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.
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
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.”
Early admissions applications are becoming ever more prominent. This last December, Ivy College Prep, LLC helped students get accepted into Notre Dame early action (EA), and Brown, early decision (ED). Under early action (EA), the admitted applicant is free to apply to any other school and has until May 1st to make a final decision. Early Decision (ED), on the other hand, binds: if accepted the applicant’s admissions process is over.
During the 2010-2011 admissions cycle, over 1.8 million Common Applications were submitted to its 414 member colleges. With this coming application season, the Common Application will have 461 members including such new schools as USC, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and now St. Andrews of Scotland, the alma mater of Prince William and Kate. With such vast numbers of applications firing out across cyberspace, or through the mail, one has to admire the abilities of admissions offices to carefully evaluate all the applications flooding their offices.
Thirteen years ago, Michelle Hernandez, a former assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth College, wrote her groundbreaking work on the selective school admission process, A is for Admission. The book contained a revelation about the existence of the academic index that is used prominently by seven of the eight Ivy League schools to rate applicants.
There are a lot of college application admission options. It’s a bit daunting at first: should you apply “Early Decision,” "Early Action," "Early Action Single Choice," or "Regular Decision"? Probably the best first step is to go to the website of each potential school and review the applicable restrictions and deadlines. If you want an up to date list of which schools offer these options (or a combination of them) go to: http://www.nacac.com/college-search/search.cfm. In the meantime, however, it's not a bad idea to gain a general sense of how each of these options works.
Many students become overwhelmed when it comes time to create a list of prospective colleges. Most have never done anything like this before: How do you get started? What criteria do you need? Among the 2,400 potential schools, which are the best matches? The best starting point, ironically, is not with the colleges but with the student.
