College Admission in Five Years? We’re Already There

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

I delved into the article with rapt attention, since it promised to deliver the keys to college admissions in 2030. Once I was done, here’s what I had gleaned:

• An increase in the use of portfolios.

• A decrease in the use of personal statements, since they will soon be written by someone other than the student.

• Utilization of information for student potential, so “(S)tudents who blossom later, or whose potential isn’t captured by exam performance alone, might finally get noticed.

• The prediction that “By 2030, applying to a university halfway across the world will be as seamless as applying to one down the road.”

• All of this, the article says, suggests that “For parents, it might mean a shift in focus from chasing prestige to finding the right personal fit”, and that the key to admissions in 2030 will be, in one word—trust.

Popular colleges have long had processes in place that go beyond test scores and grades to get to the essence of a student. Personal statements are part of that mix, but recognizing the significant “editing” of these essays by others, there are other means of verification of the student’s profile, including counselor letters and teacher letters, as well as a place where students can refer colleges to websites, research, and other artifacts to support their applications.

Since about 1/3 of the students at my last high school came from outside the US, I’m pretty aware of how fluid the college application process is beyond our borders—to the point that, if it gets much more fluid, we many need some serious paper towels.

And in terms of parents—is there any college counselor or advisor who doesn’t approach their work from the perspective of what’s best for the student? Sure, some parents are overly wed to the name of a school, and not what it has to offer. But that’s as true for parents who want their incredibly talented child to stay close to home, and not bother applying to top tier schools. The work there is all about good counseling.

I understand our world—both the one we live in and the one we work in—is all aflutter over the impact AI is having now, and could have in the future, and it may be I’ve just seen too many fads to get stirred up about this just yet. But portfolios were supposed to be a game changer 20 years ago; are we supposed to believe that’s going to change since they’ll soon be digitized? Are AI-generated essays really going to be that much harder to discern than the ones Mom and Dad write now? And let’s not forget the doom and gloom of two years ago that predicted the College Boardization of FAFSA. It’s still ticking as a federal entity, and rolled out early this year.

This field changes dramatically every year, to be sure, but it’s too easy to get caught up in the potential damage of those changes than it is to focus on what still matters, and always has mattered in this work. When that happens, do yourself a favor. Read this page from the Colleges That Change Lives website, and ask yourself two questions.

What part of that will, or needs to, change by 2030?

What college or college counselor/adviser doesn’t aspire to deliver this now, and will do so in five years?

I hope that makes you feel better if the future bothers you.

My wishes for a restful holiday, and hopes that we all work together for an even more peaceful new year.

College Admissions Based on Mission? Um…

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

Ever wonder why colleges take who they take, when they have a chance to be choosy? Posted on Georgia Tech’s admissions website, an article suggests the real driving factor behind admissions is the school’s mission, or the reason the college says it exists. Yes, you could be a great student with high grades in AP Everything who was president of every club in your high school. Still, if your essays and teacher letters don’t indicate that you understand the college’s reason for existence, the Georgia Tech piece implies that would be reason enough for them not to take you, since their review process would likely reveal that there isn’t a “fit” between what the reason the college exists, and what you have to offer.

So, the article puts together a nice argument, with only one small problem. Admission at most colleges doesn’t work like this at all. Instead, it depends on other factors that are a little more basic, but somehow more complicated—like:

How many people apply. The article tries to emphasize the role of mission at highly selective colleges. This suggests that if these same colleges only had 600 applicants for 500 seats, they’d likely take everybody, no matter what their essays said. That doesn’t make their decisions based on mission; it makes them based on numbers. Simply put, they don’t take everyone who applies, because they don’t have to.

What the college is looking for. An Ivy League admissions office once told me “If we’re graduating three hockey goalies this year, and you’re a high school senior applying as a hockey goalie, your chances of admission just went way up.” So what happens if the essays in the hockey goalie’s application don’t reveal a deep understanding of the school’s mission? Is this still a fit? Does the field goal kicker they don’t need get denied, even if his soul is the manifestation of the college’s mission in the flesh?

Rankings. On-site decisions and the rise in early application programs all point to a desire on the college’s part to attract more applicants, even though very few colleges are actually enrolling more students than they were ten years ago.

What’s behind the need to do that, if admissions decisions are driven by mission, and not by rankings? Is it impossible to be a solid B+ student and have a better understanding of a school’s mission than your National Honor Society counterpart? If not, why are so many highly selective colleges now denying so many—in fact, nearly all-- the B+ students who used to fulfill the college’s mission with distinction?

When most families start looking at colleges, they think the admission process is simple—take strong classes, get good grades, make sure your test scores are strong, join a few clubs, and you’re good to go. That perception works at an incredible number of colleges, but the highly selective colleges have a process that’s less clear, because they don’t have to take everyone who applies. It would be easy to assign this cause to the college’s mission, but that doesn’t reflect reality—and it also doesn’t explain why all kinds of schools say no to some B students and say yes to C students who average 21 points a game.

It would be great if mission was the only reason college admissions doesn’t seem fair, but it isn’t. Like life, it’s more complicated than that, and our students deserve an explanation more representative of that complexity.

Students—Clean Up Your Social Media Presence

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

There are three key technology rules when it comes to applying to college:

1. Create a new email account just for the messages that will be sent to and from colleges.
2. Check this email daily until you start college. There will be links to completing transcripts, notices of missing application parts, and more that will require immediate action.
3. Clean up any and all social media pages you have.

Students, you tend to get the first two. Email may be old-school to you, but this is how most colleges contact you, even once you enroll. This makes it easy to keep track of college contacts, and it's probably all for the best colleges not know your personal e-mail address is ladiesgoforme@mymail.com

But try and talk the pluses of website maintenance to you, and you’re convinced your counselor roamed the Earth with dinosaurs. You insist colleges don't care about social media accounts, and are too busy to check them — to prove it, students will ask colleges if they look, and the colleges will say no.

Fair enough — except when I asked a college if they looked, their answer was "Do you really think I'd tell you if we did?"

Or, worse yet — “We don’t check, but if we hear about one that’s especially bad, we look.”

Play it safe. Rough language, risky pictures — even having an account under another name — can hurt you and anyone else who's in those questionable photos with you. Once you've tidied up yours, ask your friends to take anything off their pages that makes you look iffy. After that, search for yourself on the web, and see what's there. You might not need to address it or be able to do anything about it, but it's better for you to know before the colleges do.

And even if the colleges don't look, they sometimes find out in very remote ways that can do serious damage...

(Based on a true story that happened somewhere else.)

Now Daisy thought she was all that
She knew she was a winner
A 3.9, a 32
The gal was no beginner.
Took five APs and tutored, too
Her homework was a snap
Spent most nights on the media
Just dishin' out some smack
She posted pix of homecoming
Her folks would see as knockouts
But dog, they'd never seen them, since
Her Instagram was blocked out

You can't imagine her surprise
When her counselor said "Hey Daisy
I got a call from East Coast U
The news will make you crazy!
The U was ready to admit
When in arrived their intern
'The buzz is all on Insta, man
These pics will make your hands burn.'
The intern loaded up the page
Of some homecoming hijinks
And in the photo, there was you—
Which made our rep do eye blinks.

"They saw your picture once or twice
And thought they'd overlook it
But then they read your online smack
And that's what really cooked it.
Your essays were all erudite
And very nicely tailored
But then they saw the real you
Has language like a sailor.
They read your app and loved you, girl,
It's you they were admittin'
But now they said they just can't take
A profane party kitten."

So dudes and dudettes, hear me out
Few colleges go lookin'
But if bad Instagrams are seen
That just can't be mistooken
Your full ride dough, your dream admit
Are goin' down the tank—gone!
And all because you tried to be
A social media icon.