Weekly Update: June 18

We hope that everyone is enjoying our brand-new federal holiday - Happy Juneteenth!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

SUPREME COURT PUTS OFF HARVARD AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CASE

The case against Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy has made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, but the Court declined to review the case, asking the Biden administration to weigh in first. The delay does not necessarily mean that the case will not be heard, but it is now likely to have to wait until the next Supreme Court session in October. Harvard has asked the Court not to take the case. 

ARE STUDENTS LEARNING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS?

One of the most persuasive arguments for a classical liberal arts education has always been that it teaches students how to think - not just knowledge, but the ability to use and analyze it. But according to Jeff Selingo’s latest newsletter, colleges may not actually help students gain the critical thinking skills they need to be successful in the workplace. In an analysis of 2,500 college students, natural sciences students had the most gains in critical thinking skills - while business majors had the lowest! 

If you want to dive deeper into learning about how to think critically and how it benefits students in the long run, we love Range by David Epstein - this book about the importance of general skills over specialized knowledge is just one of many on our Summer 2021 Reading Guide, available to all Membership Vault subscribers! 

LAW SCHOOLS OVERBOOKED FOR THE FALL

While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a lot of unexpected events this year, the rise in students attending graduate and professional school was easy to anticipate. During a recession, many adults who would otherwise be working often choose to return to or continue with school, hoping to graduate into a better job market. 

But what was unexpected was the change in testing procedures - it turns out, students taking a shortened version of the LSAT at home are much less stressed than those taking the traditional test! The number of students scoring 175-180 doubled last year, leading to many more highly qualified applicants in the pool and the danger of over enrollment at almost all of the top 200 law schools. The larger class sizes are expected to lead to an extremely competitive job market for law school graduates in three years. 

There is also the consideration of what the impact will be on students applying this cycle, given the larger cohort above them. Duke, for example, offered students a $5,000 scholarship to accept a binding deferral to next year - a move that may lead to even fewer accepted students than typical for a highly selective school when it comes to this year’s applicants. 

NORTHEASTERN ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH MILLS COLLEGE

We covered here on this blog the shuttering of Mills College, a small liberal arts college in Oakland, California. Mills was just one of several smaller schools closing its doors in response to lost enrollment and revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Northeastern University has now established an historic partnership with Mills College, bringing the school into its global network. We will be interested to see how this alliance develops, and whether other large, selective institutions follow suit when it comes to these struggling smaller campuses.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The Wall Street Journal published an article last week that is providing a lot of food for thought for us and other education professionals. The author, R.R. Reno, writes that he won’t hire Ivy League graduates - because students at selective, typically liberal colleges are not prepared to speak out against prevailing opinion, students he calls “thin-skinned.” Reno acknowledges that his organization speaks for “religious and social conservatives,” and so looks for employees that share these views. 

This Slate article, “The Real College Admissions Scandal,” attempts to shine the spotlight on private schools, arguing that the real advantage in college admissions is not athletics, legacy status, alumni donations, or race - the real advantage is attending a private school. 

This is a common misconception that we hear from students and parents, but I think the writer is conflating correlation with causation here. The article does not mention that it is typically a self-selecting group of high-achieving, ambitious students who choose to attend private schools in the first place, and that students who do so are also more likely to pursue opportunities that lead to admission at selective colleges. 

One important thing the article does mention, though, is the counselor call. We’ve talked about this on the blog before, but one of the most important things a school counselor can do to help students understand their admissions decisions is to make a counselor call, and counselors at private schools are more likely to take advantage of this than those at public schools, who often have a larger caseload and less time to make calls.

We always encourage our students, especially those who receive a defer or waitlist decision, to ask their counselor to make a call to get more information! This advocacy can definitely be important in the admissions process.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

For high school students looking for a volunteer opportunity this coming year, Vienna Youth Cheerleading is looking for cheer coaches (18+) and assistant cheer coaches (16+) to teach cheerleading skills to young students and attend games and practices. Interested students should email the VYI cheer commissioner at melissa.pechulis@gmail.com. This is a great organization!

I have been out of the office (but still working, somewhat!) for most of the past two weeks and today I took my first steps on a college campus since Covid began! My daughter and I toured Penn, which I just love.

I have mentioned before that if I could go to any school today, Penn would probably be it. I really admire the way they seek to provide ALL students with the perfect mix of pre-professional career skills and a liberal arts background. I also love the city of Philadelphia and the way it is so integrated into all things Penn, yet the campus is green and leafy with a vibrant sense of community that most other city schools are missing. Plus, students have the opportunity to become involved in athletics and/or Greek life without it overtaking the undergraduate experience .. and it goes without saying that the academic opportunities and career outcomes are phenomenal.

I will be back in the office next week, and I’m excited to jump into some more Rising Senior Meetings with the Class of 2022! Things are speeding up around here for sure and we are LOVING reading all of the supplemental essays - such a good way to learn more about all of our amazing students.

Enjoy the weekend! 

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LGBTQ-Friendly Campuses!

We are proud to both employ and serve members of the LGBTQ+ community, and wanted to take this opportunity during Pride Month to spotlight a few of the most unexpectedly LGBTQ-friendly college campuses in the country. While there are a number of schools that are widely known to come in strong in this category, such as Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, Vassar, and Brown, we wanted to share a few others whose amazing LGBTQ+ offerings and resources are not quite as well-known to the general public.

Check them out:

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Lehigh University

Lehigh’s Pride Center for Sexual Orientation & Gender Diversity is dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ students on campus. Some of the Center’s signature programs include a mentorship program to match first-year students with upperclassmen, graduate students, faculty, or staff to serve as mentors. The Pride Center also maintains a public Out List of LGBTQ+ faculty and staff to allow for networking and mentorship opportunities. Trans students who are considering LU can find all of the support the school offers through Trans@LU. 

In addition to LGBTQ issues, the Pride Center focuses on intersectional justice, with themes that in past years have included racial justice, disability justice, and prison abolition. For students who do not identify as LGBTQ+, the Center also offers LU Allyship training to help all students become better allies to the community on campus! 

Indiana University

Indiana’s LGBTQ+ Culture Center also offers mentorship opportunities for incoming first-year students, in addition to LGBTQ-specific scholarships. The Center also offers free counseling for students, free HIV testing, and free safer sex supplies, as well as resources and guidance for students who are transitioning at IU and allyship training for all students. IU also has many student groups available for LGBTQ+ students: the Ace/Aro Group, Black & Bold, for Black LGBTQ+ students, Connections, for LBGTQ+ women and non-binary people, Men Like Us, for GBQ+ men, and the Transgender Union for Students. 

Housing at IU allows trans students to live in spaces that align with their gender identity, as well as gender-inclusive restrooms. There is also a dedicated LGBTQ+ living-learning community, called Spectrum. 

Macalester College

The Gender & Sexuality Commons at Mac offers many different events for students to celebrate and build community, including the Lavender Reception and Lavender Graduation, GSRC weekly Tea Time, and Pride Month celebrations. The center also keeps an Out & Proud list of faculty and staff, offers allyship training, and provides dedicated resources for trans students. 

Mac also provides all-gender housing for students beginning in fall 2023.

CU Boulder

CU Boulder’s Pride Office provides weekly check-ins (virtual during COVID-19) for students to attend when seeking support or community. Boulder also offers gender-neutral housing in addition to a dedicated Spectrum living-learning community with gender-neutral bathroom facilities. 

Medical Services at CU Boulder provide a variety of healthcare services for LGBTQ+ students, including identity-affirming care, identify-affirming hormone therapy, the use of preferred names and pronouns, PrEP for HIV prevention, insurance and billing support, and identity-affirming surgical options. 

University of Washington

The Q Center at the University of Washington has worked hard to offer virtual services to students during COVID-19, including a Discord group, an online Gender Discussion Group, and a QTBIPOC Discussion Group, as well as drop-in hours and a mentorship program. The Center also offers educational services, like allyship training and Queer 101, as well as events like Lavender Graduation. 

The Center also allows students to rent space and spend time building community!

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Need more ideas? Check out the Campus Pride Index for more information: it measures a number of factors to help LGBTQ+ students and families find their best fit! We would also recommend looking at Princeton Review’s LGBTQ-Unfriendly list - it’s really sad that this has to exist in 2021, but here we are, so it’s better to stay informed.

Finally, if you came upon this post as an LGBTQ+ student who is embarking on the college admissions process without parental support because of your sexual orientation, our hearts go out to you. Please reach out to us - you DO have options, even if you don’t know they exist, and we would be happy to discuss them with you and get you the help you need at no charge.

While we can definitely be more useful if you contact us earlier in the process, please email us at admin at dccollegecounseling dot com at any time and one of my colleagues or I will get back to you ASAP.

Happy Pride!

Weekly Update: June 11

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

Happy Pride Week! We have so loved seeing all of the rainbow art around town, and are proud to be allies. Keep an eye out next week for more on LGBTQ-friendly colleges, and in the meantime check out the Princeton Review’s list of Top LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges.

ANNANDALE HIGH SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT SPEECH

Mario Ramos, an immigrant from El Salvador who came to Fairfax County in 2007, gave an inspirational commencement speech at Annandale High School last week. He gave the speech in English and Spanish, in a powerful message of inclusion for graduates. After graduating with his high school diploma, Ramos became a “classroom monitor,” helping Annandale open up to students in-person during the pandemic. 

WILLIAM AND MARY WILL NOT REQUIRE COVID-19 VACCINE IN THE FALL

In a session that Shannon attended on Thursday, William & Mary’s President Rowe confirmed that the school will not be requiring students to get the COVID-19 vaccine. W&M does not plan to require the vaccine until it has been approved by the FDA (it is currently under emergency use authorization), but does intend to eventually require it for students as well as faculty and staff once it receives full FDA approval. 

COMMON APP® CHANGES ARE AHEAD

The Common Application® held a webinar earlier this week which shared some important information about ongoing and future changes. I was glad to have been able to attend! Here’s what I learned:

• The organization embarked on a pilot program between March 2020 - February 2021 called “Evolving the App,” a project which sought to ensure that all questions on the core part of the application are inclusive and do not present barriers to any applicants

  • The project was broken into five distinct stages, beginning with the identification of sections to examine and concluding with the delivery of final revisions to the Common App® technology team and member schools

  • The process was considered to be a success and will now be completed annually

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be!

The process of transferring pre-completed information from the 2020-2021 application to the 2021-2022 application is called rollover - we work with all of our rising seniors to complete the 2020-2021 application to spread out the work involved and take advantage of this rollover option!

• As most of them know, we will create a step-by-step guide to the rollover process by the end of the day on August 3, at which point they will hear from us with instructions to complete the Common Application® and Coalition Application Rollover processes in advance of their first August college counseling meeting.

• They will also be asked to complete all non-essay application supplement questions at that time, along with an additional supplement guide that we will send.

• Then, our rising seniors will have three separate college counseling meetings with Shannon and me.

  • At the first meeting, we will help them submit recommendation requests to their teachers and counselor, and we will also review/edit all of their work to make sure that you completed the rollover process and all non-essay application supplemental questions correctly.

  • At the second meeting, they will work with us to go through and finish anything that remained outstanding from the first meeting (they will typically have a list of action items from the first meeting).

  • At the last meeting, they will meet with one of us again to perform a detailed, line-by-line, final review of all applications and supplements before submission. We will discuss how the status chart and tracking process will work and will give you them final all-clear to submit! 

  • Some students prefer to submit applications with us in real time; others can do so at home with their parents. If they would like to submit together, we ask them to schedule a separate meeting to do this. 

SPRING COLLEGE ENROLLMENT NUMBERS DROP

Many schools were hoping that the drop in enrollment during COVID-19 would be limited to the fall semester, but that does not seem to be the case - while fall numbers declined 3.6% from last year, spring enrollment numbers declined 5%. 65% of total enrollment losses were felt by community colleges. 

Graduate school enrollment, on the other hand, actually increased in the uncertain job market caused by COVID-19. This means that while some students will not have college degrees, others who already have degrees are receiving more education. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The big news in college sports this week is the expansion of the college football playoffs to include twelve teams rather than the usual four. The expanded bracket likely won’t come to pass until at least 2023, but 24 teams rather than eight are likely to see playoff games. This also means that college football players may be playing 16 or even 17 football games, increasing the potential for injury and potentially overworking athletes during a time when college athletics has been under increasing scrutiny for its treatment of college players. 

As we all know, rates of anxiety and depression for college students, which were growing over the past several years, skyrocketed during the pandemic. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be dropping now that vaccinations are widely available and campuses are opening up again for the fall. Researchers at Dartmouth discovered a correlation between students’ mental health and the prevalence of phone searches for terms like “covid fatigue” on campus. Four student deaths on Dartmouth’s 4,400 student campus this year have prompted students to call for mental health reforms, and the school has vowed to create more support for students.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

There are still plenty of summer opportunities available for students who don’t yet have their summer plans in place! If you are looking for an opportunity that starts later in the summer or fall, consider applying to work as an usher or ranger at Wolf Trap National Park. The position is open to all current high school students and will run from August 1 to October 2 during the park’s performance season. Interested candidates should email Sam Swersky, House Manager at sam_swersky@nps.gov.

Shannon attended a session yesterday with the admissions offices at Barnard and Stanford to discuss selective school admissions for the coming year. We always try to emphasize to our students that no matter what, it is important to apply to a balanced list of schools. As Michael Devlin from Stanford put it, “There are more valedictorians in the United States than spots in the class at Stanford.” 

"Sometimes when students email me afterward and ask what they could have done better, there is no answer. There's nothing they could have done better." 

Yes, really! Even students who do every single thing right might be denied from an extremely selective school. “Holistic” admissions does not just mean that the admissions office reviews the student holistically, but also that they need to take into account the needs of the school and the student body as a whole, in addition to the individual applicant. 

And for those still keeping fingers crossed on the waitlist, Barnard announced that unfortunately they are done pulling from their waitlist for the year, and Stanford expects to be done as well (though this is not confirmed). This should be a reminder to everyone to submit letters of continued interest early - Barnard was done pulling from their waitlist on May 1!

As some of you saw on social media, I was quoted this week in Forbes about whether the pandemic may have permanently boosted private school enrollment - and it was perfect timing because yesterday was my daughter's last day of school at Our Lady of Good Counsel here in Vienna after transferring from FCPS!

Those of you who have been reading since last year will remember that I was really in tune with the issue of instructional equity last spring and summer. Because I had an up-front view of the differences that my clients in public and private schools were experiencing, and also saw it myself as an FCPS parent, I was approached a lot by the media - you can read a little bit about that here.

But anyway.. here we are a year later, and as someone who literally assesses schools for a living, I can't say enough about how AMAZING our experience has been at OLGC. I honestly feel like nothing I could write would adequately express my admiration and appreciation for the administration and teachers, and the impact that their hard work had on my daughter’s life this year - not just academically, but also socially and emotionally during what was an incredibly turbulent time.

I came in just hoping she'd be able to attend in-person school - like I said in the Time piece, she just wanted to get out of the house! But what we got was so much more. I cannot tell you how much I would recommend OLGC for a family seeking a K-8 alternative to FCPS in our area (and for what it’s worth, we are an interfaith family and this was not an issue at all whatsoever).

Back to the point of the Forbes article, I feel beyond fortunate to be able to keep her there. I know that many other families all over the country are making similar decisions, and it will definitely be interesting to see the impact on private school enrollment in the long term.

Have a good weekend, stay cool, and stay dry!

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Tyler's University of Richmond Experience

Tyler is joining us on the blog today to share his perspective on the University of Richmond!

While he’s discussing Richmond in particular, this is useful for anyone applying anywhere. pay attention to the characteristics that kept Tyler happy this year in the midst of what could have been a much worse situation, and consider asking related questions at interviews and visits (see the very end for a few ideas!).

Keep reading to learn about his freshman year, and if you do want to learn even more about Richmond in particular, check out our profile - a sneak peek of the dozens of college profiles available in our Membership Vault!

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Hello everyone! It’s Tyler, and today I wanted to share my thoughts about why University of Richmond was the best college fit for me, even amidst a global pandemic. I will be discussing why I believe that the University of Richmond can support and satisfy all career paths, why they handled COVID-19 so well, and how the school is helping me pursue my ultimate career path with all of my unique interests.

Student and Career Support

One of the first and most exciting aspects of University of Richmond that I encountered during my freshman year was the faculty and staff’s commitment to making sure that my University of Richmond experience was exactly what was promised during the application process - even though the world was in a very different place!

The first thing I noticed was how outgoing the professors were and how willing they were to walk around the room, or talk with you on Zoom, looking to help students and work with them to understand the material being presented. Every single professor I had this year was enthusiastic about getting to know what made each of their students unique and special. For example, my first year seminar professor would stay back after class and encourage students to go up and ask questions about assignments, or even just chit chat.

In addition, the professors at University of Richmond were very much invested in the mental health of the students they were teaching, and would ask students halfway through the semester if they needed more time on particularly challenging topics or assignments, or even give us a day off to catch our breaths. This level of support, on top of making every student feel known and cared for, is what made every class I have had so far at Richmond truly special.

Career Services and Charting a Path to the Future at Richmond

At the beginning of the first semester, every student at Richmond was assigned an academic advisor to help tailor students’ curriculum to their respective interests and passions. I simply had no idea just how much this academic support, as well as the friendship I made with my academic advisor, would help me throughout this truly bizarre year.

The first months of my freshman year were exciting and new, meeting friends and getting to know my roommate, as well as acclimating to all of the COVID guidelines and procedures. However, as time passed, I noticed there was a problem with one of my classes.

I had signed up for an Intermediate Intensive Spanish course to fulfill my language requirement, and soon decided that I had no business being in it - my Spanish language skills were not advanced enough. I needed help, was struggling to keep up, and could sense that I was falling behind. I decided to get back in touch with my academic advisor, which ended up being the single most valuable decision of my freshman year of college.

I assumed that my advisor would tell me to drop the class and take an easier level of Spanish, but that’s not what happened at all. Instead, we formulated a plan during our meeting as to how I could focus more of my time on Spanish over other less intensive classes. She also showed me how to search for one of the many on-campus tutors that Richmond has available, so that I would have this extra resource.

This meeting not only allowed me to develop an actionable plan to later succeed in this Spanish class, but my advisor cleared my head of worry and doubt, and was able to give me the confidence I needed to finish the semester strong. In a school environment, I have never had someone more invested in my personal success and well-being than she was.

In addition to helping me with this challenge I had in Spanish, my advisor also spent hours over the semester meeting with me about my interests and getting to know me on a personal level in order to help me chart my career path. As a student, I am interested in entrepreneurship, science, and leadership studies, and hope to blend the three in some form at Richmond.

Although this seems like a rather odd combination of interests, at Richmond this is just another one of the many combinations of interests that they will work into a unique curriculum for you. My advisor showed me the robotics projects and classes available, and explained what I needed to know in order to double major and minor in anything I wanted! I could major in Leadership Studies and Business, and minor in Computer Science and Art History if that is what I wanted to do!

The endless possibilities of classes to take and paths to go down at Richmond make it the perfect place for anybody who wants to dive into new and interesting fields, and who wants to discover new and exciting passions.

How Richmond Handled COVID-!9

So, I know what is on everyone’s mind right now. You’re most likely saying to yourself, “Yeah Tyler, all this sounds wonderful, but does it really matter if you are spending the whole semester in your room or in quarantine?” This is a valid question, but Richmond, in my opinion, did a superb job of handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

A lot of schools in Virginia, as well as across the country, decided that they would only have classes online and have students be confined to their rooms for the majority of their experience at school. While this seemed like the safest option, what schools did not realize was the willingness for their students to break the rules. The whole semester long, I would hear my friends talking about how they would sneak out and break the rules, because the rules were too harsh and restrictive on new freshman. More restraints on students and their freedom on campus tended to breed more rule-breaking and inevitably, more cases of COVID on their college campuses. (Note from Colleen: we heard many, many reports of the same!).

However, this is not what Richmond had in mind. Yes, we could not eat together in the dining hall or gather in large places as a community, but we could have people in our rooms to socialize, and bond freely with our dorm-mates. What Richmond did so well was finding a perfect middle ground. They realized the inevitability of rule-breaking due to excessive restrictions, and allowed students reasonable social opportunities that would limit the number of people to a safe amount while allowing for the students to have somewhat of a normal college experience.

From what I can remember, the most cases we had on campus at a single time was 30, which is considerably less than other schools around the country. I am not saying that the school year wasn’t difficult and that COVID did not put a damper on my college experience, because it definitely did. What I am saying is that Richmond tried their best to preserve the mental health of their student body through socializing at a safe and respectable level, which ultimately made my experience much more bearable during such a difficult and frustrating year.

In Conclusion

I think most college students this year would agree with the statement that going to school, feeling motivated and making friends was very hard. I was lucky because I was able to make some great friends in the form of my hall-mates and my roommate, however, not every student was as lucky as me, and I realize that. No school in the country knew the best way to combat this pandemic, and everyone was simply trying to do their best with what they thought would keep their students and faculty safe.

However, despite all of the hardships faced this year, the University of Richmond did their best to maintain the happiness and mental health of their student population, while continuing their engaging and captivating education through attentive professors and caring faculty members.

The University of Richmond is a special place, and although I have yet to see its full potential in the presence of a normal school year, from what I experienced so far, I can already tell you that Richmond will continue to inspire me to chart my own path and push me to become a greater version of myself. I cannot wait to see what the next three years have in store for me at the University of Richmond!

key takeaways

Juniors may want to reflect on Tyler’s experience and whether it prompts questions of their own for the schools on their list - whether Richmond is in that group or not! We always recommend that students prepare 3-5 questions to ask during admissions interviews or high school visits, so this is a great time to jot some notes down.

Here are a few potential questions that relate to the topics he mentioned:

• How did your institution handle academic instruction and student life during the Covid-19 pandemic? OR In your opinion, what were the best and worst decisions your institution made during the Covid-19 pandemic? This question would not be appropriate for an alumni interview, but could be great for an interview held by an upperclassman or admissions officer. While Covid will likely be long gone by the time rising seniors arrive on campus in Fall 2022, the answer may provide insight on the school’s priorities in the midst of a crisis - or perhaps on an ongoing basis!

• What is the role of an academic advisor at your institution? How often do academic advisors meet with students? Do students meet with their advisor one-on-one or in small groups? It always baffles me that many medium-to-large schools do not provide one-on-one advising; instead, they have small groups of students meeting with their advisor at once. This is generally not a fact that is advertised to prospective students, so make sure to ask! The answers to these questions will give you an idea of what to expect in terms of individualized attention.

• Your institution claims that students can easily double-major or double-minor, but how exactly would that work? Would I have to stay for five years in order to do this? Would someone help me put my schedule together to make sure that I am approaching my course planning in as efficient of a manner as possible? As someone who is working with a number of graduating seniors on their freshman year course registration, I can promise you that this can be a challenge at most schools. There’s a lot to consider, and if it feels easy, you probably aren’t doing it right. So wouldn’t it be great to have help?

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Weekly Update: June 4

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLLEGE WHISPERER DOCU-SERIES COMING SOON

With Operation Varsity Blues dominating headlines, the independent educational consulting profession has gotten a lot of scrutiny in the last few years! The College Whisperer is being advertised as the antidote to that. The new series will follow Perry Kalmus, a consultant in Alaska who was featured in the Operation Varsity Blues documentary on Netflix, as he counsels eight students through the process. The goal of the series is to show what it looks like to work with ethical independent consultants and the ups and downs inherent to an honest admissions process. Fun fact: I was contacted by a film crew to do the same thing about six years ago. I turned it down because I was pretty confident that none of my clients would be up for having their confidential information shared on national TV :)

VACCINE REQUIREMENTS ARE MORE DIFFICULT FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

We’ve been following the lengthening list of schools that are requiring vaccines for the upcoming school year. These requirements will not pose a problem for most of our students, who have easy access to vaccines this summer. However, it is a different scenario for international students, many of whom may not have access to WHO-approved vaccines. 

One Columbia student who received the Covavaxin shot in India has been told that she will need to be re-vaccinated with an US-approved vaccine once she arrives on campus - a potential health risk that has not been explored. India sends the second-largest number of international college students to the US (after China), so this issue is not an isolated one - we are likely to see many students who have received Covavaxin struggling with US vaccine requirements. 

WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY ERASES GRADUATES’ STUDENT DEBT

Wilberforce, an HBCU in Ohio, forgave all student debt for students in the classes of 2020 and 2021 in a surprise graduation announcement on Saturday. The funding to erase the debt was secured through various nonprofit organizations. Students were excited for the fresh start that they received from the university. 

WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY WILL KEEP ITS NAME

The Board of Trustees at Washington and Lee voted today in favor of the university maintaining its name, after nearly a year of investigation into the name, symbols, and other issues related to the university’s history. The board decided that it will expand diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in addition to retaining the name. The college, originally called Augusta Academy, adopted the current name in 1870. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This is an important article from the New Yorker that gets to the heart of why students and families experience so much stress from the college admissions process - the feeling that colleges are judging applicants, in a fair environment, and finding the “best” ones. But we want to remind students and families - a college admission or rejection is NOT a personal judgment!! We do our absolute best to help colleges get to know you, but at the end of the day, there are a TON of factors that affect admissions that are completely out of your control. At the end of the day, where you go to college is part of your story, but not a value judgment on you as an individual.

We shared our recommended summer reading for high school students last week. It is super important for high schoolers to be able to talk about books, articles, and current events that interest them, especially for admissions essays and interviews! Students who don’t yet read the news regularly may be interested in participating in the New York Times’ Summer Reading Contest - where 13-19 year olds can enter to win prizes by reading an article every week this summer. 

If you are a current client looking for some good reads, don’t forget to check out our Summer 2021 Reading Guide in the Membership Vault! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon attended a testing update webinar this week to get some more information on this cycle of standardized testing! We learned that there is a good reason the College Board decided to drop SAT Subject Tests in favor of AP tests - students who took APs over the last few weeks probably won’t be surprised to learn that revenue from the AP test accounts for 60% of the company’s revenue. 

Despite all of the anticipation for digital versions of the SAT and ACT, we are unlikely to see digital versions of either test until 2022. The ACT is also putting plans on hold to let students retake individual sections to incorporate into their superscore - though we are hopeful that this will happen sometime in the next few years! Students using the ACT superscore should be aware, though, that schools will also receive their highest composite from a single test date along with the superscore. 

Over 4 million students have taken standardized tests this year - about half have taken the ACT and half the SAT, so as we always tell students, take the test that works for you! Colleges truly do not have a preference. And for those still waiting on a test date, keep an eye out in July for registration to open again for both tests.

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While this won’t apply to families, I know that there are a lot of other educational consultants who read our blog, and I wanted to provide an update on the videos I mentioned from a few weeks back:

It can be challenging to stay on top of all the key components necessary for developing and operating an independent educational consulting business. To provide peer-to-peer training and share expertise, the IECA Business Practices Committee has created a new pilot series of videos to help you learn from fellow IECA members about topics that have been core to the growth of their practice. The video topics include: Networking 101, Project Management 101, Accounting Systems, Email Newsletters, Budgeting 101, Sales: Part of Your IEC Toolkit, Time Tracking 101, and Using Evernote. Learn more and watch the videos here (scroll down to IECA Business Training Videos icon).

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: May 28

Now that summer is almost here, we’ve got a lot going on this week - graduation gifts, rising senior meetings, and summer reading lists coming your way! 

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLORADO BANS LEGACY COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

On Tuesday, Colorado became the first state in the country to ban state colleges from using legacy as a factor in admissions. This is a BIG DEAL, because it sets a precedent for other state university systems, such as Virginia (which does consider legacy as a factor) to follow suit. The move is aimed at making higher education access more equitable. 

STUDENTS WITHOUT HELP ARE DISADVANTAGED BY THE INCREASED IMPORTANCE OF ESSAYS

Speaking of factors that lead to certain admissions decisions - a recent study found that college essays are “‘the most important “soft factor’ and the fourth-most important overall factor — after grades, curriculum strength and standardized test scores.” Not surprisingly, it also found that students’ essays are influenced by their social class; wealthy students are more likely to have help with their essays, whether from their parents or a paid professional. This is an important reminder that class continues to be a factor in the admissions process despite the fact that standardized test scores have lessened in importance during the pandemic.

We encourage all students to get a second set of eyes on their essays - whether you work with professionals like us or not! We saw this for the Class of 2021 and will see it again for the Class of 2022 - so-called “soft” factors like the essay, recommendations, and extracurricular activities have become more important than ever. 

COLLEGES IN BLUE STATES MORE LIKELY TO REQUIRE VACCINATIONS

We’ve been keeping track here as more and more colleges and universities announce that they will require students to be vaccinated in order to return to campus in the fall. Now, over 400 institutions are requiring vaccines. But whether or not a student needs to be vaccinated likely depends on whether the state where they will attend college is red or blue - nearly all of the colleges requiring vaccines are in states that voted for Biden. A major exception is the Indiana state system, which announced last Friday that vaccines would be required for students. 

COVID-19’S IMPACT ON HEART DAMAGE IN STUDENT ATHLETES

A recent study of Big 10 athletes who suffered from COVID-19 revealed that heart damage may be more prevalent than originally thought, especially in students that have not exhibited symptoms. The researchers’ recommendations of cardiac MRIs for students may cause the NCAA to rethink its guidelines when it comes to the treatment and monitoring of student athletes who have contracted COVID-19. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This beautiful New York Times article really captures the joy of “summer reading” - something that we certainly did a lot more of during the pandemic lockdowns! We encourage any students looking for a summer reading book to drop the plans to read books that you THINK would impress admissions officers and look for books that actually help you discover more about your passions! That way, you will be more likely to enjoy the reading AND be able to speak about it more genuinely, in a way that reflects your interests. 

And to be honest - that authenticity is what actually will impress the admissions officers. If you tell them that you’re reading War and Peace or The Fountainhead, they won’t think you’re smart - they’ll think (a) you’re lying and (b) since you had to lie, you probably aren’t reading anything at all. Not the message you want to convey in an interview!

Since many colleges will ask for reading lists, essays discussing a recent read, or mention books during the interview stage, so it is smart to have a few good ones ready to discuss. We want to particularly highlight Shape, by Jordan Ellenberg, because sometimes it’s hard for students interested in math or quantitative fields to find a book that interests them - but even future mathematicians should try to fit in some summer reading! This would be a perfect book for a math student to mention in an interview or application.

If you are a current client looking for some good reads, don’t forget to check out our Summer 2021 Reading Guide in the Membership Vault! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

A few private schools are already out for the summer and we have started family meetings with our rising seniors, working to finalize their college lists, make sure they are where they need to be in the process, and set a plan to finish up all of their remaining tasks in the admissions process over the summer. At this point we ideally like students to be finished with their standardized testing; to have their Common Application activities section, main essay, and four generic supplemental essays completely edited and ready to go; to have turned in the final drafts of their recommendation prep work to two teachers and their school counselor; and to have gathered all of their state residency information to prepare for any in-state applications to come.

After every meeting with students or families, we send detailed meeting recaps with what was done in the meeting as well as a list of action items for the student. Here is an example of part of a recap from a recent meeting with a rising senior:

In addition to rising senior meetings, we are already celebrating some private school graduations! Shannon has been busy packaging up gifts for our graduating seniors with some help from Tyler! 

Tyler actually went to pick up a gift for a GMU-bound student this week and was very impressed with a coffee shop near campus, Gathering Grounds. Tyler is a coffee buff (his unique approach to building community at a particular coffee shop here in Vienna even made it into his Common App essay), so you can trust his review! 

Hello everyone, this is Tyler! I just went to the Gathering Grounds Coffee Shop near George Mason University and it is incredible! They build your own coffee with tons of flavors such as blackberry, Coconut, and Lavender. I got the Coconut Latte and trust me, Starbucks has nothing on this coffee! The staff is lively and sociable, and get your coffee out in a snap, and the vibe of the shop is cozy and perfect for study breaks. If you attend George Mason and want a good hangout spot, I would highly recommend Gathering Grounds, and trust me, there's a good chance you'll become a regular. 

YUM! After a long few weeks of ordering coffee gift cards from all over the country, Shannon was THRILLED to get her own from a happy student who will be headed to a top west-coast university in the fall! We are so appreciative of our clients :) 

Our office will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday - we hope everyone enjoys the long weekend, but also takes some time to remember the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. If you’re looking for a good cause to support, check out The Honor Project, which I read about last night in this inspirational Washington Post piece. It really goes to show that anyone with a good idea and a passion for helping others can make a true difference in the world!

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Thinking about applying for a high school internship? Don't make these mistakes!

It can be TOUGH to find high school internships in the DC area (or anywhere else for that matter), so it’s no surprise that our Summer 2021 Internship Database has become so popular! We curate a list like this each year and offer access to the greater community as well as our own clients.

That being said, I didn’t know quite how popular it was with the general public until I sat down for lunch a month or so ago with Brittany Kirk, the founder and executive director of the non-profit organization Sunlight Retreats and the for-profit social enterprise Sunlight U. As one of our community partners, Brittany graciously allowed us to include an internship opportunity at her organization as part of our database, and I knew that several of our students pursued this position!

Brittany Catton Kirk - Social Entrepreneur Extraordinaire!

What I did NOT know before chatting with Brittany that day was that a ton of other blog readers with no DC College Counseling affiliation also pursued the internship listing after reading about it on our site. So many, in fact, that we actually had to remove the posting because Sunlight was getting absolutely flooded with applications! I was thrilled to learn that so many students in the greater community are finding our database useful, and decided to share some tips from Brittany that I thought might be helpful for students applying to internships on their own without our assistance.

Project a Professional Image

There are definitely some generational differences that don’t have a clear “right answer,” like the side part and skinny jeans debate of late. Even though I personally feel that middle parts and boyfriend jeans are never a good choice for anyone, I can admit that there’s no real long-term harm in dressing like you stepped out of a Friends episode from 1995.

That said, there are certain societal norms that do NOT change with each generation. For example, it is never, ever acceptable for anyone, of any age, to use emojis in a cover letter. God, no. Along the same lines, remember that you are applying for a professional role, not emailing your best friend. Don’t sign the email with “Love, ___” under any circumstances whatsoever! Swap that out for “Best regards” or “Sincerely.” I was quite alarmed that some of the Sunlight internship applicants actually made both of these mistakes!

Remember Who’s in Charge

Yes, you may have lots of great options on the pipeline for the summer, but there’s a fine line between self-advocacy and self-centeredness. A cover letter or job/internship application is NOT the time to play hard to get. Instead, it’s the time for you to sell yourself to the person doing the hiring. Brittany advised the following:

• Come up with a genuine explanation for why you are interested in the role and carefully express that. Yes, you want to bulk up your college apps too, and you also need experience, but those are not the kinds of details you share with a potential employer!

• Since you’re the one asking the employer to hire you, you need to sell yourself. Include something about the value add that you would bring to the organization. Why YOU over the other 100 high school kids who applied?

• Do not ask the person to do something for you, i.e. respond to your email with detailed information about a certain aspect of the internship. While this may be a question that a student could ask with the best of intentions, it takes a lot of time to respond to emails like that and creates more work for the employer. Save it for the interview, if you get that far!

Follow Directions

I was shocked to learn that many students seemed to have difficulty following basic directions... and then I thought about it more and recognized that the idea of teenagers not paying attention to directions is not really all that surprising after all, is it? :)

Trust me on this, employers do not want to hire someone who doesn’t follow directions. Many of them actually require applicants to take extra steps or do seemingly strange things just to see if the person is ABLE to do so! Personally, I ask job applicants to use a very specific, slightly complex subject line just to see if they can get it right. If they can’t, no matter how much I like them otherwise, I do not move forward in the hiring process.

Brittany noted that her posting asked applicants to submit a resume, but some did not. Others received a message asking them to fill out a form with follow-up information, but they never did! She suggested, “Make it very simple for the person to review what you sent and get back to you.”

Last words of wisdom

We know that some of this is not intuitive, and I truly hope that it ends up to be helpful for those of you who are reading the listings and applying on your own. And for those who decide they WOULD benefit from some extra help, we’ve got you covered!

DC COLLEGE COUNSELING CLIENTS CAN SCHEDULE:

• Virtual interview preparation sessions here

• Virtual resume, cover letter, and internship application assistance here

NON-CLIENTS CAN SCHEDULE:

• Virtual interview preparation sessions here

• Virtual resume, cover letter, and internship application assistance here

Good luck! Our entire team is rooting for your success :)

Weekly Update: May 21

I think that today is the first graduation for a few of our seniors and we have a whole bunch following next week and the week after! Such a perfect day for a graduation and I hope that the sunshine holds for everyone else :)

June 1, 2003 - A very IMPERFECT day for a graduation but a happy one nonetheless :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

WAITLIST MOVEMENT THIS CYCLE

If you have been placed on a waitlist this cycle, make sure to bookmark College Kickstart’s Class of 2025 Waitlist Statistics. They keep the page updated with 2020 statistics at a long list of schools, as well as the notification dates by which students should expect to hear about waitlist movement. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for all of you!  

FCPS OFFERS COVID-19 VACCINES

If you are a student over 12 who has not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19, take note of the upcoming vaccinations at four different high school locations. FCPS is also offering transportation from the students’ base schools to the vaccination sites. 

DIFFICULTY WITH COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY VACCINE PLANS

On the college end, there’s not much consistency between the vaccine mandates from school to school - and with all of the various exemptions, rules, and laws involved, it’s no surprise that people are confused. If you are heading off to college this fall, make absolutely sure that you know what’s required of you from a vaccination standpoint so that there are no unhappy surprises during freshman orientation!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Even with many students getting vaccinated over the summer, colleges and universities are still looking for ways to manage the virus on campus. At Colorado Mesa University, a comprehensive app tracking program developed in conjunction with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has helped the school to track and control COVID-19 outbreaks. Hopefully the sophisticated system in place at Colorado Mesa will become accessible to more schools, who can help to manage the coronavirus on campus when students return in the fall. 

The debate about how colleges should allocate their resources has been particularly salient in light of COVID-19, when even highly selective colleges have been struggling with budget deficits. This article argues that colleges should focus more on retention of current students than on recruitment. There is an inherent tension in higher education between the institutions’ need to make money and the desire to serve low-income and underserved student populations who can’t afford to pay full tuition. The article argues that serving the students who are already on campus, rather than working to recruit more full-pay students, would actually help to increase the institution’s bottom line by attracting more gifts from donors in support of their mission. By delivering a high-quality education to current students, schools won’t need to pay large amounts of money for the purposes of recruitment. Seems like a win-win for everyone!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

The hot weather lately definitely reminds us that summer is coming! We are still adding to our Summer Opportunities Database every week. Most recently, we featured Fairfax County’s Teen Police Academy and Future Women Leaders in Law Enforcement, both week-long camps for teenagers interested in careers in policing, law enforcement, public policy, or criminal justice. Read more about these and other camps in the Other Educational Opportunities section of the database!

We’ve been hearing from a lot of students and families this cycle that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of gaps in their education - particularly when it comes to writing. In response, we added small group writing instruction, 1:1 writing tutoring, and academic coaching to our offerings this past school year - all of which were very successful!

Please take the time to fill out this survey to let us know whether you might be interested in this offering. Whether you want to be prepared for a first-year writing seminar in college, gear up for AP Language or Literature classes next year, or get a head start on college essays, Staci and our other coaches will help you get there!

We are also working hard in our office on a little gift for our seniors - we don’t want to ruin the surprise, but we did post a sneak peek on Instagram:

And then lastly I was asked by a professional organization to create tutorials for my fellow educational consultants on time tracking and project management - two areas in which our practice excels! I finished those this week, and they were a lot of fun to make! We are really proud of all of the systems and processes we use to make our client experience as seamless as possible :)

Have a great weekend, stay cool and AVOID THE CICADAS!! :)

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Greetings From Tyler!

All about tyler

Hello everyone! My name is Tyler Pallotta and I am the new intern here at DC College Counseling!

Just like our current clients, I too was a high school student working with Colleen and her team. Before graduating from Flint Hill School in the summer of 2020, I worked with Colleen to find the college that was the best fit for me, with my personal strengths and interests.

So, where did my story begin and what brought me here writing to you all today?

MY college admissions STORY

I came from a small private school called Flint Hill and fell in love with the smaller class sizes and more personalized learning style that Flint Hill gave me, which was a must-have for my future college. My interests were vast, but Colleen helped me simplify them into categories that made the most sense for me. From there, I knew I needed a small school that ideally had some form of an entrepreneurship major or minor, a business school, and some STEM related fields to pursue my unique educational path.

I worked extensively with Colleen and essay coaches to craft my story and represent myself in the best light to the schools I was applying to. The essay coaches, by asking questions about me and getting to know me on a personal level, were able to help me perfectly capture what I wanted to show a college admissions committee.

After a long search, the team at DC College Counseling was able to help me decide on the University of Richmond, where I just completed my freshman year. Although there were a lot of small schools with personalized educational experiences, the University of Richmond was the one for me because it has everything I wanted in a school. It’s close to a city, has a big and open college campus, the kids are generally relaxed but work hard, there are majors and minors specifically focused on entrepreneurship and STEM, and I was able to find that same level of personal connection with my professors at Richmond that I loved at Flint Hill. For me, Richmond is the perfect fit, and without DC College Counseling, I would have never realized that. 

WRAPPING UP

Because I felt so strongly that DC College Counseling offered such an important service to their students, and because I want to learn more about how to run a business, I sought out Colleen and offered to help out around DC College Counseling for the summer!

Over the next few months, I’m excited to meet prospective and current clients and offer my perspective on college decision-making and strategy, since I went through the same DC College Counseling process. If you have afternoon essay coaching sessions, you will also see me at the front desk welcoming you and greeting you before your meeting!

Lastly, I know how difficult it is to start your college search journey or application process. Before DC College Counseling, I had a very minimal idea of what it takes to succeed in the application and search process. However, being able to create your unique story to share and make yourself stand out from the crowd is invaluable, and after it is all said and done, you will find a place that best suits you, just like University of Richmond best suits me. 

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If you have any questions for me, please contact me at tyler@dccollegecounseling.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Weekly Update: May 14

Good luck to all the juniors and seniors taking AP exams this month! We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

NATIONAL MERIT COMMENDED STUDENT CUTOFF RELEASED

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the new Commended Student cutoff this year - 207. The score is two marks points than last year, making it the lowest cutoff in a decade. An estimated one quarter or more of students were not able to take the PSAT last year, which may have contributed to the drop. 

We will have to wait on the Semifinalist cutoffs, which are determined by the individual state scores rather than national scores, so we may see a big variety of cutoffs depending on how available the test was to students in each state. Compass Prep predicts a cutoff in the 218 - 223 range in Virginia - we will likely see the actual numbers leaked once schools are notified in late August. 

SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAYS ARE COMING

Our first juniors have finished up their Common App essays and are starting to work on supplemental essays. Our unique process helps students prepare information that they can use across multiple essays, saving them a lot of time and energy once the specific prompts are released! 

Some schools have already released their prompts for 2021-2022, announcing that their prompts will remain the same. The UC system and the University of Miami, in particular, have both already announced that their prompts will not change from the 2020-2021 choices. Don’t be tempted to make sweeping generalizations about other schools based on this news, though! We always remind our students that they should ALWAYS wait to begin a specific essay until the school confirms its use, whether it’s a change or a continuation.

CHEATING SCANDAL AT DARTMOUTH MEDICAL SCHOOL

We know already that cheating has increased at all educational levels due to the online environment this school year. But it is particularly frightening when those cheating charges come from adult students who will soon have a lot of important responsibility - like medical students at Dartmouth! The accusations leveled against 17 students have prompted protests from students and faculty on campus who feel that those students were unfairly treated, especially given the unique challenges that they faced while testing remotely. The controversy centers on the fact that the school used the online Canvas system to retroactively track student’s computer activity during the tests, what some see as an unacceptable level of surveillance. 

Many different high schools and colleges also use Canvas or similar systems that enable this type of tracking, so this story should also serve as a warning to all students to avoid even the appearance of misconduct while testing or completing assignments online.

FCPS GRADING OPTIONS UPDATE

FCPS has extended the deadline for high school and middle school students to request to have a class switched to pass/fail rather than a letter grade. Seniors will need to designate a class as pass/fail by May 17, while all other students will have until June 1 to make this decision. If you are a current client wondering how to report your grades, let us know and we are happy to help!

GEORGIA PUBLICS REQUIRE TEST SCORES

Public universities in Florida received a lot of pushback this past cycle for being the only state university system besides Wyoming to require test scores from students. However, now that young people are able to receive vaccines and things are slowly returning to normal, more state schools may follow suit. The University System of Georgia announced this week that test scores will be required for applicants in the class of 2022. They also announced that USG campuses will return to normal in-person operations this fall, though have not yet required students to be vaccinated to return to campus (Emory, as a private institution in Georgia, does have a vaccine requirement - and will also remain test-optional in the fall).  

So if you have your heart set on UGA or Georgia Tech next year, make sure that you are taking the time to study for those tests!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Our corner of the internet has been buzzing this week about this New York Times opinion piece about the college essay. The author makes a really strong and difficult point about how many students feel that they have to “sell” their trauma, trying to outdo each other with stories of hardship that are going to pull on the heartstrings of admissions officers.

I was so struck by what the author reports her teacher asking her when she questioned this idea:

“Who are you?”

YES! The very first thing we do with any student working on their college essay is ask them to speak with family and friends and write down adjectives that those people would use to describe them. Students often think they have to have the best story, but that isn’t the case at all - it is MUCH more important to demonstrate a specific personal characteristic, and the story is just the vehicle for that! Colleges want to know who you are, where you’re going, and how you’ll contribute to their community. 

You might have a difficult story that can do all of that, and that’s great! But just writing about personal tragedy for tragedy’s sake, in a way that doesn’t demonstrate personality or growth, is not the key to a strong college essay.

I thought this was so interesting when one of my sorority sisters posted it on her social media this week! She is a professor at USF and is researching the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate STEM education. This video on her early findings is available for online viewing until May 18.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams are teaming up to offer group info sessions and events for prospective students - a great opportunity for any juniors interested in small, liberal arts colleges. As you work on your college search, we really recommend seeking out sessions like these that go beyond the traditional info session. Reed, for example, is offering a variety of sessions including a Case Study of a College Application session. These case studies can be super helpful for some inside info on how the admissions office is evaluating applications. 

In more exciting news, we are so excited to welcome (back) Tyler! As we mentioned last week, Tyler was a client of ours who just finished up his freshman year at the University of Richmond! He is back in our office as our summer intern, learning more about entrepreneurship and what it’s like to run a small business. We often work with past clients on graduate school applications and we love seeing them in a different context, but this is the first time we’ve had one working alongside us!

Tyler will be taking over the midweek blog next week to share more about himself and his experience with DC College Counseling, so keep an eye out for that. He is excited to talk with both prospective and current clients about the DCCC process and the college transition, so don’t hesitate reach out to him with any questions or words of welcome!

Lastly, I really enjoyed having the opportunity to attend a Zoom on Thursday morning with admissions officers from Brandeis, University of Rochester, Case Western and our own neighbor across the Potomac, George Washington. Shannon and I have both been attending a ton of these sessions lately, but I really enjoyed this one in particular. Here are some takeaways I thought were interesting:

• One of the schools mentioned that they look at actual interactions within prospective student online chats in order to determine demonstrated interest. So if you think that just signing into the chat is enough, think again! Make sure to come up with some well thought-out questions that show that you have done your research.

• On that note, another school’s representative noted, “Before you demonstrate interest, you have to develop interest.” So obvious, but at the same time so wise! His point was that showing up on campus once to check off a box isn’t enough. Take your time, read your emails, do your research, maybe start a dialogue, and THEN start to demonstrate interest if you authentically have it - whether that involves showing up on campus or not.

• Several of the schools reported some interesting observations on waitlist activity that may lead to more waitlist movement later in the summer than ever before. These fascinated me.

  • The numbers are not in alignment between the number of accepted students nationwide and the number of deposits that schools have received from the students. So there is a theory that many students have actually double OR TRIPLE (omg!) deposited this year… (like we have said, this an absolutely terrible idea). And if that’s what’s going on, we’re going to see a ton of activity right around the time when tuition payments are due. At some schools, that’s just two weeks before the start of the semester.

  • Many enrollment management offices are concerned about the travel bans in place with foreign countries and the impact that this could have on international student visas. These students were accepted and have enrolled, but if their visas don’t come through, there are going to be a lot of spots opening up at the end of the summer as a result. When Shannon and I were talking about this yesterday, she made a particularly insightful comment about how waitlisted students who didn’t apply for financial aid are the ones who will really see a huge benefit from this. This is because international students are nearly always full-pay and most schools won’t replace a full-pay student with one that has financial need, so I think she’s absolutely correct. And this, my friends, is why you don’t apply for financial aid just to apply!

Enjoy the weekend!

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General Education Curriculum Series 5: Brown

For the final post of our General Education Curriculum Series, we’re tackling Brown University. 

Why? Because Brown is the best example of the complete opposite approach to Columbia’s. At Brown, there is no such thing as a core class - they have an open curriculum, and students have a ton of freedom and flexibility. Forget a core curriculum, Brown doesn’t even have traditional “majors” - instead, students choose a “concentration” or “focus area” to anchor their undergraduate program. 

During Brown’s “shopping period” at the start of the semester, students can try out classes that may interest them and discuss them with their peers, as well as academic advisors and faculty. Students may choose to create a liberal arts course of study that explores a variety of different subjects, or they may delve deeply into one or two - Brown puts the creation of the curriculum fully into the hands of students. 

Okay, so what are the takeaways from this non-curriculum curriculum? Here are a few:

1. You’ve got options

Really, a lot of them. Want to explore ten different subjects before you choose your concentration? You got it. Know what you want to do and just ready to dive deeper? Go ahead. Brown’s open curriculum is student-centered, meaning that you are the one who decides how your college experience will look. 

2. You need to be decisive

The flip side of all that choice is that there is no guidance laid out by the school as to what you should take. Particularly if you want to continue your education after college, you might need to do your own digging into recommended pre-med or pre-professional courses to ensure that your transcript is up to par with students who have received more of a measured curriculum approach. 

Even for those who don’t intend to head to graduate school or begin a career that requires certain coursework, the fully flexible curriculum can seem overwhelming. Some students may feel as if they need some guidance on the classes that will best prepare them for life after Brown. 

3. You’re on your own

Well, not entirely. Brown has both peer and faculty advisors available to help and support you as you design your curriculum. But the system is set up so that you may not have one single class in common with everyone else in your freshman dorm. The complete flexibility of the curriculum means that there are no common courses for everyone to bond over, and you could go through the curriculum without connecting to your peers in the classroom. You may care about this, you may not.

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There you have it: four very different schools with very different undergraduate curriculum options! So whether you are a sophomore just beginning your search or a senior jumping into course registration for your freshman year in college, make sure you read up on the curriculum options available to you and talk with us if you need help. This is particularly the case for graduating seniors - it can be very overwhelming to plan out a four-year course of study when you haven’t even arrived on campus yet, but that’s often the right approach to make sure that you’re able to achieve your goals while graduating on time!

Not a current client? Book a strategy session and we can help you work through the confusing curricula that you are considering. And don’t forget to check out the previous posts in this series down below!

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Weekly Update: May 7

Congratulations to all of the seniors who sent in their deposits last weekend - we are so proud of you!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

REMOTE WORK CONTINUES AT MANY COLLEGES

With all the focus on whether or not students and faculty can safely interact in-person on campus, many people have overlooked the other major population on college campuses - staff! At some universities, staff are overwhelmingly in favor of continuing to work remotely. At Duke, for example, three-quarters of staff want to work remotely three to five days per week. Colleges and universities, which often pay less in salary than private companies, are considering remote work as a potential benefit to attract top employees. Georgetown, for example, is planning to indicate in job descriptions going forward which positions can be done remotely. It will be interesting to see how colleges, especially those with a high value on a residential campus community, respond to the increasing push for remote work. 

CORNELL ROCK CLIMBING CLASS CAUSES CONTROVERSY

Cornell’s spring BIPOC Rock Climbing course has caused some outrage from those who see this type of course offerings as in violation of Title IV, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin in education programs. Cornell says that all students on campus have access to rich opportunities, and that this course is intended for students who are traditionally underrepresented in the sport of rock climbing. 

CHOOSING A COLLEGE

Decision Day has passed, but for juniors who are still working on putting together a college list, we recommend giving this Forbes article a read - a professor and parent of a college senior provides some interesting considerations as you think about which college would be the best fit for you! We want to emphasize:

“There are amazing universities across the spectrum. Pick one that fits individual needs not ‘name’ or ‘reputation’ metrics alone.”

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Several great articles this week that focus on equity in the college admissions process. This one from the Atlantic is a must-read! It delves deeper into the issues referenced in the above quote, discussing the chicken-or-the-egg relationship between college admissions, elitism and social status.

“Today, schooling is how elites secure income and pass their privilege down to their children. The U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges Rankings are our Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage. And it is a truth universally acknowledged,” it reads, in a satirical take on the first line of Pride and Prejudice, “that elite parents, in possession of excellent jobs, want to get their kids into college.”

Can’t argue with that, and some of the statistics mentioned in the piece were staggering, including a study quoted by Ron Lieber which found that “nearly 50 percent of America’s corporate leaders, 60 percent of its financial leaders, and 50 percent of its highest government officials attended only 12 universities.” In this type of landscape, it’s not surprising that many students and families feel so much pressure to keep rankings at the forefront of their college search.

Varsity Blues demonstrated the dangers that arise when students and families become hyper-focused on admission to a big-name school, but schools also have issues with this system, going as far as to hire expensive “rankings consultants” to help them increase their ranking (or even, as with the Temple University business school dean we discussed two weeks ago, falsifying the numbers to beat the ranking system!). 

And we recognize that the role of private college consulting companies is often considered alongside these considerations, as discussed in this Yale Daily News article. Here at DC College Counseling, we pride ourselves in working hard to discover students’ true passions and best-fit schools, rather than focusing on the rankings alone, but we recognize that not all students and families are able to afford our services (though, keep an eye out for an exciting announcement about that coming your way soon!).

However, we believe that students and families deserve robust support during this challenging time, and that school counselors do not always have enough resources to be able to provide that support to each student. We are proud to be part of the educational support network that our clients have built! We are educators first, and that is the attitude that we want to bring to all of our students and families. This is a nuanced article with a lot of information about the work that independent counselors do, for those looking for more information about these considerations.

Speaking of equity and rankings, I am always excited to read work from Angel Perez, CEO of the National Association of College Admissions Counseling. In his most recent article, he explores the issues driving people away from the admissions profession. This is a tension that so many admissions officers experience (including Shannon and I!) - entering the profession with the goal of helping young people get a great education. Angel offers several different ideas for colleges to step away from a focus on the bottom line, like diversifying revenue streams, so admissions and enrollment professionals don’t feel that pressure to meet the budget, and creating a more flexible culture in higher education as a whole. 

Jeff Selingo, in a LinkedIn article this week, also offered some ideas for how higher education can view emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for a reset. Some changes include:

• Students watching pre-recorded lectures at home, but using class time for discussions and group work. 

• Changes in grading, particularly grades based on participation, given the challenges that students and teachers faced with this issue during online learning. 

• More flexibility for students with class assignments, including major exams and papers, after a year that has required professors to become a lot more comfortable with flexibility! 

• An emphasis on human connection and campus community - something college students have really missed this past year. 

Jeff’s article also gives some more interesting insight into test optional admissions this cycle. We’ve written before about how it does seem that testing had some effect on admissions this year, and this is particularly true in STEM subjects - students applying for STEM majors were much more advantaged by submitting test scores than those who applied for majors in the humanities or social sciences. At schools like Emory, Colgate, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt, students who submitted test scores were more likely to be admitted than those who did not - so if you have the opportunity to take a test this cycle, take advantage of it! You can always decide whether or not to submit the scores later. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are so impressed with the determination and perseverance of our juniors, who continue to finish up their beautiful Common ApplicationⓇ essays as they juggle school work and preparing for AP exams, which started this week at many schools! 

We’ve also had several strategy sessions with younger students who are planning ahead, and as we tell them, this is the perfect time to start thinking about your four-year plan for high school and how the next four years can help you develop your passions.

Lastly, we’ve been busy getting ready for the newest member of our team.. our summer intern and former student, Tyler! A future entrepreneur himself, Tyler will be spending the summer with us learning about what it’s like to run a small business. You’ll hear from him periodically with his perspective on a variety of different topics: the college search and admissions process, the transition from high school to college, attending college during Covid, and more!

Finally, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

If you’re tired of reminding everyone about everything and carrying the burden of the mental load - the “mostly invisible combination of anxiety and planning that is part of parenting,” (a) I can relate and (b) our team can help! Book a Meet & Greet and get the college admissions-related reminders, worrying and stress off your plate!

Now can someone please invent a way to outsource reminders about keeping kids’ hands off the walls?! My four-year-old son and I will be your first clients :) Have a great weekend!

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General Education Curriculum Series 4: Columbia

We are heading back to our General Education Curriculum Series and moving out of Virginia this week with an up-close look at Columbia’s curriculum. 

We chose Columbia because it is one of the schools with the most emphasis on a robust set of general education requirements for students in Columbia College, the Arts and Sciences division (students who enter into the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science will have different requirements).

It always strikes me as interesting that so many students who apply to Columbia don’t understand the Core Curriculum or realize that the academic experience there is very different from most other schools as a result of it. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the Columbia application includes more than one essay regarding fit - they want to know if you know that they have the Core Curriculum in the first place, if you understand what it entails and why they believe it is valuable, and the reasons you think it would be a good fit for you!

If you don’t mention it at all in your application, they are just going to assume that you are “checking off the box” and applying to Columbia “for the wrong reasons” - because it’s an Ivy League school, because it’s in New York City, and so forth.

Let’s dive in!

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Unlike the general education requirements we outlined at William & Mary and UVa, Columbia’s Core Curriculum requires that ALL students take the exact same course to fulfill many of their requirements - meaning that students in these courses are doing the same readings and assignments at the exact same time. 

Core CURRICULUM COURSES

Literature Humanities

This course is taken by every single first-year Columbia College student. Students read and discuss works by Homer and Dante (which haven’t left the required reading list since the curriculum was implemented 75 years ago!), as well as canonical texts like Montaigne’s Essays or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Students read and discuss one text each week in seminars of about 20 students, and each seminar moves through the exact same texts at the same pace. 

University Writing

First-year students are also required to take one semester of a University Writing course. In this case, students do have the option to choose a topic: American Studies, Gender & Sexuality, Human Rights, Data & Society, and Medical Humanities are some of the options for students here. However, no matter which class you take, you will be writing the same four essay assignments as your fellow students: an analysis, a reading of multiple texts, a research paper, and an op-ed. This is different from many other schools, where first-year writing classes are left to the individual instructors to design. 

Frontiers of Science

You may be noticing by now that your first year schedule is getting pretty full! Freshmen must also take a one-semester course in modern science. All students attend a large lecture on Mondays, and meet with professors or TAs in small seminars throughout the rest of the week to discuss the lecture and any associated readings. So again, though the seminars may be small, the material is the same for all first-year students. 

Contemporary Civilization

This is the second-year core curriculum course. Like Literature Humanities, it is a full-year course where all students study the exact same texts at the same time, in small seminars. This original Core course has been offered since 1919 and includes texts like Plato’s Republic, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur’an. 

Art Humanities

Before their senior year, students must also take one semester-long course in important works of Western art. In 20-person seminars, students examine and analyze these pieces. Classes can make use of Columbia’s NYC location to visit buildings, monuments, and museums as part of their art exploration. The requirement to study art history or art analysis is very unusual for undergraduate programs of study.

Music Humanities

In addition to Art Humanities, students also take a semester-long course in important works of Western music. Like Art Humanities, Music Humanities has been part of the core curriculum since 1947, and is also a very unusual requirement for an undergraduate program.

In addition to these strict core courses, Columbia students also have general education requirements similar to those at the schools we’ve already discussed. However, they can be met by multiple courses and offer some flexibility. 

Requirements

Science Requirement

Students must take ten credits (typically three courses) in science in order to meet this requirement. The required Frontiers of Science course counts toward the science requirement, so students who take that course in their first year must take two additional courses in science before they graduate. These courses are typically in Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Science, or Physics, though this requirement can also be met by some Math and Computer Science courses. 

Global Core Requirement

Global Core courses typically explore the cultures of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East in a historical context. These survey courses are meant as a supplement to the Western-focused required core classes. Students must take two courses to meet the Global Core requirement. This requirement is met by many courses in History, Religion, and Cultural Studies. 

Foreign Language Requirement

This requirement, unlike the others, can be met by an AP test or by a Columbia-administered test for students who have already achieved intermediate proficiency in a foreign language. Otherwise, students are required to take an intermediate-level foreign language course to meet this requirement. Like many other schools, Columbia waives this requirement for students whose first language is not English. 

Physical Education Requirement

Another surprising one, although not quite as rare as the art and music requirements - Columbia is one of the institutions that require students to take a physical education course! Completion of two physical education activities is required in order to graduate. Student-athletes can also gain credits through their sport. In addition, all students are required to either pass a swimming test or take one semester of a beginner’s swimming course unless they have a registered disability that does not allow them to do so.

As you may be able to tell, Columbia is SERIOUS about its Core Curriculum. Here are our three takeaways:

1. You’ll get the breadth

No matter which type of student you are, Columbia’s curriculum will likely require you to take a class that you’re not too excited about. While some students may see this as a negative (I would have, for sure), others intentionally seek it out. They believe that it will help them to explore outside of their interests and maybe give them the opportunity them to fall in love with a subject that they never even knew about in high school! If you are looking for a true liberal arts experience, with a wide array of courses, this might be a great choice for you, but students who know what they want to study and don’t want to do a whole lot of writing and analysis may become frustrated with all of the core classes. 

2. You’re in good company

Did you read those dates earlier? Some of Columbia’s core courses have been around since 1919! That means that not only will you be learning the exact same material as your classmates, you will also be learning some of the same material as most Columbia alumni! The Core Curriculum will help you to connect and commiserate with your freshman hall-mates about the course material, and also provide you with a talking point for all of the networking you’ll be doing with alumni as a senior! 

3. You don’t have a lot of space

As you may have realized reading through that list of courses and requirements, Columbia does not give you nearly as much space in your schedule as some other schools. If you really want to dive deep into your major, or if there are other electives that you want the chance to explore beyond those listed, this type of curriculum might make you feel frustrated and stuck. So consider carefully how you will feel about these requirements before applying to a school that has a lot of them!

In case you missed it, don’t forget to check out our series kickoff post about undergraduate curricula!

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Weekly Update: April 30

Decision Day is almost here - good luck to all of the seniors who are making their decisions this weekend! Make sure to celebrate once that deposit is in :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

MORE COLLEGES REQUIRE VACCINATIONS IN THE FALL

Over 100 colleges and universities will require COVID-19 vaccinations for students this fall, with Emory, Wesleyan, Stanford, and others announcing that they will require vaccines. Colleges are still dealing with outbreaks of coronavirus, even as students are eligible to get vaccinated this spring. While many of the schools requiring vaccines are private, some public schools are requiring them as well - including the University of Maryland system. Other schools, like Baylor, are not requiring vaccinations, but are allowing vaccinated students to skip mandatory COVID-19 testing, creating an incentive for students to get vaccinated. The University of Wyoming is taking incentives a step further - vaccinated students will be entered into weekly prize drawings, and staff will receive an extra day off! 

PRIVATE SCHOLARSHIPS STILL AVAILABLE

I think it is hard for many students and families to realize how many scholarships are out there! Even for students who did not receive merit aid from their college of choice, there are still private options to apply for this spring and summer. Check out any local community groups you belong to, as well as any groups for your particular academic interest - there is a lot of money that you could find! Shannon even applied for a scholarship for tall students when she was going to college. As the article states:

“Do you love asparagus? There’s a scholarship for that. Are you left-handed? There’s a scholarship for that.” 

So do your research!

BIDEN PROPOSES FREE COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR ALL

One of the components of President Biden’s $1.8 trillion (ouch) American Families Plan involves free community college for all Americans - regardless of income. While I am NOT a fan of increased government spending in general, I really do like this idea. I’ve written about this before, but I have always found it sort of puzzling that more families in our area do not consider community college to be a viable plan for their students. I get that most of us are hoping for a traditional college experience for our children, but you truly cannot beat NOVA’s guaranteed admissions agreements. Yes - guaranteed! You will automatically get a spot at the University of Virginia and other great schools if you spend your first two years at NOVA, take certain classes and achieve a 3.4 GPA or higher. That’s pretty incredible when you consider what it takes to get into UVa these days. And I haven’t even gotten into the cost savings! For a student who doesn’t mind sticking around for two more years, this could really be a path worth considering. Remember, it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We’ve heard a lot about artificial intelligence in the last several years - how it might affect jobs and even everyday tasks. But higher education is not immune from AI, and many schools are increasingly relying on the technology to do everything from emailing students to grading assignments. Algorithms have even worked their way into admissions, raising questions about bias if we have programs, rather than humans, evaluating students. NYU, for example, uses a program to determine students’ interest in the school based on how they interact with the school’s website and respond to its messages. Georgia Tech pioneered a chat bot, not only to answer questions from admitted students, but to serve as a TA, answering questions about course material. We will have to wait and see if these technologies become more prevalent in making big decisions!

From a do-it-yourself graduation at the University of Tampa to arrivals in shifts at Vanderbilt and Northwestern, colleges and universities throughout the country are taking all kinds of approaches to graduation ceremonies this year. This New York Times piece details the various options, along with the frustration that the students and parents feel about the situation.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are so excited for all of our seniors who have sent in deposits, and have been busy talking through a few last-minute decisions over the past few days! Congratulations to everyone for such phenomenal success in such a difficult year. We are so proud of you!

We also passed a fun milestone - our first junior is 100% done with her main college essay, and we have about ten more right behind her in the final editing stage! Our students go through a very extensive soup-to-nuts process to make sure that their work is “17-year-old-perfect” and represents their best selves. It’s so nice for them to have this huge accomplishment out of the way and finished early.

For juniors looking for a weekend activity, we recommend attending NACAC’s Virtual College Fair, including live and recorded sessions from over 600 colleges - a great way to get an overview of many different institutions. 

Enjoy the sun this weekend and be careful out there in the wind today! I just heard from friends that a tornado hit Great Falls?! Yikes! No clue if that’s true but I sure hope everyone is safe!

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Weekly Update: April 23

Happy Earth Week! Don’t forget to check out our blog from earlier this week about some of the greenest colleges in the country if you are hoping to be eco-focused all year round.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

WEST POINT CHEATING SCANDAL

Back in 2020, West Point experienced its largest cheating scandal in decades, when over 70 cadets were accused of cheating on a calculus exam. 55 of the students who confessed to cheating were enrolled in the academy’s “second chance” program, which provides rehabilitation for cadets who break the rules. Now, the academy is announcing plans to scrap the second chance program, in an effort to crack down on cheating in the future. 

ACT SUPERSCORING

ACT has rolled out an option that allows students to submit their own ACT-generated superscore to colleges instead of sending multiple score reports and letting schools calculate, which has always been the process in the past. The concept is a good one, but in practice it’s been very confusing. Compass Prep did a great job of putting together a guide for students who are interested in sending ACT-generated superstores.  

HIGHLY UNUSUAL WAITLIST ACTIVITY

As I posted on social media earlier this week, we’ve started seeing waitlist movement already. For context, it’s EXTREMELY rare to see waitlist activity before the reply deadline of May 1, because it doesn’t make sense to start accepting students from the waitlist until all of the admitted students have responded and schools can determine how many spots remain. So this was either part of the overall enrollment management strategy, which is very possible in such a conservative year, or these schools are trending very, very poorly with their yield, which is also possible. Either way, the fact that this is happening so early means that any expressions of demonstrated interest, including LOCIs, need to happen immediately! The schools that have already turned to the waitlist include NYU, Barnard, Lehigh, SMU, Virginia Tech, JMU, and many more!

NEW BOOK OUT: YOUR TURN: HOW TO BE AN ADULT

This is a follow-up to one of our long-time favorites, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. The author, Julie Lythcott-Haims, is the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford and is so spot-on in so many ways. Truly, every parent should read the first book if they haven't already, and we're willing to bet that the new student version is just as great. Although if you are one of our graduating seniors or transfers, don’t buy it… a copy may be coming your way in the future! :)

You can get a sneak peak from Julie's famous Ted Talk on raising successful kids without over-parenting, as well as her recent NPR interview. Julie's experience with her own son really resonated with us, because we see this all the time: 

"He got a diagnosis of ADHD and anxiety when he was in the fourth grade... And I think in hindsight, my husband and I didn't quite understand what that meant. He seemed to be so smart and capable and kind and lovely and had good friends and was doing just fine …. [but] he really got into a downward spiral when he got to college. When the scaffolding of home and high school was taken away, this kid began to really struggle."

For many students, the most difficult part of the transition to college is learning how to manage their time - they see a lot more white space on the calendar, but really, that means that they have to figure out their own schedule and that can be incredibly difficult for students used to the structure of high school.

These are exactly the kind of skills that we teach students through academic coaching, which is a great idea for high school and college students alike who need a little extra help developing the executive functioning skills that will set them up for success! Interested in learning more? Book an academic coaching Meet & Greet!

FIRST ANNUAL MARYLAND DAY

If you are looking for a fun virtual activity for young students, check out the University of Maryland’s first virtual Maryland Day on Saturday, April 24! Sessions include “Fun Science for Kids,” “Build a Better Lemonade Stand,” “Dance and Movement,” “Engineering is Awesome!” and more! 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The lack of standardized testing this cycle, along with a nationwide focus on social justice, has enabled colleges and universities to welcome their most diverse classes ever. Relying on standardized testing often works to the advantage of more affluent families, who can afford tutoring and test prep, so the removal of the emphasis on standardized tests worked to level the admissions playing field this year. Last year, 77% of students reported test scores with their applications - this year, that number was only 46%. We are likely to see similar numbers this cycle, as many schools remain test optional for the Class of 2022. 

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that we take US News ratings with… a few grains of salt. But many students and families use rankings to consider their college choices, and in fact rankings do become more important for graduate schools like business and law school (as opposed to undergraduate programs, where rankings truly don’t provide much useful information).

The pressure placed on schools to retain their place in the rankings was brought to life this week when the former dean of Temple University’s business school was federally charged with fraud for falsifying information to ensure that the school would appear at the top of the US News list. This scheme doubled Temple’s enrollment for MBA programs, which rose from #28 on the list to #1 within two years. This just goes to show that US News does not audit the data that schools send in for rankings - and the rankings system may be even more precarious than we thought! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon and I both attended an great discussion on Clubhouse this week called “What the Heck Just Happened?” - funny, right? But it’s a completely accurate description of the reactions we’ve seen from counselors after this “hectic and insane” admissions cycle! Everyone in attendance emphasized the need for a balanced, conservative college list, given the current upheaval (which is likely to continue for at least the next several years).

My colleague Joyce Wong, who serves with me on the Independent Educational Consultants Association’s Business Practices committee, is a prominent consultant in the Bay Area. I couldn’t agree more with how she summed up the list-making process:

“More than ever it is so important to have a balanced list… I don’t think our parents fully understand what unpredictability means. There is really no formula for guaranteed admissions and that’s a [mindset] that is hard to break.”

She’s completely right - this really is a mindset issue. This is not the college admissions process of a generation ago, a decade ago, or even a year ago - so it’s been a tough season for many students and families that didn’t know what to expect and didn’t have enough options spanning a wide range of selectivity.

However, that does not mean that there aren’t things you can do to help make your application as strong as possible. We keep reminding students that even with their activities severely limited by the pandemic, they can still include the passions they’ve taken on during their time at home - baking bread, learning to code, studying aquatic animals - there are so many things that students can do now to show colleges their drive and passion. Bob Carlton, another seasoned consultant who chairs the committee on which Joyce and I serve, noted:

“Personal stories seemed to be much more significant - their ability to find their personal story and their impact [for the] common good - how they are helping with an issue that they care about in society or in their neighborhood.”

Even with the crazy and unpredictable admissions cycle, we are so relieved to have a lot of happy students who followed our advice and made smart, strategic decisions. During this past week, we started to hear from transfer applicants and I have to say - these decisions on the whole are coming in much better than I expected! We LOVE to get emails like this one, which came from one of our favorite students last night:

I mean, how can you not read an email like that and want to jump up and down?! #lovethisjob

And for our seniors who are still trying to make their final college decisions, check out our blog post from earlier this week on choosing your college - we know it can be stressful to make this decision, but you have everything you need, and you can have a fulfilling college experience at whichever school you choose!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Earth Day Blog: Greenest Schools in the US

Happy Earth Day! In honor of the day, we have compiled a list of some of the greenest colleges in the country, as well as some unexpected environmentally-friendly majors to consider (beyond environmental science)! 

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Oberlin College

With the top spot on the Princeton Review’s list of the Greenest Colleges, Oberlin is a great choice for an environmentally-conscious student. In 2000, the Center for Environmental Studies was opened on campus, a “green building” with solar panels on the roof and waste water recycling. On campus as well as in the town of Oberlin, they monitor electricity and water use in real time, and recently installed 10 acres of solar panels. Their goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2025. 

Students can engage in the process by volunteering at the George Jones Memorial Farm, which grows a third of the produce consumed on campus. Sustainable food practices are important to Oberlin students - 25% of them are part of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, a student-run dining system that buys the majority of its food from local vendors. Students also run a Bicycle Co-op and other volunteer groups on campus.

The environmental studies program is one of the top in the country, as you may expect, but Oberlin is also a world-class conservatory with phenomenal opportunities for the budding musicians out there!

Middlebury College

Currently in the midst of an “Earth Week” lecture series for students and faculty, Middlebury College in Vermont is another school that keeps environmental sustainability front and center. Middlebury’s campus became carbon neutral in 2016, the final result of a student initiative that began in 2007. It is the first school of its size to achieve carbon neutrality. The school is currently in the process of working toward additional goals with its 10-year Energy2028 initiative. The initiative includes a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2028, as well as divesting fully from fossil fuels.

The environmental studies program at Middlebury offers 14 different concentrations, ranging from conservation biology to literature. Wow! And if you’re interested in combining your interests in environmental studies with a passion for cultures and languages, Middlebury has you covered. Their reputation as an international studies/foreign language powerhouse comes through in offerings that include the summer Middlebury School of the Environment program in China and an accelerated master’s degree in International Environmental Policy.

Pitzer College

Pitzer, one of the Claremont Colleges near Los Angeles, lists Environmental Sustainability as one of its five core values. The school “walks the walk” with drought-resistant native plants and LEED-certified sustainable buildings populating the campus. 68% of the residence halls on Pitzer’s campus are LEED-certified. More than 25% of the energy on campus comes from renewable sources. 

Environmental analysis is one of the most popular majors for Pitzer students. Pitzer was also the first school in Southern California to divest from fossil fuels, and is home to the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability. 

If you’re interested in taking a more active approach by starting your own project or research in the field, Pitzer might be a particularly good fit. As we mentioned back in November on our election day blog post on Schools for Politically-Minded Students, Pitzer’s Community Engagement Center offers funding to support individual projects!

Dickinson College

Students at Dickinson are currently in the midst of a sustainability-focused EcoChallenge for the month of April. During the challenge, students will form teams and work to lower their carbon footprint. Dickinson itself reached carbon neutrality last year in 2020, and uses real-time energy monitoring in over 20 campus buildings. 

Dickinson also has its own organic farm, which grows much of the produce eaten on campus. In fact, the dining hall has been named a Certified Green Restaurant by the Green Restaurant Association, making it one of 50 colleges in the US to achieve this status. The campus is also home to two honeybee hives, and students can volunteer to become part of The Hive Cooperative!

Lewis & Clark College

Students describe Lewis & Clark as collaborative, outdoorsy, open-minded, and inclusive. The campus sits on 137 wooded acres one block from a national park, giving students the opportunity to have a bucolic college experience only a few miles from Portland, OR. 

Lewis & Clark is nationally recognized for its environmental studies programs on both the undergraduate and the graduate level. The School of Law is ranked first in the country for its environmental law program, and undergraduate students can take advantage through an accelerated BA and Masters of Studies in Law (MSL) in Environmental, Natural Resources, and Energy Law that students can complete in four years. 

Colby College

Colby recently introduced a new concentration in ecocriticism, allowing humanities students to add their voices to the conversation around the environment. Years ago, Colby was also one of the first colleges in the country to reach carbon neutrality, becoming carbon neutral in 2013. 24% of the buildings on Colby’s campus are LEED-certified. The campus’ Buck Environment and Climate Change Lab connects and provides funding for students and faculty engaged in research on climate change. 

Students who want to get involved in sustainability on campus can choose from many different organizations, including EcoReps, the Environmental Coalition, the Colby Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, and the Colby Alliance for Renewable Energy. And the latest student initiative on campus is the reusable mug program, which would require Dining Services to provide a reusable mug to each student in an effort to curb the use of paper and plastic cups to take beverages on the go. 

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Not interested in a green school, but still want to do your part for the environment? Check out the Princeton Review’s list of the top ten green majors. Some of these may surprise you - majoring in fashion design, urban planning, or entrepreneurship can definitely be an amazing eco-friendly choice!

Choosing Your College

Now that our Class of 2021 students have their last decisions in hand, it’s time for our students who weren’t admitted ED to choose which campuses they’ll be on next year and send their deposits in! While it would be nice if the stress ended with the arrival of the acceptance letters, and we always joke that too many choices is a good problem to have, this is typically the first major life decision that a student will make - and the pressure and anxiety that comes along with such a big decision can turn it into the most difficult part of the process for many. That has never been more true than this year, when many students in the Class of 2021 have never had a formal college visit.

So if you’re struggling with these issues, here are some tips that might help you to think through your final college decision!

P.S. If you are a parent hoping to help your student through this difficult time, check out our post from a couple of years ago - written especially for you!

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1. Make it familiar.

Part of the reason that choosing a college can feel so overwhelming is that it is an entirely new experience! We hear this from students and families all the time: “I’ve never even been to sleep-away camp! How can I choose?” And yes, college will absolutely be a big adjustment for many of those students. But it doesn’t have to be totally unfamiliar or unexpected.

Think about your high school right now. What do you love? What about your school will you miss after graduation? And what do you dislike? What are the things that make you say “ugh, can’t wait to get out of here!”? Try to list at least three things in each category.

Then, use your list as a guide for your preferences. Sick of seeing the same faces day in and day out, and ready to meet some new people? You might be interested in a school with a large, diverse student body. Sad to leave your friends and the favorite teachers that made high school so special for you? You might be looking for a close-knit community with small class sizes.

Remember, don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself about what really matters to you, even if others roll their eyes. After all, you’ve already established during the college search process that every one of the schools to which you applied would be a good fit!

So if all else is equal, and you suffered through four years of living with roommates through cold New England boarding school winters (cough cough this was me), toss those snow boots in the trash and cross off any of the schools north of the Mason-Dixon line. And don’t feel even a tiny bit guilty about going for the schools that will allow you to have a single during your freshman year! You’ll be so much happier this way…I know from experience :)

2. Think about the future

Where do you hope your next steps will take you? I’m asking this question literally, from a geographic perspective- you already looked at important percentages during your college search, so you know that it’s likely that every school on your list will result in employment or graduate school placement. But where?

Of course, you can certainly go to school in Virginia and end up with an amazing job in Denver after graduation. But for the most part, students from your school will likely migrate to the nearest large city after graduation, and that is probably going to be somewhere with a big alumni network that can help you. A William & Mary graduate in Washington, D.C. is going to benefit a lot more from the network and name recognition than one who is job searching in Los Angeles! 

On a similar note, if campus recruiting is important to you (i.e., for business and engineering majors), take a look at the geographic reach of the companies on the school’s recruiting schedule. Many school career centers will advertise the companies that recruit on their campuses, and this can be a good guide to help you choose the place with the right connections and geographic footprint. So if you’re a prospective business major and living in the windy city isn’t so appealing, you may consider bypassing Michigan after all - campus recruiting in the Midwest is very Chicago-centric.

3. Go beyond pros and cons

Making a pro/con list is a tried and true decision-making technique. But then again, these can get messy! After all, how do you compare “Has a really impressive maker space” with “No cars on campus freshman year”? Instead, think about the top three to five MOST important factors in your college search, and let those guide your decision.

When we are brainstorming with students, we call these the “must-haves” - important qualities that align with your values. These are going to be different from student to student, but may include things like a particular major or area of study, the community on campus, the location, the career opportunities, and the cost of attendance. If you didn’t do this at the beginning of your college search like our students did, or if you suspect that your “must-haves” evolved over time, it’s never too late!

For those who considered these from the start and now have a list full of schools with must-have characteristics, I have an exercise to recommend that actually came from my mom during my own college search. When we were sitting in a hotel room in Nashville and trying to differentiate between my top picks, Vanderbilt, Wash U, and Emory, she suggested that we not only make a pro/con list but actually rank those pros and cons so that we weren’t giving too much weight to factors that weren’t as important.. even if there were more of them.

Vanderbilt had more pros for me than Wash U and Emory, so if we were tallying up pros and cons it would have been the clear winner. But they had no traditional undergraduate business program, and I wanted to major in business…. while I was prepared to work around it, that was still a pretty big deal at the end of the day.

Almost 20 years later, I’m still relying on that train of thought when I help students calculate a weighted average to determine which preferences are more important than others. For example, if you have five very important factors, but one is clearly more significant than the rest, followed by a second, maybe you decide to weight factor #1 as 40% of your decision, factor #2 as 30% of your decision, and the remainder as 10% each.

4. Go with your gut

Don’t underestimate your instincts! Sometimes, you will just have that feeling that a school is the right place for you as you walk around the campus, and that factor is just as important as any listed above. 

5. But don’t stress if you don’t know what your gut is telling you

This has been a difficult year for all of us. If you haven’t had the chance to visit many schools or see a campus in full swing, you may very well not have been able to experience any kind of “gut feeling.” No big deal, really.

Honestly, even in a normal year, I often have students express concern about this - it’s easy to feel like you’re doing something wrong when other kids at the lunch table talk about how they “felt right at home” after stepping on a given campus, but you don’t feel that kind of passion for any particular school.

I think it’s more of a reflection of personality type than anything else - some people are fact-finders and others make decisions quickly. Those people might fall in love at first sight down the line, too, but that doesn’t mean their relationships will be any stronger.

Whichever strategy you use, be confident in your own decision-making skills and know that in the end, the college experience is what you make of it, and you can be happy at a lot of different schools - there is no “the one”!

If you are still struggling with making a decision, you can always come and talk to us! Current clients can go ahead and book a meeting, but for those who are not clients, we have recently introduced our new Post-Decision Senior Strategy Session to help you make the best choice!

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CHECK OUT THE POSTS BELOW FOR MORE ON All Things Decisions!

Weekly Update: April 16

Another Friday, another weekly update!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLLEGE ENROLLMENT DOWN 25%

In our world, it seems like college is all students are thinking about - we’ve talked about institutions dealing with huge application increases, students applying to more schools than ever before, and historic numbers of waitlisted applicants. But when you focus on the small slice of selective colleges (a tiny fraction of all the higher education institutions in the US!), you can sometimes miss the bigger picture. According to one study, the pandemic has led to a 25% drop in college enrollment - that is a huge number! Many students were forced to postpone college due to financial hardship from the pandemic, and these students are significantly less likely to attend college at all after putting it off. Community colleges, which educate half of the students who eventually obtain bachelor’s degrees in the US, saw on average a 10% drop in enrollment.  

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES CONTINUE TO REQUIRE COVID VACCINATION

Since Rutgers University announced that they would require the COVID-19 vaccine for students to return to campus in the fall, over a dozen other colleges have followed suit. The list includes highly selective institutions like Cornell, Brown, and Northeastern. While these requirements have seen some legal pushback, for now it is legal for these colleges and universities to require vaccination in order to help the community develop herd immunity.

FCPS EVENTS THIS SPRING

FCPS and APS’s virtual career fair is starting next Monday, April 19. This is a great opportunity for high school students to learn more about internship opportunities, as well as take part in mock interviews and resume workshops to prepare them to apply for summer jobs and internships!

(And if you’re still looking for the right summer opportunity? Don’t forget to check out our Summer Opportunities Database - we add new listings every week. Future psychology or education majors should definitely check out the special position I shared on our facebook page yesterday. Not only is it well paid, it would look amazing on applications and you’d be helping out a really wonderful family and incredibly sweet little girl!)

Back to virtual events - parents may be interested in FCPS’s annual Special Education Conference this Saturday, April 17, to learn more and talk with other parents about supporting students through hybrid learning and the slow emergence from the pandemic.

NCAA EXTENDS STANDARDIZED TESTING POLICY

As we’ve seen more and more schools announce that they will be test-optional this cycle, there has always been that important caveat - not for hopeful DI and DII athletes. But the NCAA finally announced this week that it will extend its test optional policy for the Class of 2022. Yay! The NCAA is convening a task force this spring to discuss their testing policy moving forward.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We found this article that emphasizes the “specialist approach” to parenting really interesting! The author is right that many people who are exceptional in their fields start honing their skills at an early age. Does that mean that you should have your six-year-old specializing in piano and quitting the soccer team? We’re not quite sure if it works that way, but we’re confident that it works that way in the college process!

Remember: the well-rounded students of earlier generations are out, and colleges now want to see depth, rather than breadth, from students who know*** what they want to pursue and demonstrate their passion through their course selections, summer plans, and extracurricular activities throughout high school. If you are a high school student looking to maximize your college admissions chances, specialize!

***Totally fine to change your mind. We all do. But have a plan going in!

TIME published an article this week about the impact of climate change on higher education. Particularly, the number of majors that address climate change has expanded from just environmental science to architecture, engineering, business, and more! Interested in studying at a college that emphasizes environmental issues? Check back next week for our Earth Day blog post spotlighting some of the greenest colleges in the country!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon did a lot of different sessions this week, including one with the Common Application to collect data about 2020-2021 college admissions cycle. For our post-game assessment of the data and some key takeaways, check out our post from earlier this week.

We have been getting a lot of questions this week about double-depositing. If my student hasn’t decided where she wants to go, can we put down a deposit at two different schools until we have a chance to visit in person this summer? The answer is a resounding NO! Colleges share lists of students who have deposited, so they will know if your student has deposited at more than one school. This will likely result in both admissions offers being rescinded. It is absolutely not worth the risk! And with the length of waitlists this cycle, it is also unfair to other students who may be waiting on one of those spots at their dream school.

Of course, it has long been considered acceptable (in fact, encouraged!) for students to put down a deposit at one school while they are on the waitlist at another - or on multiple waitlists. If admitted from the waitlist, the student simply has to withdraw from the first school. Make sure to read the fine print, though, because we mentioned a very strange example earlier in the week with a school that had a rather unorthodox waitlist requirement.

And today, we heard about a school that required a student to accept the offer before technically receiving it. How does that work, you ask? We were wondering the same! The school required the student and his parent to sign a binding statement promising to enroll if admitted from the waitlist. Sort of like early decision, waitlist edition? And then he got in ten minutes later. I swear this year gets crazier and crazier..

All of the upheaval has led to a lot of questions from current seniors who are looking for help with waitlist strategy, decision appeals, or just deciding between college options when many schools still aren’t open for in-person tours. So, by popular demand, we are introducing a one-time Strategy Session for Class of 2021 seniors who need help navigating their post-decision landscape.

Have a great weekend!

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The Post-Game Analysis: Everything You’ve Been Dying to Know about Class of 2021 Admissions Data

As we’ve mentioned, decisions are out, so we took some time this week to dive a little bit deeper into what the statistics are showing us for schools that have already released their admissions data for the current cycle. Of course, none of this is fully complete because we do not have final waitlist numbers yet, but we are so excited to be able to share some of our key takeaways with you!

Note: These are based on the 100+ colleges and universities who have released data so far, and may change as we hear from more schools, so we will make sure to keep you updated with what we learn!

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1. Colleges are receiving more applications.

It seems like we’ve been talking about this all cycle, but initial data is showing that it is absolutely true. Overall, the Common ApplicationⓇ saw an 11% increase in applications this cycle. What is interesting to note is that the increase came mostly from students applying to more schools, not an increase in the number of students using the app. 9% of students applied to additional colleges, while the rise in different students applying accounted for only 2% of the jump.

On average, students who used the Common App submitted 5.8 applications each. We recommend looking at this number as a baseline, encouraging students to aim for the 8-12 range with an absolute minimum of 6.

Of course, the total number of schools to which a student should apply is closely linked to the probability of admission to each individual school. Remember that selectivity and predictability are inversely proportional - so a straight-A student with a perfect test score hoping for a highly selective school will have a very unpredictable outcome no matter how qualified she is. As such, that student will need to apply to more schools than a peer with a less competitive academic profile.

The unpredictability factor offers one explanation for the unequal distribution of application increases during this cycle. We learned that “dream reach” schools, those highly selective schools with admissions rates in the single or low double digits, saw an average application volume increase of 28% year over year! Yikes.

We collected some of the data from schools that are popular with our students:

And at the University of Florida, which was one of the only schools in the country to still require students to submit test scores? An increase of only 6%.

2. Early decision REALLY matters.

We have always emphasized to our students that ED is one of the best tools in the college application process for students that do not need to compare financial aid offers, and this was more true in this cycle than ever before (we say that each year, by the way - every year it just becomes more and more important).

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that we’ve been posting nonstop about the plummeting acceptance rates across the board that we saw this year. But ED applicants experienced an entirely different landscape at many schools - in fact, those numbers are moving in the opposite direction! Yes, it was actually easier, on the whole, to be admitted ED during Fall 2020 than it was in Fall 2019! That’s wild when you consider how enormous the applicant pools were.

Overall, the differential in acceptance rates shifted another 4% this past cycle in favor of ED applications. At many of our students’ target schools, however, the ED rate saw an increase of 10% year over year. 

At BC, the ED admit rate went up 9% from last year. Johns Hopkins saw an 11% increase from last year, while UVa’s went up 6%. Bucknell and Villanova had the largest increases - with ED admit rates soaring over 15% higher year over year!

3. We did see some deferral impact after all.

At the start of this cycle, many colleges tried to assure students that the high rates of deferral for the Class of 2020 would not impact their selectivity for the Class of 2022. We even wrote about it!

However, this did not turn out to be accurate at some schools - particularly at smaller institutions which had less of an ability to absorb the deferrals.

Duke, for instance, had already filled 9% of its Fall 2021 class with students who deferred admission. Williams, which already has a tiny entering class in and of itself, filled a whopping 21% of its spaces with students who deferred! This cut the admit rate for regular decision students in half, from 13% to 6.5%. 

Given what ended up happening this year, we anticipate that we will continue to see an impact for the Class of 2022 - particularly at smaller schools that couldn’t fully absorb the impact in one year.

4. Regular decision has taken a big hit.

Looking at the factors above, it is no surprise that regular decision admit rates plummeted the way they did. The combination of more applications overall, more students admitted ED, and more spots filled by deferrals led to an incredible drop in regular decision rates across the board.

At Bucknell, for instance, students who applied early decision were 42% more likely to be admitted than those who applied regular decision. At BC, early decision applicants were 22% more likely to be admitted.

Just a note that the information above applies to ED I applicants at most schools. ED II, a binding option with a later deadline, has an extremely varied impact depending on the school. At BC, for instance, the ED II admit rate was similar to the ED I rate - in other words, significantly higher than the regular decision rate. At Emory, by contrast, ED II had almost no statistical impact on admission, because ED II applicants were admitted at around the same rate as regular decision applicants (to be fair, they may have been a less qualified group overall, so there was probably a slight difference).

5. Test scores do matter - a bit.

This is the information that many students and parents were most eager to hear this cycle: does it matter if I submit test scores or not? The answer is, again, it depends. At the most selective schools, those with the single-digit acceptance rates, it is so difficult to be admitted that test scores don’t really seem to make much of a difference from a statistical standpoint. Depressing, right?

But here’s the interesting thing - schools in the moderately to very selective range (as compared to the “most” or “ultra selective” ones mentioned above) did actually wind up leaning more on test scores than they claimed they would. On average, the admit rate for students who did not submit test scores was 15% lower than those who did. And then, because nothing is ever simple in our world, test score submission stopped mattering again for schools a little further down the selectivity ladder!

Take UGA, for example: students who submitted their test scores were 16% more likely to be admitted than students who did not. The graphic above might give you some idea as to why - with a 39% jump in applications, they needed some way to sort applicants! 

Again, though, we can’t emphasize enough this is such an individual decision and general statistics will not paint an accurate picture for a given student. A straight-A student with an “average” test score should not jump to submit; more often than not, that student is still better off withholding for any school (of course, this depends on extracurricular involvement, course rigor, and so forth). If you are wondering whether you should be submitting test scores to your schools, chat with us or check out our blog post on the topic: Is Test-Optional a Trap?

6. It is truly the year of the waitlist.

Again, this is something we’ve discussed on the blog before, but it bears repeating: wait lists, this year, are big. And I mean really big. Schools are putting together these lists with the expectation that they will have a low yield on admitted students, due to the fact that students applied to many more schools and that they may not have had the opportunity to visit before applying, so may be more likely to change their minds.

And in truly mind-boggling news, we know of at least one highly selective school that will not allow accepted students to deposit if they plan to remain on other school’s waitlists. Can you imagine? In a scenario like that, a student would have to choose between depositing at the one they have vs. remaining under consideration at schools they prefer. This particular school has agreed to grant some extensions to students who wanted to remain on waitlists, but it’s unclear as to how many and for how long. Insane!

If faced with that choice, my advice would be to go with the bird in hand, but this is unprecedented. It’s exactly what I was talking about last week regarding the lack of regulation in our industry, now that NACAC’s “Code of Ethics and Professional Practices" no longer exists.

If you are on a waitlist, or you simply have a lot of decision letters and are unsure what to do next, we are happy to help! In the past week, we have heard from so many brand-new Class of 2021 seniors looking for advice that we added a strategy session just for non-client seniors who need post-decision help - let us guide your next steps!

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CHECK OUT THE POSTS BELOW FOR MORE ON DATA AND TRENDS IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS!

General Education Curriculum Series 3: William & Mary

The next school curriculum we’re considering as part of our core curriculum series is at another excellent Virginia institution - William & Mary (if you missed last week’s post on UVa’s curriculum, check that out as well!). 

Luckily for all of us, William & Mary’s curriculum is a bit less complicated than UVa’s! Both schools are in the middle of shifting from one core curriculum to another, so it is important to note that the curricula we discuss in our posts are for students entering this year - current students may be following a different core curriculum. 

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All William & Mary students follow the College Curriculum. In addition to the required College Curriculum courses, students must also take one elective course in each of three Knowledge Domains. Let’s start by diving into the College Curriculum. 

Year 1: COLL 100 & COLL 150

In their first year, students are required to take one college curriculum course each semester. COLL 100 encourages students to explore “big questions and big ideas,” giving them a broad theoretical knowledge within one or more disciplines. Some examples of COLL 100 courses this year include “Selfies: Self-Representation and Mediation,” “Designer Genes,” “Earth, Science, and Society,” “Africa Rising?” and “What Can We Learn from Babies?”

COLL 150 classes are small seminars aimed at improving students’ writing and analytical abilities, focusing on more narrow topics than COLL 100. Some examples of COLL 150 courses this year include “Travel Writing,” “Emerging Diseases,” “Sports & Economics,” “Law & Film,” and “Geology & Science Fiction.” 

Year 2: COLL 200

During their second year, students need to take three COLL 200 courses, one in each Knowledge Domain (see the next section for a deep dive into Knowledge Domains). These courses are meant to familiarize students with the connections between different disciplines, highlighting similarities and differences across academic areas of study while focusing a little deeper on an academic discipline of the student’s choice. Many introductory courses meet this requirement, such as “Introduction to African Studies,” “Introduction to Engineering Design,” “Introduction to Archaeology,” “Foundations of Education,” or “Introduction to Global Health.” COLL 200 courses enable students to gain a broad foundation in different subjects, and to learn more about academic disciplines to make sure they make the right choice of major at the end of the year! 

Year 3: COLL 300 & COLL 350

Third year students are also required to take a college curriculum course each semester. COLL 300 attempts to familiarize students with the larger global community. As a result, this requirement can be met through study abroad programs, research experiences abroad, the W&M in DC program, or selected courses on campus. Many students will meet this requirement through a semester abroad, though. 

COLL 350 courses are meant to explore issues of difference, equity, and justice, and are offered across disciplines with an added component to connect course material with contemporary life in the United States. 

Year 4: COLL 400

COLL 400 is the requirement that graduating students at W&M participate in a capstone experience. This experience may include an honors program or honors thesis, independent study, research project, or upper-level seminar. 

Knowledge Domains

To meet the COLL 200 requirement, students at W&M are required to take one three-credit course in each of the three Knowledge Domains:

Arts, Letters, and Values asks students to look at their own and others’ values and how they are expressed and evaluated. This requirement is met by courses in the arts, English, philosophy, or music. 

Cultures, Societies, and the Individual is a domain that explores human cultures and how they develop and interact. Courses in cultural studies, anthropology, economics, history, politics, religion, or psychology often carry this designation. 

Natural World and Quantitative Reasoning is the domain that includes many hard sciences and mathematics courses. Students can take a class in chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, kinesiology, or psychology to meet this requirement. 

Proficiencies

Yes, there’s more! In addition to the College Curriculum, there are certain proficiencies that William & Mary students also have to meet in order to graduate. The difference between the proficiencies and the rest of the curriculum is that most proficiencies can be met by classes that students took in high school or AP credits, so it is possible for a student to come in having met two of the three proficiencies already (this is how Shannon entered William & Mary, and she was very excited that she didn’t have to take a college math class!).

The Foreign Language Proficiency is met if a student has already taken four years of a single language in high school. If you haven’t done this (and we think you should!), the proficiency can also be met through AP or IB credit or by taking a 200-level language course at William & Mary. Students whose first language is not English can petition for an exemption from this requirement. 

The Math Proficiency can be met by AP credit for calculus or statistics. If a student does not complete calculus or statistics in high school, they can meet this requirement with ANY William & Mary math course (for students who are less than enthusiastic about math, might we recommend “Math-Powered Flight”?). 

The Creative and Performing Arts Proficiency is the one that does need to be met through a William & Mary course. Students can take a two- or three-credit course in music, dance, art, drama, or creative writing to meet this requirement. 

As always, we’ll highlight three key takeaways from this curriculum:

1. You are in the same boat AS YOUR PEERS

Unlike UVa’s curriculum, there is really only one pathway through William & Mary (unless you are in a special program like the joint degree programme with St. Andrews). That means that you will be able to share interesting theories you learned in COLL 100 with your freshman roommate, or commiserate over the heavy COLL 150 writing load together. This type of curriculum, with small required seminars, can really help students to connect with others in their class year who are taking some of the same required courses.

2. But you still have options!

As with UVa’s curriculum, none of the William & Mary requirements are met by only one course. In fact, the number of courses that restrict a student to pursue one particular discipline are very few (only three courses total over the four-year period). That means that you can meet the requirements with the classes that are most interesting to you, while still gaining a breadth of experience early on to help you explore new disciplines and select your major.

3. HIgh School Courses Help

Believe me, it is really nice to get to college and realize that those foreign language and math proficiencies are already taken care of! While a strong curriculum can definitely help you in the admissions process, it is also worth putting in the work to get those requirements out of the way and build more flexibility into your schedule (did we already mention that Shannon didn’t have to take a single math class in college??). 

In case you missed it, don’t forget to check out our series kickoff post about undergraduate curricula!

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