Deciding on the College to Attend

You have been through the stressful and at times grueling application process. Once your applications were mailed, you began the long waiting period for admissions decisions, but now the decisions are up to you. You have received multiple offers of admissions, you are excited about many of them, and you are feeling great that your accomplishments have been recognized.

You have several wonderful college choices, but now you ask yourself where you will get the best education and at the same time find happiness. It’s now the middle of April and the deadline of May 1st to respond to the college of your choice is fast approaching.

So how do you decide?

If you have already visited these colleges you have a better idea, so go back to your notes on each visit. Go to the colleges’ websites and search for whatever it was that you liked in the first place when you decided to apply. If that doesn’t help, then visit the campuses again. You’ll have a much different perspective this time. If you have not visited, now is the time to make those trips, even if it means taking a few days off from school.

Many colleges have specific days for admitted students. If you can visit on one of these days, then by all means do it. If you can’t, then make another visit on your own. Go through the course schedule and find a couple of classes you would like to attend at each college, and make arrangements to sit in on these classes. Call admissions and schedule an overnight in the dorm. Once you are at the college, talk with students and faculty, have a meal or two in the dining hall, attend classes, and if you have arranged to stay overnight, attend a social activity in the evening. If you’re an athlete, meet with a coach, and talk with members of the team. If you’re interested in a particular program, meet with the advisor of that program, and talk with student members.

While on campus make the most of your visit, and try to picture yourself there as a student. Do you feel comfortable walking around campus? Do you think it will be easy to make friends? Are there certain characteristics of this college that are attractive to you? Do you feel at home on campus? Is this campus what you imagined your college experience to be? While your parents, friends, counselor and teachers have all given you their advice, ultimately, this is your decision. You are the one who has to spend the next four years at this college. So relax, and go with your instincts, the decision is not as complicated as you may think.

Harvard College Shame on You!

The administrators at Harvard College should take a course in business planning at Dartmouth’s Tuck School because obviously they haven’t learned anything from what’s being taught at HBS.

The deadline for applications for transfer students for fall 2008 was February 15th but a few days before the 15th it was announced that the deadline was extended to February 16th. Now, over a month after applications were due, it has been announced that the college is not accepting transfer students for the next two years. Just yesterday, March 20th, Harvard's Director of Transfer Admissions, Marlene Vergara Rotner, emailed applicants with this news.

Harvard administrators attribute this decision to a lack of available housing. While the college doesn’t require students who enter as freshmen to live on campus for all four years, they do require transfer students to reside on campus for the entire period of their undergraduate studies.

Since the stock of available dorm space has not changed for some time, I wonder how Harvard administrators could not have come to this decision before they made transfer applications available for the upcoming 2008-2009 school year.

Students invest their hearts, minds and scores of hours in writing essays for a Harvard application. If these administrators had to come to this conclusion so late in the process, couldn't they have at least continued to accept transfers for one more year? Then, when they made public their decision to not accept transfer applications for the subsequent year or two, there would have been fewer casualties. This would have been the kinder and more responsible thing to do, and much more in line with what one would expect from an institution such as Harvard.

The following is Harvard’s Transfer Admission Announcement posted March 20, 2008:

“Harvard College will be unable to enroll any transfer students for the next two academic years, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. Following the most thorough examination of its residential housing in Harvard's history, the Dean of Harvard College, Professor David Pilbeam, has concluded that the Harvard Houses cannot successfully accommodate any new transfer students. Instead, the College has embarked on a planning process for substantial capital investment to renovate and revitalize its residential spaces.

In important respects, undergraduate education at Harvard College is residential in character. Students learn a great deal from the residential experience and contact with one another, complementing the experience of classrooms and laboratories. Harvard does not admit transfer students to non-residential status.

The College offers a Visiting Undergraduate Program, which enables students to enroll in Harvard College for academic credit at their home institutions. Visiting Undergraduates are not ordinarily offered College housing, and they are not permitted subsequently to transfer to Harvard as degree candidates.”

Expensive Summer Programs

Back in the nineteenth century, French novelist Alphonse Karr was quoted as saying: “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" which roughly translates to "the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

I couldn’t help but think of this quote as I read “Pricey summer programs raise fairness questions” in yesterday’s edition of the Boston Globe.

The following are excerpts from this article that hopefully will help parents and students as they consider the value of expensive summer programs:

"College admissions officers say they certainly have to weigh an applicant's internships or farflung adventures. But a student can have an extraordinary experience in variety of ways, not all of which cost money, they note. Bill Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard University, said high-priced internships can be 'wonderful experiences,' but 'in and of themselves, they will not give a student an advantage in the admissions process because the playing field is not level. The substantial majority of high school students cannot afford to do these things. I think there are many people now who understand there are plenty of activities, for example, working a full-time job in the summer or volunteer activities, that don't have to be in Tanzania - they can be right down the street.'"

"Gil Villanueva, dean of admissions at Brandeis University in Waltham, said that travel abroad used to be impressive but is now 'commonplace.' His school looks for students who - whether they travel or not - show a desire to contribute to society, he said. He casts a careful eye on an application if a student has traveled across the globe but is not active in his or her community, Villanueva said. 'While I think that's exciting in terms of what that person might add to the campus, it might not be nearly as much as the individual who committed hours and hours in working for their local chapter of Habitat for Humanity or worked on their Eagle Scout project to enhance a park.'"

In recent years these expensive summer programs have become more pervasive. Parents are paying thousands of dollars for their college bound children to enhance their extracurricular involvements, while students are finding more exotic places in which to do community service. Then there are those parents who are actually paying for their children to participate in non-paid internships. What students and parents fail to understand is that these pricey programs can sometimes do more harm than good because they highlight how the family's affluence unfairly tilts the playing field.

What The Ivy Coach wrote in our June 15, 2007 blog, “Community Service as a Factor in Admissions” still holds true: Students need to be creative, to think outside the box. They need to do something different, something that will attract attention. Students don’t have to spend $6,000 to travel to the Fiji Islands to work with preschoolers or construct a nursing station. Through their school, synagogue, church, and together with their friends, or even on their own, students can do something very significant in their own community.

Study Abroad Freshman Year...A New Trend?

Admitted – Yes! .. but Freshman Year Must Be in Paris, London, Florence, Madrid…

With more students applying to college than ever before and with each of those students submitting more applications than in previous years, college administrators are finding new and innovative ways of not rejecting qualified applicants. By offering these prospective freshman an acceptance contingent upon them spending their first year abroad is becoming more common for some highly selective colleges. According to last week’s Wall Street Journal article, “More Students Head Overseas in Freshman Year,” colleges such as NYU, Middlebury, Colby, Hamilton and others, have employed this program.

So is this a new trend in college admissions? Perhaps. In the past, study abroad programs have typically been for juniors. While very few college administrators will admit it, by sending freshman to study abroad, they alleviate overcrowding in the dorms. Then when these study abroad students return for their sophomore year, they fill the spots vacated by students who have transferred out.

Studying abroad certainly does have its perks. One perk in particular is that students are immersed in the language and culture of the country, and learn to speak that language fluently. On the downside study abroad programs can be very expensive, especially in a time when the US dollar is severely deflated. For some students, being exiled to Europe is not what they imagined their initial college experience to be. When students are eager to bond with their classmates their first year, that’s not going to happen in a study abroad program where only a few freshman are enrolled. For some parents, studying abroad can present another concern. With no minimum drinking age outside of the US, spending freshman year overseas may not be all that appropriate for their immature and inexperienced 18 year old.

This may not be the ideal college experience, but it can be the opportunity for many students to attend the school of their dreams.

With a Surge in Applications,
Do Admissions Counselors Actually Read Each Application?

According to an article in today’s New York Times, “Applications to selective colleges and universities are reaching new heights this year, promising another season of high rejection rates and dashed hopes for many more students.”

“Harvard said Wednesday that it had received a record number of applicants — 27,278 — for its next freshman class, a 19 percent increase over last year. Other campuses reporting double-digit increases included the University of Chicago (18 percent), Amherst College (17 percent), Northwestern University (14 percent) and Dartmouth (10 percent)… Princeton received a record 20,118 applicants, up 6 percent…”

All too often I hear from a parent who is convinced that with the sheer volume of applications received at highly selective colleges, there is no way that admission counselors read through every application. Yet, from conferences I have attended, and from literature I have received, I believe that they do.

After admissions counselors review the student’s grade point average, course work, and standardized test results, the personal statements, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation need to be dynamic and different enough for the college to admit that student.

Last spring, when an admissions counselor from Duke University wrote in an acceptance letter in February (three months earlier than usual) to one of The Ivy Coach’s students that she was very impressed about how the student combined his passion for music with his dedication to community service, I knew that Duke looked beyond the student’s less than stellar grades and SAT scores, and read his application thoroughly. In four separate essays, without being too boastful or too shy, the student wrote about different aspects of his life, exhibiting his true passions. In a tightly woven fabric, by taking threads from each of his essays, he gave Duke’s admissions counselors a glimpse into his life and submitted an exceptional application.

While grades, courses and standardized test grades are always going to be significant factors in the admissions process, the other parts of the application (the essays, activity sheet, letters of recommendation and in some cases, the interview) can sometimes make all the difference between an acceptance and a denial.

Are You a Helicopter Parent?

According to Wikipedia a 21st Century term “helicopter parent” refers to “a person who pays extremely close attention to his or her child or children, particularly at educational institutions. They rush to prevent any harm or failure from befalling them or letting them learn from their own mistakes, sometimes even contrary to the children's wishes. They are so named because, like a helicopter, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach whether their children need them or not. An extension of the term, "Black Hawks," has been coined for those who cross the line from a mere excess of zeal to unethical behavior such as writing their children's college admission essays.”

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retreived November 25, 2007 from www.wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent

Below are 20 questions for you to answer and find out if you are a “helicopter parent” in regard to the college admissions process.

1. Do all of your conversations with your child involve the college admissions process?
2. Do conversations that begin about something entirely different end up with college admissions as a focal point?
3. Do you listen to your child when you have conversations regarding college admissions?
4. Have you abandoned reading your usual novels and replaced them with college guides and books on how to gain admission?
5. Do you worry incessantly that your child will not be accepted at the college of his or her choice, or worse, the college of your choice?
6. Do you lose sleep because you’re concerned that your child is not doing enough to make himself / herself stand out in his / her class?
7. Do you have family meetings to brainstorm ways to make your child unique?
8. Do you talk with your friends about colleges?
9. Do you call or email admissions offices asking for information?
10. Do you schedule visits to colleges and make appointments for your child to meet with admissions counselors or other college representatives?
11. Are you concerned about what your child will write for personal statements and essays?
12. Do you keep an ongoing list of your child’s extra-curricular activities?
13. Do you continually ask your child to join more clubs or become more involved in activities?
14. Through your friends and colleagues at work, do you arrange internships for your child?
15. Do you communicate too often with your child’s guidance counselor, and think that you know more than your child’s counselor?
16. Do you communicate with your child’s teachers when you’re not happy with a grade your child has received?
17. Do you push your child to take more rigorous classes even if these classes may not be appropriate?
18. Are you making a list of colleges for your child without his / her input?
19. Would you be happy if your child was accepted and decided to attend a school that was not on your list?
20. In regard to the college admissions process and your child’s everyday educational and extracurricular pursuits, might your child say that you are way too involved?

If you have answered “yes” to 10 or more of these questions, then you are indeed a “helicopter parent” and you need help! Let an expert, The Ivy Coach, assist you and your child in the college admissions process and at the same time help maintain family harmony.

After the Application Is In

If you have written some powerful essays and personal statements, then it is very likely you have worked for weeks devoting countless hours to writing, researching, rewriting, tossing out, and starting all over again, and now, finally your applications have been submitted.

So what do you do now? Most students think they can sit back and wait, but if you want the admissions counselor who reads your application to get to know you beyond all this paper, then it’s important to connect with this person.

One of my students called me tonight to say that the assistant admissions director from ______, (one of the most selective colleges in the country) came to his school to speak with prospective applicants. He claims that he and the other seniors in the audience were made to feel inadequate by this person’s overt arrogance. He embarrassed several of them about questions they asked, he ridiculed one student, and questioned another student about a personal issue. To make matters worse, all of this was done in front of the other students and the attending college counselor.

No matter how egotistical your admissions rep. may seem, he/she is all you have right now, so learn to make the best of it. Try to connect with this person. However, test the waters slowly and carefully, making sure not to muddy them up.

It’s Time to Write Your Essays

Your parent has been on your case for the last few weeks now, school has just begun and you’re finding out that many of your friends have already written most of their essays. Your guidance counselor has called a meeting for all seniors and has warned you of last minute applications and getting your essay done asap. Reminders have come from all directions and you are now more stressed than ever. You haven’t a clue as to what to write about, and every topic you think about, you wonder if it has been done before.

Your essay is the only part of the application where you have complete control, so take advantage of it and express your individuality. Make the essay come alive and help the admissions counselors who read it understand who you are, and what’s important to you. Your essay should help an admissions counselor connect the dots between your grades, test scores, extracurricular involvements and letters of recommendation. Your essay should tell your story.

The perfect essay may not pop into your head overnight, and you will have to write several revisions, but if you think about the things you do, the passions you have and the talents you possess, you too can write a powerful essay.

Community Service as a Factor in Admissions

Hi Bev!

My name is Hannah Sentenac, and I'm with FoxNews.com. I am currently working on a story about student volunteering, and a part of the story is how participation in such activities factors into college admissions decisions, especially for the top colleges.

Below I've posted the questions I have. I would be happy to have them answered either over e-mail or the phone, whichever is easiest for you. Thanks a million!

Hannah Sentenac

Q. What types of volunteer work do you think is most prevalent among students today?

Many students list on their activity sheets some element of community service.  Perhaps they worked as hospital volunteer, or helped out in a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Though all of this is very noble, it also borders on the ordinary. It's when the student takes community service to a new level that it actually makes a difference.  When that student has a vision, an innovative idea, writes a grant, solicits funds, and enlists others that the student is seen as a leader, a mover and shaker, and then community service becomes a hook on the application. 

Q. Do you see a lot of students who have started their own community service groups? Do you think this type of entrepreneurial activism has increased in recent years?   

I’ve seen students try to do this, but for lack of imagination they end up joining an existing organization that, for example, may work to build homes in an impoverished South American country. Again, this is very noble, it’s also not uncommon. 

Q. What advice do you offer students about participating in community activism?  

Social networking websites have recently been a topic of conversation in college admissions. Thanks to Google, anything you write can be read by anyone! All a college admissions officer has to do is Google your name. That’s not to say that college admissions officers routinely Google every applicant’s name, but if something you say in an essay or about an activity listed on your activity sheet is questionable, an admissions counselor may turn to Google to get more information. “Most colleges do not look up students on these sites, but when other people draw attention to these possibly offensive blogs, then schools often take action.” Can you be sure that someone who has applied to the same college won’t submit your blog to an admissions officer at that college? My advice to students is not to post anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want a college admissions officer to read.

Here’s an article on NACAC’s site:

“Whether it’s through MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal, or Friendster, students are online—online sharing details with friends, online for everyone to see… Now, how would you feel if your teachers saw your site? A college admission officer?”

“Most colleges are not surfing the Web for your profile. However, when other people bring students’ blogging to their attention, schools do respond.”

“At least one college applicant was denied admission in part because of his blog on LiveJournal. The admission dean said the student’s blog, which was brought to his attention, included seemingly hostile comments about certain college officials.”

“Although blogs can be fun, remember that what you post is for public view, like broadcasting it on the six o’clock news. So when it’s time to apply for college, give your blog a second look to make sure you feel comfortable sharing everything you have posted with an admission officer and, later, with potential employers because your site becomes permanent, public information about you.”

“Now a kid who is applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton is also applying to the Lehighs and Lafayettes,” said Brett Levine, director of guidance at Madison High School in New Jersey. “It’s the same tier, basically.”

Lehigh and Lafayette in the same tier as Harvard, Yale or Princeton? No, Brett, Lehigh and Lafayette are not even close.

This latest NY Times article, “Ivy League Crunch Brings New Cachet to Next Tier,” is just another example of how a reporter makes the college admissions process ever so more stressful for students and parents.

What Alan Finder fails to say in this article is that more students are applying to college and they’re submitting a larger number of applications than ever before. Students who are applying to the highly selective colleges are also applying to colleges such as Lehigh, Lafayette, and Bucknell because they are uncertain as to their chances of admissions at their top choices. While this was not surprising to me, this past year one of my students was accepted at Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Tufts, and Columbia, and was waitlisted at Lehigh. The way I figured this to happen was that based on my student’s grades, scores, and extracurricular accomplishments, Lehigh’s admissions committee, with an eye towards their US News and World Report rankings in the area of student selectivity, waitlisted her because they figured if they accepted her it would be highly unlikely that she would attend. What the article also does not say is how some of these schools drown students with glossy unsolicited advertising materials just so students think they are being courted. The students then apply, the college rejects them, and the college moves up a notch in the rankings because of the selectivity factor. Articles such as Mr. Finder’s only add to the pressure on the student applicant.

Here's the article in its entirety.

Today when it was discovered that Marilee Jones, the Dean of Admissions at MIT, lied about her credentials 28 years ago it sent a shock wave through the college admissions community. According to her own statement on MIT’s website, Marilee apologizes:

“I have resigned as MIT's Dean of Admissions because very regrettably, I misled the Institute about my academic credentials. I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to MIT 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my resume when I applied for my current job or at any time since. I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the MIT community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities. I especially apologize to the Institute's leadership and to my extraordinary staff, whom I have every confidence will continue to deliver on the Institute's mission. This is the only public comment I wish to make at this personally difficult time and I hope my privacy will be respected."

While the college admissions community deeply admires and respects Marilee Jones for her efforts in depressurizing the college admissions process, it is with sadness that we learn of her deception. When colleges are holding students to the highest standards, when there are strict honor codes in place at high schools and colleges, when schools such as UC Berkeley do background checks on students, and when there are discipline questions on applications that students are required to answer truthfully, then I can certainly understand why students and parents would find it extremely difficult to find compassion for the Dean of Admissions at one of the most highly selective colleges in the country.

Perhaps, instead of judging her on her indiscretion, we need to applaud her for the work she’s done and for getting her message out to students, parents and colleges. If she is able to continue that work, then maybe, just maybe, this stressful process of college admissions can become just a little more sane.

Marilee Jones' statement can be found here.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Admissions Police Bolster Efforts to Uncover Fraud” Jon Weinbach discusses what can be a new trend in college admissions, the College Admissions Police.

“Before mailing out acceptance and rejection letters over the past week, thousands of colleges and graduate schools conducted their usual reviews of test scores, transcripts, and essays. But less publicly, admissions officers focused on something else: police databases, plagiarism checks, and reports by private-investigators.”

In my experience I have found most students to be very honest in giving information on their college applications, but every now and then a student will ask me, what if I embellish on the hours per week or weeks per year that I spend on an activity, what if I say that I was the president of a particular club, or that I invented this amazing gadget, or that I spent the summer cleaning Yala National Park in Sri Lanka? My answer is always the same. You don’t want to risk getting rejected because you lied on your application, no matter how small that lie may seem to you. You have to assume that a lie or an inconsistency on a college application can be found out. Let’s suppose that you write on your application that as a member of your school’s chess club, you are involved 20 hours per week, 40 weeks per year. Then another student from your school applies to the same college(s) and says that as a member of the same chess club, he is involved only 5 hours per week, and 20 weeks per year. While it might be easier to believe the applicant who includes less time on his activity sheet, it’s just as easy to call the school and speak with the guidance counselor who can then speak with the advisor of the chess club.

Sometimes it’s those insignificant details that can make a difference between an admissions acceptance or rejection. In his article, Weinbach goes on to say, "Admissions officials at the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley saw the desperation firsthand. In 2003, admissions director Jeff Pihakis tried to call an applicant to tell her she had gained admission. After several failed attempts, he reached a woman who gave him a cell phone number for the applicant. Looking again at the file, he saw the number he'd just been given matched the number the applicant had listed for a purported boss. That led Mr. Pihakis to uncover other fabrications, including false job titles and fake stationery for the sham company. The admissions staff ultimately investigated all 100 of the students it had admitted, uncovering four more applicants who had misrepresented themselves.

The next summer, Kroll approached the school about providing background checks. Since then, all accepted students have had to pass an "employment and background verification"--and pay a $65 fee--before enrolling. In the past four years, only one has been rejected. "We were hoping it would be a deterrent," says Mr. Pihakis. "And it has been."”

If you are lucky enough to gain acceptance to a college with your fabrications or exaggerations just imagine while you’re still a student you’re asked to leave the university because it was discovered that you lied on your application. Then just imagine, years after you graduate, the college finds out that you lied on your application and now your degree is revoked. Fabrications or exaggerations may come back to haunt you, and it’s just not worth the risk. Whether you’re writing essays, filling out your activity sheet, answering personal application information questions, reporting test scores, or interviewing, the best thing that you can do for yourself is to tell the truth.

The complete article can be found here.

While colleges look for the student’s depth as well as breadth of involvement, extracurricular activities should be great fun, but they should also be activities about which the student is passionate. When listing extracurricular involvements on a chart of the college application, there is room for the description of the activity, grades involved, position held, hours spent per week, weeks spent per year, and honors earned. In the end, this activity chart should give an admissions counselor a glimpse into the lifestyle and personality of the applicant. It should list the student’s passions, primary interests and commitments.

When reviewing applications, admissions committees do not want to see serial joiners with an activity sheet that is a laundry list of clubs showing attendance at one hour meetings per week. The activity sheet should rather show that the applicant has a deep evolving commitment of specific interests over the high school years.

Students need to consider the activities they do each day, the activities they are passionate about, and the activities they plan on pursuing in college. Extracurricular experiences which show dedication should be further discussed and highlighted in short essays and personal statements.

This blog was used as our June newsletter. An excerpt..."Whatever it is that you plan to do during your summer break, you need to make plans in the early spring. So think about what it is that you enjoy the most and then do something where you can further develop your talents, skills and interests."

Bev,

I am writing an article for the New York Times on the growing number of companies that offer search engines to help high school students come up with a list of potential colleges. Many are set up as kind of electronic guidance counselors. Princeton Review, for instance, offers "Counselor-O-Matic." Kaplan, Peterson's.com and the College Board itself offer similar services. Basically, the students enter criteria - how big a school they want, whether they want an urban, suburban or rural setting, what region or regions they'd like to be in, majors offered, etc. Most also include a selectivity rating, and an option to enter the student's own grade point average and SAT scores. The search engine then generates a list of colleges. Some search engines are more refined than others; some also break the list down into "reaches" "good matches" or "safeties." 

My questions:

- In what ways can these services be helpful?

- What are the various aspects that (human) guidance counselors can bring to the college search process that can not be replicated by an electronic search? 

Thanks so much for any help you can give me with this.

Sincerely,

Kate  

Hi Kate,

The electronic search engines certainly solve a function, but I find that students who are just beginning with the search process don’t always know the criteria to input in these searches and that can be problematic. As an independent college counselor, I discuss in more depth the different criteria in selecting appropriate colleges. I also encourage my students to read about specific colleges on the school’s website and in books such as, The Fiske Guide to Colleges and Princeton Review’s Best Colleges. From colleges in which my students seem interested, colleges that I feel would be appropriate matches based on their academics, talents, personality, values, goals, and colleges where their chances of admission are realistic, I then encourage them to visit those schools. A visit includes attending an information session, taking the tour, sitting in on classes, meeting with a particular coach or director, and if possible, spending an overnight in the dorm.   

After my students visit a few colleges, I find that they seem to have a better grasp on what it is that they’re looking for, and know a little more about what they like and what they don’t. From there I offer them suggestions on other colleges that have similar characteristics.  The next step is to make subsequent visits, and to continue the discussion.  So, yes, the human element of a college counselor is necessary in helping a student through the search process. 

I hope this helps.  Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

~Bev

More about early decision…

There’s an interesting article posted February 8, 2007 on News@Princeton by Cass Cliatt “Princeton sets third consecutive applications record.”

In Princeton University’s last early decision class, (at least for right now), another new record has been set. Applications are up from last year 2 percent in early decision, and 9% in regular decision.

In November 2006, Princeton received 2,276 applications for early decision and in December admitted 597 candidates. The students who were accepted under the early decision agreement comprise 48% of the 1,245 students of Princeton’s class of 2011.

In Princeton’s regular decision pool, another 16,615 applications were received. Of those applicants, Princeton will admit only 648 students. This number includes any early decision applicants who had been deferred..

Applying to Princeton in the fall of 2008 will be different for wanna-a-be Tigers because there won’t be an early decision option. The elimination of early decision was instituted in an effort to create a less stressful admissions process and because Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman felt that early decision was a disadvantage to students who were not aware of the advantages.

In a letter posted September 18, 2006 on News@Princeton, President Tilghman states "We agree that early admission 'advantages the advantaged’. Although we have worked hard in recent years to increase the diversity of our early decision applicants, we have concluded that adopting a single admission process is necessary to ensure equity for all applicants. We believe that elimination of early admission programs can reduce some of the frenzy, complexity and inequity in a process that even under the best of circumstances is inevitably stressful for students and their families.”

Time will tell whether Princeton officials will reinstate some form of early admissions. The application process for the fall of 2008 (the class of 2012), should be very interesting to watch. It’s our guess that in a year, or maybe two, Princeton will have an early action option. If they truly don’t want to ‘advantage the advantaged,’ they will not revert back to early decision, but early action makes sense both for Princeton and for its applicant pool.

When colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia announced that they will be dropping their early admissions programs, high school students, parents, and college counselors began to wonder if this was the beginning of a new trend in admissions, and that perhaps more colleges were going to follow this lead. The University of Delaware dropped their early decision policy for fall 2006 applicants. In an op-ed article in the New York Times on September 27, 2006, entitled "Applied Science," Stanford Provost John Etchemendy gave his comments. You can read his letter at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/finaid/News.html.  

While early decision options at colleges cannot benefit students who plan on comparing financial aid offers, early action options at colleges can.  The difference is that early decision is a binding contract and students who are admitted under this plan must withdraw all other applications and may not submit any additional applications. However, students who apply under the early action plan have until May 1st to decide which college they want to attend.

So the question remains, why would a college that has an early action policy, want to abandon this practice?  I believe that it is very unlikely that more colleges with early action policies are going to follow Harvard’s lead.  The situation for colleges with an early decision option may be different, and it is my belief that they will keep their current early decision policies in tact.  The bottom line is that colleges loved to be loved.  They want to know that if they have a student who has applied, that student will definitely attend. While Provost Etchemendy says that “Stanford maintains the same standards for early admissions that it does for applications submitted under the normal deadline,” from my experience, students who apply early decision have an advantage in the admissions process, and in some colleges this advantage can mean the difference of one hundred points on an SAT.

I received the following email today from a high school guidance counselor:

Dear The Ivy Coach,

Am I misinforming our families when I indicate that almost universally the ACT plus Writing is accepted in lieu of the SAT Reasoning and Subject Tests? I have an inquiry from a parent and it has given me pause.

The inquiry reads: It appears that many schools either require or recommend the Subject Tests.  My daughter hasn't been planning on taking the Subject Tests because she will be taking both the SAT I and the ACT+Writing. My impression was that ACT+Writing is very often accepted instead of the Subject Tests.  I realize that the colleges vary in their policies, but it appears that more schools than I'd expected still want the Subject Tests. I'm now concerned that perhaps it is wise to take one Subject Test in the spring. 
 
The last thing I want is for a student to overload on testing, yet I also want to provide good counsel. Where better to turn than to my colleagues?

Sincerely yours,
H.S. Counselor

Dear H.S. Counselor,

Although it would be ideal if all colleges were to accept the ACT in lieu of Subject Tests, very few colleges actually have this policy.  

Something that the parent said in her email to you makes me wonder why she's planning on taking one Subject Test, instead of two or three? The Subject Tests are designed for students to take three exams on one day. Besides, colleges that require SAT Subject Tests typically require at least two, and there are a few schools that require three exams.  There are also some colleges that require specific tests.   

My best advice is for you to tell your student to call each college on her list and ask the questions.  

Hope this helps.   
~Bev

Dear Bev,

I’m a junior from Tennessee, and would love to attend Vanderbilt University. I know it’s a really competitive school, but I have the grades and the scores, and I’ll have the recs. The only thing I don’t know about is the ec’s. I read your Peterson's article on “Talented Students Winning at the College Admissions Game” and was wondering what other talents besides the ones you discuss would be important to a school like Vanderbilt?  

Rachel  

Good question Rachel!  It can be difficult to imagine what sorts of activities are valued and considered different enough for a highly selective college, but maybe this excerpt giving examples of the unique talents of the students in Barnard College’s most recently admitted class will help.

"Beyond their strength in academics, the admitted students are accomplished and talented in many areas; notable examples include the following: two Junior Olympic Tae Kwon Do medalists (twin  sisters); a New York State champion golfer who has played on PGA Junior Tour Tournaments; a state champion fencer; a top-level high school figure skater from China; a winner of the "Leaders of  Tomorrow" Scholarship sponsored by the New York State Lottery; a winner of the New York City Shakespeare Oratory Competition; a world finalist in the Odyssey of the Mind competition; a Massachusetts State speech finalist two years in a row; a semi-finalist in the National Biology Olympiad; and two trapeze circus performers. With its excellent dance and theatre programs, Barnard admitted several accomplished actresses, dancers, and musicians, including three professional actresses (credits include the films Lords of  Dogtown and Spanglish and three Broadway productions); a student who founded a community Shakespeare troupe; a world champion Irish dancer; a dancer with the Boston Conservatory; a violinist with the New Hampshire philharmonic orchestra; and an accomplished bag-pipe player. Other students who applied to Barnard have led lives distinctly different from the urban experience encountered in New York City, including a student who helps birth lambs on her family's farm; the  winner of an outstanding dairy goat exhibition, and a student who works on the family ranch from Colorado.”