Summer was a time for change in college admission. Here are a few of those changes, and what they might mean to school counselors as they advise their students:
Testing Less Optional Several high profile colleges announced they are once again asking students to submit ACT and SAT scores when applying for admission. Since these colleges are among the handful mainstream media covers to death, it’s easy to think this is a trend.
It isn’t. A report from FairTest indicates about 90 percent of all colleges are still test optional, including some of the more popular ones. Some school counselors may still urge students to take a test to keep their options open, but if your students largely fit the bill of applying to colleges within 150 miles from home, knowing their policies is the best place to build your college counseling strategy.
The $100,000 Colleges National media also seemed to have a field day with the colleges where the cost of attendance pushed into six figures. Many of these articles fail to explain how few students actually pay full freight, aiming for the Chicken Little approach towards college costs that leads to fear, misunderstanding, and lots of parents who decide they can’t afford college without even bothering to look into all the options.
There are 16 colleges that pass the 100K benchmark, leaving the number of colleges under that price at, well, almost all of them. In the 1950s, average college tuition was about the cost of a new Chevrolet. Today, average college tuition is about—the cost of a new Chevrolet. Cars may cost too much today as well, but this should still be enough to begin a down-to-earth conversation about college affordability.
Want to Come Here? Great! Efforts are underway to increase college applicants, a result of the upcoming decline in high school graduates. The state of Michigan joined these efforts this summer with MI College Match, a program where qualified students fill out some basic information, including interests and their preferred college options, submit a transcript, and wait to hear back from any or all of the 21 public and private Michigan colleges participating in the program. No formal application, no essays, no letters of recommendation.
Similar to direct admission programs offered by Common Application and the state of Alabama, MI College Match is only open to students attending high schools involved with programming at the Michigan College Access Network, an organization focusing on growing college access for first gen and low-income students. The challenge for participating colleges is evaluating these applicants against those who will still be submitting a traditional application with all the trimmings. If they can make this work, it could mean a big shift in how students choose colleges.
AI and College Essays Application essays have fallen under greater scrutiny with the arrival of Artificial Intelligence, a tool that makes it much easier for students to let a computer come up with the right way to write their way into college. Early AI detection software doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, leaving admissions offices wondering what to do—not that they need it, since admissions officers have long been good at sorting out essays 17-year-olds couldn’t possibly write.
Still, help them out by making this your policy about AI, and promoting it heavily:
“Colleges expect all applicants to be the writers of their college essays—not the primary writer or chief editor, but the actual writer. Don’t use another person, or a computer, to write, or even help write your college essays. Self-discovery is hard, but it’s important. Write them yourself.”
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