College Planning Blog

I had just presented “The Admission Game” to a group of students and parents in Colorado when a group of seniors gathered to ask questions about the application process. Given the time of the year, it didn’t come as a surprise that college essays were on their minds. In fact, the essay or personal statement is perhaps the most vexing of the application requirements faced by applicants to college. And these folks wanted to get it right!

The question of length is a good one if you are an applicant who is sensitive to meeting the expectations of those who will read your essay. My initial response to the student who asked this question was, “Your essay should be as long as it takes to get your message across–no more and no less.” That said many students tend to become preoccupied with the letter of the instructions. If the essay prompt asks for a “500-word statement,” they assume the final product needs to be 500 words. As a result, they lose their focus on the subject and worry more about meeting the word count.

As a college applicant, you need to know that, more often than not, the number of words referenced in the essay prompt is intended to be a target rather than an absolute requirement. Word counts are less a test of your ability to be succinct–although you should strive to achieve that distinction with your essay–and more about giving you a set of parameters within which to work. Believe me, there aren’t many college admission officers who will take the time to count the words in your essay!

Assuming, then, that you have found a topic or inspiration for a college essay, your first objective is to craft a statement that will be compelling to the admission committee. Focus on the development of ideas rather than meeting a word count. Believe it or not, it is much easier to edit “down” than to find yourself trying to manufacture new content in order to arrive at a desired word count. That said, what can you write that will give the readers insight into who you are? (I talk about answering the “why” questions in the essay chapter of Winning the College Admission Game.) Take time to create a really strong draft that delivers the desired messages. And then put it away for a week or two.

Putting the essay away for a while will allow you to clear your head–which isn’t a bad thing if you have been laboring over the essay for an extended period of time. This reprieve from writing will also give you much needed perspective so that when you pick it up again, you can dive into the next stage of critical editing. When you start to edit again, don’t be surprised if word choices and structural developments that may have made sense when you wrote the first draft look different now. Work through your draft to make the changes that will strengthen your message.

And then, when you think you are finished, look at the word count. If you are close to the number targeted in the instructions, you are in pretty good shape. On the other hand, if you have 1,500 words and the admission committee only wants to see something in the neighborhood of 500, it’s time to take a serious look at your content. How much of what you have written is essential to the points you are trying to make–and how much of it is there because you fell in love with a passage that doesn’t really add to the strength of your presentation? If you don’t need it, cut it!

Finally, if you really want to make your essay better, take a stab at cutting 10% from your final draft. Work through every sentence of every paragraph to find opportunities to say more with less. Take the time to make a good essay great! In the end, if you have written a compelling essay, the reader won’t even notice that it is longer or shorter than the targeted word count. Good luck!

This is the all-too-frequent response of students to the suggestion that they capitalize on their demonstrated strengths in the fine and performing arts when they apply for admission. It�s almost as though they are afraid they will be regarded as academic imposters for failing to be true to their natural calling!

It happened again last week in a presentation I made to a group of students and parents. As I was talking about the need to for candidates to reveal their talents�to make a tape, burn a CD or put together a portfolio, a young flutist expressed curiosity about doing so since she had no interest in pursuing formal study of the flute in college. When I asked if the flute was and would continue to be a defining element of her life, she didn�t hesitate to assure me it would be. I then pointed out that her passion would carry little weight in the admission process if she didn�t give admission committees the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about its potential importance to their respective communities. If she had any inclination at all to continue playing in ensembles, marching bands or orchestras�and if she wanted to be valued for this potential�she needed to make her talent known.

The irony is that student athletes do this without fail. Every year, thousands of college applicants actively parlay their athletic talents/exploits into offers of admission at institutions where not every qualified candidate can be admitted. Only a fraction of these candidates have any reasonable chance of competing professionally in their respective sports. Nonetheless, their talents are valued by schools that wish to field competitive team�even at the non-scholarship, small college level of competition. If athletes can find a competitive edge by submitting tapes and meeting with coaches, why shouldn�t musicians, dancers, artists and actors benefit as well?

As admission committees go about their work, they are much like social engineers whose task is to assemble a new community from the array of talents represented in the applicants it is considering. Success in the admission process, then, rests just as much on a student�s ability to anticipate this as it does on most things academic. When everything else is equal�or close to equal�academically in the competition, it is not uncommon for an admission officer to ask the question of a given candidate, �If we admit her, what do we get?�

It is important, then, that students anticipate this question and take stock of what they have to offer the colleges to which they are applying. What are their gifts? What might an admission committee see in their talents that might give a given student an advantage in the competition? So, even if you have no interest in making a career out of playing the flute or the trumpet or the violin, make sure you do what you can to reveal your talents.

IMPORTANT TIP: Send a copy of your recording/portfolio to the Admission Office with your application AND a copy to the director of the program that interests you. Make sure you label all copies with your name, address and the contents. Do this early in the admission process�certainly no later than the application deadline.

Reminder: The Introductory Straight Talk About College Admission teleseminar entitled, �College Rankings: What They Mean and How to Use Them,� takes place this Wednesday (September 19) at 9:00 PM EST. Please register at http://www.TheAdmissionGame.com by noon EST on Tuesday.

Last month, Christopher Newport University announced that it was making college entrance testing optional for students with strong grade point averages. More than 740 institutions across the country, including some of the most selective, have now moved away from an emphasis on testing in considering students for admission. It begs the question: “Why don’t the others follow suit?”

Well, in point of fact, the number of “test optional” colleges and universities has grown rapidly over the last ten years as more places are publicly acknowledging what their own validity studies have been demonstrating for years: testing has a limited—at best—impact as a diagnostic in the admission process. Ironically, that is the purpose of the test—to predict who can do the work academically in the first year of college. The reality is that most students (80-90%) applying to most colleges have chosen places where, given the chance, they could do the work, a fact that is borne out in the academic credentials they submit.

So, why do many institutions still require test results? One reason is the need for efficiency. At many schools that deal with overwhelming numbers of applicants, it is certainly more efficient to screen candidates based on an index that includes grade point average and test results (not to be mistaken for a determination of who can do the work!). Test scores provide a convenient solution in that an institution’s ability to report higher scores supports the common misperception that test results are reflective of intelligence. The higher the scores, the better are your chances in such environments. Rather than a meaningful diagnostic—the rationale behind the SAT/ACT—test results have become competitive credentials.

If you would rather not get caught up in the emotional frenzy that often consumes students (and their parents) with regard to testing, be comforted in the knowledge that you have options. The 740+ institutions with a reduced emphasis on testing are all listed on the following website:

www.fairtest.org

The way I see it, the colleges and universities that appear on the FairTest.org list are places that will value you as a candidate for what you have done well in high school as well as the promise you exhibit with regard to future success. I saw this personally when my institution went test optional nearly 20 years ago. That decision was a point of liberation for my colleagues and me. Free from the tyranny of numbers, we could focus on the breadth of credentials in making decisions about young people whom we valued most. Isn’t this the sort of solution that makes sense as you look for a college home that is a good fit for you?

We’ll talk more about testing in this space throughout the year. It will also be the featured conversation in the December 19 installment of the “Straight Talk About College Admission” teleseminar series.