College Planning Blog

STRATEGIES TO MAKE YOUR APPLICATION COUNT Series
The stage is set in the college application process. After months, if not years, of research and preparation, you are ready to apply.

Before you actually begin to fill out any applications, take a quick look at the blank forms within the context of the admission process you are about to enter. In order to really gain perspective, imagine conducting this exercise from “30,000 feet”—a vantage point that will give you a sense of the big picture around the application process. In searching for colleges and arriving at a short list (6-8 schools), you identified your priorities and focused on defining a good fit. You have also come to understand some of the complexities of the decision-making process from the college’s point of view while learning what they want as they use the admission process to build new communities.

Now, you need to compete with hundreds if not thousands of other qualified candidates who are vying for limited places at the same colleges that interest you. The outcomes will rest less on who is most qualified and more on whom among the qualified candidates are most desirable. In order to succeed in this competition, though, you need to pull your credentials together into a compelling statement on your behalf.

Indeed, your application must be your personal statement, a statement that thoughtfully and carefully weaves together each element of your recent life experience. Rather than a random collection of information, it should be a cohesive statement that says to an admission committee: “Here I am. Take me!”

So, go to 30,000 feet. Think through each element of the application to understand why and how it is considered by admission committees. What thoughts and feelings will be elicited by the information you provide? How are your passions and interests being revealed? As you develop insight into what the sum of your credentials has to say about the person you are becoming, you also gain perspective into how your talents, interests and achievements need to come together to shape the theme of your application.

As you descend from 30,000 feet, you are better prepared to make your statement. Take stock of your “hooks” (points of distinction). Consider the manner in which they might be best communicated in the various “hotspots” (places admission officers look first for key information) on your application? Then put together an application that tells your story.

The content of this blog posting is taken from The College Planning Workbook. You can learn more about “Hotspots and Hooks” as well as the view from 30,000 feet on pages 75-78 of the Workbook (http://www.theadmissiongame.com/products.php).

STRATEGIES TO MAKE YOUR APPLICATION COUNT Series

The college admission process is right around the corner. For many would-be college applicants, the next three months represent a critical staging period as they prepare their applications for admission. For the next eight weeks I will share with you strategies to make your application count. My objective is to give you the tools and insight necessary to compete for admission at the schools that fit you best.

The first thing we need to talk about is ownership. Whose job is it to complete the application process? There is a lot of confusion about the roles and responsibilities of students and parents as college looms on the horizon. In order for this process to work well and for the student to feel good about the outcomes, s/he must be the one investing in the preparation—not the parents.

I say this because I see a lot of evidence that the committee of “we” has taken over the planning process.  “When are we going to start the applications?”  “We need to start planning college visits.” “We just got more mail from XYZ college.” “What should we be thinking about in pulling together letters of recommendation?’ After a while, you begin to wonder, “just who is going to college?!”

Frankly, there shouldn’t be any doubt about who is going to college and that ownership for the process must rest with that person. For better or worse, though, we live in an age of the “helicopter” parent—the parent who constantly, and almost obsessively, hovers over just about any process of consequence involving his/her student to make sure it is completed well.

I know what this is all about because I have been a helicopter parent myself! After all, I was dean of admission when my own kids applied to college and I wanted them to benefit from all that I knew about the process. As a result, I instinctively tried to clear the path of the obstacles that only I could see while pushing, poking and prodding them forward in the process.

I thought I was doing the right thing until my daughter, Jennifer, finally suggested (gently) that I back off.  “How am I ever going to know what it’s like to pick myself up if you never let me fall?” she asked, finally growing weary of my well-intended interference. And she was right. She needed to find her own way—to own the process, including all of the potential frustrations and disappointments—if she was to find satisfaction in the successes.

Given the high-stakes nature of college admission these days, the phenomena of the “helicopter” parent and the committees of “we” are to be expected. That doesn’t mean they or the behaviors they embody should be accepted, though. Take it from me — I learned to back off and my kids are just fine.

To learn more about roles and responsibilities in a student-center college planning process, check out my College Planning Workbook at http://www.theadmissiongame.com/products.php. On page 7, you will find a chart entitled “Whose Job Is It Anyway?” The Workbook ($12) is an interactive guide that walks students through the application process with a range of hands-on exercises. In addition, my book, Winning the College Admission Game, Strategies for Students and Parents, provides guidelines needed for everyone in the family to better understand their respective roles in the college admission process.

Are you a “helicopter” parent? Write to me at Peter@theadmissiongame.com for a free copy (pdf) of “You know you are a helicopter parent when…”

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 list of preferred 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.

1. 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.

2. 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 allowing 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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!

Toward that end, on August 27 I will begin an eight-week series of blogs that walks you through the application process. You can learn more about this topic in Chapter 12 (“Time to Apply: Get It Done!”) of my book, Winning the College Admission Game: Strategies for Students and Parents (available in the TAG Bookstore, online at Amazon.com and in bookstores).

The college admission process can produce some interesting personal dilemmas. One such quandary was brought to my attention in a phone call last week from a young man who was trying to sort out an Early Decision opportunity. A competitive athlete, he had been approached by a recruiting coach from an NCAA Divison III (non-scholarship) school with the suggestion that he convert his application for admission from Regular Decision to Early Decision (ED). Moreover, the coach had assured the young man that if his application for financial aid did not produce the desired assistance from this institution, he would not be held to his commitment to enroll if accepted ED.

The caller was understandably excited and confused by this development. While he liked the school very much, he couldn’t say for sure that it was his first choice. This is largely due to his need for financial aid. In fact, the uncertainty of his financial aid situation had led him to actively consider other schools as well. Moreover, he also understood the underlying premise of the unconditional commitment to enroll if accepted that is assumed of ED candidates. As a result, he was skeptical of the pitch he had been given by this coach.

My advice to the young man was simple: “If you need to make sure you get the best financial aid possible and there is a chance other schools might admit you and give you better offers, then don’t give up your right to see those offers by converting your application to ED at one school. The coach is behaving unethically by making this suggestion. Don’t compound the problem by heading down that road with him.” I’m not sure I told this young man anything he didn’t already suspect to be true, but our chat gave him the confidence to respond to the coach’s overtures.

That said, as a college applicant you need to be especially vigilant about the ethics of the process. The desire to get into favored schools should never put you in a place where you compromise your integrity or the rules governing the process. Unfortunately, the coach in question was crossing the ethical “line” by asking the applicant to consider an Early Decision application when he knew the young man could only do so conditionally due to his financial situation. The good news is the young man had the presence of mind to step back and assess the situation objectively.

Now, in case you’re checking the calendar and wondering how this conversation between the coach and the applicant could be taking place as the “round two” deadlines for ED have passed at most schools, welcome to the world of college admission in 2008! These are the days when selective colleges do what they can to pump up their yields on offers of admission while looking for opportunities to reduce the overall number of students they need to admit and, hence, become more selective. Add to the mix the dynamics of athletic recruitment–even at the NCAA Division III non-scholarship level–and the opportunity for late-season Early Decision conversations emerges.

A few other observations are worth noting here. One, the NCAA forbids Division III athletic recruiters from having any conversation about family finances with the financial aid officers at their respective institutions. In short, an athlete’s potential involvement in an NCAA Division III program may NOT have any bearing on the disposition of his/her financial aid status. Two, each institution employs slightly different criterion in assessing a student’s academic strength within the context of its financial aid program. It is not only possible that a recruit’s financial “need” could be read differently from one school to the next, the strength of his academic credential may also result in differences in the composition of the financial aid awards he receives. Whereas a student athlete may qualify for special consideration academically at one school, at others he may not.

Finally, the late season ED phenomenon is not limited to recruited athletes. Admission officers at many selective schools will keep the application “door” open past formal deadlines as they troll for high-yielding ED conversions well into February of the admission process. Should you be confronted with such an opportunity, just remember-the rules remain the same. If you convert your application to ED, you are making an unconditional commitment to enroll if accepted.

Inside the Numbers
A little background might prove useful in establishing the grounds for the late ED question in the first place, so let’s take a look inside the numbers and think: enrollment management. Colleges that want to improve their yields and become more selective can simply turn to their Early Decision programs for easy solutions. Whereas admission officers at most schools must admit 4-5 Regular Decision applicants in order to enroll one, ED programs allow them the efficiency of “admitting one applicant to get one.” For every additional ED enrollment that can be counted, then, 4-5 fewer students need to be admitted in the Regular Decision process to fill that same place in the class.

Consider the impact of such a strategy on a larger scale. A college or university that can attract 50 more ED enrollments over the previous year reduces by as many as 250 Regular Decision students it would otherwise need to admit to fill those places in the class. As a result, the more ED enrollments a school can stockpile, the more selective it becomes.

I have received a number of questions lately from students and parents about the importance of having a career direction lined up before heading off to college. It seems the prevailing notion behind these questions is that “you need to know what you’re going to do before you decide on a college.” While it is easy to understand that families want some tangible evidence of their likely “return” on dollars invested in education, the reality is that most kids simply aren’t ready or well enough informed to make career decisions when they are seventeen!

If you are contemplating your college options, consider the statistics:

• You will probably change your major in college! Most students (about 65%) change their minds about their majors at least once while they are in college. Half of them change their minds twice.
• Many colleges report that 80-90% of the people who graduated more than 25 years ago are now in careers that did not exist when they graduated.
• About 85% of the parents I survey indicate they are no longer in the careers they intended to pursue when they were 18 years old!

So, what does this say about the importance of “knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life” before you start college? Not much when you think about it. That is why I encourage kids to make decisions based on finding colleges that fit them best. If you are still searching for some direction, don’t worry. You’re normal. It’s difficult to know at any age what you’ll do for the rest of your life, so relax. Seize the opportunity to explore. Turn your indecision into an opportunity to opens doors to learning at colleges that fit you well. Moreover, know that you’ve got a lot of time to figure out what the rest of your life will look like. Take advantage of your college years to become educated about a lot of things including yourself and the world around you. In doing so, learn how to learn. Even if you have pretty firm ideas about a career, your ability to process information and think critically will put you in good stead wherever you might find yourself in life.

Be discriminating as you look. If your passion is film studies and a college doesn’t offer a very substantive program in that area, then it’s not a good fit. And if you find yourself applying to a university that insists that you declare your major as an applicant–even though you haven’t figured it out yet–that place will not be a good fit for you either! The good news is that there are hundreds of great places that welcome students who are undecided about their futures! These are the same places that produce doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, accountants, curators and business executives from among the thousands of undecided students who enter their doors each year.

If you do know what you want to study in college, target places that will accommodate your interests and support your strengths. For example, if you want to pursue chemical engineering, focus on schools that offer it. The same is true with business, elementary education, or graphic design. Look for places that match up well with your interests and offer strong programs that meet your needs.

Finally, to have some fun, ask your parents to talk about their career aspirations when they were your age. The odds are they had vastly different ideas back then about what they would be doing at this point in their lives! Find out what influenced their thinking if and when they discovered new interests. What, if any, changes would they make?

Just as most people of your parent’s generation followed pathways to success that they couldn’t imagine when they were your age, you, too, will find your own path. A good college “fit,” then, is one that will encourage you to explore, follow new directions and offer you the opportunities to do so.

College applications require a lot of information that is ultimately useful to admission committees as they determine whom to admit. As a result, applicants routinely–almost mindlessly, complete forms that ask about home, school, family, extracurricular activities and unusual educational experiences. After all, it is usually easy to imagine where each piece of data might be useful to admission officers as they put your candidacy into a broader context.

Occasionally, however, there will be a question that gives the applicant reason to pause–a question that seems to have little bearing at all on the student’s personal qualifications. One such question asks applicants to “List the names of the other colleges to which you have applied.”

It turns out that this request and others like it show up in other places as well (interviews, meetings with alumni, recruiting sessions with athletic coaches, etc.) during the application process. Is seems innocuous enough; however, the savvy applicant is left wondering, “Just how will this information be used? Why do they want it and do I really need to give it to them?”

The answer is quite simple. Admission officers are pretty savvy about collecting information that can be used to predict the likelihood of your enrollment. This is particularly important in institutional environments where improving the yield on offers of admission and becoming more selective are criteria used to measure the success of their admission operations. As a result, admission officers are constantly trying to calibrate the yield on their offers of admission. The more they know about where you are applying (and likely to get in), the easier it is for them to determine the likelihood that you will enroll at their college if admitted. While the information you provide has no bearing whatsoever on the strength of your credentials, it can influence the status of your application if a college suspects that you are likely to pursue other options.

When you think about it, there is really nothing good that can result from providing such information. Therefore, I counsel students to leave the space blank. Unless you want admission officers to know where you are applying, keep that information to yourself. The same is true when the topic comes up conversationally. Give them only what you want them to know about your interests and intentions.

An interesting variation on this theme is found on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application–the form you must complete in order to qualify for financial aid administered by the state/federal governments and–in some cases, the colleges themselves. You see, the FAFSA will also ask you to list the colleges to which you have applied in order of preference. This information is required to complete and submit the FAFSA–and the resulting need analysis as well as the reported data will be forwarded to the colleges listed on the form. It is not uncommon for admission officers to cast side-long glances at such lists as they make their final determinations about whom to admit.

When asked for this information on the FAFSA, consider the implications of your response. You can list the schools in order of preference or you can confuse the issue by listing the schools in alphabetical order. While the ordering of schools on the FAFSA will not effect your eligibility for financial aid, just remember that it might have a bearing on how admission officers assess the likelihood of your enrollment.

The thing to remember about this whole discussion is that it is important to get on–and stay on–the “radar screens’ of the colleges that interest you. By making sure the authenticity of your interest in a college is clear and undeniable, you force admission officers to make decisions based on the strength of your academic and personal credentials.

Two days ago I found myself talking with Jean and her parents about her college future. Jean had submitted six applications including one for Early Action consideration. Now, however, a deferral letter from the EA school had shaken her confidence. While she wasn’t hysterical, it was clear that Jean was questioning herself. Would she get in? Could she get in? And what about her chances of finding admission to the other, equally selective universities to which she applied?

These were all good questions. While Jean possesses the academic credentials to be competitive for admission at any college or university in the country, the deferral letter had left her wondering what it would take to get in and had she done all she could do. I couldn’t find fault with the schools she had chosen nor the process she had followed in choosing them. On the surface, they all made sense for her–they were good fits. Digging deeper, however, I was able to uncover factors that might have influenced the outcome of her EA application and, if not addressed, would certainly have an impact on the outcomes of her other applications.

First, although Jean and her parents had been evaluating college options since her 9th grade year, she hadn’t visited any of the campuses in the last eighteen months. More specifically, she had never formally visited the school to which she applied EA. Despite her passion for the place, its admission officers had no way of knowing about her. Second, she had not sufficiently established her “hook”–the credential that might set her apart from her peers in a tight competition. A student leader and two-sport athlete with aspirations for playing in college, Jean had not made contact with college athletic recruiters in her sports. Finally, Jean had indicated on her application for admission that she would be a candidate for financial aid–a factor that could complicate things even at an institution that is reputedly “need blind” in the admission process.

As I talked with Jean, I wanted her to understand how the EA university might have reacted to her application. While she is a great candidate academically, the admission officers could afford to look for more as she competed with thousands of others who looked just like her. In making its decisions, the admission committee wasn’t asking: “Is she good enough?” Rather it was making a series of value judgments: “Who among these great candidates do we value most? What does this candidate bring us as we attempt to build a new community?”

In Jean’s case, when the admission officers asked, “If we admit her, what do we get?” nothing jumped out at them. What’s worse, they could find no evidence of her interest in their school when they asked, “What is the likelihood that she will come?” Uncertain of her level of interest and likely contributions, it is reasonable to assume that the next question of Jean was, “Is this someone in whom we are prepared to make a financial investment?”

It wasn’t long before Jean and her parents began to see the logic of the decision-making process at the highly selective schools to which she was applying. They could now rationalize the EA decision. More importantly, the despair that had hovered over the start of the conversation had given way to an excited sense of possibility as Jean began to develop a new “To Do” list. Even at this time of the year, Jean realized that it is not too late to get on the radar screens of the schools to which she had applied. Specifically, she saw the need to eliminate the perception that her interest in a given school is random while conveying a sense of the passion and talent within her that would set her apart from the rest of the competition.

Jean would make immediate plans to visit the campuses of the “high priority” schools on her list and attempt to introduce herself to the person(s) responsible for recruiting in her region. She will make sure they have her most recent grades as well as documentation of a couple of honors that have come her way since she submitted her applications. She also took heart in the possibility that she could still contact the coaches at some of the smaller colleges on her list and make sure they got the tapes of her athletic performance.

I admire Jean for her response to the situation. Rather than hanging her head and feeling pessimistic about her college future, she is already taking steps to affect the outcomes. Realizing that applying to college is a process and not an event, she is asserting herself. In doing so, she will eliminate the randomness of her application.

Will this new-found self-advocacy assure Jean admission to her favorite schools? Not necessarily. It will, however, give her the chance she deserves. At the very least, the schools on her list now have reason to pause in considering her possible contributions to the communities they are building. Now, they will have a better idea of what they get should they admit Jean–and they’ll have more confidence that hers is a serious interest that could result in her enrollment if accepted. Finally, if they value her for what she has to offer, they will be more likely to invest in her with financial aid and/or scholarships.

Consider the possibilities as they exist for you. When you apply for admission, take charge of the process. Seize the opportunity to build relationships with decision-makers (admission officers) at the schools that are important to you and be sure to tell your story. Give the admission officers every reason to want to include you in the communities they are building as they admit their entering classes!

To learn more about what is going on behind the closed doors of the admission office and to ask questions about what you can do now to make a difference with your application, plan to join the January 22 Straight Talk About College Admission teleseminar, “Taking Stock of What is Going on Around You.” Go to http://www.theadmissiongame.com/teleseminar_registration.php to learn more about the program and to register for the toll-free call-in information.

Writing the college essay or personal statement is one of the most daunting tasks that confront students in the senior year. The fact that they might still be working on an essay or two at this point in time is testimony itself to the degree of difficulty involved with finding the words that will adequately reveal the person behind the credentials. While the essays that emerge generally are solid writing samples and “good enough” to satisfy application requirements, only a fraction actually make a difference in the admission outcome.

Engineering an effective essay–one that will grab the attention of the reader–requires time, reflection and a bit of inspiration. Despite the popular notion among teenagers that the urgency and adrenalin rush of approaching deadlines brings out their best work, the reliance on such strategies leaves them woefully short of the time needed to gain perspective–to step back from their working drafts and edit effectively. Unfortunately, students who are still puzzling over what to do with essay assignments in early December are finding themselves in a time bind. One-draft writers, they deny themselves the opportunity to make a good essay great.

Keep in mind that the most systematic approach to essay writing begins with journal entries at the end of the Junior Year and continues through the development of early drafts just before the start of the Senior Year. That said, there is still hope for students who are trying to find the essay “magic.” Consider the following tips in addressing the task.

• Resist the temptation to look for examples of great college essays for ideas and/or inspiration. They will only confuse you more. Besides, those ideas have already been taken.
• Don’t give up ownership. You will find lots of opportunities to let other people (i.e. friends, parents and essay writing services) “help” you. Colleges want to hear your voice–it’s like your DNA. Authenticity is big here. While others can help with reflective editing, make sure the words you use are your own.
• Think about the messages/impressions you want to convey. What do you want the reader to know about you that won’t be apparent anywhere else in the application?
• Choose a topic about which you are an expert. The topic should give you a platform or perspective from which you are comfortable delivering the message.
• Answer the “why” questions. Why is the topic important to you? Why do you care about it? Why has it affected the way you see yourself in the world? As you answer the “why” questions, you give the reader insight into your soul. That might seem intimidating, but if you can pull it off your essay will make a difference.
• Be careful not to reframe information that is already presented on your application.
• Make sure you tell your story. If little-known circumstances have affected your academic performance or your life experience in general, you need to use a personal statement to address them.
• Eliminate distractions. Make sure the reader won’t have to struggle to read through the essay due to misspellings, grammatical errors or illegibility. Use spell-check and read your essay out loud. Your eyes can play tricks on you as you silently read through a draft for the tenth time. Listen to how your words sound.
• Give yourself time to step back from your work–to reflect on what you have written and to collect other opinions about the strength of your presentation. The more time, the better.

Finally, be honest about your effort. One of the most effective collaborators on my early writing projects was my dad. He would look over an essay and hand it back to me with the simple observation, “You’re not going to hand it in that way, are you?” While he was happy to go over things I had written with me, he wouldn’t do the thinking or writing for me. He knew that I knew I could do a better job and he was willing to help me if I was truly interested in helping myself!

This is the college application process and you know the stakes. Don’t settle for “good enough.” Rather, invest the extra time and effort it takes to produce great results.