Posts filed under 'College Admissions'
Just when you think you got high school figured out, it’s time to start thinking about college. Many high school students are wasting no time at all and are starting their college search during their sophomore year.
A recent study by Eduventures finds that 42 percent of high school students start looking at colleges as early as the second year of high school. The Boston company quizzed about 11,000 high school juniors and seniors in the U.S. to get their results.
Starting early is not a bad idea. In fact, getting a jump start on discovering which colleges and majors are of interest to you and how much it could cost to attend can help relieve some of the college search stress during your last year of high school. So go ahead: start thinking about whether a community college, public university, or private college is best for you. And don’t forget: starting early gives you more time to visit schools.
But starting early doesn’t mean students are narrowing the choices down more. The survey found:
• Almost 20 percent of students are now applying to 10 or more colleges and universities. (That’s a LOT of application fees!)
• The mean number of applications for high school seniors increased from 6.3 to 7.3 since 2008.
At the start of your search, you may be lured by a college’s glossy brochure showing a picturesque campus and giving an enticing overview of the reasons that you would want to attend. But as students get closer to high school graduation, the survey found them relying more on websites to get information about schools. The survey also says something you might have already suspected: Social media outlets are becoming more common among juniors and seniors. In fact, a whopping 44 percent are using YouTube channels and 41 percent are using Facebook pages.
Did you start looking at colleges as a sophomore? How much have you relied on Facebook, YouTube and other social media in your college search?
–Lori Johnston
September 15th, 2011
During the summertime gap between high school and college, you don’t need to completely stop learning. Avoid having brain freeze in the fall by finding ways to educate yourself this summer as you work, vacation with family, and hang out at home. Need some ideas? Here are five ways college students recommend to keep learning during the summer:
1. Brush up on skills at work
Even if you’re in a restaurant job or washing cars or mowing yards, use the time at work to improve your skills, from math to learning about different management styles by watching your bosses. Babysitting is a great way to better your communication skills, too!
2. Read a book
If your fall syllabus (typically available online) for American literature, history, or another course already lists the required reading, get a jump start on one of those books. Or download on your Kindle or check out from the library a biography of someone successful in a career field of interest to you, and get the inside scoop about that profession. Want to read something lighter? Then go for the latest beach read–reading IS reading, after all. Reading books or magazines will improve your comprehension skills, so it won’t feel so weird once fall comes to pick up a book again.
3. Travel abroad
If you’re heading to another country with your parents or friends, or maybe were lucky enough to get a graduation present to Europe or another beautiful location, embrace learning about the world, too. Bringing back your knowledge of sights, history, languages, and different cultures can help you as you enter college. A global perspective is beneficial in classes ranging from political science to business.
4. Help others
During the college application process, you saw how schools sought students who were involved in the community. Now that you’ve been accepted, don’t make volunteering part of the past. Continue to volunteer or get involved in a new organization. Understanding the challenges facing people in our society today is knowledge that you can bring into possible class discussions this fall–and at the very least, you’ll impress your professor.
5. Learn online
Signing up for an online course will help you knock out one of the required first-year classes and give you a head start in your college education. You’ll learn not only the course material, but you’ll also learn what it takes to motivate yourself. And that could be the greatest lesson you learn this summer – how to get motivated, without your parents, to study and complete college assignments when so many things serve as distractions.
How are you learning and still enjoying the summer?
–Lori Johnston
July 11th, 2011
Deciding on which college to attend is the first in a long line of decisions students must make before attending their first day of classes. One of the toughest decisions is picking a roommate. Many schools offer college roommate matching programs as well as give you the option to pick your own, but which is the right way to go?
Comfortable v. New
Chances are your natural choice would be to live with someone you already know because it’s comfortable, but living with someone new can be just as exciting. Consider the following:
- Don’t room with your best friend simply because they are your best friend. You have never had to live with them 24/7 before, and you may find out that you aren’t as compatible as you originally thought.
- Roommate matching systems can be great if you fill out the student questionnaires accurately.
- The point of college is to meet new people and try new things; living with someone from home may become a safety net that keeps you from exploring.
- Some schools offer online websites that allows students to connect prior to freshmen year, so they can then choose their own roommate by “meeting” them online.
- You can always ask for a new roommate if it turns out the one you picked or are given is not the best match.
Roommate Survival 101
Now that you’ve decided with whom you want to live, you actually have to figure out how to live with that person in oftentimes cramped quarters. Here are some survival tips:
- Do be honest about your habits upfront, even if it’s your best friend. Remind them about when you like to go to bed, study, etc., and be respectful of their preferences, too.
- If you’re rooming with someone you don’t know, try to meet them or talk to him or her before you move in, so that way your first day at school is a little less scary.
- Plan out who is bringing what and what you want your room to look like ahead of time. This will save overpacking and decorating frustrations when you move in.
- Establish rules about food, visiting hours, and sharing items in general, then be sure to stick to these rules.
- Communication is key; your roommate is not a mind reader.
- Always try to be a better roommate than what you would expect from someone else, and you’ll be just fine.
The first year at college is an exciting adventure, and part of this adventure will be shared with your roommate, so try to make your relationship with them the best it can be.
–Delaney Young
April 25th, 2011
Poor Hermione.
The beautiful, talented, and INTELLIGENT Emma Watson has decided to leave Brown University. No, it’s not because she’s rethinking her academic goals. It’s because–and this is why I love her–she wasn’t able to blend in properly with her classmates.
So often, we see celebrities who love to stand out in the crowd so much that they will do basically anything to get noticed. (Just consider the number of “private” videos that have been “leaked” to the press in recent years.) That’s why it’s refreshing when a world-famous celebrity like Watson takes pains to not only try to be like everybody else, but make the decision to remove herself from an uncomfortable situation.
What’s the uncomfortable situation? Well, it just goes to show you that even at an Ivy League school like Brown, students can act stupidly. Watson, who is known to be a frequent contributor to class discussions, has apparently heard snide remarks like “Three points for Gryffindor!” when her answers are correct.
Granted, hearing a barrage of lines from the Harry Potter movies does not equate to the cruelty that a growing number of students endure as the victims of bullying, but when all you want to do is get your degree and study to be something other than a student wizard, you can’t help but feel bad for Watson.
Rumor has it that she’s looked at NYU as a possible place to transfer. Good news is that Watson isn’t going to let her academic goals fall by the wayside; she’s just going to take some time to figure out a better campus fit for her.
–Barbara Bellesi
April 21st, 2011
California state schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA have long been known as highly selective universities, but it used to be that if you were a good student from California, you had a great chance of getting in to one of the nine UC campuses.
Apparently, this is not so anymore.
The LA Times reported yesterday that California state schools–not unlike others throughout the country–are beginning to feel the crunch when it comes to money. For decades, state colleges and universities have been viewed as “bargains” because they offer significantly lower tuition rates to in-state students. To solve their money problems, schools are now accepting more out-of-state students to reap the benefits of higher tuition rates.
Is that fair? Depends on what side of the state line you live. Incoming classes are stronger than ever at California state schools, now that they are making a point of recruiting equally strong students from out of state.
Are you a high school student who was rejected from a state school that you might have been accepted to in years past? Are you a student who might now be looking at those competitive state colleges in a new light? Leave a comment below.
–Barbara Bellesi
April 20th, 2011
Big news in higher ed today: Rutgers University is paying Snooki $32,000 to come “speak” at their college. The price tag to have the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison speak at graduation? Only $30,000.
Wish we were April foolin’ you. But it seems to be true. And just because Rutgers and other colleges act like fools from time to time, that doesn’t mean you have be foolish about your actions when it comes to college.
Some college-bound students have a unique way of self-destructing shortly after their acceptance letters arrive. Some succumb to senioritis, some forget to send in their confirmation deposit (yes, it does happen), and some – well, some people just do dumb things.
In my own experience, I saw a formerly promising student completely tank the second half of senior year, causing her to lose her scholarship to the school. She was still admitted, just not with as big a welcome as before. To me, that’s much more embarrassing than being rejected outright from a school; it’s like being invited to a party and having the host say to you, “Sure, you can come, but I just won’t let you eat or drink anything.”
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but some high school students do get it sooner rather than later. Take Brian D., a soon-to-be freshman at Emory University, who is puzzled by the antics of some of his classmates.
“I think that after working so hard for all of these years to get into college, it’s stupid to mess it all up because of some silly bad decisions,” he says. The solution? In his opinion, “My classmates should slow down and think about what they are doing and its ramifications. Don’t waste everything you have worked for and think about your decisions in your last few months of high school make them count.” He is quick to add, however, “But that being said, I am enjoying my last few weeks of high school because they are my last and I want to remember them.” Well said, Brian.
But as it turns out, it’s not only students who play the fool during the college admissions process.
Kamala Appel of CollegeAdmissionsTips.com is a former recruiter and alumni interviewer for Yale’s Office of Admissions. Despite the lofty status of her former employer, she still recalls the time that she totally got dissed by a principal when she was calling high schools to set up recruiting days.
“I had one principal laugh hard at me and hang up,” she says. “He didn’t believe that a rep from Yale would want to come do a presentation at his (diverse) school in San Francisco. ‘Yale wants to come here? Yeah right. No one here’s getting into Yale. I’d just be happy to see them graduate and leave. Ha! Ha!’ Click. I was floored.”
But Appel remained the adult in the situation. “Another recruiter would have written [the school] off, but I didn’t want to punish the kids for the rude and idiotic behavior of their principal. So much for leadership and faith in your students,” she says. “I did end up going after talking to the assistant principal; she was very apologetic.” And as for the rude principal? “I shared some choice words with that principal when I met him in person. He was a fool, to put it nicely, and not just on April 1st.”
The thing about fools is that the joke is usually on them. So don’t be a fool–keep your eyes on the prize and save the (harmless) hijinks for your first spring break.
–Barbara Bellesi
April 1st, 2011
Even if you’ve already taken the general campus tour at one of your college choices, consider using part of your spring break to check out what it’s like to actually be a student there.
Since most colleges have already had their spring break, your visit will likely be timed when school is in session, but double check the college or university calendar to make sure your trip doesn’t conflict with another holiday or special days off.
More and more schools are customizing spring visits, and this is a great option for you to consider, especially if you’re facing a May 1 deadline to reply to a school that has accepted you.
At Washington University in St. Louis, you can attend a student organization meeting, exercise with college students in the athletic complex, listen to a concert, or sit it on classes during a spring university visit.
Dickinson College’s day visit option is available each winter and spring (through April 26), allowing students to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at campus life by eating lunch with a student and attending a class at the Pennsylvania college. The cool thing is that your campus visit is designed just for you.
Minnesota’s Hamline University also offers options for a spring visit, such as staying overnight with a student, eating with them, and going to classes with them; students also get to sit down with professors and coaches.
Don Fraser Jr. of the National Association for College Admission Counseling tells Education Week that it’s important to set up meetings with people in certain departments you’re interested in to get the most out of your visit. Another great tip from Fraser is to look at aspects of student life, even negative aspects such as crime, by checking out the police blotter in the student newspaper that you pick up during a campus visit.
Zola Dincin Schneider, author of Campus Visits & College Interviews, offers some good info about visits on the CollegeBoard’s web site. Among the tips: Spring break of junior year is a good time for a visit for athletes who are too swamped during the fall to visit or students considering applying for early decision.
So cure your spring fever by using your spring break to visit the campus that may be your home next fall!
–Lori Johnston
March 22nd, 2011
This Thursday is St. Patrick’s Day, and if you are still waiting to hear news from colleges, you might be hoping that some good ol’ Irish luck comes your way soon.
College admissions, however, have less to do with luck than they do with SAT and ACT scores, essays, GPAs, and letters of recommendation. At least they do in theory. But every year, we hear stories of how top-notch students get downright rejected from schools and–on the flip side–how other mediocre students seemingly pull a rabbit out of a hat and get accepted to their first-choice schools.
It’s true that the fate of some college applications simply don’t make sense. I’ve known people who have made their first-choice schools only to be rejected by their so-called “safety” school. But it’s not your job to make sense of it, nor should you just toss aside the books and instead start looking for that four-leaf clover or that pot of gold in the hopes that your college search will end happily ever after.
Join us today at 4 PM ET on Twitter for our #CollegeBound chat in which we talk about how talent, hard work, and yes, perhaps a smidgen of good luck, all combine to get you into the college of your dreams.
–The CollegeBound Network
March 14th, 2011
In some families, generations after generation attend the same school, creating a family history at one institution. Some U.S. colleges and universities date back to the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s – centuries of students and graduates who add to its history and prestige.
But new schools are continuing to open in the U.S., and they’re probably among the ones you’re considering attending. When these schools graduate their first classes, they get publicity. First Lady Michelle Obama spoke in 2009 at the commencement at University of California Merced – the latest California public university and the first research university to be built in the 21st century – to the school’s first 450 graduates.
When new colleges and universities open their doors or new facilities, such as their first dorms, it draws attention. When Ave Maria University opened in Southwest Florida in 2007, it was the first Roman Catholic university to open in the U.S. in 40 years. There’s been a trend with new medical schools – nearly two dozen, including The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, PA, that have recently opened or are planning to open, according to the New York Times.
So does age matter when making your college choice?
“There are probably a lot more differences across all different kinds of colleges than there are across old versus new colleges,” says Debra Humphreys, spokeswoman for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. “In some ways, the newness of a college probably matters less than the kind of college [that it is]. There’s so much variety in American higher education for a prospective student, the variety is a real advantage.”
She suggests a few aspects to consider when making this choice:
The mission: Why was the school established? Is it a for-profit school offering distance learning? It is in response to a state’s population growth and the need for more colleges or a growing field, like health care?
The curriculum: Don’t assume that a newer college is offering a more narrow curriculum or a vocational focus. But you do want to look closely at the mission of the institution and how it is fulfilling its mission through the curriculum. For example, UC Merced, which has a research and interactive focus, enables students to conduct research with top-notch faculty, even during their freshman year.
The faculty: Older institutions have an advantage in terms of building up their faculty over the years. But a new school doesn’t have a long history of traditions that are standing in the way of educational reform. “A lot of campuses are resistant to make changes, and they therefore sort of fall back on what they’re always known, and that’s not always the best thing in the 21st century,” she says. A new institution gets to start from scratch and pull from faculty all over the country.
The activities and facilities: Go to a college during its very first year and you’re probably won’t have on-campus living – or at least not a ton of choices for dorms. For example, Georgia Gwinnett College – which opened in 2006 as the state’s first public four-year college in more than a century – opened its first dorm in 2010. The sports program is just getting started, and student groups are just forming. That does give you an opportunity to be involved more, as the student population grows (at the Georgia school, it jumped from 100 students in 2006 to more than 3,000 now). The UC Merced’s website, for example, says its students can “help build up clubs and organizations that will define life on the 10th University of California campus for generations to come.”
Have you noticed a difference between visiting schools that have been around for hundreds of years verses newer colleges and universities? Is this a factor in your decision?
–Lori Johnston
February 21st, 2011
I believe I was only person from my high school graduating class to attend my college. I graduated from a high school in suburban Chicago and had friends heading off to schools such as University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University. My decision to attend the University of Georgia was based on my family’s Southern connection and the fact that I felt its journalism program was strong enough to kick-start my career.
So it’s interesting to hear the recent debate and data about whether it really matters where you go to college. The New York Times has covered the college choice topic in depth with viewpoints from a variety of college officials and higher education experts, and it’s really interesting to read their perspective.
One study cited by the Times and other publications involves recent data by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which determined that students graduating from a college known for high SAT entrance scores didn’t benefit from higher post-graduation income. In fact, the study found that students who chose not to attend or who were not admitted into elite schools are more likely to earn high incomes later than students who do.
Schools tout top rankings and other measures of their success – and it’s a barometer that you and your parents may be using. Sure, it’s impressive to say you graduated from an elite private school on your resume. But when it comes to your college choice, it’s not about the prestige, the high rankings that a school holds, or its famous alumni (remember that some celebrities, politicians, authors, and others attended schools that are not household names, too).
In short, it’s what you make of your education, not where you go to get it, that will define your success.
Attending an elite school – or any school, for that matter – and not getting involved in campus or career organizations is a big misstep. It’s just plain lazy. Saying you’re a graduate of a certain school likely won’t matter if you haven’t done anything with the opportunities you were provided. Instead, embrace those campus experiences! Look for a school where you can be active in your major by taking challenging classes and taking advantage of opportunities for jobs or internships that are related to your potential career.
Being active as a student at the University of Georgia helped me throughout my career. Yes, I have used my school’s name to connect with alumni for jobs, but those connections were a result of my hard work in college–and that ended up being more important than the school’s reputation alone.
–Lori Johnston
December 20th, 2010
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Just when you think you got high school figured out, it’s time to start thinking about college. Many high school students are wasting no time at all and are starting their college search during their sophomore year.
