By: Valerie Erde
Don’t we all wish we could be a fly on the wall in those college admissions committee rooms? Jeff Selingo’s insightful and detailed book, Who Gets In And Why, A Year Inside College Admissions is the next best thing to being there, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look into the opaque “holistic” college admissions process.
In case you don’t want to read the whole book…I’ve provided my own takeaways, divided into four categories with main points and quotes for each: Big Picture Takeways, The High School Side, The College Admissions Business, and Your College Research & Application.
Big Picture (things you probably know, but…)
- “College admissions is a business – a big one – that you have very little control over.”
- The importance of academic rigor cannot be overstated — even for athletes.
- But you also need to show some sort of (sustained) interest or talent outside of your academics. (NB: only playing a sport isn’t enough for top schools.)
- Your 9th and/or 10th grade choices set the stage for your high school, and eventual, college admissions path. You cannot wait until junior year because it’s the “depth and consistency of your story” that matters.
- Getting “in” is not the endpoint. What you do in college – students and professors you meet, clubs you join, research and internships you do, is often much more important than where you go.
The High School Side
Course Rigor & Grades Are The Most Important Criteria To Ad Coms
- Take the most rigorous courses your school offers and that you can handle.
- Grades should either remain consistently excellent or go up, including Senior year.
- AP & IB courses are generally considered the most rigorous, but not all APs considered equal.
“Few things matter more to those reading applications than strength of schedule and grades. So don’t skip upper-level math courses just because you don’t like math.” [Pg. 270]
“The committee is looking for grades that are either consistently good throughout high school or on a steady rise from the start. What concerns them is a downward trend or one that is ‘spiky’” [Pg 142]
“…while she has taken eight of the 23 Advanced Placement courses offered by her high school, her mid-year grades include a C in AP Environmental Science, a course considered the easiest of senior-level advanced courses. [Pg. 2]
“AP Calculus in particular has become the strongest signal of preparedness for an elite college. In 2019, 97% of Harvard’s freshman class took AP or some form of calculus. [Pg. 168]
ACT/SAT/AP Scores Still Matter, Sometimes A Lot
- Test scores are considered an important metric when coupled with courses and grades.
- When test scores are significantly higher than grades, Ad Coms question a student’s effort; when they’re significantly lower, they question the high school’s rigor (grade inflation).
- Testing is one element you actually have some control over as late as mid-junior year (unlike your courses taken and grades by that point).
- Test Prep works for increasing scores, but private tutoring is more effective than classes.
“Even in holistic review, those three measurements [grades, course depth and breadth, test scores] provide admissions officers with the tools of a ‘rough sorting’ of applications — to separate competitive applicants from the not-so-competitive right off the bat.” [Pg. 168] Selective colleges favor grades and test scores because, when combined, the research shows that they predict college success better than either alone. [Pg. 176]
“The admissions officers I observed and those I talked with at other schools often use test scores as a counterbalance in their decision making – almost as a confirmation of the grades and high school curriculum The SAT and ACT merely supplement the grades/course rigor with more in-depth information on a student’s cognitive skills.” [Pg. 170]
“When the GPAs of applicants are all in the A range, it’s difficult for admissions officers to make distinctions among students. That’s when test scores offer another measure for interpreting grades and differentiating between applicants.” [Pg. 169]
“The test score is one significant metric applicants still have some control over during the college search. After all, it’s too late for a do-over for grades from sophomore year. And the courses teenagers take their senior year of high school are largely the result or their course schedule from back in eighth grade.” [Pg. 171]
“A 2018 study by researchers at the ACT found that the only significant increase in test scores came from those test takers who reported working with a private tutor.” [Pg. 63]
Interesting Extracurriculars (Plus Some Leadership) Are Vital
- Your stated academic interests should be reflected in your outside-of-school pursuits.
- Unique/Quirky interests help (e.g. student who played football and founded Botany Club [Pg. 90]
- Ad Coms are looking for sustained commitment.
“Solid activities, but more like a checklist than a deep commitment to any of them.” Nicole notes that the girl wants to be a doctor, but ‘lists no activities related to pre-med.’ Lupe suggests scoring the student a 3 out of 5 for activities. Nicole calls it a ‘weak 3.’ She wants to knock it down to a 2.” [Pg. 196]
“While this applicant is at the top of her class, it’s hard to suss out what she cares about. There’s a lot of member, member, member, and not a lot of leadership” Kortni Campbell, Davidson College.
“The applicant has strong grades and a rigorous curriculum, but the overall file was described as ‘lackluster’ by the original reader with ratings of 2 out of a possible 5 for both recommendations and intellectual curiosity.” [Pg. 3]
The College Admissions Business
Admissions Departments Are Marketing Departments (that lure you with slick branding and increasingly sophisticated data analytics).
“Sellers are the ‘haves’ of admissions.” (typically a brand name that signals [prestige in the job market and in social circles.” Buyers are the “have nots.” They may even provide an equal or better education, but their admissions people actually have to work to “fill classroom seats and beds in dorm rooms” {Pgs. 48- 49]
“College is a business and admissions is its chief revenue source” Richard Whitehouse, former admissions dean, Tulane, 2019” Pg. 40 and “Selling college in a necessity in an increasingly competitive industry. Admissions counselors are salespeople pitching a product to students, employed by colleges that need to meet a bottom line. “ [Pg 41]
“Your name is sold [by the college Board et al] on average 18 times and as much as 70 times.” [Pgs. 26-29]
“….universities use systems that track the movements of student through the university’s website and target them with personalized communications based on their interests.” Page 42 “There were female students with an interest in engineering and SAT scores above 1500 designated for MIT. Seniors from the Bos-Wash corridor for Wash U. Yale wanted teenagers keen on the humanities, the University of Miami family incomes above $100K and GPAs above 3.5.” [Pg. 28]
Student : “I just got an email from Princeton,” email encouraging her to apply, even though she had a 3.7 and 1350 SAT and would be rejected. She applied because she believed she was being recruited. [Pg. 31 ]
Early Decision May Benefit You - Or Not (but this merits an entire blog post. Read the book.)
- Though students can definitely benefit/improve their odds by applying early, the “move to move things up” mostly benefits the institution.
- Some institutions use EA/ED/EDII to manipulate their rankings and enrollment stats.
- ED is sometimes beneficial for highly risk-averse families.
“Early decision is a mechanism that from its start….has been fashioned to assist colleges in managing their application pools in uncertain times.” [Pgs. 119-1120]
“Early decision serves the needs of colleges and universities a hell of a lot more than it serves students” Chris Gruber, Davidson College [Pg. 138]
Your College Research & Application
Craft Your College List Thoughtfully: Try To Avoid “Peer Effects,” and Slick Branding (per above).
- Do the due diligence that an $80K - $240K investment merits.
- Try to avoid getting caught up in rankings and prestige and focus on what matters to you.
- Ask a lot of questions from undergraduates who attend schools that interest you as well as adults.
- Numbers matter. If your grades and scores are not above a college’s 50% percentile (unless you are being recruited or have some other outstanding talent e.g. YoYo Ma), think about whether the time and effort required for applying to that school makes sense.
“If students have only sellers on their list, they risk getting rejected from every school they apply to. Most sellers only offer financial assistance only to students who really need it or who are truly exceptional.” An example: UVA is a seller, Virginia Tech is a buyer, despite the fact that grads at both schools, on average, have nearly the same salaries 10 years out. [Pg. 51]
“If a list is top-heavy with ultra-selective schools, for instance, or fails to incorporate a mix of academics, social and financial factors from the start will fail to produce a good fit.”
“You should be above the 50% percentile of test scores, even if you have good grades and a solid curriculum to back up your scores, if you truly want to compete in the applicant pool of a top college.” [Pg. 171]
“My advice is that if you go to a competitive high school and aren’t a star student, be realistic about your college list. Understand who the buyers and sellers are on that list, especially if you can afford the tuition price.”
“Students are 20% more likely to apply to colleges for which they can access scattergrams than college without. What’s the problem? Colleges only get displayed if the HS as at least 5-10 students applied there in the prior year. [Pgs. 38-39]
If Demonstrated Interest Is Important, Demonstrate Yours
“Many colleges track how many emails you open and how quickly, if you’re following them on social media, whether or not you go when rep visits your school, if you’ve toured the campus (assuming you can afford that).
“The response to that [why us] essay on [the application] is most important for him in measuring an applicant’s interest” [Pg. 125]
College Essays Matter, But Not As Much As You Think
- Average total application read is 5-10 minutes, so essays are usually scanned.
“The effort applicants spend writing their essays (and the fees parents pay to have them edited) is often inversely proportional to the time admissions officers devote to reading them. Admissions officers scan essays. When one grabs their attention, they’ll have a closer read. Essays help lift candidates at the margins; they very rarely are the thing that gets the applicant tin. The best essays are honest slice-of-life stories both entertaining and serious, that tell admissions officers something they don’t learn from another part of the application.” [Pg .193]
About Valerie Erde of Veridian Prep:
VeridianPrep is an academic tutoring and test prep company that combines years of subject expertise and experience with evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning. VeridianPrep’s strengths lie in quickly determining each student’s strengths and gaps to offer a personalized, and results-oriented approach that builds skills and confidence to help teens succeed not only in a single class or test, but also in their next journey -- college. Currently, VeridianPrep covers all levels of Math, English, Chemistry, and Physics including AP/ACT/SAT/SAT II, meeting one-on-one with students at home, in offices in Greenwich, CT/NYC, or online. https://www.veridianprep.com
If you are interested in speaking with Valerie Erde, or other advisors at Versed about helping students discover their interests and pursue meaningful activities, please contact us.
For additional information and insights, check out our blog:
Top 5 Books on College Admissions for those just getting started…
Entrepreneurship Opportunities for High School Students
12 Things Middle Schoolers Can Do This Summer
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