It’s that time of year. Students who applied ED and EA have already heard from the colleges regarding their admission decisions. Students who are applying regular decision will be sending off those applications this month and hearing early in the spring. What happens next?
Colleges will provide your student with one of four responses: offered admission, wait-listed, deferred, or not offered admission. Today, students hear as the notices are posted online. The days of waiting for the letter are over. We live in an instant gratification world. You can expect, however, for your student to be hitting that computer refresh button on the day notices are posted!
The impression a college gets of your student will affect their admission decision. Dressing for success is so much more than the clothes your student wears to a college interview. It’s how your student presents himself to the colleges and what image they see of him as they look at the overall picture.
How do you impress a college? It’s a combination of showing interest, marketing yourself and making a positive impression on social media.
Show interest
Colleges want to know you are interested in attending. They don’t want to be just another name on your college list. They want to know that if you apply, and are offered admission, there is a good chance you will accept and attend. You can show interest by taking an official campus tour, connecting on social media, and meeting with an admissions officer for an interview. Colleges keep track of how many times you have showed interest.
From Ivy League admissions expert Dr. Aviva Legatt comes an insider’s college admissions guide that teaches students to identify and harness their authentic passions, stand out from the crowd, and achieve their dreams in college and beyond, “Get Real and Get In”
“Get Real and Get In” teaches readers to think outside of the box and focus on what admissions officers are really looking for—young people who dare to be their most authentic selves. Through engaging, accessible, and empathetic prose, this book forms an inspirational roadmap for readers to uncover their true passions and leverage them to create applications that truly stand out from the crowd. Aviva encourages students to look beyond just getting into a “good” collegeand focus more actively on identifying and attaining their long-term goals.
The 2021-22 Common Application launched yesterday, August 1. Your student can now begin their application for the fall semester of college and part of that application includes a college essay.
According to Chad Hemmelgarn, an English teacher at Bexley High School, in Columbus Ohio, the college essay should be looked at like “a first date”.You’re telling us the stuff that makes you special.” He was speaking as part of a panel at an annual forum in New York sponsored by The College Board.
When you think about it, that’s a great analogy. The college essay is a way for your teen to let the admissions committee get to know them and an opportunity for them to focus on their strengths.
If you watched the Netflix Special “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal”, you might think that only rich parents cheat to get their kids into college. But according to a new survey from Intelligent.com, a trusted resource for online degree rankings and higher education planning, you would be wrong.
What did the survey find?
According to the survey, cheating was more common among families from high-income households and parents who made less than $49,000 annually. In contrast, only 19% of cheaters are from middle-income homes.
“We’ve heard stories and scandals about college-admissions cheating among celebrity parents, but this survey reveals that it’s not uncommon for average parents to use unethical practices during the college application process,” Intelligent managing editor Kristen Scratton says. “Interestingly, 25% of our survey respondents cheated by listing false achievements, making sizable donations, or getting a test-taker to impersonate their child on the SAT or ACT test.”
Not all colleges are created equal. But are you looking for the college bargains?
Community college. State University. Private liberal arts college. Trade or technical college. Top-tiered business college. Ivy League college. Not all colleges are created equal.
If that’s the case, what makes a good college? Some might think it’s a #1 rated NCAA football team, or a college with an Ivy League designation, or even a school that is highly selective. A good college (as in good fit) meets the following three criteria: academic, social, and financial. The college that meets or excels in all three should be the college your student chooses. Even the best college (based on reputation) isn’t a good college if the student neglects the opportunities he is given while attending.
In terms of financial fit, does the college fit into your family’s college budget?
It’s college decision time and disappointed teens are receiving news they have been placed on the college wait list. A wait list decision does not reject an applicant outright, but it also offers an uncomfortable level of ambiguity about whether an applicant will receive an acceptance to the college later. So how likely are teens to be taken off the wait list, and is there anything they can do to increase their chances?
Netflix recently released a documentary/re-enactment of the Varsity Blues scandal over college admissions. You probably heard the news last year about rich parents paying bribes to get their less than stellar students into elite universities. If you have the time, have a student heading to college, or are simply interested to see how the scandal unfolded watch the documentary.
As I watched I realized how much the media highlighted the celebrities involved and neglected to examine why this happened. The college admissions system is broken. Granted, there has always been those who benefit from huge donors, legacies and connections. But the overwhelming desire to get into the “prestigious” colleges has caused parents and students to step outside the normal boundaries and into illegal and damaging practices.
I won’t go into details about the sting, or the characters involved, but I think it’s important to focus on some take-aways from the documentary and also think about what we learned from all of it.
You can’t dispute the facts. Statistics tell a story. You can use the numbers to get an overall picture of things, evaluate goals, and learn from the trends. College admission statistics and facts are no different. They tell us about college trends, college student behavior, and the future of college graduates.
The following are 12 facts about college. Will you be surprised?
75 percent of high school seniors are accepted to their first-choice colleges, but less than 57 percent can afford to attend. Although students are often accepted to their first choice colleges, they are unable to attend due to financial constraints, especially this year due to the pandemic. This means it’s critically important to investigate the college’s financial aid awards before you apply. Do they offer merit aid in the form of scholarships and grants? What percentage of accepted students receives college-based financial aid? What is the average financial aid award?
The Common Application has added an additional, special college essay prompt where students can share their COVID experiences if they feel the pandemic has slammed their world in under 250 words.
The Coalition Application (an alternative to The Common Application) has offered a similar COVID-19 prompt. To me, this implies colleges want students to save their main essay topic for anything but Covid.
Even though this new short COVID prompt is optional, essays experts encourage students to address it, since most students have been impacted by COVID. This is an additional opportunity in the application to share something about themselves.
Since it’s so short, The College Solution blog advises students to be direct in their answer. To give it focus and interest, try to think of one or two qualities or values used or developed in adapting to the new pandemic reality and related challenges. And brainstorm specific examples you can use to illustrate them. Then share a specific challenge faced due to COVID, and explain how the problem was managed or handled, and end with the lesson learned (related to a personal quality, characteristic or value).
A simple outline would look like this:
Share an example of a problem you faced related to COVID
Explain how it affected you
Describe how you dealt with it
Reflect on what you learned from handling it (about yourself, others and the world)
The main college essay
Since this topic is offered as supplemental prompt, many experts don’t think it would serve students to use COVID-19 as the topic of the main essay. COVID-19 is a problem shared by all of us, including all other students writing these essays. It’s simply too common.
When a topic is common or overdone, it is more difficult to make it interesting.
One of the main goals of these college application essays is to help differentiate students from the competition–other students. If your topic is one that many others will be writing about, you are already fading into the crowd.
If, however, your COVID experience has impacted you in a way that is far different than how it has affected almost all other people, this might be the only exception. It would need to be something extreme, or highly unexpected, or unusual. Even better, somehow bizarre, or shocking. (Remember, it probably feels as though it has hit you harder than others, but chances are your experience isn’t as radical as it feels. That’s just the nature of this nightmare–everyone feels as though their life has been turned upside down on some level.)
Tragically, those students hardest hit by this pandemic, with parents and loved ones losing jobs, losing homes or getting evicted, or even worse, falling ill, simply aren’t that unusual.
It’s also important to note the idea that finding the positive in your COVID-19 experience, or that you are actually enjoying this time, would not be enough of a “spin” to justify COVID as a topic.
Admissions officials are trying to discourage students from using this as their main college app essay (aka personal statement) topic as well.
Why college essays are more important during COVID-19
College essays should be more important during the 2021-2022 college admission season than in any other admission cycle in modern times.
Why would the college essay be so critical for this admission cycle?
It’s because most colleges – including the vast majority of the most elite and prestigious institutions – have gone test-optional due to the pandemic. Without standardized test scores, colleges will need to rely more heavily on the remaining admission factors. And the college essay is one of the bigger ones.
