Next Stop: College

College Admissions Consultant
About Janet Rosier

Archive for February, 2011

The GPA Game

Tuesday, February 22, 2011 by:Janet Rosier
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As an Independent Educational Consultant, I am often asked about what the colleges are really looking for. “Does not having community service hurt my son in admissions?” “Will one poor grade kill my daughter’s chances at Wedontwant U?”  “How many extra-curricular activities do I need?”

The answers to these questions and more will be discussed at a seminar I am hosting, “The GPA Game”. This is a fun and interactive exercise designed to give students and parents an understanding of how the colleges interpret applications.

I did not invent this game. I came across it several years ago when it was being discussed on the listserve for the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), an association of which I am a member. I have hosted this game before and it is always enjoyable.

I am hosting this event on Sunday, March 6 at 1:00 PM at the Greater New Haven Jewish Community Center, 360 Amity Road, Woodbridge.

Families with high school aged children–parents and students–are welcome to attend this free seminar.  I will moderate the GPA Game and explain it and also have a Question and Answer session. Refreshments will be served.

But, space is limited–the room only holds a finite number of people. So, I do ask that if you would like to attend, you register for the “The GPA Game” through my website, www.janetrosier.com or email me at jredres@optonline.net

TMI (Too Much Information)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 by:Janet Rosier
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I recently read that the Common Application has decided NOT to add additional questions asking students about their sexual orientation or gender identity. As the kids would say, OMG!

Who would have even thought that this was being considered?

College Applications, of which the Common App is the most well known, currently ask a lot of questions and compile a lot of data.  They ask if you are a US Citizen. They ask what was your first language and what is the primary language spoken in your home. They ask about your parents’ marital status or if one or both are deceased.  Students list their extra-curricular activities, work experience and clubs they belong to.

They also ask optional questions about your ethnicity and religious preference. Although these questions are optional, and therefore not meant to cause added stress, they sometimes do. Students are not always sure if they should include their religion.

The sexual orientation question, should they ever decide to include it, would also be optional. I cannot imagine how much stress that would be for some students. Should a gay teen out himself or herself? Would it help? Would it hurt? What purpose does it serve?

It is my philosophy that honesty is the best policy and that students should not lie on their college applications, as I have noted in earlier blogs.  However, sexual orientation is one area about which the student should not feel he or she has to be brutally honest. Let me be completely clear here–I have absolutely no problem with being gay or transgendered. I just think that this is information that has no bearing on whether a student should or should not be admitted. Some things should make no difference to the admissions committee and therefore, asking the question is pointless. For some gay or transgendered students this may factor into where they decide to apply, but it should have no effect on college acceptance.

Let’s hope that the college applications do not go down this road in the future.

College Applications are Up

Tuesday, February 8, 2011 by:Janet Rosier
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The NY Times “The Choice” blog headline for Jan. 31 is “Applications Rise (Yet Again) at Dozens of Selective Colleges”.

This should come as a surprise to no one who follows college admissions. The hype that surrounds college admissions is just this side of hysterical.  And, as I already predicted in my December 21 blog, the headlines in April will proclaim that “Colleges Admit Fewer Applicants”. In other breaking news, the sky is blue.

The news for the graduating high school seniors of 2008 was that they were the largest group ever applying to colleges. That lasted until the class of 2009 found out that they were the largest class. Since then, class size has gone down. A little. It was not a huge drop that would suddenly mean less competition for colleges. And, some experts predict that even as the number of students graduating high schools will go down in the near future, the number of students applying to colleges will rise.

And, let’s be realistic. The number of students who vie for the few seats in the most competitive colleges will not go down. And those are the colleges that the media concentrates on.  Everyone has heard of these colleges and universities and students and their families perceive the most competitive as being synonymous with “the best”. And we all want the best. I think here in Connecticut this attitude is pretty common–after all, we have Yale and other highly selective colleges like Wesleyan in our backyard. It is easy to fall in line and think that attending one of these institutions will guarantee future success. And we are not alone; plenty of students outside the US also want the best. So, the competition for these colleges will remain high and we will read the same headlines every year and that will ensure that the next group of students applying to college will feel the same stress and pressures as the previous ones.

But January is too early to call the entire admissions cycle. There are some colleges that are still accepting applications, and therefore their numbers are not yet calculated. We all need to take a deep breath and realize that the “selective colleges” the Times is talking about are not the only colleges out there. There are literally thousands of colleges and universities in the United States and it is more important to find a college that is the right fit–academically as well as socially and emotionally– than to just chase a name. But in the meantime, the national media will continue their tunnel vision and report about the “most selective colleges”.

The Piano Bar and the Instant News Cycle

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by:Janet Rosier
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As soon as I read the story, I planned to write about the “Piano Bar” for this week’s blog. That was the name that the press decided best fit the mystery piano that suddenly appeared on a sandbar in Biscayne Bay.

After a few days of speculation as to who left it there and why, and even a false claim of ownership, the person behind the event outed himself– a 16 year old young man, a junior at Mast Academy in Miami.  The Miami Herald reported:

“Then Nicholas had an idea: As a promotional video to get into college, he would make a video on the nondescript sandbar using the piano, bagpipes from a neighbor, and a small submersible sub used for studies at MAST. So the family moved the piano the few blocks from Grandma’s place to their home.

“We were thinking of a big production, a music video epic,” Nicholas said.”

My first thought was “That didn’t take long”. My January 11 blog was about students submitting videos for admissions and one of the concerns raised in the college admissions community was that some families might take this to the ultimate level in their quest to be accepted to college. After reading the first articles that described Nicholas I thought this was a perfect example of that concern.  After all, the article said that Nicholas’ dad is a production designer for television shows and Nicholas was applying to Copper Union for engineering. So, the video certainly seemed over the top.

But, then I waited a day or two and read a few more articles. In this instant news cycle, it is easy to think you have gotten the whole story early on.  The first time I saw the essay angle, it was in The New York Times. I bookmarked the link and had a quote from the article. From there I went to the Miami Herald. But, after a few days the story changed. After reading more about this, it seemed more appropriate, although still over the top. Not very many 16 year olds have access to a spare grand piano and the ability to deliver it to a sandbar and video themselves playing it. On fire. It becomes easy to be irritated imagining that a rich kid whose dad is in the business can make this “music video epic” to help himself get into college.  But, as later stories pointed out, it seems that this may have been part of a portfolio for an art major. It remains a story of a privileged student but certainly, for me, changes the narrative. Portfolios are often required to apply to BFA programs and creative kids come up with creative portfolios. What at first felt like application video craziness seems to be less so.  This reminded me to wait before swallowing whole the first news stories I read, even in reputable papers, and see what is being said a day or two later, after more facts are in.