Articles related to College Admissions

I read this article that was in the LA Times written by a College Admissions officer from Pitzer College, in California. It is very insightful and I strongly recommend that you read the whole piece. When I read it I thought of so many students who have been struggling after receiving admissions decisions (especially if they didn't get the news they had wanted) and felt as if they had done everything right, but it still wasn't enough. This article points out the sentiment that I have shared often that you all are amazing individuals with incredible talents and will be valuable contributors on your college campuses and in the future. Yet, there is not just one perfect school - it is about finding a good match - for both you and the college.

I also came across the following information from the Yale Admitted Students Website. And although you may not have been considering Yale, the information shared are applicable for ANY colleges that you are considering.

What to Do When They ACCEPT You!
By Jeff Brenzel

For the past year, you have likely focused heavily on where to apply, and then how to win the hearts of admissions officers. Oddly, this effort may have left you surprisingly unprepared for a task that is just as challenging, but far more important: deciding where to go now that you (undoubtedly) have choices.

After some years of observing what happens now, I’ve cobbled together a few words of advice that I hope will be useful to you:

1) As your responses come back, you may receive some rejections, and if you do, you will tend to dwell on them. It’s only natural - what you didn’t get and can’t have may suddenly seem infinitely more valuable than what you did get and can have. You will tempted to revisit every step of your high school career and your application process, pondering what you might have done differently to produce a different outcome. But there is one and only one good answer to any thin envelope you may receive, dream school or not: “Your loss, baby.” Then move on to step two.

2) After all your trials of selecting, applying and waiting, the universe has done the final winnowing for you. Be grateful, because the outcome is wonderful: you are now looking at a handful of admission tickets to the greatest shows on earth. Every one of your colleges has infinitely more opportunities to offer than you could pursue in a lifetime. At one of these places you are going to take friendship to a new level, go adventuring and exploring to your heart’s content, make your own decisions about what to do and how to do it, perhaps develop a permanent intellectual interest or personal mission. Put your acceptance letters up on your wall. Recognize how profoundly fortunate you are to live in this country and to be presented with opportunities that most of your peers around the world would give virtually anything to experience.

3) Now for something practical. To the extent humanly possible, wipe out every assumption you have made up to this point about these schools that want you. Let there be no reaches, good fits or safeties. Throw away U.S. News and World Report. Stop obsessing over selectivity or prestige. You now know more - a LOT more - about colleges than you did when you first researched any of these places. You will start getting calls from admissions offices. Bulletin boards and facebook groups and admitted students websites will light up with people who actually attend these places. Treat all of this as a brand new game, and do not be hasty about putting ANY of the schools aside. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a student say, “I wish I had looked more closely at the schools to which I was accepted. I wish I had talked to more students who attended those schools and also more students at the school I actually picked. I was blinded by what I thought I knew, about what I thought was my first choice school.”

4) Most important step. If you possibly can, visit the schools that accepted you, even if you have visited them already. Let me repeat this. Go back for another visit. Remember, you know a lot more than you did a year ago. And now the visit is for real. When you arrive, act like you have never been there before. You will be amazed at how some of the schools seem to have changed since you first visited.

Why? It’s because you have changed and you are continuing to change now that you have those admission offers in hand. When you walk onto campus, try to avoid finding reasons not to like a place - things that turn you off. Instead, try the much more useful exercise of trying to picture yourself there as a student, thriving and enjoying both the educational opportunities and the campus scene. This may involve picturing yourself in some new ways as well. This is a good thing.

5) Do something that can be very hard: ask your mother, father and/or guardian what they truly think about the schools that have admitted you. Insist that they be specific about their impressions, and weigh what they say in the light of what you know about their sense of judgment. Why do this? First, they care about you and know you in ways you don’t know yourself. Second, they have usually been paying very close to what they observe. Third, they are going to be paying or helping to pay for this. Make it clear that you would like to make up your own mind. Make it clear that you may view certain things differently than they do. But ask them, listen to what they have to say, and weigh it carefully against what you think yourself.

(You may need to call a physician to revive them if you follow this piece of advice. Most parents will be quite surprised if a son or daughter approaches them directly, asks them to provide a detailed rundown of exactly what they think and why, then listens to them carefully. By doing this, you also save them, and yourself, the agony of their trying to communicate their views by subtle hints, bizarre facial expressions, comments to relatives in your presence, or desperate pleas.)

6) If you can follow these steps and hold off the rush to judgment, you may be very surprised to find yourself strongly considering a school you would not have originally put at the top of your list. And if instead, you end up confirming your first choice after all, you will have only done so after giving it a very sober review in light of the competition. This is not only healthy, but it is going to make you much more knowledgeable and realistic about what to expect when you arrive on campus. Remember above all else that NO college is going to be paradise, and that ALL colleges have something truly outstanding to offer you.

As much as we hope to see you at Yale next year, we hope even more that you will wind up at the school that feels most right for you.