Here we go again. The senior class is now in various stages of getting ready for applying to college. Perhaps you are assuming that you are ready to start applying to schools and filling out the application. This assumption is a pretty big one in that most or all of the bullet items below should be complete before you begin the actual application process:
· You’ve looked at yourself in an unvarnished way in terms of assessing where you stand with your grades, your class rank and the difficulty of your high school curriculum
· You’ve taken your standardized tests and understand what role they might play in your admission to a specific college and made plans to prep retake them if necessary
· You’ve confirmed with your school counselor that you have or will have the necessary requirements fulfilled by the time you graduate next year
· You are clear on who needs what by when from the guidance perspective. (they mail transcripts, updated grade reports, etc. to each of the schools that you choose for application)
· You’ve picked the teachers you think will give you the best recommendation and gotten their commitment to provide that recommendation by a predetermined time
· You’ve set expectations for the kind of school you want to attend: public vs. private, large vs. small, social vs. intellectual, liberal arts vs. pre-professional along with other considerations : financial, demographic and geographic preferences/necessities or school reputation
· You’ve given a lot of thought to what possible majors you might choose based upon your personal strengths and passion and then looked carefully via the Web to have a firsthand virtual “visit” to the school
· You’ve narrowed the school list to 6-8 choices with a variation in selectivity i.e., probable admission school vs. a possible vs. a high reach institution and visited the ones that interest you the most
· You’ve prepared your “brag” sheet or resume
· You’ve consulted with your parents and college counselor and obtained their input
So now if you’ve done all that you are pretty much ready to fill out the application to each of the schools to which you wish to apply. You may find the Common Application to be a wonderful tool if most of the schools on your list are private and of higher selectivity, The Common App allows you to apply to multiple schools using only one online effort for the main application. However, in order to differentiate applicants, many schools now make use of supplements (this will be discussed in a future post) which are separate addenda to the Common App, but can still be submitted online to that school along with the regular Common App. Unfortunately many smaller private schools and most public institutions have their own application and as such each app. must be filled out and submitted separately. Depending on how many schools you want to apply to, you can start to see that this activity can be tedious and eat up a lot of time. Patience and careful scrutiny of your work is still a must.
Perhaps the most vexing part of the application process is the writing section. Most schools have a short essay and then have a “personal statement”. We find this task to be most challenging to students because they are asked to write about themselves and to do it in a manner that will present a very clear picture of them to an admissions staff. It is critically important that you are able to show vs. tell about yourself in the essay. Doing a good job on this part of the application can be a key factor in the admission decision and is not to be taken lightly. While we recommend critical review of the essay by your parents, teachers or other respected adults; the essay must be written by you: trained admission personnel can easily spot a perfectly crafted essay created by a well intentioned parent or a writing professional. Be yourself, stay in character and show the reader what makes you tick. You want them to see you someone that they want on their campus next fall.
Most importantly if you haven’t completed most of the bulleted items above, you really need to get focused and moving on this now. Make a timeline, create a checklist and enlist the aid of a classmate to keep you accountable and on to ask. If you start now the train will never have a chance to come off the track.
Next post : The application supplement friend or foe?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
College Rankings and the Prospective Student: Caveat Emptor
Every year at this time parents anxiously await the results of the US News and World report annual rankings of colleges and universities. The rankings are compiled with an incredible amount of provable fact based statistics and are then coupled with soft data such as peer reviews of other institutions of higher learning, faculty ratings etc. . These rankings are often filled with controversy: some of which is “ranking envy”, while other concerns are related to the ways schools can and do things to game the system to improve their overall ranking.
So why all the hubbub?
Well, there are over 3500 four year schools and colleges in the US from which a student may choose to apply. The family needs some basis to narrow down that number and one of the ways to do it is to look at the rankings and then use the myriad of data available to try to figure out which school the student will have the best chance for admission. So the better the student performs, the target schools for the family will also rise relative to the rankings. Let’s say the list of schools that a student/family desires to attend/apply becomes defined by the rankings. They will need to sift through a complex matrix of data sets to determine their student’s chances for admission. Some of the criteria are hard facts (GPS, rank, SAT, rigor of curriculum) and there are additional criteria that look at soft (but highly important at some highly ranked schools) admission attributes including the personal statement/essay, recommendations and extracurricular activities.
So now the focus for college admission has been whittled down to a list of options based on ranking, and what might come next could be cost, or geography or the size of the school etc. So for data gathering and filtering, rankings can be a tremendous asset in college selection. However, this methodology of generating a college list is significantly flawed. Its basis is completely off the mark because it does not take into account the most important aspect of college consideration: what school is the best fit for my particular student?
Parents may feel proud that their child has been offered admission to a highly ranked school and the reasons are many: social status, living their dreams through their child’s accomplishments, assuming that attendance at a highly ranked school will automatically translate into a lucrative future, etc. As Lee Corso might say “Not so fast my friends…”
As educational consultants one of the most important services we provide is that we drive the college selection process based on the student’s passions and aspirations. We take all of the same data described above and (in our practice) use personality and career assessment tools to determine the best possible fit based on the student’s potential and not the possible parental infatuation with a school’s ranking.
Importantly, we have visited the schools on the list we generate, we’ve met with students, faculty and school administrators. We apply this knowledge in the context of the student’s personality type, career aspirations and his or her “numbers” and then choose the list of best fit schools. So while at times, a number of highly ranked schools appear on the list, there may be few or none on others. When you focus on the best fit for a student the US News rank of a school has little to no correlation with the actual match.
Rankings are a useful tool, but nothing replaces a thorough assessment of all the student’s attributes culminating in their school selection based on where they will thrive by optimizing their experiences at the school they attend to achieve their life goals and passions.
What do you think about the US News rankings?
So why all the hubbub?
Well, there are over 3500 four year schools and colleges in the US from which a student may choose to apply. The family needs some basis to narrow down that number and one of the ways to do it is to look at the rankings and then use the myriad of data available to try to figure out which school the student will have the best chance for admission. So the better the student performs, the target schools for the family will also rise relative to the rankings. Let’s say the list of schools that a student/family desires to attend/apply becomes defined by the rankings. They will need to sift through a complex matrix of data sets to determine their student’s chances for admission. Some of the criteria are hard facts (GPS, rank, SAT, rigor of curriculum) and there are additional criteria that look at soft (but highly important at some highly ranked schools) admission attributes including the personal statement/essay, recommendations and extracurricular activities.
So now the focus for college admission has been whittled down to a list of options based on ranking, and what might come next could be cost, or geography or the size of the school etc. So for data gathering and filtering, rankings can be a tremendous asset in college selection. However, this methodology of generating a college list is significantly flawed. Its basis is completely off the mark because it does not take into account the most important aspect of college consideration: what school is the best fit for my particular student?
Parents may feel proud that their child has been offered admission to a highly ranked school and the reasons are many: social status, living their dreams through their child’s accomplishments, assuming that attendance at a highly ranked school will automatically translate into a lucrative future, etc. As Lee Corso might say “Not so fast my friends…”
As educational consultants one of the most important services we provide is that we drive the college selection process based on the student’s passions and aspirations. We take all of the same data described above and (in our practice) use personality and career assessment tools to determine the best possible fit based on the student’s potential and not the possible parental infatuation with a school’s ranking.
Importantly, we have visited the schools on the list we generate, we’ve met with students, faculty and school administrators. We apply this knowledge in the context of the student’s personality type, career aspirations and his or her “numbers” and then choose the list of best fit schools. So while at times, a number of highly ranked schools appear on the list, there may be few or none on others. When you focus on the best fit for a student the US News rank of a school has little to no correlation with the actual match.
Rankings are a useful tool, but nothing replaces a thorough assessment of all the student’s attributes culminating in their school selection based on where they will thrive by optimizing their experiences at the school they attend to achieve their life goals and passions.
What do you think about the US News rankings?
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