College rejection letters, how colleges boost their rankings, and funny math.

Via sunnyydoodles.tumblr.com; outdated since Stanford charged $90 in 2012.

Only a few more days and college admission departments will send a boat load of letters (or push email “send” buttons) to reject millions of applicants.

Colleges will accept a few, too, but the real news to be trumpeted across the land in early April will be how many students they rejected.

From last year see, Ivy League colleges post record low acceptance rates, via Money.cnn.com:

Your odds of getting into some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges are shrinking.

The country’s eight Ivy League institutions finished sending out their admission decisions to applicants late Thursday. And many of the elite schools — including Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Cornell — are reporting that they accepted record low percentages of applicants for the upcoming school year.

As colleges send out more rejections they can also reduce their selectivity rates — the percentage of applications accepted out of those received — and help boost their rankings in US News & World Report and other popular  lists.

The story that doesn’t often make the front pages in admission season, though, is what goes into the calculations of the acceptance rates. The Common App has made it much easier to apply to more colleges, as long as Mom and Dad are willing to pay the application fees (up to $90 or more, each). Just because an elite school — say, Harvard with 34,302 applicants in 2012 or UC-Berkeley with 61,702 — receives more and more applicants each year, does that mean they receive proportionately more that are qualified?

Valerie Strauss wrote in the Washington Post last year, in Some 2012 college admissions rates hit new lows:

More kids who don’t have a prayer of getting into some of these schools apply anyway, but schools still get to brag that they have a record number of applications. As a result, some admissions counselors note that the percentage of kids who have a real shot at getting into some of these schools doesn’t go up much — if at all — from year to year.

Yet the reduction in acceptance rates remains the juicier story — and the story that helps support the narrative that students (and their parents) need to do anything to get into college, no matter the cost, retention rates, graduation rates, resulting debt load, or the job outlook.

Here are a couple more perspectives on the acceptance rate math. I’m quoting a paragraph or two, but the essays aren’t that long and — if you like this sort of thing — interesting.

Kevin Carey, in Stalking the True College Acceptance Rate for The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote about the fifteen minutes it might take to screen applications into piles for Yes, No, and Maybe.

There are inevitably a lot of easy “No” decisions, because a substantial number of students treat elite college applications like a $90 lottery ticket. Such unqualified applicants don’t change the odds of qualified students being accepted. There could be 10,000 “No’s”, 100,000, it doesn’t matter. It only matters how many “Yes” and “Maybe” applicants apply (and how many legacies, athletes, Hollywood ingenues, and senator’s sons…).

. . .

From the student’s perspective, there’s no difference between applying to five elite colleges and being accepted at one and applying to 10 elite colleges and being accepted at one. You can only go to one. But the student who applies to 10 colleges drives institutional acceptance rates down, even though he or she doesn’t change the number that actually matters: the total ratio of high-quality applicants (not applications) to high-quality spots.

In another piece, from 2010, Carey cited Chad Aldeman, who suggests in The Quick and The Ed that we Switch College Admissions to a Single Lottery:

Now consider for a second that you are a high school junior and you see these rates. It’s becoming easier than ever to apply for multiple schools, so what is your rational course of action?

You’re going to apply for tons of schools, thinking that at least one will let you in. And the next year, when the acceptance rates go even lower (they’ve been falling for years), students will apply to even more schools. The chances of any one student getting into any one school will become smaller and smaller, even as the number of spaces at those schools keeps pace with demographic changes. The spaces themselves are not becoming more scarce; it’s the admissions craze that’s making them look that way.

Back to the 2010 article by Kevin Carey, for The Chronicle of Higher Education. He outlined the math in Real College-Acceptance Rates are Higher Than You Think, then put the acceptance rates into perspective with his last paragraph:

And of course it’s always worth noting that the vast majority of college students don’t go to a selective college at all and they’re the ones we should be worrying about.

More on that — in this week’s news — to come.

Related articles

• And the letters are gone!
• From the NACAC Study: What is NO LONGER Important in College Admission

Q&A: Does a college look at what type of diploma my student earned?

January and February are prime time for high school guidance counselors, parents, and students to meet and discuss course selections for registration. A number of friends wrote with questions about courses and choices. Here’s one.

Q.  Do you know if universities pay attention to whether a high school student is going for the regular Virginia diploma vs. the advanced one? Would having almost all, but not quite all, of the required credits for the advanced diploma be sufficient?

For non-Virginia readers:  rising 9th graders are asked to select which diploma they hope to achieve. The advanced diploma requires four years of Math, Lab Science, History/Social Science (rather than three), and three years of a Foreign Language (rather than two). There are other smaller differences (and you can read all about them here if you wish; heaven help you), but those are the key factors.

A.  The short answer:  I doubt they pay specific attention to whether or not the student hit every target on the Advanced Studies diploma, but they probably pay close attention to whether or not the student hit every target on their own list — which, for selective schools, will be very similar to the Advanced Studies list.

For the second question, about having almost all of the requirements — that would likely not be sufficient for a super-selective school, but would be sufficient for other schools. That’s where the standard disclaimer, “it depends,” comes into play. A student who did not get accepted to a school that only takes 15% of applicants could be a star at a school that accepts 45%.

Now, a few thoughts and questions for you as further information (which may or may not be useful).

1.  Does your high school include which type of diploma the student achieved — or attempted — on their HS transcript? Our high school’s transcript changes in response to changes in policy, so it has the potential to be different for almost every graduating class.

Western’s profile is online in the Counseling Dept. files.

Mod Squad Pete’s and M.S. Julie’s transcripts have a note at the top that says, “Student has completed the Early College Scholar Program agreement.” I think that refers to their signing off with the guidance counselor that they were going after the Advanced Diploma.

Also, find your school profile. This accompanies the student’s transcript when it’s sent to colleges. I would assume it is similar to our HS profile, which provides the context for the student’s experience, listing the grading scale, size of school, National Merit and SAT results for the school, class ranks, AP Exam results, and graduation requirements (both standard and advanced). You should be able to pull a copy of this from your school’s website. Your HS counselors should be able to give you a copy of a sample transcript. Admission staff certainly looks at each student within the context of his or her own school and how the course list compares to courses taken by other students in the school.

This is all so you can see, ahead of time, exactly how the colleges would see the information you’re asking about.

2.  Next, look at colleges to which your daughter may wish to apply. Every college must make reams of admission data public when they submit it to the government. Many, many websites provide that data in easily-searchable formats for students and parents to see. (This is also the source for the college guidebooks.) One of my favorites is CollegeData (owned by a bank, but offering an excellent format of search results) but there are loads to choose from.

Take UVa for example. They specify the courses they look for on the HS transcript, as in how many math, science, English, foreign language, etc. You can see that here, broken down by “required” and “recommended.” They also publish the priority of student data — which is most important to them and which is less so — lower on that same page. See Selection of Students and Factors: top on UVa’s list is rigor of HS record.

***

Now, a question for readers of this blog:  Do students in others states have to choose a type of diploma or state a college-oriented goal in some way? Please let me know in comments.

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College Moving-In Week: the packing list.

Mod Squad Pete is five days away from moving into his dorm and — no surprises here — still working on his shopping list.

Bed, Bath & Beyond offers an online catalog…

He started early with a laptop purchase in June. We decided against purchasing the full dorm-room bedding set offered by his college (and I wrote about that here), but it took until yesterday for us to get to the store to buy sheets (and mattress pad, foam layer, duvet, duvet cover, etc.). Today he’s out with Mod Squad Dad picking up a refrigerator.

While I sought out lists and advice online (see What to Pack When Heading to College by Kelci Lynn Lucier, who also writes at College Parent Handbook), Pete said he had a mental list. I let that go until a week ago when we returned from family road trips and looked at the calendar.

Then Pete looked online for help and typed up a page full of items. He didn’t organize his list into categories, but Bed, Bath & Beyond offers this breakdown:

…or a simple check list.

• Sleep
• Organize
• Wash
• Eat
• Study
• Relax

Last night Pete started looking through his closet, thinking about what clothes to bring and what to leave. We’ve read college student advice against taking an entire wardrobe, so he’s leaning toward taking the variety he wants, but just enough for about three weeks or so, guessing at how often he’ll do laundry. Since it will still be warm here for a few more months, he doesn’t need sweaters or jackets or many jeans and chinos, for that matter. He’ll take a navy blazer and a tie, but no suit.

From Ms. Lucier, cited above:

Call me old-fashioned, but here’s the deal: Your student should be able to fit everything they need in your car. Yes, your car. (Exception: If your student is moving into an apartment and you need to furnish the place, you can break this rule.) Your student can get by with much less than they might think, and too many students bring too much stuff at the beginning of their first year in school.

Pete also has the advantage of parents living nearby. If he needs any particular item, one of us could drop it off.

[I won't go into detail here about the potential disadvantages of parents living nearby. Pete knows we will not be dropping by unannounced nor uninvited.]

Pete has coordinated large-ticket items with his roommate:  Pete’s bringing the fridge and microwave, his roommate is bringing the printer and a TV. They have not discussed color schemes — one more thing I think might be different when M.S. Julie starts packing in a couple of years. Yet, to turn the stereotype on its head, Pete has the greater need for a shoe organizer.

Oh, yes, this week is all about focusing on the details and putting off thinking about that bigger picture:  he’s leaving home.

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• 5 College Packing Considerations for Students and Parents
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Graduation: And just like that — high school is over.

A couple of nights ago, while many HS seniors were gathering for the Valediction ceremony, a few seniors were on the soccer field, their team competing in the state tournament. After a stellar season, they lost that game. A friend, and mother to one of those seniors, posted a status update yesterday:

And just like that — after 13 years we’re done with soccer. Kind of stunned.

My immediate thought was, the same with school. Wow. Just like that, Mod Squad Pete is done with K-12. I am truly stunned.

Countdown to graduation.

For all intents and purposes, many of the high school seniors were done after the AP exams took place during the first two weeks of May (May 7-18th in 2012). In our school division, if the student has an A for the year in a course and is a student in good standing (no outstanding fines, library books, detentions, etc.), he or she doesn’t need to take the final exam. If seniors do need to take any exams, theirs were scheduled during the week of May 21. (Other classes take exams here next week with the last day of school on June 8th.)

Grad rehearsal took place May 22nd. Pete and a few classmates were scheduled to perform at Valediction; they had a couple of rehearsals as well.

So the past couple of weeks have included some lovely, lazy times for Pete — only interrupted by a few working shifts and the occasional prod from me for him to do something productive. [Sorry, Pete!]

It’s really here.

Valediction — this was our first year to attend — is an award announcement ceremony for the seniors and their families. The student performances included a jazz ensemble and three vocalists, and a local radio sportscaster spoke. The emphasis of the evening was to pay attention to the awards and scholarships earned by the graduating seniors.

As the seniors proceeded into the auditorium, wearing cap and gown, Mod Squad Dad turned to me and said, “It’s just dawning on me; they’re really graduating.” Cue the waterworks.

This was also our first year to attend graduation. I knew the division Superintendent and the School Board would attend; I didn’t realize the County Board of Supervisors would attend as well. Most touching to me:  after the dignitaries and school administrators proceeded to the dais, the high school teachers paraded in and lined both sides of the aisle for the students’ procession. Around 250 seniors then walked through the smiling, cheering gauntlet of teachers they’d worked with for four years, many stopping for hugs and photos along the way. More waterworks for me.

The personal path.

Over the past year I’ve tried to share many of our tasks, questions, and worries, along with a few triumphs. I’ve often reported on higher ed news, sometimes putting it into the context of our family’s process. I’ve had some fun at Pete’s and my own expense.

And upon occasion, I’ve attempted to write about how I feel about what’s been going on. I remember writing this post, about the first day of senior year. High school graduation is one of those milestone days for us and, I suspect, most families.

Bear with me as I focus on that personal aspect. We are so incredibly proud of Pete — of the relationships he has developed with friends, teachers, administrators, employers; of the curiosity he has maintained in the classroom; of the musical creativity he has pursued; of his perserverence through tough course schedules and crazy college application deadlines; of the good humor and positive attitude he carries with him almost all of the time; and all of that and more that he contributes to the joy of this family.

Thank you, Pete, for allowing me to write about our work together this past year. And thank you for the life and love you bring to us daily. We wish you all the best going forward.

Good luck to you, your friends, and your classmates:  the WAHS class of 2012.

 

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• Getting high school seniors ready for college

 

3 Things High School Seniors Need To Do Right Now.

December 2011. Calendar by Mod Squad Emma.

Believe it or not, the important December countdown for most high school seniors is not:  “how many days til Christmas.” Most U.S. colleges set the regular admissions deadline for January 1. Eleven days away.

For any senior, like Mod Squad Pete, who just happens to not be done yet with college applications, here are the three things he or she should be doing right now…

1.  Finish the darn thing(s). Pete might have been 98% done on his regular admissions since before Thanksgiving. Each one has just one or two little things that still need doing. Get it over with already. (And yes, Pete, I’m talking to you.)

If there are questions stopping you, tune into the live chat the NYT‘s The Choice is hosting tonight, Wednesday, and Thursday. Here are the details:

The first night’s chat will take place tonight, on The New York Times’s main Facebook page: facebook.com/nytimes. The two chats thereafter will be staged at The Choice blog’s Facebook page: facebook.com/nytimesthechoice. All of the exchanges will be from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time, and the counselors will answer questions in real time.

By the way, if you or your senior has all applications done, great! Skip ahead to task number 2. If you or your senior received acceptance via an Early Decision program, congratulations!! No more college applications! Skip ahead to task number 2.

2.  Sign up for the student and parent PINs for FAFSA. The first step in applying for financial aid is to apply for a PIN. Do that here. The steps are clear:

The PIN Application Process consists of 3 steps:
Step 1: Enter Personal Information
Step 2: Submit Your PIN Application
Step 3: Receive Your PIN

The online application goes live January 1, 2012, but the FAFSA on the web worksheet is available now.

3.  Take a deep breath and relax. 2011 may have been a big year with junior-year courses, SATs, college visits, becoming a senior, and writing applications, but just wait. The new year will bring the final semester of high school (requiring stick-to-it attention through the AP exams and finals), additional deadlines for financial aid and any scholarships (requiring more collaboration between student and parent), the emotional experience of receiving regular admissions results (some of us have had a glimpse of that with early admissions results), and making a commitment to one college.

Oh, right:  that’s just the first five months.

As always, good luck to all with those applications!

Related articles

• Wednesday Weekly Reader: 13 Key Items to Know About Financial Aid. (drstrangecollege.wordpress.com)
• The Skinny on College Financial Aid Process and Terms (thecareercloset.com)
• College Prep – Timeline for Seniors (commonwealthmgmt.com)

Waiting for Admissions News: Are we there yet?

Admissions building, Tufts. Image via Wikipedia

Now is the season of winter admissions results. Blog posts and tweets from admissions departments loom like the colored smoke above the Vatican: What does this mean? How does this affect his chances?

See CollegeSolved’s blog, How Much Admissions Transparency is Too Much?

“Mr. Einstein! Mr. Einstein! Tufts has already admitted thirty-three students!” shouted a nervous ED applicant. “No, that’s not right. They haven’t released their decisions yet,” responded a confident and seasoned counselor. True enough, Tufts has not yet notified early decision applicants of their decisions But my anxious senior was, nonetheless, moved to near-panic status after reading this.

The New York Times blog on college admissions, The Choice, provided Field Notes From This Year’s Application Season:

While our survey was unscientific, it brought into focus some themes, including increased applicant interest in public colleges – both in and out of state – and an apparent rise in the number of students who have been filing applications early this year, sometimes at the prodding of the colleges themselves.

From the same post, in a report from a counselor…

Mr. Evans of Penn Charter reported that the heightened early application activity had increased the need for “expectation management” and counseling regarding how to navigate the complex web of restrictions surrounding early applications for those filing a mix of early decision, early action and rolling applications.

In December the emails began to arrive. One of Mod Squad Pete’s classmates heard in early December. News of more emails trickled in.

Pete sent three early admission applications, one to each of the holy trinity of college categories: reach, fit, safe. Luck of the calendar dictated that the reach response would arrive first, in December. The other two, not til January.

The email will offer one of three responses:  acceptance, deferral, or thanks but no thanks. Spring decision emails may offer a wait list.

StudentAdvisor provides advice on whether to share your results: Posting Your College Acceptances on Facebook? Some Do’s and Don’ts.

Once upon a time, when students received the big envelope from their dream college, they called their friends. Now, students rely on social networks to break the news. All of a sudden, your feeds are flooding with acceptance posts. Not only does social media make it faster to share good news, it makes it easier to act in ways you wouldn’t in “real-life.”

Here are some of the stories we hear:

• A student receiving news while in class, walks out of the classroom without a word to the teacher. He got in to his Early Decision choice, just needed to leave the room before he screamed. After he found a teacher in the hall to hug, he returned to the classroom of seniors to report his result (to their cheers).
• A parent reads an admissions blog and knows the significance of the email’s confusingly vague subject line and must wait. The student has to read far into the email to understand he got in.
• Another parent cries the day after her child’s rejection.
• Meanwhile, the parent of an underclassman asks cheerfully, ‘How’s that college thing going?”
• Another parent of an underclassman asks, “So where is Pete applying?”
• A parent of a senior shares her daughter’s acceptance and scholarship offer: “It’s fun to start hearing the good news.”

From the College Solution, Lynn O’Shaughnessy reminds us, “Only 2% of schools reject more than 75% of applicants.”

Related articles

• How to Apply to College… and When. (drstrangecollege.wordpress.com)
• College Admissions Secrets. (drstrangecollege.wordpress.com)
• ‘Gotta love rolling admissions’ (costofcollege.wordpress.com)

The 6 Worst College Application Mistakes

Here’s a timely article from College Advisor, on the The 6 Worst College Application Mistakes. Some students are still working on Early Action applications, some may have started their Regular Admission apps, but all might take a look at these as a quick reminder. Here’s one mistake you never think you would make, but how many of us have ever sent off an email to the wrong addressee?

1. Misspelling your own name..

Make sure that your name is spelled correctly on all your applications and official documents Simple typos and misspellings – Daneil versus Daniel, Cathy versus Kathy, or Smith versus Smiht – can cause colleges to think that two different people exist. Problems can also arise when you alternate between your full name and nickname. As a result, they will have a harder time completing your files. Incomplete files don’t get read. So triple check even the basic information – name, address, social security number and birth date. In the same vein, make sure that your email address is correct and while we are at it – appropriate.

Good luck to all the seniors!

How HS Parents Talk: Recruiting counselor chimes in.

Mod Squad Pete is on his way to the airport to make one last college visit. [Wait a minute -- if I actually publish 'last' am I setting him up for more visits after the Early Action deadline? Pondering this...]

Image by Chris Devers via Flickr

For this visit, he’ll stay with family, tour the college with a favorite cousin, meet family friends who are current students, and he’ll be visiting one of his favorite cities [he's wearing a Boston Red Sox cap]. I’d say it’s likely he’ll have a great time, no matter the response to this particular college. Given the stress we’ve all been under the past couple of weeks, I hope he has a great time.

[Oh, and about that stress and how it relates to the title of this blog: that 'stop worrying' bit, you knew better all along, right?]

Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to chat with a couple of college counselors yesterday, one independent counselor and one who helps athletes through the recruiting process. I’ll probably write more about the conversation later. For now, here’s a quote as an addition to the guide on how high school parents talk:

When a parent says, ‘I just want my child to be happy,’ really it means, ‘If they don’t get into an Ivy league, I’ll kill myself.’ It becomes apparent they’re really gaming for an elite school — and if this isn’t realistic for their student, it can take months to talk them off the ledge.

We’re trying to listen to him [here's one of our convos] and stay off the ledge. Of course, just like all the other stages of parenting, we’re making this up as we go.

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College at a discount, or Extreme College Couponing!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The Chicago Tribune reported last week that a Chicago-based private university, National Louis University, is offering a Groupon for one of its  graduate-level courses. The course proposes to help someone who has no teaching experience, nor much exposure to teaching, determine whether this is a career path they might wish to follow.  [H/T to Jenna Johnson at the Washington Post's Campus Overload]

NLU is offering a discount of nearly 60 percent on tuition — the three hour course usually costs $2,232, the Groupon offers it for $950. If someone signs up for the course, gets interested in teaching, and wants to enroll in the Master’s program, they will need to apply for admission and be prepared to complete 33 more credit hours at the regular rate (an additional $24,552 + fees, housing, etc.).

I particularly like GOOD’s take on this. See the full post here.

Call me old-fashioned, but you can figure out if you want to be a teacher for free. Thanks to budget cuts, schools are pretty short-staffed, so if you want some field experience, all you have to do is call a school and ask to volunteer in a classroom. You’ll be able to talk to teachers about the pros and cons of the profession and learn how to earn your credential. Or you could head to the library and check out one of the many books written by teachers after their first year in the classroom, or read online about the issues and trends impacting the field.

Even if you count gas money, the cost of a DIY “class” will cost a tiny fraction of National Louis’ $950 sale price. True, you won’t earn three college credits for figuring out if you want to be a teacher, but students taking the class aren’t guaranteed acceptance into the school’s master’s in teaching program. If they aren’t admitted, they’ve paid a lot of money for credits they can’t use. Wouldn’t it be nice if a full education was affordable for everyone without a one-week coupon?

We’ve long been reading about net rates and tuition discounts, but this — a coupon — is a first. Given the combined conditions of tough economy, higher ed bubble, and almost nonexistent job market for college grads… do you think we’ll see more innovative discounting?

Perhaps, and especially if it gets the name of your university into the national press.

If, as has been reported, the vendor receives about 50 percent of the Groupon purchase price [there is no way of knowing the details, since Groupon says every deal is negotiated case by case], then NLU spent about $27K to offer 15 Groupons. Care to estimate how much they netted in exposure in national media and the blogosphere? See below just a few of the article links that popped up on my search…

If you were the admissions officer for a relatively unknown University, wouldn’t this tempt you?

Related articles

• College Now 57% Off [Higher Learning] (gawker.com)
• Groupon Offers Discount For College Tuition (inquisitr.com)
• The Fine Print on that Groupon Tuition Deal (studentactivism.net)
• Groupon offers cheap university tuition (techradar.com)
• Tuition too high? Chicago university offers online discount (thestar.com)
• Edsurge: Word Jousts, Groupons For Higher Ed, And The Flipped Classroom (fastcompany.com)
• Groupon Bargain for Grad-Level Education (abcnews.go.com)
• Groupon: The Future of Higher Education? (slog.thestranger.com)
• University to Offer First Groupon for Course Tuition (mashable.com)

First college application deadlines now in view.

September 2011. Calendar by Mod Squad Julie.

Our local schools started on August 24th, but the week and a half before Labor Day feels like a bit of a prequel.

Now that the long weekend is behind us and we’re fully into September, high school has our full attention.

No. Strike that. High school has only part of our attention, because Mod Squad Pete is a senior and one of his extracurriculars this year is getting into college.

We’ve spent the past few months playing with college-related deadlines — creating, editing, and eliminating them at will. (I’ve written about it here, here, and here.)

Sure, thanks to long lists and charts and markers on easel-boards and sticky notes with sharpie messages and the incentive to get parents off his back, Pete has made substantial progress down the path toward college. We all knew, though, that those self-created deadlines contained wiggle room. As in:  it would be great to get this accomplished early, but this isn’t the drop-dead deadline.

No more wiggle room.

Pete will be submitting a couple of supplementary arts applications that are due the first of October, and with building in a few extra days for submissions, his first drop-dead deadline is now on the refrigerator door.

I pointed that out to him yesterday, when he was reaching for the ice cream. Pete offers a great, brief response these days, a signal that he has heard what was said, without making any commitment: “I see.”

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