Here are few things you can do over winter break to work on your college search process:
1.  Start doing some college research.  There are so many college websites out there, it is hard to know where to begin.  These days, high schoolers are inundated with information about colleges on TikTok or other social media platforms. But, we often suggest that students begin with a simple college match survey.  You can find these on CollegeBoard.org or Princeton Review.  Once you find some colleges that you are interested in learning more about, visit CollegeData.com.  This site provides a wealth of information about size, academics and the competitiveness of the application process.  Another site to check out is Unigo.com.  This site can answer many questions you may have about the college application process.
2.  Volunteer.  Winter break is a great time to get in some volunteer hours.  You may work at an animal shelter or see if you can help with a holiday program at a local hospital.  Volunteering not only looks great on your college applications, but it is beneficial for your mental health and a great way to give back to your community. It may also be a great opportunity for you to explore some different careers.
3.  Begin thinking about next summer.  Now is the time to begin thinking about your plans for the summer.  Look into possible enrichment programs or camps that will help you explore an interest. You may want to start putting together your resume as you begin exploring potential summer job or internship opportunities.
4.  Network.  There are lots of gatherings during the holidays, which provide great opportunities for networking.  Before you attend your next holiday event, brainstorm some questions you may have from the people you know will be there.  Ask about career paths and college experiences. This is a great way to learn more about college from multiple perspectives.
5.  Read.  Reading is one of the best ways to improve your SAT scores, so take some time to dive into a good book or two or three!

Great College Advice

The post Things To Do Over Winter Break for Freshmen and Sophomores first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The short answer is yes. So don’t panic!

How to make changes to a college application

In most cases, you cannot actually change the application. Once it is sent, you cannot alter it. You probably even made a declaration when submitting saying something to the effect that “I understand that once I submit my application, it cannot be changed.”

So the only way to make the change is to contact the admissions office. You will need to write an email.

Who shall I contact to make changes on a college application?

Preferably, you’ll email the admissions officer who is going to read your application. Most admissions offices read by geographic reason, and most admissions websites will have a tool for you to find the admissions officer responsible for your state and high school. So take the time to look up who this person is. You may even find a bio on the website that tells you a bit about them.

Once you have found that person, compose an email. It doesn’t need to be long or involved. It just needs to state the facts and request an alteration.

Some instances in which you might want to make changes to a college application

• Your mom decided to read your essay “one more time” and found an error. Send admissions offices an updated PDF version of your essay and ask them to replace it with the copy submitted with your application.
• Your history grade improved from the C reported on your first quarter grades to a respectable B because you aced your last exam. Kindly ask your history teacher to write a few comments about your improved grade and sign it. Scan the letter and email it to all of the schools you have applied to and put a hard copy in the mail.
• The mayor of your city has just recognized a non-profit organization that you helped create. Cut the article out of the newspaper and mail it into the schools you applied to, along with a letter. If you can provide a link to the article, send an email in as well.
• If it was something you inadvertently left blank but wanted to answer, give the answer in the same format in which the original question was answered. For example, if you left out an activity, provide the activity in the same format that is required on the Common App. There are specific character limits for each of the blanks, and required information about when you participated in this activity. Follow that same pattern exactly.
• If you answered a question wrong (i.e., you wrote your test scores incorrectly, or you clicked the wrong box for citizenship), just explain the error concisely and provide the new, corrected response.

Do NOT spend a lot of time apologizing. Do express regret, but do so without a lot of wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth.  Just apologize, and then express gratitude to the recipient of your email for taking the time to make the correction.

Accidents happen.  Things go wrong.  People make mistakes.  Generally, admissions officers are understanding of these little goofs, and are happy to make the changes in your file.

In fact, it’s better to recognize the mistake early and make the correction than let the admissions officer read the incorrect information and make a judgment on your application before you have a chance to communicate the error.

So if you find a mistake, correct it!  It is possible to make changes to a college application even after it is submitted.

Remember that it is important to provide colleges with all of the information they need to make an informed decision about your application. Just because application deadlines have passed does not mean that you can not submit additional information.

Ready to get started with the college admissions process?

The team at Great College Advice has deep experience in guiding students along the road from high school college. We provide individually tailored, one-on-one advising to help students achieve their college dreams. If you’d like more information about our services, contact us for a free consultation. Or just pick up the phone and call us at 720.279.7577.  We’d be happy to chat with you.

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.  

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other. 

The post How To Make Changes to a College Application first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

One of the most important goals a college counselor has is to bring a little bit of their college to a student who may not have the opportunity to visit or is considering planning a visit.  The best way to do this is to have a reception or an “on the road” information session.

What is a college reception?

A college reception is different from a college fair, and different from a high school visit.  Usually receptions are put on by more than one college and are held in the evening.  They are often held at a local hotel, or sometimes at a high school.

Students often receive invitations to these events. If you have signed up for more information about a particular college, you may receive an invite.  Or colleges and universities may get your contact information from either the SAT (College Board) or ACT.  Students may receive emails or glossy invitations about the event.  They are often held at a local hotel or sometimes at a high school.

The structure of the events vary, but often times students can expect to see the same or a very similar presentation to what is offered at the on-campus information sessions. The admissions counselor will give an overview of the basic statistics of the college and the admissions process.  This is a great opportunity to learn some information about the school that may not be available on the website.

One big difference is that you may hear presentations from 2 or 3 different colleges.  In some ways, this can be less helpful than a more focused session on one school.  If you are particularly interested in one of the participants at the reception, you may have to wait patiently through the presentations by colleges that interest you less. On the other hand, you may be learning about a college or two that has not yet been on your radar screen, and you may decide to expand your list as a result of the reception.

An on-the-road college reception may also be a great time to meet with other members of the college community.  Sometimes colleges will bring current students to the reception to talk about campus life and personal experiences.  Professors may come to discuss the courses they teach and the academic goals of the college.  Alumni will often speak of life after graduation and the job searching process.

Overall, attending a college reception in your hometown is a valuable way to learn more about a school.  It can help you decide if you want to spend the money to visit a school in order to learn more.

What to expect at a college reception after the presentations are over

Usually after the presentation, you will have an opportunity to meet individually with the admissions representatives. They will set up tables in different parts of the room, and you can waIk up and ask questions. So be prepared to ask some! Research the information you want to know about majors, student life and the admissions process.  Having an audience that asks questions really helps keep an admissions officer going.  Remember that they may have been up since 5AM trying to make it to all their high school visits and are now working into the evening to showcase the college that they work for.  So show them that you’re interested, and they will feel energized!

Also don’t forget to send a follow up “thank you note” to the person who presented on the college or colleges that interest you. It’s a great way to demonstrate interest and get some more brownie points for attending the college reception.

Need help with the college admissions process? 

The team at Great College Advice has years of experience working with thousands of students as they navigate the college admissions process.  We can help you prepare, select, and apply to colleges to give you the best chance of being accepted to your top choices.  Of course we can help with preparing for a college reception, but we will also help you with every other aspect of college admissions. Want to learn more?  Just contact us on this form and we’ll set up a no-cost, no-obligation meeting so we can learn more about you and discuss how we can help make the college admissions process more successful and less stressful. 

The post What To Expect At A College Reception first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The Clery Act requires colleges and universities to disseminate a public annual security report that must include statistics of campus crime for the preceding three calendar years, plus details about efforts taken to improve campus safety.  

The best tool for finding the most recent data on individual school campus safety is from the Department of Education. Its Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool is put together by the Office of Postsecondary Education. When searching for an individual college, you’ll be presented with three years of data reported by the college, broken down into different kinds of crimes and where they took place (on campus generally, or in the campus residences). As you’ll see, liquor law violations tend to dominate the list for any college. But, note that rape, burglary, stalking and other very serious offenses are also reported separately. 

You can also compare up to four colleges at the same time. Here’s 2023 data comparing some well-known Boston-area universities: Northeastern, Boston University, Harvard, and MIT. 

Selected Criminal Offenses and Disciplinary Actions 

 Source: US Department of Education Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool. 

Individual college data can also be found on the “College Navigator” website of the National Center for Education Statistics by typing in the college name and scrolling down to the “Campus Security and Safety” tab. However, I have found this data to not be updated as frequently and you’re unable to do a side-by-side college comparison. 

Individual College Data is Only as Good as the Method of Reporting

One criticism of this reported crime data is that reporting is inconsistent from one college to the next. While the government provides guidelines and universities are expected to follow those guidelines. Reasonable people may question the accuracy of the data from school to school and from year to year. Some colleges may seem to have very high rates of theft and burglary, for example. But the location of the school (in a city, in a rural town) may help to explain those differences rather than the laxity of the campus police. 

Similarly, some colleges seem to have higher incidences of sex-related crimes. Those universities with higher rates of sex crimes sometimes claim that they are actually better at encouraging victims of such crimes to come forward than may be the case on other campuses. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, what the statistics really tell us about campus safety. And it can still be difficult to compare one campus against another. 

Nonetheless, the statistics are helpful to families as they investigate campus safety as they are building their college lists. 

What Campus Safety Questions Can I Ask? 

It’s perfectly okay to ask about campus safety while on a college tour. The admissions staff is generally well-positioned to answer your inquiries on this topic. They should be able to refer you to statistics and other information and may invite you to visit the office of the campus police if you have concerns you’d like addressed. You can also try to talk to local residents about their impressions of safety in the community. The local police department can be another source of information (crimes that do not take place on campus will not appear in the government statistics reported on College Navigator). 

However, it is less helpful to ask current students about the details of campus safety. You can certainly ask about their own experiences (do you feel comfortable walking around campus after dark, or do you feel safe in your campus residence?). They might be able to share their own impressions of how well the campus is able to provide information to students about safety issues. But students–including tour guides–are generally not fully aware of all safety systems, university policies, disciplinary procedures, or aggregate crime statistics. 

CRIME 

• Does campus feel safe to you? 

• Is the school monitored in real time, 24/7 by video cameras? Or is the video merely checked after there has been a problem? 

• Are there emergency call boxes throughout campus? (More on these in a moment) 

• Does the school offer a campus safety escort service? If so, is it staffed with officers or students or both? 

• Does the campus police use a cell phone alert system to communicate imminent risks to students? 

• Does the school use electronic-access card keys to monitor the entry and exit of campus buildings? 

• Are there redundant forms of security, like cameras, call buttons and rotating patrols? 

• Does the school offer self-defense classes? 

• Do you feel safe walking alone across campus at night? If not, what do you do to get around campus at night? 

ALCOHOL AND DRUGS 

• Is there a well-defined alcohol and drug policy? How vigorously is it enforced? 

• Are residential staffers trained to spot abuse and offer help? 

• Does the college inform you of arrests and hospitalizations related to drugs and alcohol? 

• How many students are in fraternities and sororities? (They tend to drink more heavily.) 

• How many students are involved in community service? (They tend to drink less.) 

FIRE 

• Are there smoke and carbon monoxide detectors? 

• Are there sprinklers and fire extinguishers? Are there two exits? Do the windows open? 

• Are there regular fire drills? 

• Does the furnace get annual maintenance, and is the electrical system up to date? 

Campus Safety and Blue Light Call Boxes 

Often when touring colleges you’ll see a network of call boxes or emergency buttons, often with blue lights on them. Campus tour guides may actually point them out while on the tour and mention how quickly campus police will arrive when one of those buttons is pushed. This is because this button will immediate connect the caller with emergency services – likely either campus security or local police. At USC, its blue phones connect callers with the school’s 24-hour Department of Public Safety. 

Campus Safety Questions and School Location 

One of the biggest differentiators in campus safety has nothing to do with the quality of policing or the complexity of campus policies. Rather, the location of the school can tell us a lot more about the relative safety of the campus than anything else. These days, most students seem to want to attend college in a city. But higher population density in urban areas is correlated with criminality (not to mention traffic accidents, which remain a significant risk on many campuses). 

On urban campuses, one is likely to find a high degree of security. For example, at the University of Pennsylvania or New York University, it is impossible for a casual visitor to visit any building without proper permissions and concomitant identification cards. However, on campuses located in small towns or rural areas away from major population centers, some campus buildings may be unlocked. 

So, if safety is a primary concern, you may want to consider the location of the campus itself. 

Campus Safety, Alcohol and Drug Use, and Walkability 

As a parent, I tend to worry about some of the simpler, more obvious risks that many students will experiment with while in college: alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs. Because young people are impaired while on these substances (their protestations to the contrary), it’s important to consider how easy it is to walk from place to place around campus while in this state. 

Big busy streets with speeding cars is a riskier environment than small, tree-lined lanes with slow-moving traffic. And the proximity of campus buildings to one another is better than a school where a car might be required to head to a bar or off-campus parties.  

Why Is Campus Safety Important in Choosing a College? 

Campus safety is an important consideration in selecting a college. You want to have an understanding of the relative risks involved in choosing a particular campus. And statistics give us an indication of what sorts of risks one might encounter. However, keep in mind that the statistics do not necessarily tell the whole story and that environmental and circumstantial factors (e.g., the location of the campus) may have a bigger impact on campus safety than school policies or the size of the campus police force. 

As you think about campus safety, you’ll have to trade off these considerations with other ones, including the quality of the academic programs, the availability of certain activities or amenities, and other preferences and priorities. 

Whatever campus you choose, it’s important to think carefully about the risks one might encounter while at university and to build awareness about how to minimize those risks for you as an individual student. Understanding the risks is the first step in reducing them for yourself. 

Feeling overwhelmed with the college admissions process?  

The team at Great College Advice has years of experience working with thousands of students as they navigate the college admissions process.  We can help you prepare, select, and apply to colleges to give you the best chance of being accepted to your top choices. Please contact us to schedule your no-cost, no-obligation meeting so we can learn more about you and discuss how we can help make the college admissions process more successful and less stressful. 

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2023 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness. 

The post Campus Safety Questions first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

When a client asked me the other day about the importance of student to faculty ratios, I got to thinking about other supposed indicators of educational quality.

The other oft-cited statistic when visiting an admissions office is “average class size.” As with student-to-faculty ratios, the size of the classes at a college is assumed to reflect the quality and the intimacy of the educational experience. Small classes–so the assumption goes–are interactive and provide ample opportunity for interaction between students and faculty. The pedagogy of these classes is more a facilitated discussion than a lecture.

This assumption is generally true: small classes are more interactive. Yet I could cite numerous examples of professors I have known who stand and deliver lectures from prepared notes to a class of seven students. Just because a class is small doesn’t mean it’s any good.

The use of the “average class size” can be very misleading, however, and masks some more important facts about the quality of education delivered by a college or university.
Consider how the following scenarios have an impact on how “average class size” is calculated.

• Some of the smallest classes are taught by the least effective, least popular professors. In a world of university tenure, bad professors cannot be chased out. So they end up teaching ever smaller numbers of students, while the more effective, popular instructors see their class sizes swell.• Some of the smallest classes are in obscure subjects. Some of these are new courses professors are trying out for the first time.
• They can be experimental. And few students are willing to take risks of this sort (credits are too expensive, too dear to take such risks).
  Class sizes in some departments are much smaller than in other departments. Courses for popular majors such as history, economics, and biology may be large, while equally good courses in anthropology and art history may be tiny. Here quality of the individual course is not the issue–it’s the popularity of the major that may affect class size.
• Professors generally do not like teaching huge courses–not because they hate lecturing–but because they hate grading so many tests and term papers. So they ask administrators to cap enrollments, insisting that “small classes are better” (when, in fact, they are simply concerned about their own work load).
• Professors and administrators cap enrollments in popular courses in order to keep the average class size small. Even the most popular courses at small, liberal arts colleges are not allowed to grow large–because those colleges are protecting the ratio. In a competitive environment that values small class sizes over large ones, institutions of higher education are loath to allow classes to grow too large. So from an administrator’s point of view, the question is not so much access to great courses or the quality of the individual course (some large lecture classes in the hands of an outstanding professor can be awesome). An administrator’s job is to keep “average class size” as low as possible.

This final point leads to some very troublesome effects on college campuses. An article a few years back from the alumni magazine of my alma mater, Dartmouth College, points out that the real, untold story is how the mania to protect the “average class size” statistic is shutting students out of popular courses. The article makes the point this way:

In [the department of] economics, with 453 students registered as majors, minors, or modified majors, students get closed out of as many of 20 percent of their course choices, a rate that far exceeds the rate of closeouts campus wide, as estimated by [Dean of the Faculty Carol] Holt.

To further elaborate the point, a “small class” in the economics department at Dartmouth is 30 students: the department would likely cancel a class with such “low” enrollment. While in the department of anthropology, a “small” class might be 5 or 6 (in my department at the University of Denver, a course with fewer than 7 students was considered “uneconomic” and therefore cancelled).

(Note to future economics majors: if you really want to small classes, go to a college where economics is NOT a popular major.)

Believe me, this is not the sort of information you will hear from an admissions counselor. They will sing out their statistics on student-to-faculty ratios (8-to-1 at Dartmouth) and “average class size” is probably around 15 or so.

Student to Faculty Ratios Can Mislead

But the statistics, beautiful though they are, do not tell you the whole story. In fact, they can be grossly misleading. And they do not necessarily bear any relationship to the quality of the education being delivered.

As an alumnus, of course, I would tell you that the quality of the education at Dartmouth is more a function of the quality of the faculty and the quality of the student body. Dartmouth can afford to be more discriminating in its offers of tenure, it offers higher salaries to faculty, and the student body is one that any high-quality faculty member would love to teach. And only teachers who love to teach undergraduates would be motivated to apply for a job at Dartmouth–for there are few graduate students.

In the same breath, however, I would criticize the quality of a Harvard undergraduate education, where the student-to-faculty ratio is an ultra-low 6-to-1, but average class sizes are generally much larger, and graduate teaching assistants perform the overwhelming majority of grading and lead almost all the class discussions. To be graduate student at Harvard is to be on top of the heap; to be an undergraduate is fun an exciting, but the teaching is just not as good.

Why would I say that?

Two reasons.  First, my experience while a graduate teaching fellow.  I was an assistant for two different courses over a few semesters.  These were 200-level courses in the economics and political science departments (international political economy and political theory, respectively).  While I enjoyed my experience, I found the lectures by the professors to be relatively boring, and I also found it weird that I was leading discussions on the readings despite my relative lack of expertise in either subject. I also was in charge of grading all papers and exams, some of which were awesome, and other were complete pieces of crap. But the professors allowed us to give nothing less than a “B” grade to anything, no matter how horrible or off the mark the work was.

The second is that a friend of mine wrote me a note about his experience in choosing and attending Harvard.  While he enjoyed his time at Harvard overall, his classroom environment not all that memorable.  Here is what he wrote:

I didn’t think very critically about which college was the right “fit”. All I knew about college was gleaned from family trips to University of Notre Dame for football games. I knew I wanted to go away to college, and I had been to Washington DC so I applied to Georgetown. I applied to University of Michigan Ann Arbor as my “safety” school. And at the last minute, my Dad told me he had spoken with a friend whose daughter had gone to Harvard and enjoyed it. So I applied to Harvard.
When I got into Harvard, I was so overwhelmed with people’s responses to that fact that it seemed to me the right thing to do to go there. I had never been to Boston and had no idea what Harvard looked like and no real appreciation for its history. In fact I almost cried when I rode into Harvard Square because it didn’t look at all like “college” to me!
It turned out to be a wonderful experience for me, not because of the undergraduate academic offerings (three or four truly exceptional courses) or the career guidance (zero) but because of the terrific students and graduate students I met and became friends with. It is a part of my life I treasure. Looking back, I’m not at all sure that I couldn’t have gotten an equally wonderful (though of course different) experience at any number of other colleges. I will say though that the Harvard name has opened many doors for me, many of which I am probably not even aware.

So how can you uncover the truth behind the statistics?

Here’s a short video I did a while back expressing gratitude for the clarity with which Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, calculated its student to faculty ratio.

The Truth Behind Student to Faculty Ratios

How can we compare and contrast the educational services offered by different institutions? How can we get beyond these simplistic numbers?

You must ask more substantive questions about how courses are taught, and not to focus solely upon the size of the class.

But there are other questions that prospective students and their parents might ask in order to understand and predict what their experience might be like if they matriculated to a particular college or university.

1. What is the “course load” for faculty members? How many undergraduate courses is each faculty member expected to teach every year? Is this number the same for all departments, or does it vary by discipline?
2. What percentage of courses is taught by adjunct or part-time faculty? Is this percentage the same across departments, or do some departments rely on part-timers more than others?
3. What percentage of courses has a waiting list? How does the college (or the individual department) determine who gets off the waiting list and when?
4. How many campus lecture halls seat 100 students? 50 students? 500 students? How many seminar rooms are there? What is the ratio of lecture halls to seminar rooms?
5. How small must a class be before it is canceled by the administration?
6. What is the most popular course on campus (or in your department)? Is enrollment in this course capped? Who gets in, and who doesn’t?

As you ask these questions, you should not permit admissions people to give vague answers. They will hem and haw. They will will be imprecise.

But these figures do exist on campus, and they exist in the office of institutional research. The administrators in this office crunch the numbers. They have the facts. If you really want to know this information, you need to ask to be put in touch with someone in the office institutional research who can provide this information to you.

Still, you must not focus solely on the statistics. Every educational institution has administrative problems like the ones at Dartmouth described above You will never be able to guarantee that your son or daughter will not be shut out of a class. You will not be able to ensure that every course he or she takes is a gem.

But if you dig deeply enough, you may be able to figure out how forthcoming and honest the faculty and administration is about the difficulty of measuring educational quality, and you will learn how they are working to deliver the quality you expect–and will be paying for.

Need to understand the data and how it applies to you?

The college admissions counselors at Great College Advice have access to the latest higher education data to help students and families make the right decisions about their educational paths. We can guide you toward the information you need to choose the right colleges and ensure that you get the educational opportunities you most desire. Give us a call for a free consultation or fill out our contact form. We’d be delighted to get acquainted and explain how we help families make the admissions process less stressful and more successful.

Great College Advice

The post Class Size & Student to Faculty Ratios: What Research Says? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Admissions officers often give a score to the essays as they read them.  In some instances, the Common App essay is scored separately from the supplements.  In other cases, admissions officers score all the essays together:  Common App plus the supplements.

Either way, lackluster responses to those supplemental essay prompts can really hurt your chances of admission. So put in the effort to make sure those supplemental essays shine.

Top 3 tips to improve your supplemental essays

Don’t wait until the last minute!

Some students are chronic procrastinators. They leave important things to the last minute. While I will admit, reluctantly, that once in a blue moon a student is able to pull out a masterpiece with only minutes to spare, these sorts of students are about as rare as snow leopards.

You want to make sure you have plenty of time to brainstorm good messages for your essays, and that you have time to create paragraphs that are well-structured, clear, and concise. Many supplements are short.  Therefore you need to pack them full of juicy words and ideas. Creating prose that is both pithy and clear takes time and effort–and usually multiple drafts. 

So start early, and focus on ensuring that the messages you want to convey in these short supplemental essays are clear and compelling. 

Answer the question!

One of the most frustrating things about reading supplemental essays is that students often do not answer the question. The admissions officers take a lot of time crafting the prompt in hopes that they will get thoughtful, interesting answers that will help them differentiate the applicant pool.  They want to admit applicants who have taken the time to answer their questions carefully and completely. They want to know that the applicant cares enough about their application to their school that they dedicate the time necessary to do a great job.

The “Why do you want to go to this college” is among the best examples of how important it is that you take the time to plan and execute a teriffic answer to this prompt. Most colleges want to know why you are interested in attending. So tell them!

Write about specific things that have attracted you to the school. Go beyond the beautiful campus and great food in the dining hall. Talk about a professor you researched on-line and can’t wait to take a class from. If you are playing a sport, talk about your impressions of the coach and the team. Find out about the programs the student government organizes then talk about how you can’t wait to organize a specific event next year. Really envision yourself as a student at the school and then tell the admissions officer what you think that would be like.

Similarly, the “tell us about your academic interests” essay requires thought. You want to take the time not only to say what interests you, but why you are interested in these disciplines, topics, or ideas. What excites you about these ideas and theories? Why would it be important to you to explore these ideas more deeply? What resources at the school would help you achieve your academic objectives? Be specific, be concise, and be enthusiastic.

Though it may sound weird and cruel, supplemental essays are supposed to be the “fun” part of your application. So, take them seriously.

Don’t repeat yourself on your supplemental essays

Each piece of writing on each application you submit should tell the admissions office something different and interesting about you. So you should not write supplemental essays that significantly duplicate information provided in other places on your application.

For example, don’t use the supplemental essays to recount or amplify your extracurricular activities. There is ample space on the Common Application to identify and explain your extracurricular involvements:  the Activities section. Use that space wisely. But don’t repeat yourself by saying similar things in your Common Application. For example, if you are the captain and quarterback of your school football team, don’t write a supplemental essay that talks all about football. If you’re asked to write about an activity you enjoy, use the supplemental essay to highlight your interest in building model airplanes or archery or crossword puzzles. Round out the vision of you as a multidimensional person so that the admissions office gets a more complete picture of your humanity.

Similarly, don’t repeat facts or themes or ideas from your Common Application personal statement. You want each supplemental essay to present fresh content–fresh ideas about who you are as a person. Admittedly, sometimes the prompts from the Common App can come back around in a new form in the supplemental essays. Try to find a way to write about something new without duplicating the personal statement.

If you really can’t think of anything, it might be best to rework your personal statement into a supplemental essay for a particular application, and then write an entirely new personal statement (the Common App allows you to do such shenanigans for one application, if you need to). But this would be a drastic measure.  So avoid it, if you can.  Instead, think of new ways to explore a similar topic so that you can reveal more about who you are on the application as a whole.

Need help writing supplemental essays for your college applications?

The expert college counselors have years of experience helping their students develop interesting, clear, and successful supplemental essays for the Common Application.  Whether you need help only with essays or you prefer to get more comprehensive college admissions help, the folks at Great College Advice can make the entire college admissions process less stressful and more successful.  Contact us today for a free consultation. We look forward to getting acquainted.

The post Supplemental Essays Are Important! first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Thanksgiving is not the best time for college tours

During the week of Thanksgiving, colleges are often open, but the students have already ventured home to be with their families. College admissions officers, too, are very often out of the office entirely–finally getting a few days to spend with their families during a grueling travel season. Rarely do colleges even offer tours and information sessions during Thanksgiving week. You may be able to meet with someone in the admissions office, but it will be difficult to get a feel for the college culture without students present. On many campuses, all dining facilities and campus amenities will be completely shut down as staff are given a few days off for the holidays.

So we recommend you forget Thanksgiving as a viable time to visit a campus, unless all you want to do is look at a bunch of locked and empty buildings.  Not a super helpful time to get to know a school and its’ community.

The winter holiday is not the best time for college tours

Winter holiday break is just as bad, if not worse. When students leave campus, many offices also close up.  Dorms are locked up tightly while students are away.  The library may be on limited hours if it is open at all.  Faculty leave town and go on their own vacations.

Most colleges may be completely closed from December 23rd to January 2nd. If you venture to a college that third week in December, a few admission counselors may still be in their offices, but they will more than likely be knee-deep in reading applications. So here again, unless all you want to do is see a bunch of locked and empty buildings, the winter holiday is not a great time for college tours.

What about summer for a college tour?

For many families, summer is the best time for a college tour.  This is when students are no longer wrapped up in the demands of the academic year and time is a bit more flexible.  While summer is not a perfect time to visit a college campus, it is better than Thanksgiving or the winter holidays. Some colleges and universities do have summer sessions, and most will have some sort of activities going on–even if they are not set up for their regular student bodies.  Offices are generally open, as are most facilities.  During the summer, you may not see the campus operating as it does during the academic year, but at least the admissions office is set up to show you the best of what the campus has to offer.  While you’ll find it harder to have conversations with current students, at least you’ll get an idea of the what the campus feels like when there are actual humans around.

So when is the best time for a campus visit?

Unfortunately, the best time to visit a college campus is during the school year. This is when you will see the college or university in actual operation.  Students will be going to class, all the facilities will be open–and bustling–and you’ll get a better idea of not just geography of the campus, but the people who animate it.

Try to pick a time, such as a February or March break, but be careful not to overlap with the college’s spring break if possible (once again, the college just won’t look or feel the same when the students are not around). Make sure you do your research and look at the school’s campus tour calendar. Most colleges have sign-ups online.

For more tips, read our previous blog post:  Planning the Perfect Campus Visit.

The post Holiday Breaks – Not the Best Time for College Tours first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Do I need a college counselor?

FIND THE RIGHT FIT

With over 3,000 colleges and universities in the US, how do you know which is the best match for you? With our first-hand knowledge of colleges and access to the admission profession, a good college counselor can provide in-depth, personalized advice that no guidebook or website can. A good educational consultant will take the time to get to know you, and then will cn identify several colleges that will allow you to thrive throughout your college years. 

INVEST EDUCATIONAL DOLLARS WISELY

Aside from a home, a college education is the biggest investment that most families will ever make. And yet most would never think of selling their home without the advice of a professional real estate agent. When you consider that the cost of a private 4-year college (tuition, fees, room, and board) ranges from $120,000 to nearly $400,000, hiring a professional to help you make a sound investment makes good sense.

PLAY THE ADMISSION GAME LIKE A PRO

Colleges and universities compete for students. And then they deny admission to apparently strong applicants. They market their educational services the way companies sell toothpaste. Then they manipulate the game in a way that favors their national rankings–and not individual students. With expertise in the field, an experienced college counselor can shed light on what can be a very opaque and confusing process. At the same time, good counselors maintain a sharp focus on student needs and aspirations. 

GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME

On average, the percentage of students who enroll in a college who actually graduate from that same college is over 50%. This means that many, many transfer to other schools after having made the wrong choice. Worse, some students will drop out entirely. By guiding you toward colleges that are the best fit for your academic interests, extracurricular pursuits, and personality, a good college counselor a much better chance of matriculating and graduating from a school that suits all your needs from start to finish.

MAINTAIN DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY

The college admissions process can be stressful for everyone involved. Much seems to ride on the decision. And the tasks seem endless: choosing appropriate courses, registering and studying for standardized tests, researching colleges, completing applications, writing essays, filling out financial aid forms…the list goes on and on. With all the tension in the air, some families yearn for a way to remove the stress and reestablish equilibrium. An excellent college counselor won’t let the process get you down; in fact, they’ll help you enjoy the discoveries along the way.

SAVE MONEY

Sometimes in order to save money you need to invest in the right services. This is why people hire accountants, lawyers, and financial planners:  their expertise and experience can actually save multiples of the fees paid for these services.  Similarly, educational consultants can help you set a budget and stick to it. While the price of higher education keeps going up, that doesn’t mean that there are not excellent strategies that you and your family can employ to save on the overall cost of college. Invest time, energy, and money up front, and you could save tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on education. 

ALLEVIATE STRESS

Let’s face it. The college admissions rat race has us all in a tizzy. The process seems so competitive, so opaque, so uncontrollable, so random. Parents get caught up in the exaggerated fear that if their kids do not achieve a certain outcome, they will be doomed to a life as a barista. Students internalize the pressure and develop low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. A good college counselor cannot eliminate the external pressures bearing down on families and students these days. But the counselor can help empower families to focus on the things that are within their control and to let go of the things that are not. A good counselor does not elevate the stress, but instead reduces it by providing solid information, reassurance, and a zen-like presence that all will turn out well in the end. 

Where do I go if I need a college counselor?

The counselors at Great College Advice have both the experience and expertise to help you optimize the outcome.  While they can neither eliminate uncertainty nor rewrite the rules of the college admissions game, they can empower students and families with the information and perspective necessary to help them prepare, select, and apply to colleges that will provide them with the educational opportunities they want and deserve.  

We started in business in 2007 with the vision that high school students and their families deserve clear insight into the complicated world of college admission. Our process has been developed by educators to provide students with the information and tools they need to take full control of their own educational and professional futures. While we cannot control a process that is controlled by the colleges themselves, we can optimize outcomes for students and focus on their intellectual, emotional, and social well-being. 

As a national practice, we have worked with students in all 50 states and nearly 50 different countries. Each year, over 95% of our students are accepted to one of their top three choices. Many of our students are accepted to the Top 25 universities each year, and 99% of our students are accepted to schools that lie within the top 10% of American institutions of higher education. 

We invite you to review some of our testimonials to understand that we deliver a process that is healthy, happy, and rewarding.

Great College Advice can keep you focused on what is truly important

Further, we are happy to share our core values.  These five lodestars guide us in our work with students and their families.

INTEGRITY  The Great College Advice team demystifies the often ambiguous college preparation, selection, and application process and delivers our guidance with thoughtfulness, honesty, and professionalism.

PERSONALIZATION  Great College Advice provides counseling tailored to each student and family. We share our advice in a positive way that encourages students to embrace their educational futures with optimism and an open mind.

EXPERTISE  The Great College Advice team shares our knowledge, expertise, and constant curiosity to empower students to maximize their educational opportunities.

LEARNING  Our process encourages students to learn more about their academic interests, their professional possibilities, themselves as human beings, and the world around them.  We strive to inspire them to expand their horizons and their love of learning.

TRANSFORMATION  We guide our students through a transformational experience.  We help them articulate their needs, desires, and aspirations so as to pursue them in college and beyond.

Still wondering if you need a college counselor?

If you want to explore professional college counseling and want to discuss how Great College Advice can make the process more successful and less stressful, reach out to us for a free consultation. We look forward to getting acquainted.

The post Do I Need a College Counselor? 7 Factors to Consider first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The question that parents and students most often ask me is, “Which is better: getting a high GPA or hard classes?”

The humorous, accurate, but not always helpful response is: “Take the hardest course you can and get an ‘A’ in it.”

Here’s the scoop: this is not an easy question to answer categorically. In truth, it all depends on the student. Every student should take the most challenging courses he or she can perform well in. Colleges seek students who push themselves. They want students to delve into their intellectual interests and who love to learn. Honors courses are an indicator of intellectual drive and curiosity.

After all, both high school and college are about getting the best education you possibly can. So take advantage of the opportunities in front of you to learn the most you can.

Don’t Get Bad Grades — Especially in Easy Classes

But it does no good to take a slew of AP courses and get a “C” or “D” in each. Further, anyone who takes an AP course should set his or her sights on taking the AP exam. You need to pass the exam–not the teacher’s tests–to get the true credit for taking a high-quality AP course.

Parents also ask about how GPAs are then calculated for honors, AP, and IB courses. Generally, grades are weighted to give “extra credit” in the GPA for these tougher courses. But that does not mean that a “B” in an honors course is the equivalent of an “A” in a regular college prep course. (For more on weighted vs. unweighted GPAs, see my post here). The fact is that an “A” is an “A” and indicates exemplary work, while a “B” is a “B” and indicates good work.

Which is Better, a High GPA or Hard Classes?

So how to answer a question? It depends on your child. If he or she is capable of honors-level work, by all means, enroll in those courses.

And isn’t often the answer to all things college:  “It depends.” Not very cut and dried. But it’s the true answer.  

The general rule is clear from a conceptual point of view. But how can you apply this general rule to a specific student in a specific situation? Well, to be honest, that’s where a good educational consultant can help clarify the variables. It all comes down to the details, the trade-offs, the ambitions, the individual circumstances. A good consultant can help you wade through those things and come up with an educational plan that contains just the right amount or rigor without risking low grades.

Don’t Ease Up On Rigor Just to Get Top Grades

One of the worst things a student can do is to be enrolled in honors courses through sophomore or junior year, and then take easier courses in order to boost a GPA. This always backfires, as admissions officers want to see upward trends in both the GPA and the rigor of the academic program.

The fact is, you cannot hoodwink an admissions officer into seeing only a higher GPA. Admissions professionals are well-trained to identify the story behind the transcript. They follow the sequencing of your choices. If they see you were in honors courses and did reasonably well, but then pulled back in junior year to boost the GPA. They are unlikely to congratulate you for being such a serious and diligent student who puts academic inquiry and curiosity before some silly statistic. You’re not going to fool anyone with this sort of choice.

Don’t Push Yourself So Hard You Flounder

The reverse can also be true, however. Sometimes students think they should push themselves harder just because they can. But then get themselves into a bind when they are unable to handle the level of difficulty of the course. 

Good students with a history of doing well in school can be particularly at risk if they don’t see the signs of trouble before things really begin to wonky. If the student has never, ever received a bad grade–even on a test–they may have a lot of negative emotions about that failure that can prevent them to taking immediate action to get back on track.  

If you find yourself in a challenging course but your performance is not what you expected. You need to reach out to the teacher right away to figure out the problem. It may be that it’s simply a matter of reinforcing certain content that you just never mastered earlier in your educational career–and once you get that hole filled, you’re off and running again. Occasionally, however, you may be in over your head, and you may have to take more drastic action to prevent an academic disaster.

High GPA or Hard Classes: The Example of Math

Math is a subject in which this can happen. In this country. We tend to think of math as a race of some sort:  whoever gets to calculus first, wins. However, math is not a race. It’s a set of concepts and skills that help us make sense of the world using numbers and figures. It’s a powerful tool that requires us to master certain skills before we take on new ones.  

However, since colleges seem to value calculus as the highest possible mathematical achievement for entry to college–especially into some majors–students and parents may feel pressure to push into higher levels of math before the student is really ready to do so.  

Therefore, if you have any questions about advancing into higher levels of math, talk to your school counselor and your math teachers. What are the risks, if any? What can you do if you find the material challenging? What resources does the school provide to help students struggling with advanced material? 

Don’t be afraid to take on a challenge. Also don’t be afraid to seek out help if and when you need it. Not only do you want to take those hard classes, but you want to excel in them.

The Bottom Line: High GPA or Hard Classes

As we agreed in the beginning, the general rule here is to take the hardest classes possible and get the highest possible grades in those classes.  

However accurate this guidance might be, it really doesn’t provide granular advice to the individual student trying to register for next year’s courses. 

So what can you do? Here are some questions to get your mind going.

Are you aiming for the most selective colleges in the country? Then you need to push yourself into higher levels of rigor at every opportunity. However, remember that not every student can push themselves in this way, do be careful here. 

Are you particularly good at particular subjects? If so, push yourself further. You can likely handle greater rigor. And you’re pushing yourself in a subject you enjoy, then the subject might become all the more enjoyable as the pace picks up and the difficult of the course increases. 

Are there subjects in which you struggle? Is there a subject that seems to suck up all your homework time, when the gain in your grade is not all that great? This is a sign that you may be pushing too hard and it might be worth pulling back in a subject. 

High GPA or Hard Classes: Get Professional Help to Decide

If you really can’t figure out for yourself–using all the resources at your disposal–to make a clear decision about whether to go for the rigor or pull back a bit. You might want to consider hiring a professional educational consultant like the team at Great College Advice. We help our students make these difficult judgment calls all the time. We help them understand that there is no simple answer to this simple question. You have to figure out the right balance for yourself, and we can help you do just that.

The post High GPA or Hard Classes? Which Is Better? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

As you plan the general goals of your campus visits, plan the logistics, take the tour, listen to the information session, and investigate the campus surroundings, keep in mind these few tips for making the visit as productive, successful, and fun as possible.

Parent Tips for Campus Visits

Don’t ask too many questions, either in the information session or during the campus tour. Even if your kid is silent, try to restrain yourself. Silence does not indicate that your child is comatose. I can guarantee that even the most taciturn teen is taking it all in, trying to incorporate new ideas about their own future, some of which are really exciting, and some of which may be sort of terrifying.

Don’t try to fill the silence by embarrassing or annoying your child. I can’t tell you how many tours I’ve taken on which students and their parents have traded eye-rolls, verbal jabs, elbows to the ribs. This is a stressful time for everyone, so don’t your parental instincts interfere with your child’s experience.

Do help your student to brainstorm the questions he or she has about this college and its campus before the visit starts. What information do you already know about this campus, and what questions remain? What things are important to see during the visit—facilities that may be important for your child? Encourage the student to ask the questions by helping to formulate the right questions in advance.

Do seek answers to your own parental questions. If you have particular questions about financial aid, for example, that remain unanswered in a general information session, you may want to call the financial aid office and seek their counsel. Similarly, if you want to learn more about a particular sports program, an academic offering, or more details about the curriculum, make sure that you check the college website thoroughly.

Colleges have become pretty adept at putting tons and tons of information online. If you can’t find what you seek, by all means pick up the phone. Better, if it’s a question that you and your child share, encourage the student to do the communicating. Empower the student to take charge of gathering the information that will help him or her find the right college match.

Don’t even think about accompanying your student to the interview with the admissions officer. Just asking the question could be a red flag for admissions officers who really don’t want to have to deal with overbearing, bossy, and domineering parents. Assume that you are uninvited, and be surprised (and pleased) when the admissions officer engages you in some conversation before or after the interview. If such a conversation does take place, don’t talk about anything beyond pleasantries. The worst thing you can ask is, “what are my kid’s chances?” Not only will they not answer that question, but they may be a bit annoyed that you even ask it. So don’t.

Student Tips for Campus Visits

Do take charge of the visit. Don’t be passive. Don’t let mom and dad do it all for you. Look at the maps and figure out where you are and where you’re doing. Take the lead as you wander around campus. Know what you want to learn during the visit, and know how you are going to learn it. At this stage of your transition from high school to college, every parent is a bundle of nerves, and they hate a power vacuum. When parents sense that their student is disengaged, they engage more forcefully. So don’t give them the chance. Do your homework, be involved in planning the visit, and take charge of the visit once underway.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. This is a big decision, and you are going to make it based on the information you have gathered. This is not the same as asking a question about proof in geometry class or about mitosis in biology. This is about your future. Everyone (including your parents) knows that you have about a zillion questions rolling around in your brain during a college visit. So ask a few, especially those that you think that a tour guide or an admissions officer can ask. If you can’t figure out how to formulate your own questions, perhaps memorize one or two from this list.

Don’t be afraid to talk to other students on campus, and to ask them what they like about their school. In most cases, students on campus love their choice of college and will be only too happy to share their thoughts with you. You can also ask them what they don’t like—for no place is nirvana. Usually, they will readily tell you. Of course, the answers they give will be based on their own, personal experience of that campus, and cannot be said to represent the entire student body. But if you ask several students the same question or questions, you may find a pattern that will help you confirm (or disconfirm) your own impressions.

Do focus on academic factors at least as much—if not more—than social, environmental, and geographical factors. Remember, you are choosing a school, not a vacation resort. You will spend a great deal of time in class, studying for exams, preparing lab reports, and writing papers. And you will spend a lot of time interacting (or not) with professors.

So try to gather relevant information about the academic program. Tour guides will all say that “professors are accessible” and the “average class size is low.” Dig beneath those platitudes, especially when you talk to other students on campus. Are professor-student interactions limited to office hours? Do academic departments host activities open to all students?

Do guest lecturers come to the campus, or is there not enough of a scholarly audience (or budget) to attract them? Do professors offer open lectures frequently about their research or other timely and interesting topics? How active are academic societies on campus? Do the honorary societies merely hand out certificates, or do they sponsor academic activities? How often do individual professors or departments host meals or other social events for students?

Prepare for Campus Visits

Campus visits contain some of the most important moments in the entire college selection and application process. You need to prepare. You need to be aware. And you need to know what things are important to you—and which are not. As with every other aspect of the college search process, the focus should be on you: your abilities, your preferences, your desires, your needs, your aspirations. The primary question in your mind should be, does this campus fit me?

The more you are able to keep yourself at the center of the visit, the more productive and helpful your campus visit will be.

Great College Advice

The post Tips for Successful Campus Visit For Parents and Students first appeared on College Admission Counseling.