What is University of San Francisco known for?

1. The University of San Francisco is different from the other Jesuit college in terms of its location and the composition of the student body. USF is a school of minorities: only 24% are white. There are plenty of students from other ethnic groups, including Asian (26%) and Latino (21%) and Black (8%). But get this: 30% of the students in the Gospel Choir are white. USF is a place where students can get outside of the cultural constricts of their childhood and high school experience. Students can “mix it up,” literally. Thirty percent of students are the first in their families to go to college. Socio-economically speaking, this place is also pretty diverse: forty percent come from families who make $60k or less per year–and who are attending an institution that costs $50k per year.
2. Who are the “majorities” at USF: Catholics 51%, and women 65% (note that the strong School of Nursing pulls this average off because 95% of schools of nursing are women). Also, 75-80% come from the Western states, though there are representatives of most states and a whole bunch of foreign countries (11% of students are international). Just over half (55%) come from California.  But California is a big state!
3. Like most Jesuit institutions, USF is a mission-driven college. They focus on “education the whole person” and learning is considered a “humanizing social activity rather than a competitive exercise.”
4. USF has 5,000 undergraduates, with another 3,800 graduate students. Seventy-five percent of classes have 25 students or fewer.
5. It has a core curriculum, like most Jesuit institutions. But there are still differences. There is a total of 11 core classes, plus a class that includes a service learning component (not just a “bunch of hours”)—service learning is integrated into the classroom, making it an integration of service and learning.
6. Admissions officers at USF encourage phone calls from both students and counselors. They do not have a “wall” between web users and the admissions staff. The admissions office representatives said repeatedly, “Pick up the phone; we’re old-fashioned.” USF also lists all the phone numbers of faculty right on the website. So if you’re interested in how good the biology department is, or what the major’s priorities are, you can just get on the horn with the chair of the department and ask.
7. Twenty-five percent of faculty are “of color;” 45% of faculty are women. One of USF’s core values is diversity.
8. If you are interested in the nursing program, you must apply separately, and the nursing program is very competitive. There are about 600 students in the nursing program.
9. USF offers great scholarships for those it deems to be “high value” students:  those with a high GPA in grades 9-11. While USF is test-optional, a high score certainly wouldn’t hurt and might help you land more merit-based scholarships.
10. Some students may opt for the Saint Ignatius Institute, an interesting Great Books program within both the Jesuit and the liberal arts traditions. SII is also a living and learning program, whereby students in the program also live together. Students read the classics of Western Civilization (Plato, Homer, Augustine, Dante, Göethe, Kafka, Borges, etc.). This program is open to all students, but spaces are limited. For students who want the “Great Books” sort of program offered at St. John’s (but who don’t want the strict focus of St. John’s), this might be a great fit.

All in all, I really enjoyed my time at USF, though I wish the weather had been warmer. It was blowing a gale, despite the fact that the sun was out. I hear that Mark Twain had this to say about this fair city (and I’m not quoting directly): “I spent the coldest winter of my life in San Francisco one summer.”

The post University of San Francisco–an urban, Jesuit college first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

If you prefer,  you may read the transcript below.
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant
**************
You know whenever I’m visiting a college campus one of the things I do is I pick up a copy of the school newspaper just to take a look and a quick flip through to see what’s going on on campus. And of course this is the end of April/ beginning of May and the cover story is all about admissions and I’m on the campus now of Haverford College which is a selective liberal arts school outside of Philadelphia and it’s a great little place, a beautiful campus.

It’s a Quaker school traditionally so a more liberal student body in some ways. The Quakers are known for their commitment to social justice so that’s sort of a hallmark of this campus. But a very nice liberal arts school with a very selective admissions policy. But the cover story here is about the acceptance rates are down and diversity is up.

So there are two things that colleges like to do when they are doing their admissions; one is to make it more selective, make it harder to get in so it will have more applications than there are actual spots; and then the other thing is to increase their diversity. One of the things that they’ve said here is that for the first time accepted students from California outnumber students from New York.

You know a small liberal arts college like this there are lots and lots of people from the mid-Atlantic states and surrounding regions that will apply to a school like Haverford where they have a tougher time finding people from other parts of the country—the South, the middle West, the far West, the mountain states where I’m from. So diversity is a goal that every college has in its admissions process. They want to have a student body that is largely representative of the country and of the planet. They try to get as many international students as they possibly can too.

So thinking about admissions many times students forget that if they’re applying to a college and if they are denied, they forget that colleges have agendas. And one of the agendas clearly at Haverford is the desire to have a more representative, more diverse student body—not just in terms of the colors of students and the socioeconomic backgrounds, but also just the place where they came from. So California is up, New York is down. Different colleges have different formulas. It pays to pay attention to these as you’re applying and as you’re deciding where it is you want to go.

The post Haverford College–Admissions Rate Down, Diversity Up first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

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!

Juliet Giglio
Educational Consultant in Los Angeles

The post College Acceptance Etiquette first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The post Will There Be A Larger Waitlist This Year? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

For “A” students, University of Redlands offers private college opportunities at a public university price. For all applicants with a weighted 3.5 GPA and a combined SAT Critical Reading & Math score of 1140 or greater, Redlands has a new merit academic scholarship this year which will automatically take $16,000 off the tuition.
According to the Associate Dean of Admissions, 40% of the applicants qualify for this merit academic scholarship.

Redlands does its best to help students bring their GPA up to 3.5. How? By bringing every AP and Honors class up a grade (given that it’s a C or better). So if you had a B in AP World History, Redlands will consider that an A when they are factoring your weighted GPA.

Next year’s tuition, room and board will be approximately $47,000. That means “A” students can actually attend the school for $31,000 which is the cost of UCLA or Berkeley. But students have smaller classes and far greater personal attention. They also won’t have to fight during registration to get the courses they want.

The word is out on Redlands as each year the number of applications are going up. According to Admissions, in 2003, there were 3,000 applications for 600 spots in the Freshman class. Last year there were 4,500 applications for those same spots. This year, the school already has received 500 more apps this year.

In response to the greater interest in the school, the University of Redlands Administration has decided to increase the student body from 2400 undergraduates to 2500 undergraduates.

Juliet Giglio
Educational Consultant in Los Angeles, California

The post University of Redlands in California: Private College at a Public Price first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The post New Advanced Placement (AP) Tests on the Horizon from College Board first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

On a recent tour of UCLA’s campus, I learned firsthand from admissions what they’re looking for in an essay. It all boils down to the L.I.D. In this third and final blog in a series we’ll be talking about the importance of L.I.D. in the UCLA essays.

First up is the L word (not what you think!). L is for LEADERSHIP. UCLA wants to see that you’ve held leadership position(s) and they want you to talk about them.  This pertains to more than just the class presidents. Leadership can involve Sports, Scouting, Clubs – even jobs. Any place in which you were organizing or leading others. A note of warning though: be honest about your leadership positions. Don’t pretend that you were president when you weren’t. That could cost you.

Next is the I word. I is for IMPROVEMENT. Just like your parents and teachers, UCLA likes to see improvement. Whether it’s improving a tennis game or a swim time.  It can also be improving your grades or improving the lives of those less fortunate through your community service work.

D is DEDICATION. This is where you let UCLA know how you weren’t a fly by night soccer player. You stuck with the team even when you got injured. Or you worked with the drama department for four years even when you weren’t the lead. Or you’ve dedicated yourself to a cause. You don’t have to save the world but it couldn’t hurt!

UCLA admissions stress the importance of having more than one person read your essay. Why not let that person be us? Give us a call today.

The post How Do You Get Into UCLA? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Most commentaries have focused on the access to the University of California, including the budgetary implications on on financial aid and tuition increases.

But what parents and students need to keep in mind is that access is not the only issue here: as budgets shrink, educational quality will start to shrivel up, too. While you may still have access to UCLA or UC Irvine, the quality of the education offered there will decline unless the healthy budgets return.

An article in today’s Inside Higher Ed leads with the fact that the UC schools are having a hard time recruiting top quality faculty, because they can no longer compete by offering competitive salaries. They are losing bidding wars with private colleges around the country–whose budgets are not dependent on taxpayer dollars and whose endowments may allow them to attract top-flight faculty.

Many other public universities are feeling the same pinch:  as budgets are trimmed, so are student services.  Class sizes will increase.  Depth and breadth of course offerings will diminish.

So today’s consumers of higher education services need to think carefully about the relationship between cost and quality.

If your family needs help finding the right balance between cost and quality, don’t hesitate to give me a shout.  Remember, the first conversation is free!

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

Technorati Tags: educational consultant, educational consulting, admission, college, University of California, UCLA, Berkeley, Colorado Del.icio.us Tags: educational consultant, educational consulting, admission, college, University of California, UCLA, Berkeley, Colorado

The post Budget Woes and Blows to the University of California System first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Here’s a bit of what I learned.

1. As the Provost said, Menlo is not a small college, it’s a tiny college.  With each entering class made up of about 125 students, the total campus population is just under 600.  The campus is pleasantly verdant and compact, and classes take place in only two buildings, one of which is dedicated solely to business courses.
2. The focus at Menlo is on business.  Most students are majoring in some flavor of business administration, though some pursue degrees in psychology or other liberal arts disciplines.
3. Most Menlo students hail from California, with a smattering of students from other Western states.  Fifteen percent of students come from abroad, with most of those coming from Hong Kong and China.
4. Menlo is a teaching college, where each faculty member is expected to teach four courses per semester.  While some faculty complain about the work load, the Provost gently reminds them that with the tiny size of the College and the small size of classes, most instructors teacher fewer than 50 students per semester. Thus faculty members are able to build close connections with faculty—because such relationships would be unavoidable.
5. Menlo has only 30 full time faculty, and is trying to expand that number to 50. The Board of Trustees has given the Provost the directive to pay competitive salaries to attract and retain top faculty.  In addition, because of Menlo’s location in Silicon Valley, the College has access to an excellent pool of experienced and qualified adjunct instructors to teach in its business programs.  Twenty-one faculty members actually live on campus (and all faculty and staff may eat in the campus dining hall free of charge all year long!).
6. Menlo’s location also gives students the opportunity to pursue part-time jobs, internships, and summer employment in the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley.
7. Despite its tiny size, Menlo competes in NCAA Division III sports, and 40% of the students participate in varsity athletics.
8. Historically, Menlo has had a strong set of services for students with learning differences. While the College is happy to serve students with a wide variety of learning styles, it is refocusing itself and has made the decision not to be a school that specializes in serving the needs of students with learning differences.
9. Menlo’s President and current leadership team seems to have a strong, unified vision of how to transform this small college into a focused, ambitious little place—like the choo-choo train in the story, The Little Engine That Could.

I was pleased to finally visit Menlo.  I had met Bob Wilms, Menlo’s amiable and able director of admission, on several occasions.  While Bob is a great representative in extolling the virtues of Menlo, there is no substitute for walking the campus and meeting the people that form the core of the College.

Mark Montgomery
College Consultant

Technorati Tags: Menlo, College, Atherton, California, admission, consulting, advice, counseling, university Del.icio.us Tags: Menlo, College, Atherton, California, admission, consulting, advice, counseling, university

The post Menlo College: A Tiny, Focused Business College in Silicon Valley first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

My reader made the point that public universities can be a better deal, and that the list of public universities on Princeton Review‘s list are much more accessible to the “rest of us” than the ultra-selective “Top 10 Value Colleges” like Harvard and Yale.

Certainly Princeton Review will defend its selection criteria, saying that they have taken into account academic factors as well as financial aid practices.  But choosing a college on the basis of this list alone would clearly be silly.  In qualitative terms, the education one might receive from William & Mary vs. the New College of Florida would be quite different.

Let’s also look at some interesting facts and figures that are masked by these ratings.

At less than $5,000 a year, tuition at New College is a bargain for residents of Florida.  Out-of-staters will be charged over $23,000.  Despite the perceived bargain, New College has  a transfer rate of 32% (meaning that 32% of freshmen transfer out at some point before graduation), clearly New College is not enough of a bargain to keep a full third of its entering class.  Of course, this is likely because New College has a special set of characteristics that might make it more (or less) appealing to some students. Choosing this college only on price would be a mistake.

The College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia accept 34% and 35% of their applicants, respectively.  But for applicants from outside the state of Virginia, these schools are as selective as any in the Ivy League.  University of California San Diego accepts 46% of its applicants, but is only slightly easier than the two Virginia schools for out-of-state applicants to be admitted.  So if you choose three universities based on price, you had better have the goods to be admitted.

CUNY–Hunter College is a large urban university in New York City with a great reputation in many fields, and it accepts 49% of those who apply.  Nonetheless, a whopping 64% of its incoming class will not graduate six years later. As one admissions professional I know has said (in another context), to recruit for a school like that is like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

The College of New Jersey qualifies as a hidden gem for many folks, in part because of its small size (about 6,200 undergrads).  It accepts slightly less than half of its applicants, and its graduation rate is quite high.  However, only 5% of its students hail from beyond New Jersey.  As a Colorado boy, I am not convinced many kids I know from the Front Range will stampede to Ewing, NJ, in search of a “bargain”.

This leaves us with one mid-sized university (SUNY Binghamton) with under 12,000 students, and three extra large universities (Florida State, NC State, and Georgia), each with over 30,000 students.  These three have impressive graduation rates, are not impossible to get into (yet always more difficult for students from out-of-state).  Tuition prices for in-state students run about $16,000, and double that for out-of-staters.  But would it really be considered a “bargain” for a student from Colorado to attend SUNY Binghamton and pay more than $40k in tuition instead of attending Colorado State University and paying about $10k?  Is SUNY Binghamton that much better, academically speaking, that the Colorado student should consider it a “bargain”?

While I concede to my dear reader that a quality education is available to most students in America–perhaps even at a bargain price–this business of labeling this or that university as a better “value” is not very helpful to the consumer of educational services.  As I stated in my previous post, the “bargain” is in the eye of the beholder.  The fact that the chartreuse sport coat is very low priced does not mean I will want to buy it (please…I prefer pink).  Or how about the those jeans with the 58-inch waist?  I see that they are very high quality, but they don’t fit me at all well.

Finding the right college is partly about price.  But only partly.  Plus, as I have stated elsewhere, the list price of any university is not necessarily the price YOU will pay.

So I’ll say it again.  Buy these magazines if you wish to bolster the economy, and I’ll send you my thanks.  But if you use these rankings to choose yourself a college, well, caveat emptor.

Mark Montgomery

College Counselor and Personal Shopper

Technorati Tags: college selection, college search, college ratings, college rankings, best value, Princeton Review, Kiplinger’s

Del.icio.us Tags: college selection, college search, college ratings, college rankings, best value, Princeton Review, Kiplinger’s

The post Value Universities for the "Rest of Us"–A Difficult Claim To Maintain first appeared on College Admission Counseling.