1. First and foremost, you must RSVP, as in  “Yes, I’m coming!” – no later than May 1st.   Just like any party host, the college has to know what kinds of numbers to expect so that they can have enough food.

2. Don’t RSVP to more than one college. Just like when you were a kid, you can’t say yes to two birthday parties that are happening at the same time. That’s just bad form.

3. Tell your other invites (ie, other college acceptances), that you respectfully decline their invite. Of course you should be nice about it. Just in case you decide to transfer as a sophomore or junior. And always say thank you!

4. And finally, what to do about those pesky wait list invites? Those can be trickier.  After all, they are only inviting you if a bunch of other kids rsvp no. This is where you need to be honest with yourself. Do you really want to go to that party in the freezing cold of Maine? Or are you just waiting to see if they’ll send you an invite?  My advice: only hold onto the wait list for the colleges at which you would definitely attend. Otherwise, respectfully decline those as well.

Good luck. I hope you enjoy the party!

Great College Advice

The post College Acceptance Etiquette first appeared on Great College Advice.

“Offering an accelerated decision cycle for interested applicants will increase Harvard’s potential to attract top-caliber students.

Hmmm.  Who knew that Harvard needed to increase its potential to attract top students?

Less than two hours after Harvard made its statement,  Princeton University also jumped on the bandwagon and announced that they too were going to reinstate their Early Action plans.  Princeton President  Shirley M. Tilghman said she believed that,

“…bringing back an early program would allow her school to better recruit underrepresented groups.”

The Harvard Dean stated similar concerns,

“We looked carefully at trends in Harvard admissions these past years and saw that many highly talented students, including some of the best-prepared low-income and underrepresented minority students, were choosing programs with an early-action option, and therefore were missing out on the opportunity to consider Harvard,” he said.

And that’s right.  No one should miss out on the opportunity to consider Harvard or Princeton.  But if you’d like to consider some other colleges as well, why not give us a call.

Juliet Giglio

Educational Consultant in California

The post Harvard, Princeton Reinstate Early Action first appeared on Great College Advice.

“Typically, cuts of that scope translate into increased fees and reduced enrollment.  Brown would shrink funding for the Cal State system by 18%.  Cal State Chancellor Charles B. Reed said that would “have serious impacts on the state’s economy, limit access for students seeking entrance into our universities, and restrict classes and services for our current students.”

Which begs the question, how cannot this not impact future students?   Have the California public universities lost their luster?
It might be time for some students to consider some of the many fine private colleges scattered around the state. Many of which offer smaller class sizes and with merit aid.  In in the next series of blogs, we’ll be looking at private California colleges with a public college price.
Juliet Giglio
Educational Consultant in California

The post California State Universities Budget Cut first appeared on Great College Advice.

Now with the economic downturn, I expect the outrage about ballooning college endowments will subside–because they’re not ballooning very much right now.  Up until the past few weeks, the “American Way” has been characterized by debt burdens, excessive leverage, and wanton spending.  Our collective profligacy has caught up with us, and the immediate future doesn’t appear very rosy.

If we remember Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ants, we can think of Congress and the rest of the outraged public (or, the grasshoppers) complaining that private colleges (the ants) were unnecessarily stuffing their mattresses with investments.  Well, winter has now come, and the ants are sighing with relief that they made some good decisions.

Congressional grasshoppers, left out in the cold, how have to turn their attention to the messes they neglected, rather than continuing to complain about the apparent wisdom of the ants.  Most private colleges have weathered economic storms for decades, if not centuries in some cases.  While some colleges have gone under (and a few of the more spendhrift colleges may lose their shirts in this downturn), we don’t hear about Harvard or Yale or Vanderbilt going belly up like AIG, Lehman Brothers, or Washington Mutual.

Undoubtedly well-endowed colleges and universities will feel the economic pain of the current crisis, and while many (like Amherst) will try to continue to offer large financial aid packages to those who need them.  It will be interesting to see, however,  if all of them will be able to make good on every pledge they made a few months ago when their endowments were at record highs.  If university endowments have shrunk by 40% in the past year (as has the average portfolio), we may see some colleges backtracking.

Ants will be ants.

College Admissions Consultant

The post In Defense of Large University Endowments first appeared on Great College Advice.