STUDENT-CENTERED SOLUTIONS FOR COLLEGE PLANNING

You are a college applicant. It’s mid-winter. Your applications have been submitted and all you can do is wait. After months of mail, interviews, phone conversations, and campus visits, the chatter from the colleges has all but disappeared and the silence is deafening.

What happens to your application when it reaches the admission office? Who reads it? What will they think? How will they decide? Surprisingly, the answers aren’t that simple.

The credential review processes at colleges and universities vary widely according to applicant volumes, levels of selectivity, and institutional agendas. For example, colleges with “rolling admission” programs make decisions on applications as they come in, admitting those who are qualified.

Conversely, institutions that process tens of thousands of qualified applications often presort credentials electronically using a formula involving standardized tests and GPA. Many of the most selective schools apply an index derived from a more complex set of variables in order to prescreen applicants. In each case, candidates who meet predetermined standards are referred to the admission committee for further review.

In just about every admission process, the “committee” is where the more difficult decisions are often made. I use the term committee loosely because committee members or “readers” may meet together in conference rooms, in their offices or the quiet comfort of their homes. Once in committee, applications are often reviewed by at least two readers before any decisions are made. Readers can be part-time staff hired to participate in credential review, specialists in particular majors or subgroups of students (international students, for example) and members of the admission staff.

In some cases, faculty members are invited to read applications from students interested in their respective academic disciplines. This is more likely at universities that are comprised of “colleges” or “academic programs” to which you apply directly.

What follows is an attempt to arrive at a consensus regarding your application. As readers review your credentials, they start with your transcript, noting both the strength of your academic program and your academic successes relative to other students in your school. In all likelihood, you will be regarded as qualified—you could do the work academically if given the opportunity.

Having been established as a viable candidate on their competitive “playing field,” readers begin to dig more deeply into your application. They look at extracurricular activities, test results and essays for “hooks” or points of distinction. Quite often, the question directed at your application will be as simple as, “What do we get by admitting this student?” As the research into your application continues, committee members probe for authenticity and sincerity of purpose in all your application materials.

Readers will also look for explanations that might shed light on any irregularities in your program and/or performance. Such explanations might be found in personal statements, interviews and letters of recommendation.

In a very short period of time, admission officers develop a bias—a sense of what you have to offer and where you fit in the competition. The more intense the competition the more important it is to have a decisive or “over the top” credential—and the more important it is for that credential to be authentic. This is when arguments on behalf of students with special talents, interests and perspectives begin to emerge.

Assuming the bias is favorable, readers quickly scan letters of recommendation to look for validation—evidence that supports the information on your application. Sometimes these letters provide an added dimension of understanding regarding your performance. This insight can be very powerful.

As the selection process moves into March, the focus turns to the students who remain on the “bubble” or the margin of the competition. Questions such as “What is the likelihood that she will enroll if we take her?” and “How are his third marking period grades?” and “Are we sure we will get a good return on our investment if we give him that much financial aid?” dominate the deliberations. While candidates at opposite ends of the competitive spectrum are sorted quickly and easily, those in the middle continue to get lots of attention as the process winds down.

Complicating this process is the impact of the readers’ personalities in the decision-making as well as the collective accountability for creating a freshman class that will further the university’s aims. All of this, along with the pressure to make fine distinctions between excellent candidates, leads to the widespread notion that the selection process is neither “fair” nor “logical.”

In truth, the process can be very arbitrary. If, however, you have applied to colleges that represent good fits for you—places that value you for what you do well—you should find yourself in possession of happy outcomes when the decision letters arrive!

A critical element to college access for most families is financial aid. This was true long before the current economic crisis took over our collective consciousness. Now, however, families of all means find themselves in search of assistance as college costs mount and personal liquidity diminishes.

The good news for families of college-bound students is there is institutionally awarded money to be found. It just might not be where you would expect to find it. You see colleges and universities are not doling out financial aid indiscriminately. Rather, they are directing aid, both need and merit-based, to the students whom they value most.

As a result, the questions of “who gets how much” and “why” loom large on the horizon as families make enrollment decisions.

Historically, the concept of “expected family contribution” was at the heart of the financial aid process. To receive assistance from a college, a student needed to demonstrate that his/her family was not able to cover the full costs of attending. Financial aid was intended to make up the difference—to bridge the gap.

While the basic process for “demonstrating need” remains in place, it is an increasingly bureaucratic exercise that does little more than determine a student’s eligibility for funding from the state and federal governments. The degree to which an institution elects to extend itself financially to a young person is increasingly a function of the latter’s desirability regardless of “demonstrated need.” As a result, many financial aid programs feature hybrid award programs (need and merit-based) that reflect the agendas of the awarding institution.

The upshot of all this for families is that it is harder to anticipate actual college costs. Unless you are able to receive an estimate of your expected family contribution (EFC) directly from the financial aid office of the schools to which you are applying, anticipating college costs will be a guessing game. And, even with such an estimate, you can’t proceed with certainty.

In the final analysis, your EFC is what a college or university wants it to be. The distinction between need-based and merit-based aid is sufficiently blurred at many schools so that it is often difficult to measure the true impact of the EFC in the awarding of financial aid.

I mention this because a lot of families are turning to online tools, including estimators provided by colleges themselves, to begin calibrating their EFC’s. These estimators are constructed with generic qualifiers that don’t reflect the various agendas that come into play as colleges decide whom they want to target with offers of admission and financial aid.

As you begin to develop strategies for anticipating and managing college costs, do so with your eyes wide open. The decision to admit and support a student with financial aid is a calculated decision that is often driven by the student’s desirability to the institution.

In my next “Web-Side Chat” with Best College Fit Members on Monday, February 16 at 7:00 PM (ET) I will take an inside look at the Estimated Family Contribution and provide insight as to how you can position yourself to compete for the best financial aid award possible. You can join the conversation by becoming a BCF Member.