The College Interview—A Reliable Step in the Admission Process

by Nicholas Amato, Jr.

Our guest columnist is Nicholas Amato, a veteran of the college world, who has a different view on how to take Artificial Intelligence out of the admissions equation.

As we see more and more colleges opt to be test optional, the essay is playing a major role in the admissions process. That leads many parents seeking the help of professionals that will work alongside their child in constructing a well written and thoughtful essay. Along those same lines,

The New York Times reported colleges are now wrestling with a new app that will construct a writing assignment from a general outline on any topic. I believe this app will be another resource that may enter the picture.

Colleges may want to start realizing that they may have to rely on another criterion that will clearly illustrate if the applicant is worthy of admission. Let’s not reinvent the wheel; how about The College Interview.

For years, many colleges have used the interview as part of their selection process. Since the beginning of time, employers count on personal meetings to choose the right person for the job. The interview is equal for all, meaning that those who cannot afford to seek help in writing a college essay, can now rely on their personal skills to illustrate their enthusiasm for a college, as well as put forth their particular qualities.

Of course, how in the world can a college interview every applicant? As a former college rep, with the help of college alumni, we spent months on the road meeting with groups of students. The advertising and marketing during the recruiting season was expensive, long, but rewarding. To this day, my personal relationships with particular students stand out in my mind. I can recall their personal qualities and easily match those with their transcripts, activity resumes, as well as their family relationships. I would say, they are the most important student qualities a college is looking for. 

Instead of college reps spending countless hours reading essays, have them spend that time with students. Colleges can be more personal in the process by using a pandemic favorite, Zoom. This allowed us all to maintain our work, and relationships by communicating efficiently in a safe and personal environment.

What can colleges learn from a personal interview?

• The college can distinguish applicants that may look the same from letters of recommendations, transcripts and other application materials.
• The student and college have a chance to build a personal relationship
• The college can evaluate the student in terms of their genuine interest for their college.
• The college and the student can exchange information about their intended major which will result in a better transition to the college and future occupation(s).
• The college can have a better understanding of the student’s strengths and weaknesses…academically and socially.
• The college is able to evaluate the communication skills of the student.
• The college can provide an equal playing field for all students regardless of socio-economic status.

The admission process has been a long-overplayed discussion. We keep looking for the answer to this question…“What is the best method of getting a true evaluation of a student’s ability?” Simply talk to them.

Nick is a retired teacher, school counselor, Director of Guidance and central office administrator. He is the president of NA Consultants Inc. which specializes in school counseling programs and general curriculum, as well as college counseling. He has also served many districts as an interim school administrator. He is a former President of the Suffolk County Guidance Directors Association, member of NYSSCA and is a consultant to Frontline Education for GuidanceDirect in New York State.

The Return of the SAT Essay?

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

It didn’t take long for the worlds of artificial intelligence and college admissions to meet—or, depending on your perspective, collide. Computers have long played an important role in admissions, but the skillset AI brings to the table leaves all kinds of areas where technology can do what humans are currently doing, typically much more quickly.

AI has recently reared its head in our world in an area many hadn’t expected. A recent article in Forbes fed a couple of college essays to a computer, then handed the results to a few admissions experts to evaluate. A couple of the essays didn’t exactly follow the logistics of the assignment, leaving at least one essay several hundred words short of the limit. Those reviewed by the experts were viewed as flat and soulless, a description that makes sense, since part of a good college admissions essay includes narrative based on life experiences a computer doesn’t have.

Nonetheless, the issue has raised the attention of more than a few admissions officers, leading them to ask—once the kinks are worked out, will the college admissions essay have outlived its purpose?

Discussions about this issue have taken some interesting turns, with more than a few pundits suggesting a return of the SAT Writing Exam. College Board scuttled the exam in 2021, largely due to the very few colleges requiring it at the time. In the event AI programs are capable of creating student-quality essays, there are some sound logistical reasons to consider bringing at least the format of the writing exam back into the fold:

Authenticity The old writing exam may have had its challenges, but at least the colleges knew who wrote the answer. Having students write an admissions essay in the presence of an SAT test supervisor—or on a secure website where they can’t leave the writing portion of the test—takes care of many of those concerns.

Uniformity A common complaint with the current college essays is that some students have the luxury of hiring essay coaches, tutors, and others to strengthen the quality of the essay. A return to the writing exam format would still allow students to engage in practice essays prior to the test date, but the finished item would be created by all students in the same period of time.

That said, very few tears were shed when the writing exam was terminated. If the format is brought back to life, College Board would need to consider:

Subject Many colleges use the college essay as a personal statement, asking students to draw on their thoughts, observations, and life history in crafting a thoughtful essay. Prompts of the old writing exam tended to stay with facts and provable instances. 

Length of exam period It isn’t uncommon for students to spend hours on several drafts of college essays, while the old writing exam asked students to come up with one draft in less than an hour. Graders of the exam were trained to keep these limitations in mind, but is it really reasonable to expect a student to produce a high-quality personal essay in less time than it takes to make a pizza?

Grading Some questioned how the old exams were scored, with some claiming the rubric used had little to do with the elements of a quality college essay.

As the Forbes article points out, we’re unlikely to see a world where admissions decisions are made entirely by computers. Still, AI is just a few tweaks away from requiring reconsideration of the college admissions essay. This is going to be interesting.

The Common Bond That Ties

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

A representative from College Board was talking about some boilerplate changes to the SAT—changes in registration procedures, notifications of new products—but she held almost all her enthusiasm for what she clearly saw as a big deal.

“As you know, we’ll be recentering the SAT this year” she gushed, even though she was battling a head cold. “We’re very excited about all the prospects this change will have for students, counselors, and colleges”, and she discussed those in great detail.

We took a break, and I felt compelled to share the excitement she had generated in me. “This is really quite something,” I started once I got to the front of the room, “College Board is really taking a giant step in creating an SAT that will be free of the cultural, gender and racial biases of past tests.”

It had been a while since someone looked at me like I was stupid, but here we were. She said something like “We’re recentering the test, not redesigning it. If we did that, there would be no way colleges could compare scores on the new test with scores from the old test. We’re happy to make sure the distribution of scores is accurate, but we aren’t going to change the test.”

If I was a classroom teacher, and my principal came in to tell me my teaching practices showed racial, cultural, and gender bias, the last thing I would do is say, in essence “I know, and I’m going to keep doing that.” But even in the face of overwhelming evidence, College Board was not only admitting these practices existed; they seemed almost proud that they were going to continue. I left the update, hoping a future meeting would bring the news of the changes I thought College Board needed to complete.

That was in 1984, and I’m still waiting. This isn’t to say College Board has no regard for students of color, first gen students, and females. They offer many services and programs designed to bring students from these groups into the fold, with many of these products amounting to some kind of inside-baseball look at the SAT. That’s nice, I guess, but it reminds me of winter driving in Michigan. You’ll avoid catastrophe if you know where the potholes are, but wouldn’t it be better just to fix the street?

Test optional advocates cite this as one of the biggest reasons to give up on standardized tests, and have some early evidence to suggest some test optional schools have seen an increase in student diversity since making the change. This is welcome news, to be sure, but as our colleague Jon Boeckenstedt has pointed out on more than one occasion, nearly every aspect of holistic admission has a built-in bias that favors the well-to-do. It’s more than fair to think an essay-free, recommendation-free admissions process might also advance the goal of increased diversity, but even a grades-only admission policy would have some significant economic biases.

Beyond that, Jon has occasionally raised a question our profession is hesitant to answer. If we found an admissions process that was more streamlined and open to all, how eagerly would we embrace it, knowing that it would spell the end of a need for writing coaches, test prep coaches, and many aspects of the work of college counselors? At a time when many in our profession are eager to hurl stones at College Board, it gives one pause to consider how much our self-interest may, like College Board, lead us to be comfortable with half solutions.

The Brussels Sprouts of College Admissions

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

New Year’s Day is kind of quiet around my house. Not quiet, as in “everyone breathe quietly, Daddy’s head hurts when he even blinks”. It’s more like the quiet that comes once the rush of something big is over. Like the quiet of eating pumpkin pie for breakfast by yourself the day after Thanksgiving, or finishing off the last bacon-wrapped date after the admitted student event. It’s a time to revel, a time to dream without feeling compelled to look ahead— a time to just be.

That was how this New Year’s started, with a roaring fire that started at noon and stayed til ten; taking the second-to-last pizzelle a lifelong friend makes every year; the understated elegance of making a familiar but rarely used menu.

Except for the Brussels sprouts. I have detested this vegetable since the womb, and my view is only hardened by two facts:

1. This is a vegetable that has multiple names, and people argue over which one is right

2. Every treatment of them results in the same effect— tasteless, unchewable matter.

My wife slipped them on the menu to placate our youngest, whose palate was not inclined toward any of the other dishes. Knowing ahead of time my portion of these green golf balls would go untouched only seemed to steel her resolve to serve them.

In the spirit of the day, I tried one. Just the right amount of garlic, melty parmesan, and a hint of an olive oil I was certain I didn’t want to know the price of. I ate them all.

I’m tempted to address another item on our New Year’s menu (who on earth named them “funeral potatoes?”), but you’ve come looking for college admissions ideas, so here goes.

Planned change is the Brussels sprouts of college admissions. Things do change in college admissions, but these changes tend to be nuanced tweaks in response to current application trends, or sudden, not-so-subtle declarations from an incoming college president. The recent switch to test-optional admissions by hundreds of colleges over the last few years was more of a shotgun wedding than the result of a prolonged engagement, so that doesn’t count as planned.

It's both necessary and important to be flexible at a moment’s notice, but some changes require more time, research, and discussion in order to be implemented and effective. Our distaste for long-term change has either slowed or wiped out efforts to make important changes in the admissions and enrollment process, like:

1. Changes to the FAFSA, which will finally be welcomed by all some three decades after calls to simplify this labyrinth;

2. Creation of a common Student Aid Report students could compare offers across colleges without the need of a spreadsheet;

3. Expanding college access to include more students who don’t consider college as a viable option.

It’s easy to see why systemic change is the high school senior no one wants to ask to prom—planned change requires discussing the nature of our work with those who don’t see it the way we do, gathering data, and the risk of the change not working.

All of this may be true, but the birthrate decline we’ve known about for years is on its way. That means fewer students heading to college, unless the percentage of college-bound graduates goes up. There’s no other way to get past this zero-sum game; it’s time to make plans for bringing more students into the fold, or many colleges will fold. Let’s begin.

And if you have any leads on that funeral potatoes thing, do let me know.

The 2022 Year in Review

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

In a year where everyone pretended COVID isn’t a thing, the college counseling world saw a modest return to a sense of normal that is somewhat unfounded. Here are the highlights:

Welcome to the Family, Test Optional The honeymoon period after the COVID-based shotgun wedding between test optional admissions and thousands of colleges has led to some settling in that’s unsettling. While some colleges are returning to requiring tests, those that were forced to join the test optional bandwagon in 2020 seem to have found a way to assimilate the twist into what is, in essence, the same admissions process as before. 

The little data out there suggests gains in admission at some test-optional colleges among students of color and underserved populations—good news and overdue. In addition, many colleges are reporting that submitted scores are higher than the college saw pre-pandemic. Combined with the alarming difference in admit rates between students who submit scores and those who don’t, and it’s clear that the admissions revolution test optional was supposed to present has been somewhat muted—testing still matters a great deal. Test or don’t test, all colleges should do a data-heavy analysis of their policy in 2023, and share that widely—it’s time to stop guessing about numbers. 

Increase in Applications, Part I True growth in college admissions continues to be stunted in large part by the ever-increasing application rates at the 25 colleges Main Street Journalism covers. While some regional colleges have seen enrollment declines of 40%, the Big Schools continue to have record crowds, with a few seeing minor declines that raise their admit rate from 5% to what the public sees as a “Hey, they’ll take anybody” rate of 7%.

Some professionals have called out these colleges, urging them to embrace an “enough is enough” approach to marketing, but that’s not the real problem. A few years back, high school parents were asked what the average tuition was at four-year colleges. They responded on average by saying $40,000, when the average was, in fact, $12,500. Where do parents get these ideas? From media sources who continue to conflate cost and admit rate with selectivity and match. I’ll offer any media member a two-hour seminar on how to cover college admissions. The way it’s currently being done is tearing the fabric of our society.

Increase in Applications, Part II The average student is now applying to more colleges. Between needing to find the best deal, and perhaps continued reticence to wander too far away from home due to COVID, students are placing their bets across a wider number of venues. This leads to the question, “How well do these students actually know these places?” The answer lies in uncertain waters, but a big part of it undoubtedly lies with…

School Counselors and Duties Data from the effect COVID had on student learning and affect has led policy makers to make lots—and I mean Bill Gates-type lots—of money for school mental health programs. The good news is that means more school counselors are being hired. Unfortunately, that usually means less time is being spent on college advising.

It makes no sense to send students to college if they are less than emotionally ready to take it on. On the other hand, there is much to be said for using the college selection process to set goals and aspirations to inspire the student to return to a greater sense of self. College counseling is an essential part of mental health treatment. Here’s hoping more people feel that way in the coming year.

Have a great holiday.

Test-optional Admissions and Data

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

Test-optional admissions is once again in the news, as a prominent college announced last week they would once again require submission of test scores starting for everyone applying in Fall, 2023. This announcement adds to the small, but in some cases notable, number of colleges that have announced a return to testing.

Like the announcements before it, this notice is raising the hackles of many respected members of the college counseling community. Their rationale is fairly sound; the tests have long been accused of being racially and socially biased, and claims exist that suggest students can prepare for the tests in a way that improves their score, but not the understanding of the content.

I’ve been a big champion of test-optional admissions, and still am—if the test score really doesn’t add anything relevant to the application, why are we asking students to take them? At the same time, both sides of the test-optional movement have been, and continue to be, extremely lax in the presentation of data supporting their side of the issue. Counselors know numbers don’t always tell the story of a student’s ability to learn and contribute to a college campus, but taking a stand on this issue without a serious look at data ignores a big part of the story.

And why doesn’t data play a more prominent role? Well…

Colleges simply don’t have it, Part I. Many test-optional colleges made their decision to abandon testing due to COVID. Their rationale was largely pragmatic; if a bright student can’t take the test, they can’t earn a score—and if we require a score, we can’t admit them. The dire circumstances of the testing access experienced at the height of COVID made the test-optional decision easier; without it, no score means no students, and no students means no college.

Colleges simply don’t have it, Part II. Since then, the colleges that went test optional have all kinds of data they could use to measure the need for tests. Creating an institutional definition of student success, it wouldn’t be hard to compare grades, test scores, degree completion, satisfaction with the college experience and more. The college announcing its intention to require testing claims to have done just this—kind of. The press release they sent said they had “evidence” test scores helped predict student success, but anyone who’s taken a stats course knows there’s a huge gap between evidence and data. The two simply aren’t the same. (It turns out the college did use data, making one wonder why they didn’t announce it in the press release.)

Colleges don’t want to know if data matters or not. The best defense I ever heard from a college regarding required submission of test scores went something like this. We’re a very big school, and most students will take almost all of their first two years of classes where the sole means of assessment is a multiple choice test. If an applicant doesn’t “test well” with the ACT or SAT, why would we expect them to do well at our college?

That’s not a bad argument, but without data, it’s too easy to have the claim “make sense” and not test it out, since any test that suggested there was no such relationship puts the college in a rough spot.

All of this reinforces my current stand on testing—if you think you need it, prove it with rigorously applied data. If you’re not going to do that, let’s continue to make college more accessible by leaving the tests out of the admissions equation.

The Number One Reasons Many Colleges Don’t Admit You

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

This is a time of great waiting and wondering by high school seniors who are eager to hear about their college applications. Despite assurances from the grown ups that students have worked hard and made good choices, there is an abyss between hitting Send and hearing back that often gets filled by one question: Will I get in?

If these same caring adults have been honest with their seniors, the real answer here is “It depends”. In case they were hoping for something more than two words of, um, assurance, why not try a review of the key factors for most (that’s most) applicants:

Numbers  Colleges and counselors go out of their way to assure students there’s more to an application than grades and, sometimes, test scores. That’s absolutely true; at the same time, there’s only so much the other parts of the application can do to help an applicant with a C+ average to a college that generally admits students with a high A average.

This tends to be less true with test scores, since most colleges quietly admit students can coach their way to higher results of a three-hour exam. Overlooking three years of grades is quite another matter. Don’t get me wrong—applying with a 3.4 to a schools where the average admit has a 3.6 is more than reasonable. But once we get to a difference of more than a full point, the rest of the file would have to be something exceptional.

Writing  Too many students overlook the role of essays and personal statements. This is as close as you’re going to get to having a conversation with the admissions office, and you want that to go well, since grades show them what they’re admitting, but essays can show them who they’re admitting—and the human touch is a big deal.

This is also the only element of the application you have control of as a senior. Your grades are pretty well established by then, as are your relationships with the teachers writing letters on your behalf. Essays are the space that allows them to understand the real, current you.

Nothing  The number one reason many colleges turn down an applicant has nothing to do with the student—the college is simply not big enough to admit all the qualified students who would do wonderful things on campus. Most students don’t really understand this, responding to this idea with something along the lines of “Well, they admitted (fill in name of student the student knows) and didn’t admit me. What did they have that I don’t?”

This gets hard. The other student may be from South Dakota, and the college needs geographic balance. You are a neuroscience major, and they had more of those this year than they expected. The college decided to beef up its Latin program, and that’s not who you are. These institutional considerations aren’t usually talked about, because the college often doesn’t know they exist until they review the entire pool of applicants—so they can’t possibly tell you ahead of time. Discouraging? You bet. But that’s why caring adults help students build lists that have more than one college—in case a college on your lists simply runs out of room.

The bottom line? Let the colleges do their thing, and get back to class. If they do admit you, they won’t want you spending a single day on their campus worrying about the future. Don’t do that now. You’ve done what you can to find great next schools. Now is the time to trust yourself, and move forward.