Collegewise

All Hail the Pope

Frequent readers of Wise Like Us will recognize the name Loren Pope and his book Colleges That Change Lives.  We love his refreshing perspective and laud his efforts to shine the spotlight on gems of higher education that eschew US News rankings and elitist notions.  I just had to share this profile of the man, Loren Pope, himself.  I love about 90% of what he says.  The 10% that I disagree with is his disdain for those Ivy League universities that are "too big, too impersonal and too selective."  From firsthand experience as a graduate of Columbia, one of those elite colleges, I did not feel that it was too big nor impersonal.  I always fondly remember my freshman year Literature Humanities class, a twice weekly hour and a half discussion about subjects like why Achilles was so headstrong in The Iliad and what Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse was saying about male and female relationships.  In that class, and many others like my East Asian Humanities Colloquium and my Swedish class (a course with only 3 students!  Talk about small class sizes...), the professor was an equal in our discussions and even outside of class--that Literature Humanities professor invited the entire group to her small apartment for traditional Polish cuisine and my East Asian Hum prof held an end of semester fete at his humble abode as well.  Visitors to award winning and published professors' office hours were encouraged.  Students were even given the funds to take a professor to lunch at the fancy Faculty House dining room.  Are Ivy League colleges too selective?  Yes, I think they are.  And I agree with everything else Mr. Pope says. 

(Hey, I have to defend my alma mater, right?)

A little quirkiness goes a long way

Few people would argue that the college admissions process has spiraled out of control.  Somewhere along the line, the system was broken and no one stopped to fix it.  Well, until now.  Today, National Public Radio's seven part series on college admissions dealt with the complexities of the college essay and the tactics that some colleges are employing to glean more from the stories that applicants send in.  I applaud Tufts University for reevaluating exactly what these college essays achieve.  Instead of generic topics that elicit typical responses about a summer spent finding oneself in Israel or how working at the soup kitchen shows leadership, Tufts optional extra essays encourage applicants to compose short stories that truly showcase who they are and how they think.  At Collegewise, we always tell our students that the essay topics elucidate a lot about what the college is looking for.  With Tufts, applicants should know that the University wants complex students who are thinkers and leaders and who will bring something interesting to campus.  It's a "show don't tell" approach--instead of espousing how 3000 hours of community service made you a leader, show how being a leader is ingrained in how you think.  I wish that Tufts would make their interesting questions mandatory.  I was a little disappointed with the University of Chicago for making its famous quirky questions optional.  Those questions offer such insight into the ideal student for Chicago!  When my students express an interest in that University, I immediately show them the essay questions.  If they're freaked out by a topic like, "Don't play what's there, play what's not there" then they shouldn't apply to the school.  BUT if they light up with excitement over those quirky topics, then that is the right match. 

Smiles and snow drifts

There are many reasons why a visit to Michigan in the middle of February could be miserable--the snow, the cold, the overcast skies concealing the sun for months on end.  But after I gushed about Calvin College in the July 2006 college spotlight, wishing that they'd fly me out for their famous Fridays at Calvin visit program, I found myself with airline tickets to the small Christian college's Grand Rapids, Michigan campus.  (Note to colleges: if you want to fly any of us here at Collegewise to your campus, we'll do it.  New Mexico in the middle of summer?  Sure.  We love heat.  Alaska in January.  Bring it.  We have warm jackets.)

Calvin doesn't hide what it is--it's cold and dreary in the winter, the buildings aren't architectural marvels, and at its core is Christianity.  But none of the students I saw trudging through the snow seemed to care about the chill or that they weren't surrounded by ivy covered Gothic buildings.  I'd never seen a campus with so many smiling faces.  At the worship service, crossing the commons, sitting in a political science class--all smiles.  One current student (coincidentally hailing from Southern California) even confessed that she was skeptical about Calvin before she visited.  But then she make the cross country trek for Fridays at Calvin and saw exactly what I saw.  She didn't need pretty buildings and year-round sun because she knew that Calvin would fit her for exactly who she is.

Honesty and Senioritis

Seniors have undoubtedly heard that an admissions decision from a college can be revoked if a severe case of senioritis results in an academic decline.  But this month’s edition UC Notes Digest reminds students that it is their responsibility to report such an academic decline immediately. In fact, doing so might even help your case.

Think of it like this. You wrecked the family car.  The good news is that nobody was hurt.  The bad news is that the car is totaled and there’s nothing you can do that will make that fact go away.  Which smarter move?  Immediately tell your parents everything that happened, or keep it to yourself and wait for the inevitable day when they notice that the family car hasn’t been seen in weeks?

Easy one.  Tell your parents. Immediately.  At least you’ll get credit for being honest. 

This article isn’t saying that just being honest makes the academic decline OK, but it’s a lot better than sitting quietly and hoping that the admissions offices don’t notice that your grade in AP calculus was totaled beyond repair.

The Great Chill Out

The other day, one of my students arrived at our meeting looking like she'd pulled three all-nighters in a row while standing in the middle of a hurricane.  Her face was pale, she had dark circles under her eyes, and her usually bubbly personality was nowhere to be found.  I asked her why she looked so harried.  She recounted the three papers that were due in her AP US History class, the pop quizzes she had "failed" in AP English, the endless problem sets in AP Calculus, and the marathon practices her cheerleading coach was insisting upon.  This was a problem.  Sure, high school is about doing well in school and activities, but it is also about being a teenager.  And my student looked much more like a middle-aged workaholic than a bright, beaming 17 year old.  Someone must take notice of this, I thought.  Schools cannot allow their students to be dragged through the mud like this.

what 2do and not 2do

My wife interviews freshman applicants for one of those Ivy League schools everybody wants to go to.  Last week, she got her list of applicants to contact and promptly sent each of them a personal email inviting them to schedule their interviews. 

So far, only one student has responded to her email.

If you’re a senior who just applied to college, congratulations—you’ve done the hard part.  But you're not really done yet.  Colleges routinely contact applicants by mail and email asking you for additional information (or to schedule interviews), and you need to make sure you respond promptly and appropriately.

Here at Collegewise, we remind our students:

1. On your college applications, list an email address that you check regularly (and by “regularly,” I mean at least once a day).  And if your email address is something like wildncrazypartygirl@yahoo, get a new email address. 

2. Once you submit your applications, open every piece of mail and read every email a college sends you. Just because it's not yet time to expect a decision doesn't mean that mail or email isn't important. 

3.   If a college asks you to send anything, to respond to anything, or take any action, do it right away.  Don’t rush to the point you get careless, but remember, once you apply to a college, you’re pretty much on stage.  Lagging in your response time doesn’t show a burning desire to attend.

4.   And when communicating with a college rep over email, remember that this is a professional correspondence; you are not text messaging a friend.  Spell carefully and use punctuation.  Do not compose sentences like “i really hope 2b at Princeton next fall! see u soon!”

Colleges (and my wife) are reasonable.  They’re not going to ding a kid just because he took an extra day to respond to an email.  But they’re also human, after all.  I won’t speak for my wife, but I know I would already like the kid who responded right away.  And the kid who wrote me, "sorry i'm writing u back so late i have been soooo busy w/ school," wouldn't make such a good impression.