Happy Holidays (hopefully)—November 27, 2024

With Thanksgiving approaching, and other holidays just around the corner, it would be great if all celebrations are festive, joyful and stress-free. And I’m not just talking about the shopping, cooking, and possible gift-giving. Even if they’ve been all that for the entirety of your existence, having a child going through the admissions process (or BEING that student) is a whole other experience. Here are some suggestions:

• Students don’t actually need to discuss their college applications (or future major) with curious or well-meaning extended family and friends. Students should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished and who they are becoming, and relieved to have submitted so many great applications. But it is stressful not knowing what the results will be or where the student will ultimately decide to attend. A polite response of “I haven’t heard from all my schools but I’ll share my decision in the spring” could work.

• Whether students willingly engage in a conversation of where they’ve applied or what they plan to study, OR attempted unsuccessfully to change the topic, be aware that family and friends will still offer unsolicited advice and opinions. People have different motivations:

  • Genuine curiosity!

  • They have real actual CURRENT experience or wisdom they are interested in sharing.

  • They remember how stressful/fun/exciting/awful their own application process was and can empathsize with the student or the parent.

  • They have “opinions” on schools and feel the need to display this.

  • They are trying to avoid having the spotlight focused on them and this is an easy conversation starter.

• If a student knows ahead of time that they can’t avoid college conversations or truly enjoys engaging on this topic, at least the students should brace themselves. It can sting if family or friends react by reacting negatively to your intended schools or majors. Many of the reactions to your school list or intended major are coming from people who just don’t know any better:

  • If they attended college more than 5 years ago, they don’t really know today’s application process. All the moving parts (SAT, ACT, Test Optional/Test Flexible/Test Recommended/Test Blind, SRAR, Direct Admit/Direct Entry) how grade inflation is a real problem, how the variety of testing policies have evolved.

  • They may remember schools from years ago that you basically just needed a pulse to be admitted, but which now have ridiculously low acceptance rates. This can be due to the improvement in programming, changes in leadership, stronger marketing, or the vicious cycle of constantly needing to apply to more schools leading to lower acceptance rates. The commenter may think they are being kind when they say things like “oh that school? You could be doing so much better!” they don’t realize either the amazing benefits of that school OR that with such a competitive landscape/expensive cost to attend it could be the perfect place for you.

  • They may have heard 1 thing about the school (from their friends’ kids attending, gossip in the supermarket, or an online post). But they don’t know the bigger picture. It may be hard to believe but no college/major/community is 100% perfect (sarcasm here). While patterns and chronic issues should be evaluated and may rightfully change your opinion of the school and whether you’d attend, you can assure this outsider you are not making any decisions without proper evaluation.

  • They don’t understand the post-college landscape. Students today can study a VARIETY of majors, with many new ones being added each year, and reach their career goals. It is normal that students don’t all know their eventual career or even current intended major. Or that it is more than just a college name that determines your success level—however you even define success.

• Parents, you are often the greatest source of support for your child. Success can come in many forms and as you probably already know, each person’s journey is unique. You may deservedly be proud of where your child is applying—and if accepted, ultimately attends. But your child is their own person, not a reflection of you or your parenting. So in other words, if they are accepted to a school that takes very few students, it should not be that “we” got accepted and similarly, if they aren’t accepted to that school it isn’t a failure on your or their part.

  • Please, if you see your child being grilled about their college options, step in and offer food or to change the subject!

And of course, have a happy and healthy holiday season!

What Families Should Learn from Facebook Posts—March 20 (of every year)

(originally posted 3/20/2021)

“Feeling down.......my daughter, who is second in her class and has worked so hard these last 4 years......was told by many that she would have no problem getting into these top schools.......well, she hasn't gotten into any of her top schools. I just don't get it. She is so involved in the community, in school, interviewed great, everything. All we are getting is no acceptance. She has been accepted to safety schools that she wasn't that interested in. We are getting really worried with only 3 more [schools] to hear from.”

Anyone ever see a Facebook post that looks like this?  I see it every single year. Why does it happen?

College is not a reward

I don’t doubt that this student worked really hard. As several of my colleagues have recently said, college acceptance is not a meritocracy. https://theoctant.org/edition/issue/allposts/opinion/the-meritocracy-trap-required-reading-for-anxious-elites/  It isn’t the reward for several years (or a lifetime) of high achieving academics.  Nor is it a reward for being involved in the community.  Colleges select students to complete a class, build a community, or achieve other objectives.

I would hope that the student worked hard in her classes so she could LEARN the subject matter.  And being involved in the community? Was her heart in it? Did she not get satisfaction from helping others in some way? I would hope she learned something from the activity, even if what she learned is that certain tasks don’t interest her.  But on a deeper level, I hope she learned about herself, and can appreciate the ways in which she is lucky and can be grateful for the things (spiritual, emotional, tangible) she does have that others may not.

Listening to the wrong people

WHO told this parent her child would have no problem getting into any of her top schools?

One of the biggest issues I have these days with social media is taking advice from people who have no business giving such advice.  All too often a person who has gained acceptance to a university assumes that they know WHY they were accepted, and then turns around and thinks it applies to someone else.  Each applicant is unique, and each year the applicant pool is different, so you can’t make such assumptions. 

When you are talking about schools with ridiculously low acceptance rates, it isn’t even ABOUT the student at that point—this is the hardest things for families to understand.

At a school with 20% acceptance rate or less (and these days, there are schools with acceptance rates at 10% or lower) it is a lottery.  A student who has ‘done everything right’ with rigorous classes, top grades, strong resume, great essays (maybe strong test scores, but see below for that) is demonstrating to the schools that they are academically ready to handle the college coursework, and likely won’t crash and burn Freshman Year (which is something the colleges want to avoid, as it impacts their retention rate).  That’s one reason why colleges are looking for students to take rigorous courses in high school and do well. But, that profile only earns the student a lottery ticket—the colleges are looking to balance classes based upon numerous factors and it just may not be the student’s lucky day.

If it was some type of “advisor” who gave out this advice, I’d wonder about this person’s credentials and ethics.  You should always be sure to work with someone who belongs to a national organization such as NACAC (and/or its regional affiliates), IECA or HECA.  Visiting campuses, attending professional development and meeting with college representatives—as well as abiding by a code of ethics—would make it less likely for such individual to make such a mistake. This year, with covid, I see a huge increase of people advertising that they (and friends, or their kids) were admitted to certain schools and they are experts who can help you (or your child) do the same. Nauseating, because families will fall for this.

Competition has always been tough, test optional policies and Covid made it tougher

Trying to gain acceptance to “lottery” schools and even those with slightly higher acceptance rates has never been easy.  There are only so many spots, and way too many worthy applicants.  When a student has “done everything right” they “deserve” to be accepted, but when a college has to choose 1 of the 10 deserving students, there is no fairness or prediction possible—have I said, it isn’t about the student.

Some schools have had test optional policies for years, and felt they had the ability to review and select applicants without this metric.  Students with strengths in other areas did not have to hold themselves back from applying in fear the lower score would make them look bad.  Once the vast majority of colleges and universities implemented test optional policies, the floodgates opened.  Students applied without scores to many more places, including highly selective schools by the thousands, and thus lowered each others’ odds of acceptance.

Safety schools she wasn’t interested in attending

For many hard-working, especially high-achieving students, this may be the first time they haven’t gotten what they wanted.  Of course it is natural to have a rank order of schools you want to attend, and it absolutely hurts to be told “no thank you” from a place you would like to be.  But this is where a dose of reality back last fall would have been crucial.  Instead of believing the myth that she’d have no problem getting into her top schools, she should have instead planned for the possibility/probability she wouldn’t.

My students have a wide range of strengths, talents, interests and dreams.  Not everyone is looking to attend the most competitive programs. But, every single year I work with families I have the unenviable role of “Debbie Downer” where I bring this up. Particularly difficult is the conversation with a student/family like the one above who posted her dilemma on Facebook.  I start by saying that the student has to go for it—you definitely don’t get in if you don’t apply! I would reassure the student she has, in fact, worked really hard.  Has done everything right.  And any school would be lucky to have her as a member of their community.  And she will do everything she can during the application process to get her message across to such schools.  But then, she needs to have more realistic schools on her list.  Schools that have the programs she wants.  The vibe.  Ones with higher acceptance rates, even if they don’t have the same level of recognition among family, friends or US News and World. 

“Safety” is a horrible word, and I don’t use these categories in my conversations.  When a student is denied admission to a school, particularly if she’s under the mistaken impression it would be no problem to get acceptance, it hurts.  That’s reality.  Grieve that loss.  It hurts to not get what one wants, it may be embarrassing, especially if people around her are saying she’s a shoo-in. Then, she must focus on the schools where other students just like her will be—places where the student can flourish academically, and socially, and perhaps may be treated like royalty and even get money. She must include places that have these qualities even if they are on the bottom of her list. But, applying where she has NO interest in attending? That should have been addressed.

What I wish families could understand

Every year when I see posts like this, or a family contacts me spring senior year for the first time because this has happened to them, I am sad.  Sad that there wasn’t better advice from the beginning and because options are limited at this time.  Sure, the student can start someplace, do well, and apply to transfer, but I hope the student can find success perhaps in a place they didn’t think they’d like initially. 

At the same time, I know I provide this advice to my families, and they nod their heads in agreement.  But internally, they are thinking this advice doesn’t apply to them.  Because their child is different:  More qualified, a harder worker.  This is the story I want them to see earlier in the process, so that the students can dream and work towards their goals, but be prepared.

In the end, I can’t control where students send in applications. I just hope to see fewer posts like this

The Coalition Application, Common Application, and Things Colleges & Universities Ought to Know—November 1, 2019

Many people have been railing about the application process, and there are many broad topics that go beyond any one particular application platform. I’m hoping on behalf of my future students that these issues can be reviewed, and some changes can be implemented.

Coalition-Specific Issues

 Flexibility

Students need the ability to bounce around and work on different sections.  It is great that based upon the schools selected it will show only those profile sections that are needed so student doesn’t waste time on irrelevant ones. However, not every answer should need to be completed for a student to work on the college-specific sections.  For example, in August the student may know she is registered to take a dual enrollment class but doesn’t yet know the course name and number.  Yet, unless the student either a)puts in fake number as placeholder or b)pretends that she isn’t taking a college class, she’s prevented from working on the college questions.

 College Information

These sections are just plain confusing.  One question asks how many college credits the student has earned to date.  And the next question asks how many credits the student will have earned after high school.  If a student is taking dual enrollment classes in senior year, the Profile isn’t asking that (even though some individual colleges do ask it).  And if a student puts those credits as being earned after high school, the Profile “updates” and frames the applicant as a transfer student.

In the College Coursework section, why is it necessary to know the exact course name and number? It seems to be sufficient for the Common App that a student lists the college, and indicates dual enrollment.  This impacts students because they may not get specific course details until 1st or 2nd week of September when school begins after Labor Day, and as mentioned above, this delays the student in accessing the school-specific questions.

 Testing

When colleges allow score choice, why should the question be phrased “how many times have you taken the SAT (or ACT)?”  What if the student plans on utilizing score choice & superscoring to report and send those with the highest subscores over 2 or 3 exams—she still has to honestly answer that she’s taken it 4 times? The Common App just asks how many scores the student wants to report.

 Honors

This is a minor point, but if a student earns something multiple years (i.e. high honor roll) why can’t multiple years be selected?

 Activities

Why only 8? But, it is appreciated and noted that you allow for high and low end levels of time for each activity.

Reviewing Applications

The functionality of sharing a document for review is overly complicated.  The student has to save pdf, then go into the locker, find it, click on the share button, then find a contact, write a message, and then share.  Or, after going into the locker, opening the document, saving it to the student’s computer, the student can then attach it to an email. After they’ve gone and corrected something, they go to repeat the process and it won’t let them share because they’ve already shared it (even though it could be a completely new/updated pdf).   

Common App

 Education

When students are listing their current classes, they aren’t clear on how to list those that are taken all year but alternating days.  Students are typically advised to list the course as full year (because it is) but that doesn’t always sit right with them.

 Activities

Very few students participate in activities with rigid schedules.  Whether it is an athlete who starts slowly with practices, but as the season progresses and then championship play the time commitment increases OR a performer who goes from low level rehearsals to intense tech week, it is very difficult to pin down hours per week.  The Coalition allows for number of hours on low & high end.

 Colleges and Universities, Generally

Deadlines

Under NACAC the earliest deadlines cannot be prior to October 15th, with the majority of Early and Priority deadlines on November 1st.  One of the biggest sources of confusion is the deadline for the credentials or supporting materials, particularly the ones that are not within the student’s control.  Yes, students should apply well in advance of the actual deadlines.  Yes, the students should understand the policies of each high school to facilitate the timely delivery of transcripts and letters of recommendation.  They should also timely send official test scores as needed.  However, glitches happen, and when students check portals to confirm that everything is received—or more frequently, they get emails telling them applications are incomplete—there is panic, and screaming phone calls and emails to high school counselors just as the deadline approaches.  It is further exacerbated when documents have been sent and it is just the processing on the college or university side that has yet to occur, but the students think they’ve blown the deadline.

 Coalition Interface

Those schools who use Coalition exclusively, or who accept Coalition or their own application are in the best position to ensure the Coalition is more user-friendly.  And if the schools allows for inclusion of the Coalition Essay, why does the word count have to be different? By now all these schools must know that students work on the Common App essay first, and by the time they access the school-specific section on the Coalition (see issues with that above) they are surprised to find the word count to be lower.  Granted, counselors (independent & school) usually have resources to determine which schools ask for the Coalition essays (and other supplements) but if the point of the Coalition is about Access for all, this doesn’t help.

 Self-Reported Grade Systems

It is clearly understood that colleges and universities want to recalculate gpa based upon their own criteria.  And other times, they want to begin reviewing applications before the student’s high school has sent the transcript.  But both the Common App and Coalition have places for courses and grades to be listed, and as time consuming as they may be, at least they are done by the time the student applies (and this section can go to multiple schools).  But for students applying to schools in Florida, Pennsylvania and others, after submitting the application they must still complete SSAR and SRAR.  Additionally, SSAR requires grades to be reported on A-F scale, and students who receive grades on 1-100 are unsure of the correct conversion.

 Extra Items Requested After Submission

It is one thing for students to encounter scholarship and honors essays and related requirements in the portal after they submit initial application.  Those usually have separate deadlines.  However, certain schools could have put requirement for a resume in the common app section, but instead it shows up for the first time in the portal. Granted, a student who applies early enough would have had time to do a resume, but for a procrastinating hs student, who finally applies and then gets access to the portal on October 28, realizing that he has to put together a resume in time for 11/1 deadline is very stressful.

 Changing Requirements During Application Season

There have been a few instances where word limits or even entire supplemental essays have changed between August 1st and November 1st.  This is confusing for students and also makes counselors look like we don’t know what we are doing.

 Score Choice/SuperScoring

This is a very confusing topic.  Colleges and Universities routinely say they are looking for reasons to admit students, so they urge students to submit all scores so the schools can make sure they are getting the best review.  I can see students being confused about concordance between the SAT & ACT, so telling students to submit similar ones makes sense.  Additionally, it can benefit a high scoring student to show consistency across both platforms.  But within either the SAT or ACT, students can tell which subsections are highest.  If they only want to submit the best 2 (or 3) exams, why shouldn’t they? On the flip side, many students are either getting bad advice (usually peer-to-peer buzz) or feel the pressure to start testing early--some doing so before they’ve had the curriculum or done any review/preparation. Later testing shows improvement.  Unless it IS your goal to analyze how many times a student tested to get to the best score, why wouldn’t you want to only see the highest results? If so, the language across all application platforms should be consistent: how many scores do you want to report vs. how many times have you taken the test.  Further, College Board should not be indicating the test policies of the schools because the information isn’t always correct.  It is very confusing for a student to be told that the particular college doesn’t participate in score choice at the time she is sending the official scores, when the website of that particular school does not say the same.

Additionally, bravo to the colleges and universities who allow self-reporting of test scores.  Families feel the pinch of application fees and costs of supplemental portfolios, and to be able to save on sending official scores everywhere is welcome relief.  Ideally, there would be a universal policy governing this, as some schools will only allow counselors to submit the necessary proof—and that is frustrating to put on the counselors’ to-do list at this time of year.  So, in an effort to not annoy the counselors, the students feel the need to send official scores.

 Housing Priority

Under NACAC CEPP schools who guarantee housing for all first year students are not supposed to use housing assignments to manipulate enrollment commitments prior to May 1st. If that is the case, at schools where first year housing is guaranteed, everyone submitting an enrollment deposit by May 1st should be in a lottery for housing.  Or if there are themed or honors housing that can require other conditions.  But ask any senior family and they will have one or many schools who state that to have priority in housing selection, the sooner the deposit the better. Students quickly learn the ‘best’ dorms, or fear the forced triple. This results in leaving deposits at multiple schools, in violation of the students’ promises not to double (or triple) deposit.  Additionally, while the enrollment deposits are refundable if the student changes his mind before May 1st, often the housing deposit is lost. 

Now, for the schools that don’t guarantee first year housing, it is understandable that it is first come-first served.  But some schools count from the date the housing deposit is left (again, which may or may not be refundable) others time it from the date the application for admission is submitted.  Further, there’s even at least one school that emails students within a few weeks of receiving the application, advising that as there is no guarantee of first year housing, the students should remit a housing deposit—which the school says will not be refundable if the student decides not to attend OR EVEN IF THE STUDENT ISN’T ADMITTED.  How is that in compliance with NACAC guidelines? Or fair and reasonable?

 Requirements for Financial Aid Documents

Families often hear that even if they doesn’t expect to qualify for need-based aid, colleges and universities still want or require families to file FAFSA (and sometimes CSS Profile) to be eligible for merit awards. But there’s no easy way to know which schools—aside from individually contacting each financial aid office.

 Consistency

Colleges and Universities have unique attributes and seek different qualities in their potential students.  It makes sense for them to ask different questions, require different supplements, award scholarships in any way they choose, and obviously select different applicants for admission. Being able to apply online, using platforms such as the Common App and the Coalition is a huge benefit to the students.  But some of the mechanics have significant enough variations to add layers of stress to these high school seniors.  So many families shake their heads and wonder how a high school student is expected to navigate this process without additional help.