Wise Like Us

Minding the Gap

One of the more interesting trends happening in the college world is an increasing trend in the "gap" year.  It's when a high school senior takes a year off between graduation and the start of their college years.  In England and some other European countries, it's a wildly popular option.  Typically, students spend the year traveling abroad, volunteering locally, or just working an honest-to-goodness job. Colleges love the kids who take a year off before starting school. Study after study shows they come back more focused and more mature. They're better students and more involved with the campus community. (And, frankly, for the colleges, they're better investments if they might be spending thousands of dollars in financial aid on them.) 

Harvard loves them so much, they go so far as to strongly encourage their students to take one.  Nearly 10% do.  You can read their dean of admissions, Bill Fitzsimmons, explain exactly why here.  But as Ivy League rivalries go, Princeton just seriously one-upped them.

The One Thing You Need To Know About...

The more advice you're given about college admissions, the more complicated the whole process seems.  So this month, we picked some of the most common college admissions topics and, for each one, asked ourselves, "What's the one thing a student really needs to know about this?"  Read one to find five of those of those one-things.      

1.  College Essays

Don't write what you think the colleges want to hear.  You'll inevitably end up writing about how community service taught you that it's important to help people, or how your trip to Spain taught you to appreciate different cultures.  And those are the essays that everybody writes. 

Notes from the Abyss...

Apparently the new trend in admissions is writing "thank you" notes.   Enough so that the New York Times decided to publish an entire article about it.  While we do encourage our students to write thank you notes when appropriate, I found much of the article cringe-worthy.  For example:

"Take the one that came with M & Ms to match Lehigh University’s school colors of brown and white, and with the applicant’s name inscribed on the candy. She thanked officials for her interview, adding, “Keep me on the tip of your tongue when reviewing applications.”

Groan.

Like so much in the admissions process, let Common Sense guide you.  If you truly had a wonderful experience speaking with an admissions officer while visiting a campus, absolutely drop them a line.  If a tour guide really did an exceptional job, let them know.  Everyone loves a well-deserved thanks but mandating good manners doesn't really work.  If a mom nags her kid to write a thank you card, it shows and the words ring hollow.  Admissions officers spend far too much of their time reading very personal writing to not know when something is forced or not heartfelt.  And of course, save the M & Ms for Halloween.  (Unless, of course, you're sending me a thank you note--I prefer Reese's Pieces.)

Not The Same Old Back-To-School Advice

Get good grades.  Get involved.  Get good test scores.  It's all good advice.  But it's advice you've probably heard before... a lot.  As students head back to school, here are five bits of Collegewise admissions advice to help you get in to college that might be new for you. 

1.  Practice the art of participating in class.

Raise your hand.  Ask questions.  Participate in classroom discussions.  Colleges don't want students who just plow through courses and get good grades; they want students who are engaged in class, who like to learn, and who make contributions by participating.  In fact, that's why colleges ask for letters of recommendation from your teachers--to learn if you've demonstrated these qualities.    

I am not a tuba player. And I'm OK with that.

When we go to college admissions conferences, we'll always attend any session in which Bruce Poch, Dean of Admissions from Pomona College, is participating.  He's outspoken, honest, and refreshingly forthright.  With so much mystery surrounding the admissions process, it's nice to hear from a decision maker who's comfortable discussing what admissions officers look for--and what drives them crazy--when reading applications. 

His article in Newsweek this week makes the process seem so complex, and with good reason--it is.  A lot of parents and students make themselves crazy trying to decipher exactly what combination of grades and test scores and activities will guarantee admission.  But that magic combination doesn't exist.  Poch reminds students that while there are no guarantees, you're always better off just being yourself.

Are they really safeties?

The starting gate for the college application season is ready to open. Rising seniors are busily fine tuning their reach, target and safety schools.  Word of caution...last year's safeties might just be this year's targets and reaches!  According to the NY Times Education Life supplement from July 29, 2007, it might be time to rethink which schools could really be considered safeties. 

College Research is about to Get Easier!

I think we'd all agree that The Common Application is amazing. It has helped streamline the college application process, and we love when new schools decide to join "The Common App party." Well, a common website is about to make the research part of things even easier too.

A recent article by the New York Times looks at a new website that is currently in the testing stage. Any institution that decides to participate will be given a colorful, two-page site where they can share their information in the form of charts and graphics. Sweet!

Too much of a good thing

As a college counselor, I think that the Common Application is a wonderful tool.  It simplifies the process and eliminates the tedious task of creating 8 different applications for 8 different schools.  I believe that the Common Application works perfectly in tandem with careful college matchmaking and knowing exactly why a student is applying to each school.  But it does a disservice to both the students and the institutions when applicants spam, say, 20 schools with their application just because it's easy to select colleges with the click of a mouse.  This article concerns me about the advent of the Universal College Application, the Common Application's competitor.  I'm not sure that what is needed is greater ease of applying to a greater number of schools.  More is not better when it comes to college applications.  If anything in the college application process should be done to excess, it is the researching and evaluating of the colleges on a student's list.  I worry that these mass applications are turning high school students into college consumers as opposed to bright individuals who are mining for the best matched place to spend the next 4 years.

U.S. News Rankings= Collegiate Beauty Contest

  Well, if we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times at Collegewise... "don't give much credence to the U.S. News and World Report's survey of top American colleges." It seems that the presidents of some of the nation's top liberal arts colleges are finally in agreement with Collegewise. I guess you could say they're finally wise like us.

In a recent CNN Article, the title alone explains how colleges view the report: Many American Colleges Balk at U.S. News Rankings. A number of collegiate presidents met in Annapolis this week to discuss a possible boycott of the U.S. News and World Report's reputation survey, which asks academic leaders to rate other colleges. Their survey responses then become approximately 25 percent of the school's ranking in the U.S. News' article. But many school presidents agree that the results do not provide any educationally valid research. A director at Sarah Lawrence College called the reputation survey nothing more than a "collegiate beauty contest that is not a valid basis for judging the quality o f education."

Extra! Extra! "Regular Kids" Still Get In!

Whenever we preach that kids can be regular teenagers and get into college, we always like to say that they can play guitar and work at the grocery store rather than paddle down the Amazon and cure athletes' foot.  Those latter hyperboles tend to change depending upon our mood, but the guitar and grocery store are old standbys for us to show how regular kids with real passion are very appealing to colleges.

Imagine our delight at reading about Kevin Robinson in today's New York Times, and 18 year-old senior in Pennsylvania who did exactly those things and is going to The George Washington University.  He even wrote his essay about how much he likes Parliament Funkadelic.

And this blogger will openly admit that he's accused the New York Times of only printing the bad news about college admissions.  Thanks for showing us the good side!