Introit

Trends in College Guidance: Part Two

The second installment on trends in college guidance. This post is from an anonymous college counselor.

I think what has changed from my end is that students/parents are still looking at college admissions as it was several years ago.

Selectivity has increased in the past five years, which has led to disappointment in terms of acceptance. I think that people are over concerned with “reputation” and not the best fit for their child. Sometimes there is an assumption that there is an “old boy” network where you can make a call and get a student into a school. People who pay high school tuition expect and assume that their child will get into the “best” schools. The advent of the electronic application and applying online has made it easier for counselors, but we do not see the finished product. Students tend to apply to more schools because it is easier and also because they have to consider more schools due to cost and selectivity. What once were safety schools are no longer a “sure thing”.

As parents/students become more aware of the admission process, it puts more stress on everyone to get into the " right school". Many of my discussions start with where a school is ranked, not how does the child fit in with the academics, social or spiritual aspect of the school in question. I have to talk numbers, not quality of education. Money is another big consideration when looking at schools: in this economy it is hard to separate what a school costs from what it has to offer.

To sum up, I think that students are applying to more schools; rankings and reputation play a big part in decisions; cost/scholarships are more important; admission standards are more demanding; and the timeline for applying has moved up.

Trends in College Guidance: Part One

Jill Lauck, Director of College Guidance at Tower Hill School, offers the following thoughts on recent trends she's seeing in application to college.

Having spent 12 years in highly selective college admission prior to this first year in college counseling, I still find myself adjusting my thinking – and, to some extent, my feelings. Things that once seemed quite rational to me as a college admission officer now feel much more personal to me since they directly affect ‘my kids’ – that is, the 55 seniors for whom I am responsible as a college counselor.

So many things have changed since I began working in admission in the fall of 1998.  For one, consumer confidence levels seem to correspond nearly perfectly with college admission application numbers: when things are good in the economy, application numbers grow. Given the more recent peak in numbers of students in the off-to-college-age demographic in recent years, it is not surprising that colleges experienced a huge surge in applications. From the less competitive to the most selective, admission officers found themselves hunkered down with more and more files in the past five or so years, everyone clamoring for the spots too few and too precious. What has changed is the number of colleges to which students – and parents – expect to make applications. Whereas it used to be quite standard in the early to mid 1990s to apply to five or six colleges, it is now not at all unusual for a student to apply to 12 or 13. What students – and parents – do not seem to realize is that they are competing directly with one another, and that these kind of numbers can be harmful in a student’s own shot at admission. When 10 students from Tower Hill School apply to one highly selective college, chances are good that no more than one or two of those students will be offered admission. In a good year, one or two more will be offered a place on the waiting list. When smart students from good schools apply in huge numbers, only the very, very best – or the very best connected – will be admitted, often leaving average or better than average students with a list that is not what they’d hoped. When I was in admission, I often joked that I wished college admission was like national Match Day for medical students: you submitted applications and a list of rank-ordered preferences in advance, and then everyone would come together on a given day to find out the single program to which they had been admitted. Not good for 17-year-olds who are prone to changing their minds, of course, but at least it might ensure that students were evened out a bit better in terms of hope and ability.

The other glaring change I’ve found in admission over the past several years is the preference given to students with ‘demonstrated interest’ toward a particular college. It used to be that only a handful of schools who needed to watch their dollars carefully employed this tactic, but in my first year as a college counselor this year I found that more and more colleges admit students based more on their likelihood to attend that college than more concrete factors like academic achievement and extracurriculars. It seems to mean more at a selective (but not super selective) college that a student logged on to an online chat in the fall and that that student sat for an interview with an admission officer, than, say, real demonstrated leadership in the school and community setting. I can’t tell you how upsetting I found this in the past few months, watching otherwise extraordinary kids get passed up in favor of the student who had played the game. It was often disheartening – both for the students and for this counselor.