Why are college and scholarship applications so complicated?

I wrote recently about a number of deadlines our household faced this winter. (You can read about it here.) While these were not (yet) college deadlines, they were similar to the Common Application and other admission applications in their make-up, each requiring student information, essays, transcripts, and teacher recommendations.

Via xkcd.com

On deadline day for a summer lab internship, Mod Squad Julie asked why the application needed to be so complicated. I’m not sure it needed to be — but it certainly was. I’ve been thinking about that since, especially since she will be working on college applications later this year.

1.  Every application is different. The actual interface for each admission, financial aid, and scholarship application is determined by the individual colleges and other entities. The Common App provides some streamlining, but most colleges offering the Common App also require their own supplementary forms. Some are available via the Common App; some are only available via the college website. Like it or not, each interface requires its own learning curve.

2.  Deadlines and requirements are not always clear. Some colleges do this well, providing a complete timeline for applicants. On other websites, the admission deadlines are separate from the financial aid deadlines, which are also separate from the supplementary submission deadlines for arts or other specialty programs.

3.  Most applications have multiple, moving parts. M.S. Julie’s summer program application is a great example of this. A new program offered through UVa required the following:

• Fillable pdf application form to be downloaded, completed, saved, and emailed back.
• Teacher recommendation letter to be downloaded by the teacher, completed, saved, and emailed back.
• UVa application for visiting HS students, part I, to be completed online via the University’s SIS.
• UVa application for visiting HS students, part II, to be printed, completed by parents and mailed in paper form.
• UVa application for visiting HS students, part II, to be printed, completed by HS guidance or Principal and mailed with transcript in paper form.

This combination of online form submission, pdfs to be emailed, and paper forms to be mailed makes my head spin. I understand how this happened — a new program requests information specific to it and additional to the standard summer application the University already requires. The administrators were very helpful when we contacted them with questions. I’m just saying, this was complicated.

4.  Deadlines.  Julie has fine-tuned her ability to perform triage on a multitude of school and extracurricular schedule demands. Adding essay-writing and the many steps required to build an application makes the deadline dance even more interesting. Or, complicated.

5.  High stakes raise the stress level. A high level of interest in gaining entrance — to a college or summer program — raises the stakes for providing every bit of information the application requires and writing the best responses to the essay prompts or questions.

We’ve had a lovely break since M.S. Pete wrote applications in the fall of 2011. It’s time to get back into the game and this was good practice for both Julie and me.

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HS students: 4 questions about getting ready for college applications

While it seems like school just started — with Back to School night last week — our HS calendar points out a couple of college-related dates for juniors and seniors.

1.  Have you started thinking about it at all? Next week our school’s Counseling Department will offer College Planning Night for parents, with break-out sessions depending on the student’s class year. There’s really only time for general information, but if a family is just getting started in the process it’s a good place to begin. Each family / student will need to determine for themselves how deeply they want to dig into the details.

From collegeboard.org

2.  Will you take the PSAT? Next month Mod Squad Julie (11th grade) and all other juniors and sophomores at her school will take the PSAT. Sophomores take it for practice, to get a sense of what the SAT is like, and to get an idea of which areas of the test they may need to work on. Juniors take it for prep for the SAT too, but for them it is also the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarships — this could be truly significant for their access to selective colleges as well as merit funding.

3.  Will you take the SAT this fall? Seniors are likely to be taking the SAT in early October — if you need to do that and you haven’t registered for it yet, run to CollegeBoard’s site for late registration — so final scores can be reported for Early Acceptance or Early Decision deadlines. Tests taken on October 6th will report scores beginning October 25th.

4.  Have you drafted any essays? This is probably one of the stickiest pieces of the college application process. Well, essays and the short answer Common App question and dealing with the Common App user interface and, yes, deciding which colleges to apply to — they’re all sticky. But the one that seems to take the longest for many seniors is to write well and eloquently about one’s self for the personal essay. If you — or your student — haven’t started essay drafts yet, now would be the time to do that. Today.

And just think, this time next year, you could have this all behind you, living the college life, tweeting something like:

M.S. Pete tweet, Sept 2012.

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• 4 Summer Tasks for College Prep.
• The 6 Steps Juniors Need to be Doing Right Now.

4 Summer Tasks for College Prep.

Mia finds shade for the dog days of summer.

It’s fairly easy to find lists of what high school and middle school students should be doing to prepare for college admissions. Some include studying for SATs, embellishing the resume, taking summer courses. You can see such lists…

• at the College Action Plan via HowToGetIn.com,
• at 5 things high school juniors should be doing, via CBS News,
• and at the June Checklist for Juniors, via The Choice (NYT).

Last summer I wrote about the to-do lists Mod Squad Pete faced as we encouraged him to work through essay drafts and more before his senior year started. See Is it rough being a HS senior? He might agree that was helpful. (Then again, he might not.)

But our suggestions (read: requirements) for the younger teens in the household are fairly basic:

1. Learn something (anything) new.
2. Read.
3. Get really good at something you enjoy.
4. Work (for the household, as a volunteer, and/or for pay).

It’s important to us that they learn and grow. Sure, some of this translates into college admissions prep. More important than that, however, is life prep:  choosing to get better at something, learning how much effort it takes to get better, finding new interests, adding new skills, and working in support of the family, the community, and a paycheck.

Mod Squad Linc is a rising 8th grader. Here’s a glimpse of his summer tasks.

Learn something new.  He chose the guitar.

Preferred reading.

Work at something you enjoy so you get really good at it.  He chose piano and voice, basketball, and soccer.

Read. He chose collections of Foxtrot, Calvin & Hobbes and numerous thick YA novels. We chose Steinbeck, T H White, James Fenimore Cooper.

Work. Linc has to do minimal (my word, not his) chores each day and a few hours now and then on larger chores. The time spent on these was minimal compared to hours spent honing computer game skills and cooling off at the pool (usually post-basketball).

M.S. Julie is a rising junior and paying closer attention each month to what she might do to prepare for college admissions. Here’s what her summer has included:

Learn something new. We recommended some form of coding; Julie has done that as well as spending hours designing earrings.

Required reading.

Work at something you enjoy so you get really good at it. She chose basketball and graphic design, including doing pro bono work for a cousin’s start-up to build her design portfolio.

Read. High school required John Lewis’s memoir Walking with the Wind, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and a Spanish novel, San Manuel Bueno, Martir, plus writing responses to questions on the books and creating audio recordings in Spanish about a number of topics. She added her own very long list of books for fun, including some Foxtrot volumes.

Work. Julie covered all the options. 1) Same as her brothers, she has a number of regular household chores. 2) As a volunteer, she worked with her Chem teacher on developing the curriculum for a flipped classroom and assisted an elementary school teacher with summer school students. 3) For pay, Julie is tutoring two students in math; they don’t need remedial work, but their parents didn’t want them to lose ground over the summer break. Finally, she is awaiting word on a restaurant job, which may not happen until Pete leaves for college, opening up a position.

Linc and Julie are likely to face the same required tasks next summer, though we’ll probably suggest she work on essay drafts, too. Maybe she can work Foxtrot into an essay.

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• Why Are There No Summer SAT/ACT Test Dates?
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Happy 1st Birthday, Dr. StrangeCollege!

A year ago today I launched this blog with Counting Down to College.

I’m sure Katie Couric would call with birthday wishes if only she weren’t busy giving a speech today. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After a full year of following Mod Squad Pete through writing essays, asking for recommendations, working through applications, and waiting for news, today we know where he will attend college. (As it turns out, today is also the day his college, the University of Virginia, is holding the 2012 Final Exercises with one very famous alum, Katie Couric, giving the commencement address.)

Next week Pete will graduate from high school; his work there is done. He has already shifted his focus mostly to summer, but also, in response to correspondence from UVa, to applying for housing, registering for summer orientation, scanning the course catalog, and tagging some courses for his SIS-based academic planner.

I’ll expand the focus of this blog to learning and writing about having an adult child in college. Since, as I’ve said all along: this is about our journey.

Next week M.S. Linc will become a rising 8th grader. A number of his 8th grade courses will show up on his HS transcript. The first week of June M.S. Julie becomes a rising 11th grader, with the added emphasis on college prep and academic rigor the junior year brings. Fortunately for both of them, they have about ten weeks of summer first.

Finally, I’ve updated the website and blog links in the right-hand column. These changes reflect connections I pay attention to as well as the new college student focus. (Hello, College Parent Central!) I’ve also added a few college-prep sites I think are helpful, that is, if I can ever get the Mod Squad to check them out:  DIY College Prep, SAT Dude, and Khan Academy (though I have seen Julie use Khan videos for test prep).

Thank you to the visitors, viewers, and subscribers who’ve come along for the ride. I truly appreciate your readership and your comments. I have learned so much by writing DrStrangeCollege; your response has made it even more fun for me. Thanks!

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College decision month: “So, where’s he going to college?”

There’s the question Mod Squad Dad and I have heard all month. We’re not alone; I’m sure most parents of parents of high school seniors across the country have been asked this by their friends, neighbors, family, colleagues, everyone.

Mod Squad Mia's only question: "Who's feeding me?"

Pete has heard it, too; perhaps more than I imagine.

The context of the college question has changed through the school year. In the fall it seemed more speculative, sometimes jocular, as in “Where’s he want to go to college?” [The world is full of possibilities!]

When we were in the midst of the application season, October through December, the question was often stated more gently, “Where is your son thinking of applying?”

During the past month, when the acceptances are in hand and the decision awaits, the question gained urgency, “So. Where’s he going to college?” Or was that urgency only in my mind?

Pete completed his first applications in mid-October. He received his first decision December 14th and his last decision April 12th. The colleges require a commitment May 1st.

Swopes the parakeet: "College? What's college?"

Perhaps we should have enforced an early deadline for committing to college, as we did with applications. I didn’t have the heart.

Lovely to have the dramatic finish to the month to write about… but it would have been sweeter for Pete to have an easier decision to make.

I should clarify:  this was not one of our most emotionally fraught months related to college. I’m thinking that might have been October, with Pete working on getting through the Common Application interface and getting those first applications out.

April offered three of the four admitted student events and changed opinions on top of the usual crazy schedule of a household with three teens. Both parents had out of town travel after the final decisions were in. Often I wondered when Pete would have time to even think about this.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem bothered by it.

Nor did his siblings, yet they were mostly unaware of the deadline. Sunday morning Mod Squad Linc said, “Really? He has to decide today?” Followed up by Mod Squad Julie’s contribution, “Today? Today he has to make the decision that will impact the rest of his life?”

Meanwhile, neither animal in the household asked him about it at all.

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The Sophomore Search for College [or... hiding from the emails]

January 2012. Calendar by Mod Squad Julie.

Mark the day:  on January 18th the first college emails arrived to invite Mod Squad Julie to join their class of 2020.

No, you know what I mean:  to invite M.S. Julie to spend $50 to $100 and jump through a long series of hoops to apply to join their class of 2020.

By the end of the day she had received eleven emails.

Two years ago, when Mod Squad Pete received his first emails, he was excited and intrigued. And, probably, so were his parents (although I also remember a certain amount of trepidation on my part).

Having seen the glut of emails he received and the stacks and stacks of promotional print materials that stuffed our mailbox (most of them strikingly similar to each other), Julie’s response was one of dread.

Granted, she has also seen the entire experience at close hand:

• she visited a number of colleges with Pete;
• last spring she attended a “Pathways to College” event at the University of Virginia with panels on essays, current student experiences, etc.;
• she has seen the endless lists of tasks related to essays, recommendations, tracking extra-curriculars, and completing applications;
• she has heard countless parent-student conferences (I’d call them chats, but some of these involved markers and easel paper) about plans, questions, goals, and more;
• and, truth be told, she had a front row seat for the emotional roller-coaster the multiple deadlines brought on.

As any parent or teacher knows, every student, every child is different. The path Julie chooses for her college search will be different from Pete’s for a couple of very big reasons:  1) She has been an up-close observer of his search, and 2) she is a different student / teen with different interests, goals, and strengths.

Last night, I had a similar attitude to Julie’s:  Oh, no, not that already. In the clear light of the morning, however, I’m ready to buy my ticket and get back on the roller-coaster. I can’t wait to see where her search takes us.

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Who’s Got Time for College Applications?

Here we go again at Camp StrangeCollege. There’s work to be done and there’s play time to be enjoyed — especially with this weekend forecast in central Virginia:

After Thanksgiving there’s a three-week rush til the winter break (our kids are out of school December 16th) and, after that, two weeks until regular admissions deadlines.

To the older generation in the house, the sooner those regular apps get done the better. I think you could say Mod Squad Pete agrees with that. In theory.

Yet, there are friends home from college. There are plans afoot between Pete and Mod Squad Julie to invite friends for daily runs up the neighborhood mountain (how can you not think that’s a good idea?). If I know Mod Squad Linc (and I think I do), there will be many requests for touch football. I do know that Mod Squad Dad has plans for tennis with Linc (and any other takers) and basketball with Linc and Julie (and Pete, if he wishes).

Shall I continue? There will be a birthday celebration (Linc becomes a teen on Sunday). Not to mention our mutual enjoyment of watching movies and football games and playing Settlers of Catan. Finally, I will be recruiting heavily for potato peeling and clean-up crews.

Where’s the time for one more college essay in all that?

Here’s a glimpse of what Zinch recommends for the weekend (full image here).

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

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Early Action, Early Admission, Early Acceptance? Playing the waiting game.

November 2011. Calendar by Mod Squad Julie.

It’s a beautiful election day in central Virginia. After a freak snowfall on the weekend before Halloween — which caused all sorts of havoc in the northeast, causing a number of colleges to extend Early deadlines — we’re enjoying a sunny day in the 70s.

We can take a breather and enjoy this for the moment. The public schools were off yesterday and today (professional learning days for the teachers), so it’s been a nice long weekend for Mod Squad Pete and Julie.

Especially after Pete submitted that last early application. Here’s an update.

Pete still has strong interests in a few colleges, so no Early Decision applications for him. If, like me around this time last year, you have a hard time remembering which Early application is binding and which isn’t, take a look at this.

He has submitted applications to a state college that should be a safety for him, a state college that should be a fit, and a super-selective private college. If, like me around this time last year, you’re not sure how to figure which college is a safe, fit, or reach choice, this might be helpful.

Pete submitted them all ten days to two weeks ahead of the colleges’ deadlines, as a result of… what? Some combination of ongoing gentle nudges to strong demands to get a move on from his parents, as well as his own self interest in getting it done.

What was the worst of it? Let’s ask Pete.

“The recommendations.”

“Really, why?”

“You guys kept asking me to remember cool things I did with each teacher so I could maybe remind them, and I just couldn’t remember what I did and you wouldn’t believe me. Or maybe you believed me, but you seemed to think if I thought about it enough I would really remember. Then you’d say if I couldn’t remember what I did with them, how could I expect them to remember? Man. Could we not talk about this? I’m getting all fired up about it all over again.”

Ok, let’s not talk about it.

Next up, he’ll be working on a few regular admissions applications. They’re due around the end of the year.

Image via Wikipedia

In the meantime, there’s a mock election campaign for AP Govt, problems to be done for AP BC Calc, notes to be written for AP Psych, various other bits of homework, piano practicing for a couple of performances coming soon, and Indoor Track practices begin next week.

First, back to enjoying a beautiful autumn day!