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Early Decision Applications Increased This Year

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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That is the headline from quite a few recent articles (here and here) and the NY Times “The Choice” Blog and the Washington Post are keeping a tally. That headline, by the way, has been repeated every year for the last several and it is always followed by the obvious results of an increase in early applications: top colleges and universities turn down or defer more students in the early round.

As I mentioned in a past blog, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) reported that

“For the third year in a row, about half (47 percent) of colleges reported increases in the number of Early Decision applications.” This is from their newly released 2010 State of College Admissions report.  They go on to report that “There was a more dramatic rise, however, in the percentage of colleges reporting increases in the number of students admitted through Early Decision. Sixty-five percent reported increases, compared to 43 percent in 2008 and 36 percent in 2007.”

There should be no question as to why students feel so pressured to apply Early Decision.  And there should be no question that all of this kind of reporting makes high school seniors even more stressed out, if that is possible.

For those who applied Early Decision and were accepted there is huge relief. The process is over, no more essays to write and the rest of their senior year can be enjoyed. For those whose applications were rejected or those in limbo–their applications have been deferred to the regular decision pool–there is increased stress and the application process continues.

And for those students who did not apply Early Decision, they may feel that they are already late to the party. I have noticed that for some students who do not apply Early Decision, there is huge regret in mid-December when their friends and classmates find out they are accepted. They are sorry they didn’t apply early.

There is a long wait between the decisions that come in mid-December and the majority that come in late March/early April. But the good news is that come April, it will be over and things will be settled. And some of the Early Decision students may feel a small tinge of regret that they are not in a position to choose among offers.

And we already know the headlines for early April, “Top College Admit Fewer Students This Year”, as it has been for the last few years which will cause huge stress among the rising seniors for next year.

Co-ed Dorm Rooms

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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As an Independent College Admissions Consultant, I read several newspapers, online magazines and blogs about college admissions daily.  This is necessary to keep current and also a guilty pleasure of mine. Last week I was reading the Washington Post and came across this article about George Washington University allowing students of the opposite sex to share dorm rooms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120306648.html

While this dorm arrangement will be new to GWU, it is already being practiced at many other colleges and universities. One article I read estimated that about 50 colleges allow boys and girls to share a dorm room.

While you may be surprised to learn that colleges allow boys and girls, or I really should say men and women, to share a dorm room this is not new. From what I can tell, it seems to have started around 2000, possibly even a little earlier.

Some colleges will not offer this option to freshman. Some colleges will allow this as part of a suite which can mean single rooms and a shared bathroom and living room or doubles or triples arranged in suite style.  Almost all of these arrangements are the students’ choices, but apparently, not all.

This article from the National Review describes a situation at Stanford University that came as a surprise, of sorts.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227424/caveat-parens/karin-venable-morin

The article tells of a mother’s shock at finding out her daughter would be sharing her room with another girl and two boys. The student was living in a “co-op” that required the students to change roommates frequently– every quarter. One quarter her daughter missed the room meeting where roommates were chosen and later found out where and with whom she had been assigned. Neither mother nor daughter was pleased about the new living arrangement.

Forewarned is forearmed. If sharing a dorm room or even the bathroom down the hall with someone of the opposite sex is something that makes your student uncomfortable, make sure you understand how things are done at the college your child is applying to or matriculating at. As with all things having to do with colleges, don’t make any assumptions and ask the questions that are important to you.

Honesty Is Still The Best Policy

Monday, December 6, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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In one of my past blog posts, I mentioned that prospective college students will very likely have to answer application questions about disciplinary infractions at their high schools and about criminal convictions.

These are questions that people my age probably did not get asked when we applied to college. But things are different now and colleges want to know more about their applicants. Before they invite you to become part of their community they want to know what kind of citizen you are.

The Common Application added discipline questions beginning in 2007 and back then it caused a bit of a stir. But they are not the only application that asks this. For those colleges that are not members of the Common Application, many also ask similar questions. For the Common App, the first of two questions asks the student about high school disciplinary infractions:

Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any educational institution you have attended from 9th grade (or the international equivalent) forward, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in your probation, suspension, removal, dismissal, or expulsion from the institution?

In some ways this reinforced some student’s feeling that this was another example of the inequality from one high school to the next. In one high school, an infraction may earn the student a suspension while in another school the same behavior would only warrant a detention, which does not rise to the level of being reported. Additionally, some high schools have decided that their school policy is to refuse to answer, for any of their students, the corresponding question on the secondary school report form. Some schools placed a sticker on the form stating the school policy of not answering the discipline question.

If a student would need to check off “yes” to the discipline question but his school refuses to answer that question, is he still obligated to report this? Yes!

My advice: honesty is always the best policy. The student may take a risk outing himself, even if his school does not, but this is the only way to go. At the end of the application, the student signs that everything he has said is the truth. Not only is it wrong to lie on your application, if a college finds that you did lie, it may be grounds for dismissal, even if you are already a matriculating student.

Will every suspension at a high school doom a student’s chance of acceptance? No, but the reason behind some suspensions will be viewed as more serious by the college or university. If a student has to answer yes to either the discipline or the criminal conviction question, he must explain the circumstances. This is best done in an additional essay where the student can honestly explain the situation and what lessons he has learned.

First Time Back Home for College Freshmen:

Monday, November 22, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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This week, college freshmen will arrive home for a four day– or even longer –Thanksgiving break. For many, this will be the first time they have been home for an extended visit since they left the nest in late August or early September.

Here are some tips for getting through the “first time back home” adjustment.

My first surprise when my oldest came home for Thanksgiving, was finding how much time he wanted to spend with his friends. As his mother, my perception was that he just left friends and this was family time. However, he left his college friends and his high school friends were now all home at the same time and they all wanted to get together.  OK, I got over that one pretty fast. It was also an easier adjustment with him since his college gave students an entire week off. Even though he spent plenty of time with friends, he still graced us with his company. A little. It may be helpful to establish some time, like Thanksgiving Day, that is set aside just for family.

Many parents find that when college freshmen come home after living on their own for several months, they think they are all grown up and no longer need to follow rules. I am sure that if you poll ten people on the right way to handle this, you will get at least eleven opinions.  This is a family decision that each of you will have to make. As for me, house rules still apply when you come home. Of course, as each child got older and matured, the rules became more flexible or were renegotiated. I gave in on some things but not all, and other things are never negotiable, no matter how old you are.

This is a good time for your college freshmen to de-stress, sleeping in their own beds and eating real food again.  So, give them a little space. Try and ask about classes in a way that won’t put them on edge. Don’t ask about grades. Instead, ask her who she thinks has been her most interesting professor. Ask about the roommate in a casual fashion. This way, if your student is having roommate issues maybe she will open up to you and you can guide her on how to negotiate problems or discuss who at her college she can go to for help.

Your freshman may come home looking a little different. This is a time when some kids decide to experiment with fashion, with their hair (blue Mohawk?) or with piercings (oh, that’s what an “industrial” is). Brace yourself and try and remember that most of this is temporary and harmless.

Lastly, enjoy your Thanksgiving, be thankful your kids are in college and get ready for the long winter holiday when they will be home for three to six weeks.

Budget Cuts Lead to Online Classes for Undergraduates

Monday, November 15, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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As an Independent College Admissions Consultant, I give my students suggestions on what to do, what to look for and things they should ask when they are visiting college campuses.  One of the questions that I suggest students ask, especially at the larger universities, is whether they will be taught by full professors or graduate students. After reading about what may become a new trend in higher education, I will have to tell them to ask another question– will I be able to take all “live” classes or is there a possibility I will have to take any classes online?

Although it pains me to have to say anything negative about The University of Florida, it is my own alma mater that is being discussed in this New York Times article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/us/05college.html?scp=1&sq=university%20of%20florida&st=cse

The article describes a freshman who is taking his Principles of Microeconomics class online. According to the Times, UF students are taking 12 percent of their credit hours online this semester.  The University of Florida has plenty of company in this online world– the article states that at the University of Iowa as many as 10 percent of their students are taking online classes and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill only offers online classes for first year Spanish.

As an adult, I have taken online courses and did not find them lacking. But I can’t help but think that online courses are not a good idea for undergraduates. So much of what I learned about other people and how they think and problem solve was learned in my classes during sometimes lively discussions. That was one of the best parts about going away to college. You met new people from all over, took a variety of classes and you joined in the conversation. Sure, as a freshman I had some large lecture classes where I never saw my professor up close, but those were only a few and I still felt like I was part of the class. I was not in my dorm room as a passive observer.

I certainly hope that this is not the wave of the future but I fear that it may be, especially at the larger state universities plagued by budget cuts.

Nothing Online Remains Private

Monday, November 8, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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In my last blog I talked about the implications of social networking on college admissions.

Social networking sites, such as facebook, are changing the way teens communicate and I would say this change is not for the better. Here is an example of how some things students do on these sites can get them in hot water.

I recently read about the facebook situation at Choate Rosemary Hall, the boarding and day school in Wallingford.  According to the news, some students there had created a “burn book” a term from the movie “Mean Girls”.  According to the New Haven Register, “The writers thought their Facebook posts would remain private exchanges between themselves, but in the online world, nothing stays private for long. The posts eventually made their way around campus and to the Register.”

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/10/24/news/metro/doc4cc3b2253241a806288012.txt

This should be required reading for every middle school and high school student and their parents: “in the online world, nothing stays private for long”. Students need to be very, very careful about what they say or do online.

The problem is that very few middle or high school aged students are going to stop and think about what they say today coming back to haunt them in the future.  According the Register, two of the girls involved have been expelled and four more suspended.

Being suspended and/or expelled will have to be disclosed on their college applications. College applications require students to answer one or more questions about their behavior at school. The Common App asks two questions related to disciplinary violations and school suspension, removal, dismissal or expulsion, as well as arrests.  The Common App began to include questions about student discipline in 2007.  Colleges that are not members of the common app and have their own applications ask similar questions. As with every part of the application, students must answer this honestly.

Beyond applying to colleges, potential employers also check out your social networking sites. And you never know what your future holds–maybe a run for elected office?  Just ask Krystal Ball (her real name), who recently ran for US Congress from Virginia about embarrassing pictures from your past surfacing. (I will not link to the photos here as they are not suitable for a family newspaper.) However, rather than be shamed by these pictures, she said that we should get used to seeing these kinds of things.  I suppose that for the next generation of politicians, raised with social networking and ubiquitous camera phones, this may be the future. Heaven help us.

Social Networking

Monday, November 1, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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Social networking– Facebook, Twitter, et al is here to stay and no amount of hand wringing over these forms of communication is going to make them go away.

Can Social Networking Hurt You in College Admissions? The answer is yes, it can hurt you. I hate to admit this, but I think there is a generational difference in how things like Facebook are viewed. My generation, aka luddites, looks at something like Facebook as a public forum while school age kids are using this almost the way we used telephones–to communicate to friends what they are doing and thinking about, to invite people to a party, to ask about the homework.  The big difference of course in our old time forms of communication like the phone is that there was no paper trail, virtual or otherwise.

When young teens use a social networking site they may not give enough thought into what they share. And sharing is the issue. When you confide in a friend, even if your friend tells your news, it doesn’t have the same impact of seeing it in print on the computer, possibly accompanied by a photo. And it certainly can’t be shared with as many people as a social networking site. Most young teens are not thinking about how public this information can be and what those who view this might assume about the person posting it.

I tell the students I work with that their Faceboook or other social networking site must pass the “grandmother test”. If what you have on your site is something you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see, take it down. Kids tend to look at this as if it is private, like a diary, but adults think of this as public–you have published it online.

Are college admissions officers trolling the net, looking for incriminating things so they can deny your application? No. However, they will not be able to ignore information that someone else sends them.  Or, if they are on Facebook and other sites as a way of attracting interest in their institution and communicating with prospective students, they may see more than you realize.

Has anyone actually been hurt by something on their social networking site? Yes. If colleges see pictures of students doing something illegal–like underage drinking– it can be a deal breaker.  Anecdotally, I heard of a student who visited a college, interviewed and made a genuinely nice impression on them and promptly turned around and “dissed” the college on his site. They were not amused. Application: denied.

My advice to high school students? Understand that it is impossible to “un-ring” a bell. Once something has made its way to the internet, it is extremely hard to get it back.  Even if you take something down, it may still be out there on a server. Learn to self sensor–resist the urge to share too much information and take down anything that might come back to haunt you.

For more information about social networking and college admissions, I highly recommend this from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC):

http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/steps/Articles/Pages/MySpace.aspx

Early Decision

Monday, October 25, 2010 by:Janet Rosier
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In my last blog post, I talked about crunch time and how so many students have an early deadline–either for Early Decision, Early Action (of one type or another) Rolling or otherwise.

Now comes news from the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) that “For the third year in a row, about half (47 percent) of colleges reported increases in the number of Early Decision applications.” This is from their newly released 2010 State of College Admissions report.  They go on to report that “There was a more dramatic rise, however, in the percentage of colleges reporting increases in the number of students admitted through Early Decision. Sixty-five percent reported increases, compared to 43 percent in 2008 and 36 percent in 2007.”

That appears to answer the question of why so many students feel pressured to apply Early Decision. Colleges are seeing an increase in students who apply early decision and they are obliging some of them by accepting more students than before through this program.

This creates an atmosphere of a race to be won.  After all, if they take increasing numbers of candidates at Early Decision, that means fewer spots available at regular decision and therefore that becomes more competitive.

As I stated in my article on Early Decision, which you can find at Unigo,

http://www.unigo.com/articles/early_decision–is_it_right_for_your_child%5E63/?taxonomyid=760028

“In The Early Admissions Game, Christopher Avery, Andrew Fairbanks and Richard Zeckhauser state that “Our central finding is that it is tremendously valuable to apply early.  In some extreme cases, applying early appears to double or triple the chances of admission.”  When students hear statements like this, they feel an enormous pressure to apply early.  Somewhere.  Anywhere. “

This may come as a shock to many parents of college bound students just beginning the college search process. In their day (and mine) applying to colleges was just not as stressful. Although I am sure early decision options were offered at some colleges, I didn’t apply to any that offered them and I do not remember anyone I knew applying Early Decision. (But then again, I was living in an area where most students applied to the state universities, which were very highly regarded and a financial bargain.)

This is an example of why students and parents feel so stressed and think that they need to strategize their way into colleges.  From extracurricular activities and summer programs to Early Decision, at each stage families feel the need to make the right choice.

I don’t think that Early Decision is a bad policy and for some students it is a great choice. But clearly, it is not right for everyone and the new figures are going to make a lot of students feel pressured to use an Early Decision card. Somewhere. Anywhere.

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