Next Stop: College

College Admissions Consultant
About Janet Rosier

Archive for February, 2012

The GPA Game

Monday, February 27, 2012 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?”  “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 4 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 follow with a Question and Answer session.

If you would like to come, click on this link for more information. Space is limited, so please let me know that you are planning to attend.

Race and Admissions

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 by:Janet Rosier
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Racial preference in admissions is a delicate subject and it has been in the news recently.

On Feb. 17 The NY Times “The Choice” blog ran this headline, “Discrimination Investigations End at Princeton and Harvard”. “The Education Department said that the original complaints were received last August, and that both had recently been withdrawn. The Office for Civil Rights closed its case against Harvard on Feb. 15, and removed the complaint accusations from an existing compliance review at Princeton.” The article goes on to explain that in each case, an Asian-American student complained that he or she had been rejected because of race.

Harvard denied discrimination and cited the fact that they only admitted 6.3% of the applicants for the incoming class as the most likely reason the student was not admitted.

Today I read in The Chronicle of Higher Education that the United States Supreme Court was going to take up the case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, regarding race-conscious admissions.

Admission to the Ivy League and many other highly sought after colleges and universities, like the flagship University of Texas at Austin, is extremely selective — we all understand that. However, the devil does seem to be in the details.  Any group that is perceived to have an advantage causes others to feel like they have been unfairly kept out. This sentiment holds true for any seemingly advantaged group– recruited athletes, underrepresented minorities, legacy students, etc.

Colleges in the US don’t use a straight up meritocracy formula– where it would be a certain criteria such as GPA or test scores that determined eligibility. In addition to those factors they also take into account a lot of intangible qualities and together they are evaluated and a decision is made.  I always tell my students that if the college doesn’t accept you it doesn’t automatically mean you weren’t qualified or couldn’t have done the work and been successful. Sometimes there is no good reason a student was denied.  Colleges also very rarely will tell a student why he was not admitted. The usual answer is “this was a very completive year and we had X number of applications”. Not being forthcoming about the process also tends to fan the flames and make people feel that something unfair must be happening behind the closed door of admissions.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if major changes in the law are coming.

College Tour

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 by:Janet Rosier
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Last Friday I was in Washington, DC to see some of my students in that area and tour American University. I have toured both Georgetown and George Washington University twice but I had not had the chance to see American. I always tell my students that nothing substitutes for a college visit and that held true for me as well.

I attended a very interesting information session as well as had a meeting with an admissions counselor to learn what is new. Quite a few things, it turns out. She filled me in on two new programs that students will complete in three years. She stressed that these were 8 semester programs and there was no cost savings, but for students who were anxious to get out and start working, it was a hit. The programs are The Three Year Cohort in Public Health and the Global Scholars Program.  You can find out more about these on their website, www.american.edu.

I also learned some interesting things, like American in ranked #1 on the Green Honor Roll and they are #6 for Most Diverse. 87% of their students participate in at least one internship and some do more.

I also learned the etymology of the word WONK. I have heard people referred to as Wonks and read about political wonks many times but now I know. Wonk is DC slang and it is KNOW spelled backwards. It stands for smart +passionate +focused +engaged.

I saw happy and engaged students and had a lovely day on their campus.

College Reported False SAT Data

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 by:Janet Rosier
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I don’t know what was more surprising. To read in Inside Higher Ed that a well respected liberal arts college had reported incorrect SAT data to several rankings entities or to read that Claremont McKenna inflated its scores by 10 or 20 points on the Math and Critical Reading sections.  10 Points? Claremont McKenna is part of the five Claremont Colleges; the others are Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Scripps and Pitzer. According to my data source, Claremont McKenna accepted 17% of applications it received in 2010. Apparently, this score exaggeration was going on for the past six years. That an elite college–and if you are only accepting 17% of all applicants you are ‘elite’–would throw away their reputation for a few points is really shocking.

Is Claremont McKenna the only college to do this? No. According to the NY Times, “several colleges in recent years have been caught gaming the system — in particular, the avidly watched U.S. News & World Report rankings — by twisting the meanings of rules, cherry-picking data or just lying.” The Times goes on to say, “In one recent example, Iona College in New Rochelle, north of New York City, acknowledged last fall that its employees had lied for years not only about test scores, but also about graduation rates, freshman retention, student-faculty ratio, acceptance rates and alumni giving.” And this, from a Christian college– “In 2008, Baylor University offered financial rewards to admitted students to retake the SAT in hopes of increasing its average score.”

A few days later, The NY Times had this news: that Kiplinger, the finance magazine removed Claremont McKenna from its rankings.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, then you know I am not a fan of college rankings.  As I have said many times, check the methodology and see if the criteria they use are the same criteria you would use to rank something. Well, now we should all maybe take the statistics colleges report with a grain of salt.