- lesscollegestress
- Apr 10, 2022
When my son told me that he was on the judge’s panel for the National High School Ethics Bowl at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill this weekend, that really got my attention. Yes, colleges want students with strong character traits, but even if they didn’t, I would champion this as an ideal extracurricular activity. Visit the page to learn how to start a high school team and recruit participants! I posted about it on both Facebook pages, and here’s a link and video if anyone is interested:
Next up, I’m off to Spring Preview Day at Fordham today. We know how selective certain schools have become this year, and Fordham is no exception. I found them to be somewhat unpredictable for my students (both boys); a 4.0 student with many AP courses and a 1400 SAT was deferred from the College Of Arts and Sciences and another was admitted to the Gabelli Business School with lower numbers and less rigor (chose to attend elsewhere). I’m looking forward to gaining some insight that will help my 2023 and 2024 Fordham hopefuls. Of course, as at every college, I’m curious to see if any test-optional policies will change. That mainly seems to be happening in the south.
Finally, most of the class of 2022 is all set, with Villanova (5), the University of Richmond, University of Georgia, George Washington University, Syracuse (2), Notre Dame (most likely choice out of many), Providence (2), Colgate, Hamilton, Emerson, University of South Carolina, Clemson, Bowdoin, and Boston College chosen so far. But there’s still time to decide! Several students are wrestling with excellent options: UVA, Clemson, Gettysburg, College of the Holy Cross, Penn State, Colgate, Franklin & Marshall, Ithaca, University of Vermont, Northeastern, Case Western (2), Rensselaer Polytechnic (3), Purdue (2), Union College, the University of Rochester, and Skidmore. I’m ready to help with these difficult decisions and so happy for all my students.
- lesscollegestress
- Apr 3, 2022
A colleague's words inspired to me write this. Upset about being waitlisted by your top choice college? That college may not be convinced that you’ll accept their offer. Here’s why:
“Yield,” the percentage of students who accept a college’s offer of admission, has always mattered to colleges. The pandemic--and test optional admissions--dramatically increased the number of applications colleges received, making yield less predictable than ever. Yield carries bragging rights—Harvard’s yield is bigger than Haverford’s (or just about anyone’s)—and yield factors into college rankings. Colleges fear falling in the rankings. (Like Malcolm Gladwell, I distrust the rankings…but here we are.)
Like most of the college process, the waitlist offers no guarantees, and admits to competitive colleges are in the low percentages. However, I have data on most colleges’ waitlists from last year, and “waitlist” is not “deny.” So send your deposit to another great college by May 1st, and if you would definitely enroll at that waitlisted college, let them know. You are still in the game!
I generally advise you to follow the college’s advice. Not this time. The waitlist letter reads, “If you stay on the waitlist, don’t contact us. We’ll contact you.” But just as you work to get that great internship or summer job, be proactive.
Take a breath. Then, toward the end of April/early May, contact your college admissions rep with a letter of continued interest (LOCI) of no more than 250 words (there’s one in your Demonstrated Interest file if you’re working with me). Make sure to let that college know that you really mean it by sharing new accomplishments, what you will bring to particular courses, and how those courses and professors will help you reach your long-term goals. (If possible, consider visiting the admissions rep by Zoom or in person.)
Remember the “Why Us? essay and how specific I said it must be? Open that college website and revisit that strategy! If the reasons you state for wanting to attend a college could be applied to any college, no school will be certain that you will accept their offer. The only way to raise the odds of getting off that waitlist is to convince them you will attend.
P.S. DO NOT REMAIN ON A WAITLIST FOR A SCHOOL YOU WILL NOT ATTEND! Remove your name and help someone else get accepted!
- lesscollegestress
- Mar 27, 2022
My recent pet peeve is the regular use of the term “resiliency” for “resilience.” Why was it necessary to switch to a longer noun instead of continuing to use a perfectly good one? What’s funny is that hearing “resiliency” causes people to think it’s the more correct choice, as I suspect many high school students do when they write “highschool” in their essays.
Language has always evolved. There’s the story about the widespread scorning of presidential candidate Warren G. Harding’s “Return to Normalcy” campaign slogan. “Normal” was fine, so why did “normalcy” have to be invented (people called out these aberrations more in 1920 than they do today)? Eventually, “normalcy” took root, and was a mainstay of Dr. Fauci’s pandemic speeches a century later.
We too evolve and adapt to the “new normal.” Colleges that looked like “targets” have become “possibles.” Some institutions, even for our high flyers, have become “unlikelies” because of the barrage of qualified applicants. How do we predict and move forward?
Coping with today’s reality means regularly comforting my strongest ED applicants if they are deferred to the RD pool. (The “fairness” conversation is irrelevant because higher ed was never fair.) But this week, I was thrilled when a deferred student, after getting “yeses” from nearly every other college on her list (some with large scholarships), was admitted to her ED college from the hyper-selective RD pool. After a stressful ride on the “rejection>maybe there’s a chance but RD is way more selective >acceptance” rollercoaster, her wish came true.
Her list was solid, and she would have been a standout at every other college if “institutional priorities” at her ED college hadn’t worked out in her favor. Despite the initial disappointment, her resilience helped keep the denial (I never say rejection) in perspective. She was always qualified, and she will always go beyond expectations. It’s the student, not the college, that matters in the long run.
It turns out that “resiliency” has existed in the English language as long as “resilience” but it was used less frequently in our part of the world. I will continue to correct “highschool” however.
Like language? Read below.