Research Opportunities
Ralph Becker
The Importance of High School Research

Many applicants to the most selective university programs share high grades, high test scores, solid recommendations and generous doses of community service and volunteer activities. Yet, if they want to set themselves apart from the pool of exceptional students, a significant research experience in STEM or the social sciences helps.

The Importance of High School Research

Admissions factors

Interpreting a Survey of College Admissions Directors

Interpreting a Survey of College Admissions Directors

The life of an admissions director is not an easy one; a look through The 2014 Survey of College Admissions Directors confirms this reality.

The survey was conducted by Gallup (of political polling fame) using questions created by Inside Higher Education, a very useful online postsecondary news website.  A statistically significant response of admissions directors, only one per school, from a range of colleges and universities, addressed recruiting, standardized tests, financial aid and student debt among a number of issues.

 

Tracking Admission’s Yields

Tracking Admission’s Yields

One metric for keeping score on the vibrancy of a college is its yield rate: the percent of students who have been accepted who do, in fact, attend. 

In 2014, Harvard edged out Brigham Young University by 0.1%, to enjoy the highest yield in the country. BYU, which has been the yield champion in several prior years, accepts slightly fewer than half of those who apply, has a 19:1 student/faculty ratio, and tuition and room and board under $13,000. Great education, great football, and access to the Wasatch National Forest enable it to get 80% of those accepted to come.

 

Accessing your Admissions File: Fountain Hopper and FERPA

Accessing your Admissions File: Fountain Hopper and FERPA

An anonymous newsletter and website at Stanford named Fountain Hopper, has pulled together a five-step process for students to gain access to all their admissions records, including comments written by the admissions officers, under FERPA.  

When FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) was enacted into law in 1974, its intent was to protect the privacy of students and ensure that students have the right to access their educational records and challenge the content, if necessary, while preventing the release of the records to unauthorized third parties.

The Admissions Game

The Admissions Game

Some people apply to the most selective schools as if it were the lottery.  

One such recent case is that of Kwasi Enin. The son of Ghanian immigrants, Kwasi hit the proverbial jackpot by first applying to all eight Ivy League schools, and then, having scored a 2,250 on his SAT and placed #11 out of a class of 647 at William Floyd School, a public high school on Long Island, getting in to all eight.

The Harvard Admissions Process and the Import of the Essay

The Harvard Admissions Process and the Import of the Essay

Getting into Harvard with its 5.9% admissions rate is like winning the lottery.

After receiving over 34,000 applications this last admissions cycle (down 2% from last year), even an admissions office as sophisticated as Harvard’s admits there is a lot more art than science in the final admissions decisions. Don’t, however, dismiss the elaborate admissions decision process Harvard runs through each fall: it goes to great lengths to ensure all candidates receive a thorough and holistic review.

The College Gender Gap

The College Gender Gap

The gender gap at many colleges continues to expand.

In 1960, 35% of all bachelor degrees went to females; by 2010, this percentage had increased to 57%. This is not solely a US anomaly: in all 17 OECD countries the female share of the college population and degrees awarded has exploded.

An Interview with the Admissions Director from Grinnell College (Iowa)

An Interview with the Admissions Director from Grinnell College (Iowa)

Grinnell, since its inception in 1846, has been a leader of ‘progressive’ movements of many sorts: it was the first college west of the Mississippi River to grant degrees to women and blacks. Today Grinnell, which is located in the rural corn fields of Iowa about an hour from Des Moines and Iowa City, continues its progressive tradition

NACAC's 14 Key Factors in the Admission Decision

NACAC's 14 Key Factors in the Admission Decision

The 2,600 four-year colleges in the United States are a mish mash of public, private, religious, and secular schools with their own unique, independent admissions requirements. Consequently, distilling a list of factors that might provide uniformity across their admissions practices is not easy, nor uniformly accurate. Regardless, the NACAC (National Association of College Admissions Counselors) periodically performs such a survey across this vast collegiate universe and posits the most important factors into a list called the ‘Factors in the Admission Decision.”