NACAC

A revised plan to change college admissions

A revised plan to change college admissions

Two years ago I explained how I would re-shape the college admissions process if I had some sort of magical power to decide how everything would run. You can read that original post here. I still strongly believe in the basic parameters of what I wrote: a two-cycle system, where everyone is encouraged to apply early to up to—but no more than—three colleges, and then a much later round to fill in the spots that weren’t taken in the earlier round. It would push students and schools to act earlier, but the limit of three would also allow both students and schools to work more efficiently.

Two years of working with student clients has me thinking that maybe I wasn’t being realistic in my timing. Maybe an October 1st deadline, even if you’re only applying to three, is a little too aggressive.

But on top of that, colleges this year did actually make some big changes to the system, and I want to revise my plan taking those into account also.

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The State of College Admissions

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The State of College Admissions

The National Association for College Admissions Counseling, or NACAC, released its annual “State of College Admissions” report. The report is based on a survey of over 2,200 high school counselors and almost 500 college admissions officers. You can read the full report here. It’s worth at least browsing and checking out the charts. Here are my top take-aways for smart, ambitious college-bound high school students.

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Talk with the Dean

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Talk with the Dean

Back in December I had a phone conversation with Christine Bowman, the Dean of Admission and Enrollment Services at Southwestern University. [See full disclosure below.] I originally reached out to her to ask about admissions essays and how they're analyzed, but over an hour we talked about a number of things. Here are the three main ideas that came up.