It might be worth your reading through the seven pages of the article “Tense Times at Bronxville High.” It follows the exhaustive application process of three high school seniors: Win Rutherford, Maria Devlin, and Alexandra Likovich, all students at the highly competitive high school Bronxville High in New York.
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In Naomi Schaefer Riley’s January 2008 Wall Street Journal article A Desperate Need for Acceptance, she makes the point with Michele Hernandez’s advice in Acing the College Application that colleges don’t want well-rounded students—ones who captain athletic teams, who get all A’s, or who are leaders in high school activities. They want a well-rounded freshman class. That means each student the college accepts must offer some unique appeal. Ms Hernandez calls it passion, but it boils down to an unusual talent, experience, or expertise. Someone might speak Mandarin fluently, might gave played in a national recital, might have created her own on-line computer business.
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For freshman, college is an exciting period of time. For many, it is the first foray into the real world where independence is a new learning experience. Having the freedom to make daily, personal choices can be a big deal to students not used to having unlimited boundaries. New students, especially those far from home, will likely need to learn how to manage their own time to incorporate a new world of classes and work together with friendships and fun.
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Over a year ago Hillary Chura wrote Cracking the Books for Financial Aid to College in the New York Times. In the article she quoted Bari Norman, the director of an on-line Admissions Advisory Service. Collegebasics paraphrases: Don’t learn the tricks of applying for financial aid in the first inning; prepare yourself in the preseason, the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades.
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Thomas Sowell writes in the January 18th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education to look at the studies, or lack of studies, revolving around the idea that attending a selective college does, indeed, predict success. Certain statistics that he cites may disprove that theory. Consider that the CEOs of 50 of the largest corporations do not largely represent the Ivies. Only 4 CEOs graduated from an Ivy while over half of the CEOs attended post-secondary public schools like city colleges and community college. Small liberal arts colleges seem to do as well, too, exemplified by the fact that Grindell College tops Harvard and Yale in producing Ph.Ds. In fact, students who graduate from small liberal arts schools do as well as those from select colleges on medical entrance exams and in becoming Ph.Ds.
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Peter Vogt, an advisor to MonsterTrak, makes a definitive statement that internships are no longer optional but required. Vogt, who authored the book College to Career Roadmap, makes the point that for college students to prepare themselves for the competitive job market they need internship experience. In the New York Times article Who Will You Be This Summer? the internship is defined not as the summer job past generations held to make money but as a résumé building necessity, contact and connection building, and finding out about your future job from the bottom up. But, because the internship is so necessary today, it is more and more competitive. Unless you have family contacts, April 1 is the date by which you should have your summer “employment” lined up.
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In the January 6 Education Supplement of the New York Times, Tanya Mohn gave hints about keeping the cost of college visits down in her article If You Go…. It is very true that visiting colleges can add up to be an expensive undertaking, and Ms Mohn asks, “[And], who budgets for the college tour?”
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Last fall most of you, parents and students, were involved with ratings, rankings, profiles, and reputations to choose which colleges to apply to. Now you are looking forward to your acceptance. There may be great elations and great disappointments in those acceptances, but something to keep in mind is that in an article published last fall in the New York Times by Jacques Steinberg, what is clear is that alumni, five years removed from their college experience, were happy with their college choice—whether they went to a small or large school, an expensive or affordable school, or a private or public school.
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It seems like a long time off, the first fall of your son or daughter going off to college. It might, however, be time to prepare yourself(ves) now for the changes ahead. One thing you might not have thought of is that the Buckley Amendment, passed in 1974, has assured the fact that you can not see your son’s or daughter’s grades if he/she is 18 years or older.
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We have been reading a very good resource for assisting you in creating the best college application you can have. Michele Hernandez, an Ed.D and a former Assistant Director of Admissions at Dartmouth, is well-known for her sound advice about getting into competitive colleges. In her book Acing the College Application: How to Maximize your Chances for Admission to the College of your Choice, Hernandez covers a wide variety of topics in an easy-to-read book that offers terrific tips for applying to college. This book tells all about college applications. It covers the activity sheet, essay writing, what to send and what not to send, as well as types of recommendations and interviewing tips.
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