Archive for the ‘ College Admissions ’ Category

Inequality in College Admissions

Scandals of Higher Education An article in the New York Review of Books and the book list that goes with it made me want to erase the admissions policies, guidelines, etc. at every institution of higher learning I could find so we can all just start over. If college applicants did not have to submit [ READ MORE ]

Getting Into College Without Taking the SAT

List of SAT / ACT Optional 4-Year Universities Fair Test keeps a list of schools that have dispensed with the standardized testing requirement. Currently, that list includes 734 schools, 28 of which are ranked in the top 100 liberal arts colleges in America by U.S. News and World Report. Notable colleges on the list include: [ READ MORE ]

The University of Michigan Drops Affirmative Action

The University of Michigan, who went to the Supreme Court to defend the use of race and gender in admissions in 2003, just announced they have changed their admissions rules to be in compliance with a new state law banning affirmative action. The University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman, says she remains committed to [ READ MORE ]

Early College Admissions

Colleges are sending out early decision letters this week. I have been hearing about big envelope / small envelope apprehension all week, from a group in line at Starbucks to the man on his phone at the gas station to the daily reports I get from my brother who is waiting nervously to hear from [ READ MORE ]

Private College Counselors

Are colleges today more selective than ever? According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling , over the last 20 years the college admissions selectivity rate hasn’t changed; 4-year colleges on average still accept 75% of their applicants. But Harvard and Princeton are just as selective as they’ve always been with acceptance rates under [ READ MORE ]

Schools of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs Are H-O-T If you have a yen to make a dollar (holy bad joke, Batman) by joining the entrepreneurial ranks (the badness of that is still hurting me), then you are in luck, my friend. Being young and hip and using your noggin to come up with the next new thing is now considered [ READ MORE ]

Choosing a College? Top 6 Stats That Really Matter

The NY Times ran an interesting article about wading through college stats. Statistics rarely tell the whole story, they’re misleading, and they don’t measure what’s important. What do statistics really tell you about a school? Are they even useful? Here are the top statistics to pay attention to (or not): 1. Average Class Size at [ READ MORE ]

Backdoor Admissions to Selective Universities

The NY Times today published a piece about an interesting college admissions strategy: To get into a selective school, apply to a less popular program and then once you’re accepted, transfer into your desired program. Transfering within a university is easier than entering it. How to choose which major to apply to? Some programs are [ READ MORE ]

College Admissions–Looking Good Only On Paper

There’s an article in the NY Times about the increasing numbers of small liberal arts colleges dropping the SAT from their admissions requirements: Students’ Paths To Small Colleges Can Bypass SAT. Call it what you will (I like to call it WASP Guilt), but it’s moving me to confess: in high school I was an [ READ MORE ]

College Interviews

Interviews are something that can give you a very competitive edge. When you talk to an admissions officer, you immediately become less of a number and more of a person. If the college rep gets a good sense of who you are, what your goals are and what you would like to achieve it becomes [ READ MORE ]