Ten Tips for a Successful College Search (Part 1, Tips 1-5)

Advice for high school students

Big Data 

With that said, this frustration around data is also one of the few reasons college counselors won't be replaced by robots in the next decade. So we've got that going for us . . . which is nice. With all that in mind, here are a few trends and highlights I've noticed from the most recent admissions cycle.

DISCLAIMERS 
I feel obligated to point out the obvious about ACCIS: we all work at private institutions with predominantly affluent students. As a result, I am focusing on some of the most selective colleges in the nation, but these colleges and trends are not indicative of higher education at large. Also despite wearing glasses, I am neither an economist nor a mathematician. These are simply personal theories and interpretations of data available to the public. 

THE MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEYS CIRCA 2012
In other words, the colleges that are, as the kids say these days, on fleek:

I AM YOUR COUNSELOR 

Last Thursday, I closed up my computer for the day at 5:15pm, headed home, and, upon arrival, refreshed my email on my phone, despite the fact that I had checked email just minutes prior. Then, I went outside to enjoy the beautiful spring weather, and when I returned home about 20 minutes later, I refreshed my email again. A lot of college news was hitting the streets Thursday afternoon but, no, I am not an applicant; I am your college counselor.

I try to take advantage of every moment I have with you, starting in junior year, to help empower you with good, accurate information on the qualitative elements of a college and the quantitative (and oftentimes confounding) elements of a college’s admissions standards. What I don’t want is for you to be surprised by the ultimate outcomes. I know that sometimes, despite my best efforts, while you might intellectually understand what I’m saying, your heart might tell you something different and, without sounding condescending, I totally understand.

A Coalition of One's Own

Bryan Rutledge
Director of College Counseling
Woodward Academy

The values and beliefs of the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success are commendable and appealing.  How, then, do those most able to meet the needs of students team up to serve the students who need the most? 

We in education are engaged in spirited debate to answer this question.  It’s good to shake things up every now and then.  Unless, of course, the parties rush to barricades where we question one another’s motives and are paralyzed by disagreement, cobbling a wobbly Tower of Babel.  The most under-resourced students deserve our best efforts.

Sports analogies are cliché but instructive.  When I taught tennis, I reminded students of basics such as keeping your eyes on the ball.  Likewise, let’s review the basics of assisting under-resourced students, some of their most pressing educational needs and what will answer them.  While there is nothing really new in the following list, please see it as a timely, even urgent invitation to reflection, collaboration, and action.

1. Research shows that primary and secondary students lose academic ground during summers when prior learning is not reinforced.  Many academic communities are fortunate to have the facilities, professors, teachers, and time to conduct a month-long summer course for under-resourced populations that reinforces the basics: pure math, laboratory science, and analytical writing.  Imagine what could be accomplished if these short courses were co-taught by master professors and schoolteachers.  Imagine complementing the academic lessons with classes co-taught by admission and college counselors: classes on financial aid, scholarship, application essays, resumes, standardized tests, and interviews. 
2. As with all major institutions, education has an essential political front to reach those who hold the levers and purses of power.  There are success stories.  For example, from California to Alabama leaders in state governments have been implementing strategies to reduce or even eliminate tuition for community college.  Colleges and universities profit by making room for transfer students who take this path. The White House, too, has weighed in with initiatives to reduce college costs and crippling loan debt.  Whether individually or collectively, we all can make our voices heard in these efforts.
3. Colleges and universities have the option of exercising flexibility in their use of standardized tests in admission; just ask the over 800 schools that have gone test optional.  Considering the barrier to admission that standardized tests can present to under-resourced groups, as well as the questionable validity of over-reliance on such tests, a thoughtful review of how they are used could increase access and success.
4. Part-time and online studies are vital to under-resourced students.  Such flexible learning enables those with families, time and transportation constraints, and jobs to advance themselves.
5. Promotional emails, brochures, and the like are essential to the enrollment strategies of all kinds of schools.  But promotional messages can be accompanied by service messages, showing not only how fabulous the school is, but how to meet the requirements for admission as well as find the means to afford education.
6. Business people are always concerned with “value-added takeaways,” and with good reason.  In harmony with their liberal arts missions, colleges and universities can integrate internships, individualized advice that keeps graduation on time, and vigorous career and professional school counseling.
7. For primary and secondary schools that lack computer and Internet resources, funds are required to answer these needs and put tools in the hands of those who can then get the job done, as Britain implored the U.S. during World War II.

Reflections on the new SAT

The last time College Board announced a new SAT, I was wrapping up my first year as an admissions counselor at the University of Maryland. When my supervisor asked for a volunteer to become a “resident expert” on standardized test changes, I said yes (just like I did to everything in my early years) and became our office’s “New SAT Expert.” On the dawn of the second new SAT of my career and on the “other side of the desk,” I am in flashback mode; thinking about the new SAT like a college admission officer rather than a college counselor. Below are some of the throwback thoughts that have bubbled up as the SAT change is upon us.

What is your Motto? College Admission and Identity

Brennan E. Barnard
Director of College Counseling
The Derryfield School

And Then, You Wait

Kate Boyle Ramsdell
Director of College Counseling, Noble and Greenough School
 
“First you have brown, all around you have brown… then there are seeds… and a wish for rain.” –Julie Fogliano, And Then It’s Spring 

When my older son was born, it wasn’t long before I was hooked on finding children’s books that I actually enjoyed reading aloud. I could only take so much of Hop on Pop and Moo, Ba, La La La. (Forgive me if those are family favorites!)

I stumbled across And Then It’s Spring during a mid-winter 2015 trip to a local bookstore. There were over 100 inches of snow on the ground in Boston. The book offered the promise of green. My seniors, the ones who hadn’t applied early or who hadn’t gotten in early, were waiting… and waiting… for their college news to drop. For most of them – for us – winter felt interminable. March and April weren’t yet tiny lights at the end of the long, blustery, college tunnel. 

I have thought and written about the college process for a long time now – almost half of my life, which is a bit hard to swallow. And a topic I always come back to is this: why is waiting so darn hard? I know adults tend blame adolescents and their seeming inability to wait on social media and the instant gratification of posting, snapping, and tweeting. But waiting for college news was hard in 1992, when I didn’t have Facebook, or Snapchat, or Twitter. It just was. My life – my future – was hanging out there somewhere, not in cyberspace, but in a file in the back room of an admission office. We didn’t even have the distraction of our phones to help us pass the time! 

Carol Wasden, Director of College Counseling, The Hockaday School

Picture this: It’s 10:30 p.m. when a high school senior, pooled in desk lamp light and nerves, presses submit on his college application. Deep breath, exhale. Pause. Now what?