Weekly Update: December 4

December already! We are excited to have heard some good news from our early applicants already and are busy wrapping things up with the last of our late-late-start seniors. 

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

EARLY ACTION/EARLY DECISION RELEASE DATES

All early applicants may want to bookmark this page - this running list of decision release dates for EA and ED is updated nearly every day. It’s going to be a busy week ahead! And remember to keep an eye on your application portal for each given school regularly regardless of the listed release date. This is the only way to ensure that you don’t miss any important updates. 

PARENT PLUS LOAN DATA RELEASED

We wrote two weeks ago about how parents should be wary of Parent Plus loans, which can often be included in what seem like “full ride” financial aid packages. For the first time on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education provided data on these exact loans. This new data gives a more thorough picture of how students are paying for college, and reveals that parents of students at art schools, HBCUs, and small private colleges are most likely to take out these high-interest loans to help support their students. 

UVM ELIMINATES 23 PROGRAMS

Also on Wednesday, the University of Vermont announced proposed cuts to 23 programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. The university cites declining enrollment as the reason for budget shortfalls. Among the cuts will be the elimination of the geology, religion, and classics departments. Thousands of students and faculty have petitioned to protest the cuts. This story reveals a broader worry for other universities, making it clear that economic budget cuts aren’t just impacting small schools - we may start to see the effects everywhere. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

There have been debates for years about the inability of NCAA Division I athletes to profit off of their skill - today, strict NCAA rules prohibit basketball and football stars from making money, even as their likenesses are used in advertising and video games. But one group of athletes is able to take advantage of lucrative sponsorship opportunities: cheerleaders. NCAA rules about amateurism do not apply to cheerleaders, as this New York Times article reveals, and top cheerleaders can make as much as $5,000 a post doing sponsored social media advertising in uniform. It will be interesting to see whether other athletes will be able to follow in these cheerleaders’ footsteps when the new NCAA rules are adopted in January.

We know that a lot of our students have been stressed about SAT and ACT testing being cancelled - and with good reason! But this article put our stress in perspective when we learned about the nine hour college entrance examination that South Korean high schoolers must complete. Students begin preparing for this exam as early as kindergarten, and though it was postponed due to COVID, precautions ensured that even students who tested positive for coronavirus would be able to take the test in specially-prepared negative-pressure hospital chambers, accompanied by exam administrators in protective suits. YIKES. And South Korean students don’t need to worry about running late - all banks, businesses, and government offices delayed opening to lessen traffic, and police on motorcycles were deployed to escort late students to the testing sites! 

Countries like South Korea are known for prioritizing education, and many of these students would likely have attended college in the U.S. But international student enrollment during the pandemic is plummeting, dropping 43% this fall. Racial bias in the U.S. and stricter immigration policies have also contributed to the drop. The decline in international enrollment means a budget deficit at many schools, where international students often pay full tuition or more, and it also means a less diverse learning environment for domestic students at U.S. colleges. 

The Washington Post’s picks for holiday reading are always exciting for me, and this year’s list includes an admissions-related novel! Admission, by Julie Buxbaum, is a fictional take on the Varsity Blues scandal. Have you read any of the books on this list? Leave us a comment with any of your recommendations! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon has been attending a lot of school sessions for updates on their early admissions pools and information for our upcoming school profiles, which will be available to all of our clients and members of our vault! If you follow us on instagram, you saw that we loved the “breakfast” treats package that Newman University sent in advance of their session yesterday!

Also, speaking of treats, did you know that today is National Cookie Day? Basically right up there with Christmas in my book in terms of important holidays.

Delicious cookies from our neighbors at Crumbl down the street!

I have heard of a whole bunch of outbreaks at various schools over the last several days - including my son’s preschool, which caused me to panic a little bit! In case this helps anyone else who is worried about having been exposed, AllCare Family Medicine will give rapid and PCR tests at the same time. It was surprisingly hard to find a place to do both! I had to drive to their Alexandria location after meeting with a doctor from the Tysons location, but it was definitely worth it for peace of mind that my household is Covid-free.

Stay safe, everyone, and have a nice weekend!

William & Mary: #4 for College with the Happiest Students

NOTE FROM COLLEEN:

SHANNON IS TAKING OVER TODAY WITH A TOPIC THAT I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR YEARS. I’M ALWAYS FASCINATED BY THE FEEDBACK I HEAR ABOUT WILLIAM & MARY FROM KIDS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA. I HONESTLY DON’T UNDERSTAND IT!

SO MANY STUDENTS HAVE SOMETHING NEGATIVE TO SAY BEFORE THEY HAVE EVER SET FOOT ON CAMPUS, YET THE ONES WHO END UP ACTUALLY GOING THERE JUST LOVE IT - I HAVE MULTIPLE STUDENTS THERE NOW AND THEY COULDN’T BE HAPPIER.

AND WHEN I ATTENDED A COUNSELOR DAY ON CAMPUS A FEW YEARS BACK, I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE IMPRESSED. SO I WAS GENUINELY CURIOUS TO GET THE REAL SCOOP FROM SHANNON! HOPE YOU FIND IT INTERESTING TOO :)

HERE IT IS…

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As a proud College of William & Mary alumna, I’m always excited when I hear good news about my alma mater. And last week brought some fantastic accolades for W&M from the Princeton Review - we are now ranked #4 for Happiest Students and #15 for Best Quality of Life! 

When I first learned about William & Mary, I was just beginning my own college search process at my New England prep school - I probably googled something like “medium-sized colleges East Coast” and went from there.

I was drawn to the gorgeous campus and the warmer Virginia weather, but what sealed the deal for me was the feeling, from the moment I stepped on William & Mary’s campus, that it was a place where I could be the “real me.”

So much of my application process felt disingenuous to who I was as a person (hence my passion at DC College Counseling for making sure each application is authentic and unique to the student!) that it was a relief to walk into a place that seemed accepting of every part of me, not just the skills I tried to emphasize on my application. 

I still remember meeting everyone at orientation, listening as student after student introduced themselves and said they were from “Nova.” Wow, I thought, how are all these kids from the same town?

It wasn’t until after I had moved in, met my (still) best friends and hallmates, and discovered that Nova wasn’t just a single town that I learned about the rumors that plagued William & Mary from the in-state students - students at William & Mary are terrible overachievers, the quality of life is horrible, no one is having any fun.

I was completely shocked by the rumors because they were so far outside of my William & Mary experience. I don’t want to dwell on “suicide rates” in this post, because I don’t want to reduce a widespread mental health issue to a statistic, but rates for students at William & Mary, while deeply tragic, are the same as the national average.

I think that W&M has come to bear the brunt of rumors that speak more to a general concern for the mental health and well-being of high school and college-age students than to any particular aspect of the William & Mary community.

I don’t mean to diminish the problem - it is essential that W&M, like every higher education institution, put more emphasis on mental health resources for students. I am hopeful that the campus’s new McLeod Tyler Wellness Center, home to mental health services including the new Center for Mindfulness & Authentic Excellence, is a step in the right direction by a school that is committed to caring for its students.

I met my best friends in this dorm freshman year, so we had to come back and take a photo before graduation!

The new Princeton Review rankings are much more representative of my time at William & Mary than any rumors I have heard. The idea of “Authentic Excellence” is a way of life for the Tribe, and throughout my four years of college, I was never dissuaded from the knowledge that my authentic self was accepted at W&M.

That sense so many students experience in high school, of feeling “uncool”? You will never feel it in Williamsburg. W&M students are unabashedly uncool. Everyone is nerdy about something: pop music production, marine biology, obscure 18th century literature, MLB statistics, you name it and someone on campus is willing to geek out with you about it. The tight group of friends I made during college have a wide variety of interests and experiences, and I love hearing about their passions because I never fail to learn something new. And I promise - we had a lot of fun too! 

Even though COVID-19 means that I have to miss homecoming this year, I will always consider William & Mary my home, and I’m counting down to the day when I can step back onto campus and visit all of my favorite Williamsburg places.  

In our William & Mary gear, making sure Thomas Jefferson is ready for Mardi Gras!

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COLLEEN AGAIN! IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN W&M, CHECK OUT THIS INCREDIBLY HELPFUL SLIDE FROM THE COUNSELOR DAY I ATTENDED:

I KNOW IT’S A LITTLE HARD TO READ, BUT HERE GOES - IT’S ABOUT QUESTIONS THAT W&M ADMISSIONS STAFF CONSIDER WHILE REVIEWING APPLICATIONS:

• IS THE STUDENT PREPARED TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN OUR ACADEMIC COMMUNITY?

• HOW DOES HE OR SHE COMPARE TO OTHERS IN OUR POOL?

• HAS THE STUDENT GONE ABOVE AND BEYOND TO PURSUE A RIGOROUS CURRICULUM IN A WAY THAT DEMONSTRATES AN INTEREST IN DOING SO IN COLLEGE?

• DOES THE STUDENT HAVE A MATURE WRITING VOICE?

• IS THE STUDENT INTERESTING WITH A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THE WORLD?

• DOES HE OR SHE HAVE SPUNK, ZEST, OR AN INTERESTING ATTITUDE THAT WOULD ADD A NEW DIMENSION TO CAMPUS LIFE?

• WHAT IS THIS PERSON GOING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY?

• WOULD HE OR SHE BE AN INTERESTING ROOMMATE, CLASSMATE, LAB PARTNER?

ROI: What are we really measuring?

I posted about a Georgetown study on Higher Education ROI on our Facebook page a few weeks back and promised to follow up with a blog post. I think there’s a lot of interesting information here, and while it may be surprising at first to hear about Maine Maritime Academy and the pharmacy schools, it brought up another point that I’ve thought a lot about lately: that it’s important to realize that when we consider these issues, we are looking at averages.

It’s absolutely correct that the average income of a pharmacist is higher than the average liberal arts graduate. There’s a whole sub-set of fields like this - engineering is another great example - where the starting salaries are high and remain consistent, without much risk of the student ending up unemployed or underemployed.

However, averages don’t tell the whole story. How many engineers or pharmacists do you know in the top 1%? I almost feel badly writing this out because I do not think that high incomes should necessarily be everyone’s goal (I have a master’s degree in education for goodness’ sake!) but if we’re going to use salary information as a ranking metric, I think we need to differentiate between the chance of achieving financial stability and the chance of becoming a high-income earner.

I know that the definitions of these are probably different for everyone, but let’s say for our purposes, a financially stable professional might bring in about $100k in the DC area and a high-income earner might bring in about $300k+ in the DC area. Give or take.

How would these rankings look if instead of taking the average incomes of graduates - which clearly speak to stability - they took the percentage of alumni earning more than $300k? Oh, and if they performed cost-of-living adjustments (I can dream, right? All my readers know how passionately I feel about cost of living adjustments!). I think this would give us very different results. No way would the Maine Maritime Academy come out on top, in my opinion - or the pharmacy schools.

Yes, there’s no question that liberal arts degrees bear more risk as opposed to pre-professional degrees. No doubt about it. But I really do believe that by and large, they also offer the most reward. When I look at myself, an English major with a master’s degree in education, I know that on paper I should probably be making a tenth of what I actually earn. On the other hand, though, maybe it was my relatively low income potential that led me into entrepreneurship. If I had a solid six-figure engineering job at age 25, would I have taken the risk of losing that income? Again, just speaking for myself here, but I don’t think I would have.

I think that the Wealth-X list provides a good point of comparison that comes a little closer to the point I’m trying to make, although we have to keep in mind that people with a net worth exceeding $30m are not exactly the norm. But I do enjoy this statistic: “University of Chicago and University of Virginia share the distinction of having the most UHNW [ultra high net worth] alumni with self-made wealth.” YES! That is right about what I would have guessed.

Now, how about just regular high net worth alumni? Time for someone to perform that study!