before you and your boyfriend/girlfriend get too far along in planning the rest of your lives together, you need to know that the odds of maintaining the relationship over four years of college are not in your favor. In fact, most high school romances break up before the end of the first year of college. Does it make sense, then, for you to commit to four years at somebody else’s college just so you can be together when there is a very good chance that before the end of the first semester she’ll find some other guy—and you’ll end up being a spectator on her campus. Would you call that a good fit?
Scenario #2: Friends The same logic applies to your friends. While you are ready to graduate from high school, you might not feel like you are ready to leave the people with whom you hang out. As a result, the whole gang heads off to college together—in many cases, site unseen. If anybody asks why you chose to attend that college, your response will probably be, “my friends go there.” How much sense does that make?! One or two of your friends have it figured out. They know the program and have made considered decisions. But the rest of you just want to hang out. Now, you are on a campus that is strange to you except for the guys you want to hang with. A good fit?
Scenario #3: ParentsThe best school for you is not likely to be the place your parents attended or the place they want you to attend! This can become uncomfortable if your parents are already working on your college list for you. While you don’t want to disappoint them, you want to find your own college—a place that is the best fit for you. After all, you and your parents are different people. What worked for them might not work for you. If you sense a conflict in interests brewing, you need to find a diplomatic solution to it early in your search. The longer you allow your parent’s expectations of a destination to linger prominently in the picture, the harder it will be to extricate yourself from those expectations later in the process—that is, assuming you truly want to look in different directions.
Scenario #4: SportsThe best college for you is not likely to be the place that won the national championship. Everybody likes to be around a winner and there is something to be said for body painting and the crowd frenzy on crisp Saturday afternoons in the fall. Just remember, though, that whatever colors you bleed, you still need to be a student Monday through Friday.
Scenario #5: Prestige Finally, the best college for you is not necessarily the place that will give you the most impressive car sticker! Consider how the events unfold. The “Committee of We” has been involved in an exhaustive college search process. I don’t need to explain that mom and dad are integral to this committee! “When are we going to get started?” “When are we going start visiting schools?” “When are we going to get the applications finished?” “When are we going to hear?” Does this sound familiar?
One day in late March of your senior year, the “thick envelope” from XYZ, a very prestigious college, arrives in your mail slot. A committee member is home (not you because you’re in school) and finds the letter. Unable to find restraint, this committee member rips open the letter to discover the good news and euphoria reigns—“We’re in!!” Before you know it, this unnamed person pulls the XYZ car sticker out of a drawer (where it’s been in safe keeping just in case), puts it on the car and begins to drive slowly through the neighborhood so everyone can see where “we’re going to college!”
This is an exciting time for the entire family because, of course, “we” got in. And good for you—if this is truly the place that you want to attend. Unfortunately, a lot of students and their families get caught up in the rush for “gold.” For them, the process is more about winning the prize then it is finding the best fit. They may have “won” the car sticker and all the bragging rights that go with it, but does the student have the right college? Maybe, maybe not.
Summing it up
You need to remain reflective throughout the process in order to make sure a school, especially a high profile place, is the right one for you. College choices based on emotion are often regretted. They just don’t “fit” you well in the long run. (Would you buy a good-looking pair of shoes even if they were too snug in the toes?) As you move forward, resist the temptation to act impulsively or run with the herd. You must be able to live with your choice for the next four years and it needs to work for you in the years that follow. Invest in learning more about places that might be right for you—not your love interest or your friends or your parents. Now is the time to focus on you and what constitutes a good fit for you—so yours will be a successful four-year college experience.
