Happy Father’s Day this weekend to all the dads being celebrated! And I apologize that we are posting on Saturday instead of Friday - I was basically going nonstop all day every day last week with rising senior meetings!
BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY PHASES OUT “COLONIALS” NAME
GW has committed to doing away with the “Colonials” moniker by the 2023-2024 school year, in response to criticism that the name glorifies colonialism. The announcement is the result of two years of committee deliberations on the name, as well as the name of the Student Center on campus (which was renamed last year). The change won’t impact only the sports teams, but also services on campus like the “Colonial Health Center” and “Colonial Cash” dining dollars. 44% of students voted against the name, versus 43% who voted in favor.
FINAL VARSITY BLUES VERDICT
The final parent charged in connection with the Operation Varsity Blues scandal was acquitted yesterday of charges that he bribed the Georgetown tennis coach with $200,000 cash to treat his daughter as a recruit. This is a surprise in the string of Varsity Blues trials that have led to guilty verdicts earlier this year.
MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR 529 ACCOUNT
As college tuition bills start to come due, many families are finding smaller balances in their 529 accounts after the stock market decline. This article provides some strategies that you can use if you are looking at a 529 balance that is no longer sufficient to fund your student’s education.
COLLEGE ENROLLMENT ISSUES AREN’T GOING AWAY
Though many colleges hoped that pandemic enrollment drops were temporary, it appears that the pandemic has changed how students think about their college education. Fewer high school students are choosing to pursue higher education immediately following school. In some states, including Indiana and West Virginia, less than half of 2020 graduates chose to pursue full time education after high school. We will have to keep an eye on how these trends affect future numbers in the workforce.
UVA ESSAY PROMPTS OUT!
As promised on social media, I wanted to take some time to discuss the brand-new UVA essay prompts that were released earlier this week. I’m focusing on the ones that Arts and Sciences students will have to write, becuse that’s where most of our students apply.
First, I have to mention that these new essays serve as a great example of why students should never begin writing until a school has confirmed their essay prompts for the upcoming cycle. You never know when a prompt will change for the coming year, and you don’t want to waste your time and effort drafting an essay for an outdated prompt. UVA has used more or less the exact same Arts and Sciences mandatory prompt since the beginning of my career and probably even earlier, so this was definitely not an essay that anyone expected would change - but it did, out of nowhere!
Next, remember that every essay you submit should be used as a tool to share something new about you that the admissions committee doesn’t already know. So when you’re writing about a college course that all UVA students should take, don’t just write about something you think is cool. Make sure it’s relevant - that you are clearly linking it to your background, life experiences, or personality. This way, the admissions committee can learn something new about you that would reflect positively on your candidacy.
Here’s an example - let’s say I’d like to learn more about how to make TikTok videos. If I wrote about how I want to make TikToks because I think TikToks are cool and I really like watching them in bed on my phone before I fall asleep, the admissions committee would learn nothing about me. But if I wrote about how watching TikToks on my phone before I fall asleep every night led me to realize that I could incorporate them into my business’s social media strategy, the admissions committee would start to learn more about what I do and who I am. I could then go into my history of success with content marketing and why I believe that other budding entrepreneurs at UVA could benefit from instruction in this area too.
Regarding the “choice” prompts, I would recommend avoiding the “topic you could speak about for an hour” and “expert-level skill” options, because I think that those are too similar to the Arts and Sciences essay. On the other hand, I think the “favorite word and why,” “website the internet is missing,” “happy place” and “message on Beta Bridge” prompts are probably going to lend themselves more easily to sharing new information to the committee. Those would allow students who know they want to write about something specific to come in and tie that information directly to a message, word, happy place or nonexistent website!
BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
In his latest newsletter, Jeff Selingo dives into the importance of the student experience when it comes to choosing a college. A survey of over 100 institutions indicates that the student experience is one of the main fears in the college world today. Selingo shares a story that is common to many college students - a student looking to get his questions answered and moving from the registrar’s office, to the financial aid office, to the career center, to his academic advisor, and finally to an academic dean, repeating his story each time. Selingo argues that colleges need to improve their service infrastructure and enable students to get their questions answered - through technologies like chatbots and smart speakers - so that services catch up with the physical infrastructure that so many colleges have been investing in for the past several years.
The third and final installment of Forbes’ series on college admissions encourages students and counselors to become “data scientists,” delving into schools’ admissions data in order to maximize their success and better understand the process. We AGREE! While some of the statistics mentioned in the article aren’t readily available, students and families interested in pursuing some of this data can Google “[School Name] Common Data Set” to find the latest statistics that the college has released on its admissions and class makeup. This is a wise move for anyone looking to assess their chances of admission at a particular school.
I particularly recommend using Common Data Sets to calculate the difference between ED and RD acceptance rates, for schools that have both. Here’s how we explain this in our early decision guide, available to clients through our vault:
It takes some math, but you can quickly determine the acceptance rate of ED applicants by dividing the number accepted by the number who applied. When determining non-ED numbers, you’ll need to subtract the ED folks (applied and admitted) from the total numbers and then again divide the number accepted by the number who applied. Now you can compare these rates and determine the importance of ED to a school.
Here’s an example from the 2019-2020 Common Data Set for the University of Pennsylvania. Most Common Data set numbers are split by gender which requires an additional step in calculations. After adding the male and female numbers together, we learn the following on page 8:
Total Number Applied: 44,961 // Total Number Admitted: 3446 // Total Number Enrolled: 2400
Then we scroll down to page 13, where we learn the following about the ED numbers:
Total Number Applied ED: 7109 // Total Number Admitted ED: 1280
We can then use this information to calculate the following statistics:
Total Acceptance Rate = 3446/44961 = 7.66% // Percentage of Class Filled ED = 1280/2400 = 53%
ED Acceptance Rate = 1280/7109 = 18% // RD Acceptance Rate = (3446-1280) / (44961-7109) = 5.72%
You can also see that students applying ED have a very clear advantage over those applying RD - it’s practically a lost cause at a 5.72% acceptance rate - and this was using number from several years ago!
Finally, this interview with the current president of USC (and former president of Dartmouth and UNC), Carol L. Folt, explores the experience and importance of students who move from community college to a four-year university. The subject is personal for Folt, who got her bachelor’s degree at UC Santa Barbara after beginning her education at a community college, and her perspective is an interesting way to look at both sides of this issue.
OFFICE HAPPENINGS
I (Colleen) am writing this post on a plane to Greece! I’ll be out of the office for the next two weeks, and Shannon will be holding down the fort. Families with college counseling questions should email her while I’m away, and of course Courtney and Donna are there as always to help out with administrative and scheduling needs!
We hope our students are also getting some time to relax, too! But if anyone out there is still looking for summer opportunities, don’t miss our mid-week post on last-minute Summer 2022 options for high school students.
We’ve also got a couple of opportunities to share this week for current college students! If you are a student interested in sharing your college experience with others, College Scoops is seeking student ambassadors willing to film a video about their college for high school students to use as they try to get a feel for the campus culture (particularly difficult when travel is limited). If you’d like to create a video for your school, reach out to moira@collegescoops.com for more information.
And if you are a current college student looking to pursue a mental health career, the Chesapeake Center for ADHD, Learning, and Behavioral Health is looking for you! Interns for their Fall 2022 internship will have the opportunity to co-facilitate group programs and sit in on various other meetings, receiving valuable hands-on experience working with clients as well as marketing & programming. Interested students should send their resume to communications@chesapeakeadd.com.
Enjoy the weekend!
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