For several years, college admission counselors at the most competitive colleges have been telling applicants who are ranked number one or two in their high schools, with perfect or near-perfect grade point averages and SAT scores, that they're just not good enough. So what is it that these most prestigious colleges are looking for when they admit their applicants? The Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth College offers a hint in the annual report to secondary schools. While Dartmouth seeks academically accomplished students for its incoming freshman classes, "…excellence in extracurricular areas also receives careful attention. We look for evidence of accomplishment as well as the depth of commitment and follow-through that lead to significant contributions and recognition from others."

In other words, competitive schools like Dartmouth seek a well-rounded class of talented students.

Many talented students usually want to continue to improve in their area of expertise while in college. A swimmer may imagine competing in the Olympics, a musician may aspire to play at Carnegie Hall, a thespian may want to perform on Broadway, a dancer may have hopes of one day joining the Joffrey Ballet, and a science researcher may dream of winning a Nobel Prize. Thanks to the Internet, talented high schools students can make their dreams come true. By using swimming, lacrosse, music, theater, dance, and science research as illustrations, this article will show students how they can find colleges based on their special talent.

Swimming

Richard has been a competitive swimmer since he was seven. By doing an online search of college swim teams, Richard will select colleges that are right for him academically and athletically. Most importantly, he will not limit his choices to those colleges where his high school coach has made a contact or where a college coach will promise to recruit him.

Harvard University has some wonderful links, and whatever you may be searching for can generally be accessed through Harvard's own Web site. Richard starts his search by going to Harvard's home page, finding "Athletics," and searching for "Swimming" (he also could have visited his favorite search engine and typed in "Harvard and swimming"). He clicks on "Harvard Swimming & Diving," and finds the Men's Team. He finds "Schedule and Results," and selects a specific swim meet. Richard finds a list of all of the swimmers' times who competed at that meet, as well as each swimmer's name, his class, the college he attends, his best (seed) time, and his final time. While on this page, Richard can also look at the actual best times of backstrokers from each college. In order to decide whether a specific college's swim team is right for him, Richard needs to get in touch with some of those swimmers. He should be able to find information about each athlete on the team roster, including the swimmer's name, class, event, height, weight, hometown, high school, and sometimes even e-mail address. By accessing the team roster, Richard can now e-mail swimmers, ask questions, express his concerns, and hopefully gain a better understanding of the college, the team members, and the coach.

To find similar information about swimmers and swim teams from different colleges, go back to Harvard's "swimming and diving" home page. Then look for Harvard's swim links to other college swim teams (or type "College and Swimming" in your favorite search engine). You should find a site that has links to all college swim teams that have Web sites regardless of their NCAA Division. Similar links can also be found on the NCAA Web site.

Lacrosse

Since Stephanie is a lacrosse player, she does an search for "college and lacrosse" and selects links to college lacrosse teams. She's an average player on a non-competitive team and feels that she's most suited for a Division III team. Once on a college lacrosse team page, she selects "Division III Women's" to find a list of all colleges that are Division III. By selecting a specific college, Stephanie can find relevant information about that school's lacrosse team. By going directly to the college's website, Stephanie can look more in depth at the lacrosse team and find out the schedule, results, and statistical leaders. Typically, this site will show the lacrosse player's name, class, position, goals, assists, and total points. The goalie will be listed with the number of saves, goals against, and percentage.

You can do a similar search. Based on how competitive your high school team is and the league in which you play, you may be able to compare your statistics with those of the statistical leaders of any college.

Athletes probably get the most notoriety when it comes to getting into the college of their choice and, with the exception of the Ivy Leagues, winning merit scholarships. However, athletes are by no means the only talented students who apply to colleges. Whatever the student's talent may be, information can be found through an online search.

Music

Loren is a talented flutist in the top 10 percent of her class. She has 1380 SATs. Loren knows that the most competitive colleges are a reach for her academically, but based on her musical talent, she may have a chance. She's interested in the University of Pennsylvania and would like to play in Penn's marching band. To do a search, Loren goes to a search engine and types in "College Marching Bands." When she selects the University of Pennsylvania, she is directed to the Penn Marching Band. By clicking on "roster" or "team," she can find the names of all band members, the instruments they play, their class, their e-mail addresses, and their telephone numbers. From there, she can select the "flutes section." In a particular year, she counts 10 flutists: 4 seniors, 4 juniors, 1 sophomore, and 1 freshman. Based on this information, Loren realizes that the Penn Marching Band Director is probably looking for new recruits to replace the graduating seniors. By clicking on a flutist's e-mail address, she can e-mail a marching band member and ask specific questions about the Penn Band, the band's director, or about Penn.

Another way to find the same information is to visit the Compendium of Marching Bands Web site, which links to college and university marching bands across the country.

Theater

By typing "college and university theater" into a search engine, an actor can access a listing of college and university theater departments. By selecting a specific college, the user can visit that school's drama department home page. Here, an actor can read the biographies of the student actors and the faculty. This site should also show the types of performances that have been given in recent years and the performances are scheduled for the upcoming year. The student can view the academic program for theater majors, see online course listings and descriptions, e-mail students involved in theater, and e-mail the theater directors. All of this information gives the actor/applicant knowledge of that college's theater department and some sense as to whether the department and the college would be a good fit.

Dance

Dance department Web sites give the dancer much of the same information as theater sites. By typing "College and University Dance Programs" into a search engine, a student can access a list of colleges and universities with dance programs that have Web sites.

Science

Science and math researchers also need to market their talent, but this takes some creativity and intuitive thinking. Brian knows that if he was to be among the 20 percent of students accepted at a particular school, he had to do something to get himself noticed. He was involved in independent science research and spent his summers in labs working on his own projects. Prior to his senior year, he worked on a psychology project and wrote a paper that ultimately earned him recognition as a Semi-Finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search.

To let colleges know about his work, Brian wrote about one of his science experiences for his application essay and included his abstract with his college applications. He also e-mailed psychology professors who did similar research at the colleges to which he applied, and asked his high school science research mentor to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf. Intel did not announce the winners until the middle of January, after Brian mailed his college applications, so once he became a semifinalist, he, his mentor, and his guidance counselor informed admissions counselors at the colleges to which he applied that he was a winner of this most prestigious award.

As colleges become more competitive, prospective students need to develop special talents, skills, and experiences to receive acceptance letters from their top college choices. Yet having those talents, skills, and experiences still may not be enough. Students need to market their specialty wisely as they search for the college that is right for them. Also, they need to make their own college selections, rather than leaving those selections to their high school coaches, directors, or mentors. It is the author's hope that by using these strategies, talented high school students will find that "right fit" that will ultimately result in Winning at the College Admissions Game.

About the Author

Bev Taylor, is the Founder & Director of The Ivy Coach, an independent college consulting practice located in Manhattan and in Roslyn Heights, NY. Although The Ivy Coach is based in New York, students come from across the country and around the world. For the past fifteen years, Bev Taylor has continually motivated her students to achieve their maximum potential while she helps them to discover the range of options available in a college education. As a result, her students are highly successful in the college admissions process. She holds a Masters Degree in Guidance & Counseling, a Professional Diploma in Counseling, Psychology & Research in Education, and is New York State Certified as a School Counselor for Grades K-12. Correspondence regarding this article can be emailed to Bev Taylor, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  

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