Block out the mom groups! Block out the noise!I find myself saying that to parents and students as they share who got in where, who did what in the summer, and who added which colleges to their list. Your student shouldn't be doing something because "it looks good for college" but rather sharing their authentic selves.From interviews to AI, October will be a month to stay informed. Let's take a closer look so your student doesn't fall for any hype and focuses instead on the tasks at hand.
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Interviews? Videos? But be sure follow instructions.
Recently U.S. News (a questionable source at best) asked, Are College Interviews Required? We know, of course, that interviews are not often made available to our applicants. After all, candidates come from around the globe, admissions offices are strained and travel budgets are stretched. Sometimes, my students do have an opportunity to interview, thought it turns out to be with a student intern or an alum rather than an admissions staffer. What's important is to accept any opportunity to interview and also check to see whether a college interview is informational or evaluative (i.e., it's considered in the decision-making).
When I was the college counselor at an independent school, we required students to take Senior Interview. We did lots of research and role playing, even setting up our own mock interviews with faux emails to executives who had attended Georgetown. (With its unique app and required interview, Georgetown makes a great case study!)
Sometimes, colleges offer a limited number of interview slots for candidates early in the admissions seasons, yet others only make interviews available after a candidate submits their app. So check the guidelines, and if your student has an interview coming up, get in touch or download my e-book. Consider the source (of what you're watching and reading). Content management is a media essential. Over the past month, for example, the Wall Street Journal has gone nuts pitching its various lists of Best Colleges for . . . At least there's some entertainment and occasionally some educational value to what they say (unlike U.S. News). Let's look some recently published lists:
In Best Colleges in the U.S. is all about "how well each college sets graduates up for financial success." We're liking the pleasant surprises. For example, more public research universities are near the top of the Journal's list, including UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech. Then there's Babson, the business and entrepreneurship institution near Boston, which took second place this year.
Another attention-grabber is the WSJ's "The Best Party Schools in the U.S., According to Students." A favorite, Tulane, was at the top: "Two out of every three respondents from Tulane said they could find a party on campus five or more nights of the week if they looked for one, and more than 40% said that was true seven nights a week." Six out of the 10 colleges were - you guessed it - Southern! (See below.)
Who wouldn't get a kick out of CNBC's "The Ten Colleges Where Students Study the Most - None are Ivy League Schools"? That list contains - no shock - engineering institutions like Olin, MIT and CalTech, yet it also features Williams, Reed and Grinnell. (What counts as studying, by the way, and is that studying actually successful?)
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Pay to research? No, get a job instead!
In our meetings, the subject of what to do outside of school and in the summer frequently comes up. This college counselor remains skeptical about pay-to-play research programs that make big promises to students. So I was very interested when EdSurge published Should High School Students do Academic Research? Author Maggie Hicks shares that the research idea is highly touted on social media: "many aspiring applicants and their parents have fixed on the idea that getting research published in an academic journal as a high school student has arisen as a new trophy to strive for in an escalating race to try to stand out as an applicant." Hicks notes the pitfalls, including research that lacks a peer review or publications that charge fees. What about the fees parents pay firms to match their student with a mentor? My recommendation: blog, teach kids or get a job!
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Who's Com(mut)ing to NYC? It's Cornelius!
In a recent post, I shared that Northeastern had acquired Marymount to form a Northeastern - NYC. Last month, we learned that Vanderbilt was looking to establish a tech campus in West Palm. Now look at Cornelius: he's headed to the General Theological Seminary on the West Side of New York City, where the university might have - it's not yet approved - a $100 million property, according to the Wall Street Journal. Vandy may use that space for finance, fashion or media education.Cornelius was indeed from NYC and made a gift for a what came to be a great Southern college at the age of 79.By the way, Vandy and UVA are helping another Souther elite, Duke, fund a program to learn Cherokee. As reported in the Guardian, the language is otherwise in danger of extinction.
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Appreciate the (Southern) charm.
You read it here first. NJ-area students liking public research universities are looking South when creating their college lists. So while those lists once featured Michigan and Wisconsin, then included UNC, Georgia and South Carolina, they've gone even deeper; your student just may be talking about SMU, Clemson and maybe Tennessee, Mississippi or Alabama. According to the Wall Street Journal, which based its findings in part on U.S. Department of Education data, "The number of Northerners going to Southern public schools went up 84% over the past two decades, and jumped 30% from 2018 to 2022."So what's all the fuss about, other than a warmer climate? The article attributes the increase in apps to the football culture, the lack of lockdowns that hampered student life up North and marketing by the institutions themselves. If your student goes South, will they stay after college? According to UNC data, two-thirds of grads wind up working in the state from which they graduate. ("The transplants are well-educated, motivated young workers at the least expensive points in their careers.”)
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Can AI really get you into Stanford?
Any responsible counselor needs to follow the impact of AI - not only how it's used by admissions but also how it's affecting the essay process. In Inside Higher Ed, we find out that two Stanford grads "compiled a data set of essays from students who’d gained admission to top-tier universities, including Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, and trained artificial intelligence models on those roughly 500 essays." They turned it into a business; a student can upload their essay, and the software will suggest enhancements, even edit for a fee! While many find the notion distasteful or even worse, others think it's just leveling the field (using AI just as others use private coaches). The AI does not write essays, and the essay is not the most important component of your student's candidacy. (The founders' notion: a personal statement "sets the trajectory for the rest of your life." ) We'll continue to watch as this market and college policies about AI use evolve.
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Yes, the parent network, reinforced by numerous sites and social media posts, is daunting. But don't fall for the stories. Go unCommon, and find out what's really going on!
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