Collegewise

Simple Things You Can Do to Help You Get into College

Even colleges often appreciate the simple things in life. Here are five simple things you can do that will make admissions officers take notice.

1. Get a job
No, we don't necessarily mean a high-profile internship or a fancy sounding job at your dad's law firm. We mean a regular job, like washing cars, waiting tables, or stocking inventory. Finding, getting, and keeping a job takes initiative, responsibility and hard work, and a kid who earns an honest dollar flipping burgers is always appealing to colleges.

Five College Planning Mistakes Parents Must Avoid

It’s normal for parents to want to help. And kids need your support during what can be a stressful process. But make sure you don’t make these common mistakes (all of which are made with the best of intentions).

1. Don't get involved with the college essays
Parents think and write differently than kids do.  That’s why when a parent helps too much with a college essay, it is almost always glaringly apparent to an admissions officer.  Let your student take the lead and write what she wants to write.  And while you stay hands-off, encourage your kids to seek feedback from an English teacher or counselor who knows them well.

New Recruits

A lot of high school students feel inadequate in the face of this whole college admissions process.  If ONLY they could throw a pigskin ball the length of a football field, then it'd be four years dominating the LA Coliseum at USC.  Or if only they had a shiny Olympic gold medal as a souvenir of their lightning fast swimming of the 50 freestyle, they'd be making white water in the pool at the University of Texas.  It is true that recruited athletes receive preferential treatment from admissions offices.  And I'm not going to sugarcoat anything here--it is highly unlikely that I would have been admitted to Columbia if I hadn't been kind of fast at swimming.  But this article brings up an interesting idea about recruiting students who have creative writing chops, musical prowess, engineering genius, and so on.  Sure, admissions officers do this to some extent while visiting high schools and college fairs, but taking it to another level--having liaisons between the admissions office and the orchestra, say--would create a more diverse and interesting student body, helping those applicants who devote as much time to things like student government as those who spend their days on the baseball diamond perhaps.

Out with the Old

Sometimes traditions need a little spring cleaning.  Take standardized tests for example.  So much has been said denouncing the tests' legitimacy in gauging an applicant's academic abilities, especially for those students who are at a deficit in terms of test preparation and high school curriculum.  At Collegewise, we always say that the numbers can't convey personality and individuality to an admissions office.  I firmly believe that and have seen amazing things happen for students who were creative writing virtuosos, accomplished athletes, and pre-Picassos who just didn't have the best test scores.  The results of one Saturday spent filling in bubbles on a test sheet could never convey a person's potential contributions to a college.  This article demonstrates that many colleges are seeing this light as well.  True learning arises from growth and change, right?  Well, with respect to standardized tests, it looks like a number of colleges are saying out with the old (judging applicants with the SAT and ACT) and in the with new (the true holistic approach).

Pirates and Longhorns

One thing we learned on the trip is how varied the Texas weather can be.  Despite the flash flood warnings on the morning news, we started the two-hour drive south towards Georgetown, a small town just north of Austin and home to our first stop, Southwestern University.  (See it here.)

This small school of about 1,300 offers its students an amazing and intimate academic experience on a campus that’s just about the prettiest we’ve ever seen.  Southwestern is the oldest university in Texas, dating back to 1840 when it was known as Texas University.  The school later relinquished that name to the state so that the UT system could be formed, but it remains true to its school motto, Not Who but What. Students are adamant about their liberal arts education at Southwestern.  Southwestern is a member of a group of about 40 colleges profiled by former New York Times education editor Loren Pope in the book Colleges that Change Lives.  That book was just the thing that piqued our tour guide’s attention for the school.  As a Seattle, Washington native, she applied to Southwestern seeking warmer climes and small classes.  After a visit to campus, she was hooked and doesn’t mind that Georgetown, Texas is the epitome of a small town.  There’s so much to do on campus that she rarely feels compelled to venture out to the local Target and movie theater.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Texans and Aggies and Bears, Oh My!

We woke up on day two of our Texas trip to pouring rain. The only thing that could lure us out of bed at 6 a.m. was an early morning breakfast at the famous Waffle House, where we feasted on eggs with the locals. After breakfast, we bid farewell to Dallas, and headed south to our first stop of the day, Baylor University. (See the tour here.)

When we reached Waco about two hours later, the rain had subsided just in time for our Baylor tour. It started out in the Visitor Center, which was more like a cozy ski lodge than an admissions office. But then again, everything at Baylor seems to go above and beyond what is typically expected. Their homecoming parade is the largest college parade in the country, their “fun pool” has a 12 person Jacuzzi, a lazy river, and gigantic water slide, and the Office of the President sits under a roof with a 24-carat gold-plated cupola. All of this goes to prove that Baylor, situated in a small town in the middle of Texas, is anything but ordinary.

The Art of the Graduation Speech

Every year around this time, a few of our Collegewise kids ask us to look over the graduation speeches they’ve written so we can “give them feedback.” And every year, our most important feedback is that they not write the standard high school graduation speech. I know that standard speech well. In fact, every kid in America who writes a high school graduation speech seems to say the same three things.

1. “We’ve come so far in just four years.”

2. “We’ve endured good times and bad, but we’ve done so together.”

3. “Now we’re going off into our futures, but we’re well prepared thanks to our wonderful high school.”

There’s nothing wrong with those messages. In fact, those are entirely appropriate thoughts to share. But the rules we teach for great college essays all apply here.  Don’t say what everybody else says exactly how they say it.  Be honest.  Be specific.  Be forceful.  Say something meaningful.  Don’t resort to quotes or clichés.