November 24, 2020
College admissions officers like Early Decision. The more students they admit through Early Decision, the faster they fill their class. The odds favor the well-qualified students who apply Early Decision at many schools. But some are denied, others are placed in limbo and deferred. If you applied Early Decision, and got deferred, […]
October 27, 2020
What is a reach school? If quantified, a reach school is a college where a student’s high school grades and test scores are not likely to be in the top quarter of the previous year’s applicant pool. If you buy a copy of U.S. News Best Colleges, for example, you will see […]
October 25, 2020
My journey has taken me to public universities of various sizes, some popularly known for a given academic program within their school. It has not been unusual, for instance, to hear that students chose Virginia Tech for their architecture or engineering school, the University of Maryland-College Park for journalism or politics, Miami […]
October 15, 2020
These days college-bound students have received, attractive and colorful mailings from and emails from colleges. I pick up the college admissions marketing materials at every school that I visit. Some are very good. They answer practically every question that a parent or student might have about the school. Others fall far […]
September 10, 2020
I never had to use the Common Application when I was applying to colleges. Today, so many schools use it that it probably cannot be avoided when submitting a college admissions essay. Too often I see and read of high school students choosing this prompt (below) for a college admissions […]
September 2, 2020
College admissions officers by and large are very nice, and very helpful people when they can be. The best are quite informed about their school. They know the academic programs as well as the faculty. They have to. The faculty want to see students who are capable of meeting their […]
August 27, 2020
Holistic admissions, in admissions officers lingo, means that the content of the entire application package is considered, not just grades and standardized test scores. This term will become more important in our new reality since more schools are going to be test optional during this upcoming admissions cycle. What happens in holistic […]
August 19, 2020
Whenever you visit a larger school you’re likely to hear this phrase Direct Admission.This practice is not a new thing in college admissions. The engineering and pharmacy schools at Rutgers allowed it 36 years ago when I started college.Lately the opportunity for direct admission has asp extended into undergraduate colleges of […]
August 11, 2020
One of the worst reasons for choosing a college is selectivity. A school is neither “good” nor “great” because it denies admissions to the vast majority of students who apply. Choosing a college by how many people they reject would be like judging the quality of a car by the […]