Application Advice from Deans of Admission

Hurricane Sandy is an appropriate metaphor for life in college counseling offices all over the country.

Students are anxiously finishing final drafts of essays, shoring up teacher recommendations, and making sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed for college applications going out to early admission programs.

Colleges, consequently, all over the country are bracing for thousands of applications to crash their servers around 11:59 pm on November 1st.

In the next 24 hours in our office, we will see hundreds of applications go out to schools all over the country.

Between now and then we will be doing final reviews of applications.

Last week, consequently, deans of admission from Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, and Michigan were on the Today Show.

They had some great advice for students completing their applications to highly selective schools.

It's worth the six minutes to watch and absorb their advice.

Click here to view the interview.

Harvard, Fisher vs. UT-Austin, and Application Bootcamp II

It's a busy time around my office this time of year.

The first major application deadlines are imminent.

One highlight last week was Application Bootcamp II.

I invited seniors to join me at Cafe Evoke  to work on college applications.

Bring your lap top or iPad.

Order a coffee drink.

And let's work on applications!

We had almost 20 students show up.

It was such a fun three hours looking over student applications to colleges all over the United States.

There have been a number of great articles lately.

One article explored the nuanced reasons why schools like Harvard (34,302 applied/2,032 accepted = 6.29%) are virtually impossible to get accepted into today.  Click here to read this article.

Another article explored the tensions and complexities involved in affirmative action case of Fisher vs. UT-Austin that was argued in the US Supreme Court last week.

The article the The Chronicle of Higher Education is written by a colleague who provides a thoughtful response to this hot button issue in college admissions today about how much or how little race/ethnicity should play in admission decisions.  Click here to read this article.

Have a great week.

Are you a (potential) stalker parent? This post is for you then.

One of my favorite past times at conferences is to sit around and listen to college counselors engage in a cathartic exercise in which they tell stories about parents in the college admission process.

If you didn't know, there is kind of a burgeoning groundswell of unhealthily enmeshed parents with their kids.

That's my gentle euphemism for the crazy parent.

Carl Jung once wrote, "After 35, all problems are spiritual problems."

Perhaps then we should just call what the college process can become for some parents - a form of idolatry.

Idolatry in its essence is when we take a good thing (college) and turn it into the ultimate thing.

I'm fortunate that the parents I work with at Casady are far more humane and level-headed in this process than most parents from independent school cultures.

Bill Fitzsimmon, the dean of admission at Harvard, addressed his growing concern about the deleterious effects the college process can have on the adolescent brain because of "over-parenting" at NACAC in a breakout session.

Fitzsimmon offers some rather depressing anecdotes at first.

But then he offers some rather hopeful advice for how parents can navigate this process without bruising their child or ending up in jail.

Click here to read the article.

USA Today: College Application Advice from Deans of Admission

One of my favorite colleagues in the business is College of William & Mary's dean of admission, Henry Broaddus.

We had Mr. Broaddus on campus to speak to students and parents at the outset of the college process a few years ago.

Our community still sings his praises.

Mr. Broaddus's spaghetti analogy is worth the price of admission alone. 

Anyway, in a recent USA Today article, Mr. Broaddus recently joined a handful of dean's of admission to distill some excellent things for students to keep in mind during the application process.

Here is what Mr. Broaddus had to say:

Essays and samples: Any topic can work, but the goal should be to treat that topic in a manner that reveals distinctive style and personal character. Admission officers are far more interested in essays that show personal voice than they are in reading something that’s persuasive.
Keep in mind that 500 words is a very short form. Especially in subsequent drafts, it’s often helpful to narrow the essay’s focus.

Deadlines and requirements: In college admissions and in life, there are only a handful of things completely within one’s control through careful planning. Meeting deadlines is one of those things.

Letters of recommendation: Choose recommenders who know you well and thank them effusively. Teachers who take the time to tell us the stories of their students are the unsung heroes of this process.

Other: Unfortunately, standardized tests present a dangerous illusion of empirical precision that’s at odds with the way we make admission decisions. Test scores matter to us as a limited measure of academic preparedness, but for the hardest choices between similarly qualified candidates, standardized tests play no greater role than the more qualitative information in the application.

To read the rest of this USA Today article click here.  

Q & A Part V with Princeton's Dean of Admission

Today, The Choice blog posted the 5th installment of their Q & A with Princeton's Dean of Admission, Janet Rapelye.

If you have ever asked about what a 9th grade student should be doing to become competitive in highly selective admissions...

If you are anxious whether or not the ACT and SAT I/II test scores in October and early November will get to the admission office in time for review...

If you have ever wondered if admissions give more weight to "team-oriented" activities over "individual oriented" (arts, music) activities...

If you have ever wondered how important sports, in particular, plays in competitive admissions...

Then click here. 

Q & A Part IV with Princeton's Dean of Admission

Today, Princeton's Dean of Admission, Janet Rapelye, continued her up blog responses to questions students and parents submitted to The Choice blog.

If you have ever wondered if a student who does not shimmer with perfection -- gets an occasional B, for example -- can get into an Ivy league...

If you have ever asked if a "non-hooked" (aka. "subgroup" = minority, athlete, legacy, 1st gen, international) student can gain admission to an Ivy league...

If you have ever asked when the graduation tides will crest and recede...

If you have ever asked about the current trend in international applicants, and what prognosticators anticipate in future admission pools... 

Click here.

Q & A Part II & III with Princeton Dean of Admission

Princeton's Dean of Admission, Janet Rapelye, continues to answer student and parent questions on The Choice Blog.

If you have ever asked, should my student apply early to increase their chances for admission...

If you have ever asked, how important is choosing a major factor into the admission process..

Click here.

If you have ever asked, how many times is an application reviewed in a "holistic process"...


If you have ever asked, how does a student go about finding their "good fit" college...

Click here.