College Application Secrets
Check Early Policies
We are often asked to explain the many application options. It’s confusing and changes every year. In 2007/2008 UVA, Harvard, and Princeton all dropped their early admission policies. The year before that, Yale and Stanford, switched from early decision to early action. As a result, both schools experienced a HUGE rise (44% for Yale) in early applications since students did not have to commit. To add to the confusion, many schools like Georgetown, Yale, and Stanford are “single-action early action” which means that unlike what students have done in the past, now it violates the rules to apply to one school early action and another early decision. Now, as you probably know, UVA, Princeton, and Harvard have gone back to an early option and those students this year can apply early to UVA (non-binding) or they could apply with a restricted early action to Harvard or Princeton (meaning they couldn’t apply to other early schools). You do not want to get caught violating these policies so be sure to read the fine print at each school. Here is a quick reference list of the main types of early policies:
Types of Applications*
| Application | Deadline* | Sample Schools |
| Rolling Nonbinding |
September onward | University of Wisconsin Penn State |
| Early Action Nonbinding |
November 1 | University of Chicago UNC MIT** Notre Dame |
| Restrictive Early Action Nonbinding but may not concurrently apply to a binding Early Decision program, although may make multiple Early Action applications. |
November 1 | Boston College Georgetown |
| Single-Choice Early Action Nonbinding but unable to apply Early Decision or Early Action to other schools |
November 1 | Yale Harvard Princeton |
| Early Decision Binding |
November 1 or November 15 | Dartmouth Bowdoin |
| Early Decision II Binding |
January 1 or January 15 | Vanderbilt Vassar |
| Regular Decision Nonbinding |
December 15-January 1 | All schools |
* Double check application deadlines as they can vary year to year
** MIT’s Early Action Program is available only to citizens and permanent residents of the United States.
More Early Explanations:
Single Choice Early Action: Means you can ONLY apply to that school early, no ED schools or other EA schools. You can, in some cases, apply to your state, public university.
1. Yale: Single Choice Early Action: http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/single-choice-early-action
2. Stanford: Restrictive Early Action (but should really be called Single Choice): http://stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/decision_process/restrictive.html
3. Harvard: Single Choice Early Action: Not up on their site yet, we have: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/02/early-action-returns/
4. Princeton: Single Choice Early Action: Not up on their site yet, we have: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S29/85/15K32/index.xml?section=topstories
Restrictive Early Action: You can apply Early Action to other schools but not Early Decision except for Stanford which calls themselves Restrictive Early Action but is really Single Choice Early Action
1. Georgetown: Restrictive Early Action http://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/applying_firstyear_earlyaction.cfm
2. Boston College: Restrictive Early Action: http://www.bc.edu/admission/undergrad/process/tips/s-applyingearly.html
Early Action:
UVA is regular EA now.
The moral of the story is, the rules have changed and it is your responsibility to read the fine print carefully and stay within the guidelines for every school you choose.
We do, however, urge students to apply with an early strategy. In case you haven’t noticed, the general trend has been that MORE kids are applying not just to Ivies, but to Ivy overflow schools like Middlebury, Connecticut College, Haverford, etc… If you love a school, apply EARLY. Middlebury, for example, fills 40% of its class early. Keep in mind that the top liberal arts colleges are experiencing the same rise in applicants as top Ivies and bigger schools. You don’t want to be in the regular pool – especially at the Ivies as admissions drops to under 10% in regular – see our chart below! So at a school like Penn you’d have a 26% acceptance rate in ED – in regular, it drops to 9.9 – for Dartmouth, 25% versus 8.4 – see what we mean?
Ivy League — Class of 2015
Merit Scholarships
Here are some great ideas on how to land merit scholarships.
And, of course, don’t forget to check off the box on the first page of the Common Application that asks if you intend to apply for merit-based scholarships!
Summer Stuff
Colleges care a LOT about how a student does in the fall of senior year. They’re looking for consistently strong students to maintain their grades, and they’ll be looking for up-and-down students to begin their year on an upswing. Plus, usually students are taking a very rigorous course load senior fall (and if not, you should be), and they want to see how well you perform in your AP level classes. But, if you save all the applications until fall, you’ll find they take up all your time and you won’t have energy to do well in your classes—and THAT is shooting yourself in the foot!
For 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th graders, summer should be a time of 1) READING; 2) keeping a vocab notebook; 3) doing SAT prep, especially if you’re a rising junior since this will be the last time you have time to really prep before the PSAT and SAT will follow! 4) pursuing one of your passions in depth.
Summers are strategically important—they are really the only time most students can get anything done since school often takes up all of their time during the school year. Do not squander your summers. By all means have some rest and relaxation, but make sure you have a good book with you.
Don’t Forget to Say WHY
You’ll notice that few colleges (and none that use the Common Application, unless they have a supplement) ask anywhere on their application WHY you’re interested in their college in the first place. That’s too bad because they really do want to know. Between two kids with similar scores and profiles, they will always pick the student who offers specific reasons behind his choice. They figure that the enthusiastic student will be more likely to accept an offer of admission, and colleges care very much about their yield.
You’ll want to add a paragraph to your main essay (or just append a short WHY paragraph) about why you are applying, but don’t fall into the trap that many students make in which they offer only generic reasons for liking the school’s location or campus or, even worse, simply recount the school’s virtues from their brochure. Focus instead on specific programs or academic opportunities rather than simply saying you like the campus or the outdoors. Show them that you’ve done your homework and that you know what makes their school unique and different—and about how those differences relate to your interests, personality, and goals.
When you visit each campus, try to connect with a professor in your area of interest so you can then leverage that info in your WHY paragraph. Again, feel free to add a short paragraph in one of your essays that details why you are applying and why that school is one of your top choices. If you’ve had a chance to visit, mention what impressed you the most. Again, be specific. You’ll find yourself with many more options come decision time.
Establish a Common Bond With Your Interviewer
We spend so much time helping our students with interviewing techniques that we have a brief list of tips to help those who face interviews this summer or next fall for an alumni interview:
1. Don’t be afraid to focus in and expand upon a subject that interests you. You do not have to cover EVERYTHING as the admissions office will also have your complete file when they read your application. That’s why it’s OK to spend 20 minutes talking about your love of Greek and Latin, especially if your interviewer happens to share that love. If you find a common bond, follow up! There are no rules to what must be covered.
2. Look the interviewer in the eye — it’s off-putting to stare down at your feet.
3. Make sure you have substantive questions, not just typical questions you could find the answers to in the view book or web site. If the interviewer attended the school, ask pointed questions about what he or she liked or didn’t like about the school.
4. After the interview, write a brief thank you note (hand written is best) and try to mention something specific that you talked about so they remember who you are.
5. Make sure you do your research about the school BEFORE the interview so you’re not caught asking embarrassing questions about a program that doesn’t exist or a major that is no longer a real program.
Students tend to overcompensate for how they think they should dress for an on-campus or alumni interview and end up looking like they are going to the prom. Others who don’t want to look concerned about how to dress end up looking like hobos. Part of how to dress of course depends on who you are and how you normally dress. If we had to make the most general suggestion, we’d suggest dressing only a standard deviation or so up or down from how you normally dress unless you are very far from the “normal” spectrum. If you are too dressed up (dresses for girls, suits and ties for boys) it looks like you went way out of your way and that draws unnecessary attention to yourself. Unless you go to school dressed that way, avoid it. On the other hand, you don’t want to wear ripped jeans, a tongue ring, dyed hair and tattoos unless you really want your dress to make a statement for you. Either extreme ends up detracting from what you actually have to say. You don’t have to be a boring conservative, but you shouldn’t be ultra casual either. For boys, usually khaki-type pants and a neat shirt (polos are fine or collared shirts if you feel more comfortable) with some clean shoes are appropriate for any interview. Some sneakers might pass, but hey, try shoes which look better with pants! Boys can also wear clean and neat jeans instead of chino-style pants if that’s closer to their normal style of dress (but keep the shoes). Girls have a wider variety of options. You do not have to look “dressed up.” Any slacks and shirt works, or a skirt and blouse if you like that type of clothing. When in doubt, go for neat and aim to fly under the radar. In the interview, your words should speak for you without your clothing interfering too much in any one direction!
If you are meeting someone for an alumni interview at an office, however, dress accordingly. So, if you are going to a fancy law firm, a jacket and tie might be appropriate. If, however, you are meeting the person at Starbucks, ditch the jacket and tie.
Year By Year – There’s Lots You Can Do
SAMPLE Questions:
I have just finished junior year and am stressed about the whole application process and selecting schools. Do you have any services that might help me?
What should I do this summer that would help me get into a better college? I’m going to be a junior in the fall?
●The Ultimate Guide to Top High School Summer Programs
My son is a smart kid and did well his freshman year in high school, but he doesn’t have any of the high level awards other kids in his school who have gone to the Ivies received. Can you guide us?
●The Ultimate Guide to Top Contests and Awards
How can I push up my SAT scores? I have time this summer, but I’ve heard that the big company SAT prep courses in a class room aren’t customized enough and sort of waste time? Any ideas?
●SAT Tutoring with Rogue Tutor Mike Barrett
My son took the ACT with Writing and followed your newsletter advice and compared it to his SAT scores and we’ve determined the ACT is his stronger test. Now how can he take it again and do better? Can you give us more info on your tutors?
●ACT Tutoring with Steve and Amy Dulan
Read 10 Classics Before College
Whether you’re about to take SAT’s or have already taken them and are waiting to hear from colleges, it will always be a benefit to make a reading list of 10 “classics” that you have never had the time to read in high school. How about Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Virgil’s Aeneid, or any Charles Dickens novel? Not only will you build your vocabulary, you will be better prepared to discuss literature with your college interviewers or college professors. Michele just read Jay Parini’s excellent book on Herman Melville,The Passages of HM, and then plowed through almost all of Melville’s works including Moby Dick which is an amazing read. Mimi is deep into Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life.
Most students arrive to even the top colleges with little knowledge of the classics. There are many fine versions available nowadays to help students understand tough literature — try the Norton Critical Editions or the Twayne’s Masterwork series, both offer in-depth historical information, essays about the book and other helpful information. College students should invest in these as well as they will provide many tips for strong papers and background information.
Do check out the Adult Great Book’s program’s Fifth Series 3 Volumes (Fifth 1, Fifth 2, and Fifth 3 Series): The Great Books Reading & Discussion Program with “Reader Aid” (Paperback) by The Great Books Foundation. You can buy the entire set at the Great Books website or call 800-222-5870 to order. You can also find just the Fifth series on Amazon.
The more high level books you read over summer AND do vocab, the higher your critical reading SAT score will be. Also, note this amazing list of summer reads…we are drooling at the idea of being able to read, read, read, this summer! Also, remember that June 16th is Bloomsday. For all you James Joyce scholars – get your Joyce on and read about tweeting Ulysses in Salon.com below.
10 Essential Books for Thought-Provoking Summer Reading—The Atlantic
Books to Bury Yourself In—The New York Times
Indie Booksellers Target Summer’s Best Reads—NPR
Summer reading: The big list—Los Angeles Times
10 Must-Read Summer Books—Newsweek
11 excellent novels for summer reading—Christian Science Monitor
The Ten Hottest Prospects From This Year’s Book Expo—New York Magazine
Top 10 Short Stories of All Time—Hotwire
Tweeting Joyce—Salon
Pick Your SAT Subject Tests Carefully!
This week we would like to focus on the all important SAT Subject Tests (formally called SAT II’s and longer ago, achievement tests). Many students aren’t even aware that they should take these tests after completing the corresponding course work. We want to bust some Subject Test myths.
Why are Subject Tests so important for top colleges? Sure, they are yet another quantitative way to evaluate a student. They help colleges interpret your grades and equalize grading scales from high school to high school. How does an A at school X compare to an A in school Y? Well, if one student scored a 770 on the Bio SAT Subject Test and the other scored a 580, colleges would assume that the first school had a much “truer” grading scale and that the competition was simply not as strong at school Y. In effect, these scores either show that a student deserved the high grades he received, or that the school simply hands out many A’s. Many competitive colleges require 2 Subject Tests. But read on because with many things in admissions it is not what it appears. While schools “require” 2 tests, top candidates often submit 4, 5, 6 Subject Tests.
Students should consider very carefully WHICH tests they sign up for – most students don’t even realize that the average test scores are different on every SAT Subject Test! Most assume that the mean score is 500, but that is NOT the case. See the College Board’s chart for the Class of 2010:
Take the Math Level I and the Math Level II as an example. Many students take the I thinking it’s “easier,” but the average score on that test is a 605. If you miss a handful of questions, you will not even score in the 700′s! Compare that to the Math II — the AVERAGE score is 649! That means you can get a bunch wrong and still be in the 700′s (on a recent test, you could get 7 wrong and still score a perfect 800). In other words, every test has a different group of test takers — the kids who take the II are a smaller group, but a stronger group.
Then there are the tests such as the Chinese with Listening — since almost all the kids who take it actually speak Chinese, the average is very high: 761!
Here’s another fact to keep in mind: the percentile scores do NOT get reported to colleges, only the grade. Most admissions officers don’t differentiate or even worry about if your 760 was high or low for your test. So those who get a 764 on the Korean with Listening test (the highest average of all the SAT Subject Tests) score only 50%, but the score still looks strong.
The message is, it pays to study the average scores and pick tests based on your ability and the scoring curve. The average information is available on the College Board’s web site, as noted above, and is actually printed on the score reports you receive back after taking SAT Subject Tests. Use them to your advantage!
Good luck with Subject Tests if you are taking them this Saturday and one final tip: TAKE PRACTICE TESTS. The practice tests available in the College Boards book: The Official Study Guide for all Subject Tests are only an hour long (the length of the test) and the results are quite true to actual results so will help you study.
Applying Online
Students often are falsely flattered when they receive “marketing” materials from colleges and assume that they will be accepted if they apply. Colleges and universities are marketing and simply buy their names as this article so clearly states.
Things become even more complicated when students are required to apply online given the Hobsons/Naviance role in controlling document flow to colleges. We’ve written about this issue in the past and have reached out to folks at the Common Application organization to no avail.
Essentially it goes like this:
The Common Application requires that supporting documents (secondary school reports, transcripts, and recommendations) submitted electronically to Common App member colleges go through the Naviance/Family Connection system.
With us so far…Okay what’s slightly disturbing is that both Naviance and the Common App have a VERY strong connection through Hobsons, a company that specializes in higher education marketing including enrollment marketing!!
About 90% of our students last year in Application Boot Camp and our private clients were required by their high schools to apply online AND if they didn’t it was a mess in that the schools REQUIRED teachers to submit their recs online. Colleges, therefore, wanted everything online.
Still with us?
Electronic files were lost last year as Naviance noted their “usage” was up over 400%. Well, yes it was because schools were almost forced to use the technology.
We believe the option to submit one’s college application electronically should be the student’s CHOICE not a mandate by corporate connections that leave us scratching our heads.
Practicing for SAT Subject Tests
Several students recently have wanted to cancel their test scores on either SATs or Subject Tests.
To cancel a score at the test center, a student:
- Asks the test supervisor for a Request to Cancel Test Scores Form
- Completes and signs the form before leaving the test center
- Returns form to the test supervisor before leaving the center
Additionally students may decide to cancel their scores after leaving the test center. The request to cancel scores in writing must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the Wednesday after the test date. Students cannot submit cancellation requests by phone or email—their signature is required. More information can be found on the College Board website.
Please note that you can’t cancel one test only – ALL tests you took that day will be cancelled. So, for example, if you took the SAT Subject Test in Bio, Math II and Literature and felt you bombed one test, you probably should NOT cancel the test as ALL scores will be lost. The moral of the story is SAT Subject Tests should never be a surprise. They are very content-based. If you’re not doing well, don’t take the test. Most top colleges require two or three tests.
The best preparation is to take practice tests from The Official Study Guide for all SAT Subject Tests from the College Board and see how you’re doing. This guide contains never-before-published full-length tests and answers for all twenty tests and an audio CD for all six languages with listening tests.
We also want to remind you of a few things when taking standardized tests. And, this is from our own experience with students this year!
*Bring an extra calculator, not just extra batteries. That way if your calculator dies, you aren’t sunk.
*Bring #2 pencils, NOT mechanical pencils as your test will NOT be scored if the lead is too faint!
*Bring tissues. Yes, bloody noses have happened during testing and one of our students had no recourse other than to leave the testing room.
*Do NOT drink a lot of liquid before testing. Yes, you will get bathroom breaks, but the stories of suffering and distraction due to having to go to the bathroom are plentiful. And, there will be long lines during the short breaks. You get the picture.
Students taking the SAT now are lucky as the College Board recently changed their policy on score choice. Note: Any student who has taken an SAT prior to the policy launch (March 2009) or who registers for the SAT after launch will be able to take advantage of this new policy. The students who have taken tests prior to the launch can use the score-reporting feature retroactively. Additionally, this new score-reporting feature will be optional to students. If a student chooses not to select their scores, all of their scores will be sent.
What this MIGHT mean is that students can take the SAT as many times as they like and select which test scores they want to show colleges. For more information head over to: http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/policy. What has happened, however, is that a few schools are saying they won’t adhere to the new policy and will demand kids show ALL scores (to give you an idea, a partial list of these schools are Stanford, Dartmouth, Cornell and USC). We guide our students, therefore, to prep before taking the SAT once late in their sophomore year and then January and March their junior year if needed.
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