My apologies to George Gershwin for adapting the title of one of his famous songs for my article today. The reason that summertime is a good time to write … yes, college application essays … is because the pace of livin’ (to borrow the original Gershwin song title word) is slower for most rising high school seniors. Thus, in order to get a significant jump on those Common Application essay(s) (there will be more than one if your college requires a Common App supplement), you should plan ahead and use the summer to your writing advantage.

In case you’re not familiar with those Common App prompts, here they are:

• Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
• Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
• Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?
• Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

As Veritas Prep interestingly points out: “The people behind The Common Application have just released the new essay prompts (PDF link) for college applicants who apply in the 2013-2014 admissions season. As noted in The Common Application Board of Directors’ announcement, these new prompts are the result of two years of discussion about where essays fit in the overall college admissions process. This is the first big change to the essays in years (including to the word counts!), and it’s clear that the Common Application Board didn’t take the task of reworking these essays lightly.”

One has to wonder why it took two years to make these changes. At least it won’t take you two years to write your Common App essay!

Summertime is also the time for reruns on TV. So, in that spirit, I’d like to do a rerun here of a very popular article (actually, a series of articles) that I wrote for College Confidential. It’s all about writing essays and uses real-life samples to inspire your writing skills. So, get out your notebooks and get ready to capture some thoughts that will propel you to Common App essay success! Read the rest of this entry »

For my older readers out there, can you remember who spoke at your high school and/or college graduation? No way can I recall my high school commencement speaker. I could look it up in my yearbook supplement, I suppose, but I’m too lazy. I didn’t attend my college graduation because I was already working my first job out of state. I can recall the speakers at my children’s college graduations, though. My daughter’s school had Sarah Brady and my son’s had their university president, Harold T. Shapiro. Now and then, controversy arises because of politics surrounding a particular speaker. Also, politicians, especially high-ranking ones, will use a graduation address to make some kind of policy or position statement.

Being a commencement speaker can also be a bully-pulpit opportunity. You may recall last year’s “excitement” about one high school graduation speaker. David McCullough Jr., speaking at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts told students “you’re not special” nine times and said that he was shocked by all the attention his “tough-love” address received. This year’s graduation speaker roster has also had some shake-ups. One IRS official slated to address graduates bailed on her plans to offer her perspective on beginning a new phase of life for the young grads because of the recent IRS scandal that currently shows no signs of getting any smaller. Lois Lerner, who is a 1978 alumna of Western New England University Law School and who also issued a preemptive apology for the IRS’s targeting of conservative tax-exempt-status applicants, withdrew her invitation to speak to law school grads. Small wonder.

Let’s take a look at some of the issues surrounding commencement speakers. Then you can post your anecdotes in the comments section below.  Read the rest of this entry »

There are two camps of upperclass high school students: (1) seniors, who have made their enrollment decisions and (2) juniors who are “in the barrel,” ready to make the plunge into the full-blown college admissions process. For seniors, the hunt is over. They are eagerly anticipating the dramatic new adventure that awaits them at the end of the summer. Juniors, on the other hand, have miles to go before they can rest concerning their higher education futures.

We have discussed at length the preference points that comprise the college search. Distance from home, curriculum offerings, size, political leanings, and (among others) — yes — The Big One: cost. Of course, there are other more subtle preference points that go into making college choices, but I’d like to focus on cost, which can be deceiving.

Marketing is a powerful tool in selling a college. Higher education, like most other consumer products (yes, Virginia, a college education is a “product”) is couched in a variety of ways in order to appeal to prospective students. When it comes to marketing and advertising (oh, by the way, do you watch Mad Men?), I always recall a story I heard long ago about a company that sold a line of women’s fragrances (that’s the fancy term for “perfumes”). They had put a lot of research and development into producing this one particular perfume, but it wasn’t selling very well. So, the advertising firm that represented this particular line of products held a series of meetings to explore what approach could be taken to raise the appeal of this underperforming product. After a couple weeks of futile brainstorming, one low-level employee from the copywriting department blurted out during yet another frustrating meeting, “Just raise the price!” Well, that’s what they did, and guess what? Sales took off. The women who were the target demographic for the perfume now considered its quality to be superior, even “exclusive,” since the price was now so high. That’s called perceived value.

Now, I’m not suggesting that colleges raise their prices artificially just to make them appear more exclusive (or even (I hesitate to use the word) “prestigious”), but some, maybe many, high schoolers and even their parents equate price with value.

As I mentioned, higher education is a lot like any other consumer product. In many cases, you can get what you pay for. Read the rest of this entry »

College is more than just going to class and partying. There is an entire network of resources there that can expand you current interests and passions, as well as introduce you to new ones. That’s what we’ll discuss today: How to get the most out of your college experience and discover its rewards.

For those of you high school seniors who have enrolled at a college and will be heading off this fall, you should be asking yourself one crucial question: What is the true purpose of college? Of course education should be at the top of your answers to this question, but there is much more. Naturally, the education factor is designed to prepare you for your life’s work, even if the perfect fit doesn’t happen until years, sometimes many years, after graduation. However, you don’t come to college without other needs, such as wanting to apply the passions and interests you had in high school, or even before that. That’s where college resources come in.

If you manage your college time properly, and have a bit of good timing and a lucky break now and then, your college experience can result in a very nice segue into a jump start on a rewarding life’s work. You have to be a savvy college consumer, though, so to speak, and learn what services and resources your school has that can facilitate your path to a profession.

So, how can you do this?  Read the rest of this entry »

It’s all about ROI. That’s Return on Investment, for those of you not financially minded. The question seems to boil down to: Will I get a positive return on the time and money I put into a college education?

I saw an interesting article about this. Why College Isn’t Always A Good Financial Investment makes a challenging statement: “Given that fewer than 60% of college students obtain a degree in six years, some people may be throwing money away — and piling on student loan debt.” Ah, there’s the rub. The four-year college degree is NOT a given. The report at the core of this article comes from the Brookings Institution: Should Everyone Go To College? It contains this dramatic proclamation:

While the average return to obtaining a college degree is clearly positive, we emphasize that it is not universally so. For certain schools, majors, occupations, and individuals, college may not be a smart investment. By telling all young people that they should go to college no matter what, we are actually doing some of them a disservice.

Whoa. Say what?! That should give the higher education mavens something to think about. Reading that “By telling all young people that they should go to college no matter what, we are actually doing some of them a disservice” makes me think about my mother serving tuna and rice casserole for dinner when I was in grade school and telling me that it was “chicken and rice.” I hated tuna when I was a kid (maybe it was the smell), so she told me her little white lie so that I would think I was eating something that was both enjoyable and good for me. That, at least in my mind, makes the “Everyone should go to college” concept the chicken-and-rice menu item at the higher education restaurant.

Let’s take a look at some of the rationale behind these contentions. If you are unsure about your motivation or need for a college education, perhaps some of this wisdom will help you make your decision.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you are a college-bound high school senior, you’ve no doubt made your decision about where to go this fall. Among your considerations for “getting your mind right” about being a college student should be how to take advantage of the various resources and circumstances that college will offer you.

Over the many years since my college days, I have thought about the kinds of opportunities for both learning and growth that I missed when I was a student. There are many reasons for missing these opportunities, but I’d like to bring out some practical points for you to keep in mind for when you land on campus. Your parents may also be interested in what kinds of things you can take advantage of.

My colleague, Sally Rubenstone, has been kind enough to share with me her thoughts about this topic. She has provided me with her answers to a number of questions about this topic. I’m sure her insights will enlighten you.

So, here we go with our College-Life Q&A:

Read the rest of this entry »

Many high school juniors wrapping up their school year now will be heading out for college visits over the summer and early fall. One thing that may happen during these visits is an admissions interview. We’ve discussed interviews before, but one of the most important issues frequently overlooked is appearance. You know the old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Well, that’s especially true for college interviews. Then, later in life, once you’ve graduated from college and hit the job market, interviews become a major factor again. The stakes may be a bit higher for job interviews because a livelihood hangs in the balance.

For both situations, you’ll be putting your best foot forward. (I’ve often wondered if, indeed, we have a “best” foot. It seems to me that one would have a “better” foot, since we have only two. Anyway, why don’t we care to put our “better” hand forward, which is what we do when we shake hands during a greeting? Just random, meaningless, inane observations from the mind of Dave.) I recall a story related to me by a former tennis buddy of mine. He and his family were on vacation when they decided to visit the campus of one of his high-school-rising-senior son’s candidate colleges. It was a spur of the moment idea to visit. They had not planned a formal campus visit, but the school wasn’t that far out of their way. So, they arrived and began strolling over the grounds by themselves, not with the official tour group. They became so enthused by what they saw, they thought this might be a good time to visit the admissions office. They did and Dad suggested to his son that he may want to ask if he could get an interview.

The son agreed, although reluctantly, and asked the office secretary if it was possible to get an interview, even though he had not called ahead and formally scheduled one. The secretary made a few calls and, since it was summer and things were at a slower pace, an admissions officer agreed to speak with the young man. And he did. According to the son, all went well and things seemed positive. At this point in our conversation, I asked the Dad about the impromptu, impulsive nature of the interview. I knew that the son was a good student and the college was a decent match for him. I asked what eventually happened after the son applied to that school. The answer was that he was denied, which came as a big surprise to the applicant and his family. I was also surprised to hear this and asked a few other questions. My first was to ask about the wisdom of making an off-the-cuff decision to get an admissions interview while passing through on vacation. My friend chuckled and said, “Yeah, Ben [the son] didn’t have time to change out of his tee-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops!” Well . . . I didn’t say anything, but my my heavy suspicion was that Ben’s first impression upon the admissions officer was less than ideal.

Which brings me to an interesting article that speaks directly to this issue of excessive casualness among the younger generation. Managers to Millennials: Job interview no time to text, while targeted toward job interviews, is equally applicable to admissions interviews. Here’s the scoop.  Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a nice convergence of circumstances. First, this is my 500th Admit This! post. A milestone of sorts for me. Second, Eric Hoover of The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted a long, informative, and sometimes amusing article, profile really, about the history, development, and state of the art of College Confidential. In “College Confidential: a Field Guide,” Hoover covers much of the college-angst specter that is so prevalent among high schoolers and families today and how that has fed CC’s wild popularity. He also reveals some CC backstory, of which I’m proud to be a part. Perhaps the most impressive information he reveals is this:

Nevertheless, College Confidential is more popular than ever among prospective students and their parents. In March the number of visitors was up 31 percent from the year before. From April 2012 to this March, it attracted nearly 44 million visitors, receiving more than 281 million page views. Its hundreds of active forums are testaments to the appeal of crowdsourcing and citizen-experts. Year after year, the site informs how families all over the world talk about college admissions.

Speaking of those hundreds of forums, I just posted this thread on the CC forum: The CC Forum: 1,221,385 Topics (And Counting). That’s a true number, one that has probably risen since my posting. It seems unlikely that with so many topics discussed, posters could come up with new ones. They do, though, and you can see examples of that in the comments in that thread’s comments.

As The New York Times once said about CC, it contains “A wealth of information!” Our original goal back in 2001 (I was a co-founder) was to provide the Web’s best and most comprehensive source of free information about the oftentimes intimidating and confusing college admissions process. I’m not sure if there are adjudication services that could quantify CC’s subjective rank in that regard, but those 1.2 million forum topics might offer a clue as to how successful CC has been over the past dozen years. If you’ve never perused CC, check out its home page. The cool box over on the left scrolls hot forum topics for your edification. There’s also a plethora of articles, interviews, and book reviews, among other enlightenment, to help you get started on or refine your (or your child’s) college process. Check out Ask the Dean, a treasure chest of expertise that I’ve highlighted here before. If you’re in the hunt for prospective colleges, look no further than SuperMatch (TM), the Web’s most comprehensive and easy-to-use college search tool. Even all this just scratches the surface of what you can discover about the college process. And I haven’t even detailed the CC forum the way Eric Hoover has. Let’s sample some of his findings.  Read the rest of this entry »

Over my many years as an independent college admissions counselor, I’ve often wondered about what motivates high schoolers to apply to certain colleges. Certainly, there are practical reasons, like legacy. If Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Auntie, or Uncle Fred went there, then that’s good enough for some, especially if a legacy connection can result in some slack during the admissions process. The so-called “prestige” factor looms large, too, sometimes even more for parents than for the applicants themselves. I recall overhearing one proud parent pull the old bait-and-switch routine one evening at an after-concert reception. Two fathers who hadn’t seen one another in a long time were catching up on family affairs. The one father was obviously proud of his daughter’s collegiate status and boasted, “Oh, yeah, Emily is at Penn State in the Schreyer Honors College! [certainly something to be proud of]. How about your boy?” Like a mountain lion stalking its prey, the other father smiled and quietly answered, “Billy’s very happy at a small private school in New Jersey.” Of course the desired reaction was curiosity. “Great!” responded Penn State Dad, “What school is that?” New Jersey Dad wound up like Nolan Ryan going for a perfect game and calmly answered, “Princeton.” To paraphrase George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf … and that’s how you play Pass the Prestige, Please.

Of course, economic considerations make many college-choice decisions by default. If a “prestigious” school doesn’t offer as much sorely needed financial aid as a decent lesser-known private school, then the decision becomes clear. This happens frequently. Speaking of prestige and the various shadows that the “top” so-called “elite” schools cast (I use quotes a lot because in some cases these “prestigious” schools may not always be thoroughly “prestigious”), I have sometimes pondered the names of colleges, especially the Ivies. So, really, what’s in an Ivy name?

Well, there are The Big Three: Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. When I have thought about the names of the Ivy League schools, various images appear in my brain. Take Princeton, for example. The name oozes royalty: PRINCEton. It kind of rolls off the tongue and that hard “P” demands attention. I’ve even imagined “a ton of princes.” That’s heavy royalty. No wonder that the Princeton Dad I overheard at the reception was so delighted to drop his princely bomb. In a less regal mood, I’ve been known to conjure “Priceton” due to the dollar freight. A princely price comes with the “prestige.”

So what about Harvard? Well, with the way my mind works (who can figure that out?) I sometimes find myself pondering beets. Really. When I was a young boy, my mother would occasionally (far too frequently, unfortunately) proffer Harvard beets for dinner. “They’re good for your blood,” she would rationalize. “So is a transfusion!” I would retaliate. Anyway, my character has been permanently stained with the deep purple (or are they dark blue?) dye of Harvard beets. From a humor standpoint, I’ve fantasized about this headline: Harvard Beets Yale! If that’s been used, I’ve not seen it.

Speaking of Yale, I’ve imagined it as Yell. “Mom! Dad! I’m going to Yell!” Of course, the natural parental comeback would be,”Well, go ahead, but not too loud!” I sometimes see padlocks, too. That’s not entirely inappropriate because that’s pretty much what New Haven’s admission office keeps on their main gate doors. A BIG one. If you’ve seen the admission percentages from recent years, then you’ll know what I mean. Yale also rhymes with “shale.” I’ve thought that the road to Yale is paved with shale. Certainly a sensitive, poetic musing, and most applicants trod that pathway barefoot. Ouch! How about that classic Beatles hit: “She loves you, Yale, Yale, Yale!” Endless (and mindless) cerebral ramblings.

Enough about The Big Three. How about the other Fab Five?  Read the rest of this entry »

This article is targeted at high school athletes and their parents. The emphasis on school sports is remarkable. I did a newspaper analysis once, comparing the column inches devoted to a state-title-winning girls basketball team compared versus the students at that high school who had attained National Merit Finalist status. Ha! As if I was surprised to see that basketball ink outpaced National Merit ink by a 20-1 margin. The b-ballers got big color pictures, too.  The NM Finalists got mere text. Needless to say, when I presented my analysis to the newspaper folks, I got looks that said, “What the heck is wrong with you, man? We’re talking state champs here!”

Anyway, that little anecdote sets the stage for my rant of the day about sports-obsessed parents and their effect on their sports-playing kids. I got a heads-up message from one of my usual PR sources headlined “Spring Sports Madness Reveals the Losing Side of Student Athletics: Psychiatrist Shares 4 Ways Sports-Obsessed Families Can Affect Young Athletes.” This got me to thinking, since I was at one time a high school state-title-competing tennis player. Yes, I know; that was back when women tennis players wore dresses that would have made Scarlet O’Hara jealous, but the principles were the same. Fortunately, my parents were not psycho about my tennis “career.” They weren’t in a tizzy about me getting a college scholarship and/or going on to play Pancho Gonzales and Rod Laver in the Big Time. They were just quietly supportive and very happy for any accomplishments I happened to earn.

These days, we see three-year-old girls practicing balance beam routines and pee-wee football boys who are all but hidden by their enormous shoulder pads. “You gotta start early!” some parents proclaim. I guess these folks have scholarships, Gold Medals, and Heisman Trophies in their eyes. One has to wonder just who they’re rooting for. I call it the Vicarious Parent Syndrome (TM). Nevertheless (I love that transitional word), let’s see what psychiatrist Gary Malone has to say about starry-eyed sports parents. Read the rest of this entry »