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College Match

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Better College Admission Outcomes in 9 Easy Steps

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IT HAS BECOME ALL TOO CLEAR that we have entered an era of radically increased college entrance difficulty. For the first time, Ivy League schools are taking an average of 6% percent of their applicants–Harvard accepted 5 percent. It is statistically improbable for most students to be admitted to one of these colleges. While top students may still apply to these schools, they too need to consider viable alternatives that will meet their needs not just as students but also as individuals. They must, at a minimum, demonstrate the tangible results of college preparation: good grades, high test scores and strong extracurricular activities. But the score-oriented, quantitative approach to admissions, prevalent in the last decades, needs to be replaced with a more strategic approach to gaining admission to the most popular colleges and universities.

This strategic approach utilizes a student’s good grades and test scores, but goes well beyond to identify and communicate each student’s unique profile to college admissions officers. It focuses on each student’s distinct qualifications but within a particular college’s applicant pool. And it means preparing and delivering college applications that capture each student’s unique qualifications.

Good colleges and universities have always wanted diverse student bodies with intellectually curious students–and base their selections on proven academic abilities and intellectual track records, special abilities, including arts and lately to a lesser extent athletics, as well as socio-economic background and legacy status.

Strategic matching is a focused process that unites each student’s core values, goals and unique attributes, while at the same time considering what specific colleges need, but aren’t getting. For example, take Stanford where science, engineering and pre-professional type students abound, there’s a need for writers, musicians and fine artists. It considers that students must highlight their strengths on each application for an admissions committee. This includes illustrating talents while neither overselling nor underselling themselves. This often requires a focus on the development of special talents such as music and art or leadership.

College Match’s Strategic Steps

Here are just a few of the essential steps that we take with each of our students:

1. Interviews to help define the image of the student; working with the student, parents, coaches, teachers and others we define the student’s personality and attributes.

2. Unique identity development process that focuses on the student’s vision, values and desired goals. For example, “create something new through science” or to “change our political system to improve people’s lives”, “make a difference in my community” or “live a comfortable and happy life.”

3. Identifying colleges that fit the values of a student and provide the support that the student needs academically to achieve life’s vision and goals. This requires performing data analysis. A college needs assessment identifies any potential weaknesses or needs that are not being met by existing applicants; psychographic profiling of current applicant pool; admissions data tracking over 10-year period; outcomes-based assessments of colleges including but not limited to Ph.D. productivity, jobs, graduate school admission rates and qualitative interviews with current students, administrators, alums and experts on particular colleges.

4. Collecting and examining all extra-curricular activities and classifying them in order of importance for getting into one of the selected colleges. For example, athletics, leadership, art or music talents, intellectual projects (research papers and science experiments), community service, academic awards and honors.

5. Advising students on how to use these activities to tell a story about themselves that is unique and will appeal to the unmet needs of each college.

6. Advising students about specific scholarships and research projects as part of the extracurricular mix to signal to colleges that a student is better prepared than other applicants.

7. Identifying and highlighting special talents such as sports or music or storytelling. Making sure that the student “proves” this ability is the key to showcasing these abilities.

8. Developing a market position for the student that is based on his or her general “comparative advantage” versus other students, and based generally on what colleges are looking for, but not getting. Then making sure the application supports the positioning.

9. Writing a letter to those writing recommendations that highlights the student’s strengths, key skills and “proof points.” Then the recommendations support this theme in their letters to the college. This approach helps concentrate the theme and supports the application overall by adding a consistency to the message about the student.

With this type of positioning, admissions officers quickly get a picture of who the applicant is, even if it doesn’t tell the whole story. And in an age when there are so many applications for admissions offices to read, it helps an individual student stand out.

For more information about College Match’s proprietary process, view our method, view our online academy, or work with us individually. 

COLLEGE ADMISSION: 5 TIPS FOR COLLEGE APPLICANTS

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1. When considering a US undergraduate program for your student, look beyond college rankings.

US News and World Report ranks colleges and universities based on factors like alumni giving, graduation rates, and the percent of students in the top 10% of their classes– not on the success of graduates. Better rankings include, graduate school placement, graduate earnings, opportunities for undergraduates to do their own research, prizes won by students. It is wise to supplement these rankings with more undergraduate-focused criteria. PayScale rankings and Ph.D. production on a per-capita basis are all good measures of undergraduate quality. For a better source of rankings that looks at outcomes, visit Forbes Magazine’s college rankings.

2. Don’t fret over going pre-professional with your major—it is less important than you think.

Unlike other parts of the world, students in the United States do not specialize as quickly. Increasingly, students in the US attend post-graduate programs like business, law and medical schools to get the specialization they will need for their jobs. Unless a student is very sure of their focus, it is fine to pursue a wide range of interests. There will be plenty of time later to specialize in graduate school, through internships and on-the-job experiences.

3. Undergraduate admission is difficult at top schools (Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, etc).

If a family is considering undergraduate admission at one of these “names”, it is good to be aware that admission is uber-competitive and costs may be high. Since 40% of spaces are assigned to recruited athletes, legacies, and under-represented minorities, the number of available spaces is actually more limited than the admit rates show; in fact, most students stand a less than 5% chance of admission at Ivy-level colleges like Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford.

4. Look beyond the Ivy League. Please don’t overlook the bumper crop of small, prestigious colleges.

Instead of focusing on Ivy League, MIT and Stanford, look to choose high quality colleges that feed into top graduate schools. The Wall St. Journal published a study of the top 50 “feeder” colleges.

5. Look for the right college match.

Base your decisions about where your student will attend not based solely on location, prestige or cost. It is a good idea to check to see if the college’s values are the same as your student’s. A good source of information is StudentsReview.com Colleges, like people, have values; it’s like joining a family. The network that you inherit by attending a particular college is for life!

College Match can help you find your college fit with in-person and virtual offerings.

Comparing UCSD and Whitman College in WA State from Real World Outcomes Perspectives

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Dear Parents,

Today we are comparing University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Whitman College (Whitman) in Washington State from real world outcomes perspectives – looking at medical and science graduate school placement as well as starting salary and mid-career earnings.

There are some big differences between the two schools and the edge for earnings by a slim margin goes to UCSD while the edge for graduate school by much larger margin goes to Whitman. The biggest trade-offs are that UCSD offers a name that is recognizable because of its link to UC system and its graduate school while Whitman focuses on undergraduate education and roughly doubles the chances of admission to graduate schools. Whitman offers much better options for undergraduates to do their own research as well. The cost of Whitman is double the cost of UCSD. UCSD is a German model research university and Whitman is an English model “West Coast Little Ivy” having formal ties to Columbia University Law School as well as 3/2 program in engineering with Fu School of Engineering.

First, the most important things to know:

1) US News rankings of colleges are deeply flawed because they do not consider “real world” outcomes such as earnings after college, graduate school placement, happiness with the institution, and quality of the social networks. Focus on real world outcomes and you may find that you have a better college fit—see notes below about earnings and graduate school placement (MD, JD, MBA, PhD).

2) Double-check to see if liberal arts colleges (Whitman) or research universities (UCSD) are the right types for your particular journey
through life including your career and/or graduate school goals. For descriptions of the six college types, you can read page 75 of my book Brand U: 4 Steps to the College of Your Dreams

3) The trade-off between liberal arts and research is significant. What you are essentially giving up when you attend a liberal arts college is social prestige—the graduate research at UCSD means that everyone has heard of the school; UCSD is famous for its graduate research. Whitman, by contrast, is focused on teaching undergraduates and helping them do their own research resulting in per-capita PhD productivity that exceeds any UC except for UC Berkeley. Source NSF Bac Origins Study; see Table 4: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/

4) Rankings that matter more to parents and students should include career earnings and graduate school placement. Families should consider “real world” outcomes like employer earnings, PhD science and engineering productivity and medical, law and business school placement and the people or social network that you get by attending either type of college.

COSTS OF ATTENDANCE

UCSD is almost half the price of Whitman for California State residents – Whitman is $65,000 per year and UCSD runs about $35,000.

CAREER EARNINGS
If you got just one degree, either from UCSD or Whitman, here is how each school stacks up in terms of producing earnings for graduates:

49th – University of California – San Diego – $52,400 starting salary and
$103,000 mid-career

59th – Whitman College – $42,400 starting salary and $101,000 mid-career
salary

There is a negligible difference in salary at mid-career. One thing to point out: many more employers will come to UCSD. If ___ attends Whitman and looks for a job she must “pound the pavement” on her own rather than expect an employer to come to her. (source: Payscale rankings: http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors)

GRADUATE SCHOOL ADMISSION
Let’s compare UCSD to Whitman for PHD sciences productivity and placement in medical school:

Medical school admission rates:

Whitman: tends to be at least 60%. Schools like Whitman typically have the very highest admission rates for MD admission; for example,
Bates College is 70% – 100% and Davidson’s is 60%

Sources:
http://www.bates.edu/career/students/advanced-studies-graduate-and-professional-school-advising/health-professions-advising/pre-health-basics/faqs-about-pre-med-at-bates/#link1
https://www.davidson.edu/offices/institutional-research/goals-for-student-achievement (page no longer available)

UCSD: 33% accepted to MD programs. Note: among the University of California campuses, UC Berkeley has the highest admission rate to medical school – 50%.

Based on my research with similar colleges, my estimate is that attending Whitman would double one’s chances of medical school, law school or
business school admission. For example, Whitman is the top feeder college in Washington state, not University of Washington, to University of
Washington Medical School.

Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSD/comments/46z8j6/ucsd_med_school_acceptance/?st=ivrnha88&sh=cefedaf2
https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/MedStats/Annual-Acceptance-Rates-by-Year.pdf

Science PhDs:
Since a PhD is the toughest thing to get in terms of time commitment and cost, it is good to look at which school— UCSD or Whitman — might give
her best chance for a PhD.

Whitman ranks #36, among all US colleges, for graduating students who go on to earn a PhD in the sciences. In contrast, UCSD does not place on the top 50 list.

(See Table 4: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/)

 

INTERNATIONAL GRAD SCHOOL FELLOWSHIP RANKING
Looking at Fulbright rankings is also a great way to get a picture of undergraduate quality:

Fulbright Awards won in 2015-16. This is a one-year grant to do research overseas.

Whitman: 7
UCSD: 7

As you know, Whitman is not the same size as UCSD—it is about 10 times smaller so Whitman is about 10 times more successful at getting people a
Fulbright grant to study overseas than UCSD.

Source: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/top-producing-institutions (page no longer available)

Rhodes Scholarships 1904-2016 – this is the toughest scholarship in the US to get — only 32 a year — grants two years at Oxford.

Whitman: 5
UCSD: 0

In fairness, UCSD is a much newer school than Whitman. Whitman was in existence in 1904 but UCSD came much later—in the 1960s.

Source: http://seepdf.net/doc/pdf/download/www__rhodesscholar__org–assets–uploads–RS_Number%20of%20Winners%20by%20Institution_1_15_16.pdf (page no longer available)

HAPPINESS WITH SCHOOL
I added this category and think it is important. Since USCD is a commuter school—more than 70% do not live on campus and Whitman is a residential school with more than 70% living on campus, there are some differences in terms of how students feel about each college:

64% would return to Whitman
48% would return to UCSD

Sources:
http://www.studentsreview.com/WA/WCW.html
http://www.studentsreview.com/CA/UCLJ.html

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A College Admissions Exercise – an excerpt from 4 Steps to College

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Exercise: Third-Party Recognition
(30 minutes)

Goal: To make sure your child’s hard work and achievements get the validation they deserve.

Instructions:
1. Once your child has started developing in areas of leadership, service entrepreneurship, performance, art, writing, research, scholarships, or academic competition or scholarship, discuss ways that achievements can be used to:
• Raise awareness for a worthy cause
• Build community
• Inspire or educate others

2. Explore avenues for achievements to get profiled, reviewed, or published through print, television, online media, or social media.

3. If your child gains recognition at the local level for good work, scale the recognition upwards to the state, regional, national, and even international level.

You can find this exercise on p. 59 in BRAND U: 4 Steps To The College of Your Dreams.

Elite Colleges Review an Application in 8 Minutes (or Less)

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Article by By Melissa Korn – WSJ

8 minute admissions
The Georgia Institute of Technology is among the colleges to adopt two-person committees to review student applications. Applications to Georgia Tech jumped by 13% for the next academic year, to 35,600. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

With so many applying, fewer schools have one person read a whole application; plowing through 500 files in a day

As application numbers surge, admissions officers at some elite colleges say they don’t have time to read an entire file.

Instead, staffers from more schools—including the Georgia Institute of Technology, Rice University and Bucknell University in Pennsylvania—now divvy up individual applications. One person might review transcripts, test scores and counselor recommendations, while the other handles extracurricular activities and essays.

They read through their portions simultaneously, discuss their impressions about a candidate’s qualifications, flag some for admission or rejection, and move on. While their decision isn’t always final, in many cases theirs are the last eyes to look at the application itself.

The entire process can take less than eight minutes.
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HOT TIP:  HOW TO STAND OUT IN 8 MINUTES                                                                         
Admissions officials and high-school counselors                                                             
give tips on getting a close look during quick application reviews:

Do:

• Keep essays focused and personal

• Highlight extracurricular activities that really mattered to you

• Tell a coherent story across essays, transcript and activities

Don’t: 

• Use acronyms that only people familiar with your school would understand

• Assume the reader knows nothing about where you grew up
____________________________________

The new approach puts students at a disadvantage because an admission officer doesn’t get a comprehensive view of the candidate, some high-school guidance counselors say.

“If they’re splitting it up, it’s not holistic. Nobody has a full feeling” of the applicant, said Chris Reeves, a school counselor at Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell, Ky., and a director at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

“I put in four years of super hard work. To know that it’s all over in 10 minutes is just mind-blowing,” said Caleb Richmond, an 18-year-old senior at the Derryfield School in Manchester, N.H., who says he wrote about seven drafts of his main college admission essay.

Georgia Tech
Mary Tipton Woolley and Xan Roseberry look over prospective students’ applications in the admissions office at Georgia Tech. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Committee-based evaluation, which involves a committee of two people, is the admission industry’s answer to ballooning application volume. Admissions directors say it is better for staffers than spending solitary months reading essays, transcripts and recommendation letters. They also say it helps train new readers and minimizes bias by forcing readers to defend why they think a candidate is qualified or not, and as a result they’re more confident in the decisions the new committees are making.

Admissions officers estimate that upward of 30 elite schools have embraced the method, championed early by the University of Pennsylvania. Colorado College, Case Western Reserve University, Swarthmore College and the California Institute of Technology use variations as well.

Schools say they are making the shift in part to stem staff turnover, as many now quit at the end of the reading season. “It’s a more humane way of reviewing applications,” said Marylyn Scott, senior associate dean of admissions at Bucknell. The school adopted the approach during the last admission cycle.

Readers at Bucknell, which gets more than 10,000 applications, used to take 12 to 15 minutes to review each application. Now a team of two is done in six to eight minutes.

Caleb Richmond, an 18-year-old senior in Manchester, N.H
‘I put in four years of super hard work. To know that it’s all over in 10 minutes is just mind-blowing,’ says Caleb Richmond, an 18-year-old senior in Manchester, N.H. PHOTO: ELIZABETH BELLOTT-MICHAUD

Combined, Ms. Scott noted, that is still up to 16 “person minutes.”

Last year, the school admitted about 3,200 students and enrolled just shy of 1,000.

A three-person committee reviews the team’s notes before making a final call.

Efficiency is crucial, since more students are using the Common Application, which allows them to submit material to multiple schools. Nearly 902,000 students used it last year. As of Jan. 15 this year, the number was already 898,000 students submitting to an average of 4.8 schools.

Applications to Georgia Tech jumped by 13% for the coming academic year, to 35,600. The current freshman class has roughly 2,800 students.

“There’s just no way we could have gotten things done” without significant strain, said Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions.

That school introduced committee-based reading in the fall, and the staff, in up to 12 teams of two, now plows through about 500 applications a day.

The officer in charge of a particular region, referred to as the driver in the process, opens a file online and describes the applicant’s school to his or her partner, the passenger. The driver looks over an applicant’s academic transcript and test scores, while the passenger takes on counselor recommendations, essays and extracurricular activities.

They make a decision after eight to 10 minutes: admit, deny, waitlist. In about 85% of the cases, the application isn’t reviewed again.

“I’ve legitimately read—not skimmed, but read—more counselor recommendations in the last round than I have in the last three years,” Mr. Clark said. “I have time to read them.”

Critics say a fragmented reading provides little insight into candidates’ nuanced applications, and rather than reducing bias the team-based process can lead readers to reinforce one another’s assumptions.

Jim Conroy, chairman of the post high school counseling department at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill., says he spends years teaching colleges’ territory managers about his high school. Now, though, “There’s no context to their reading.”

Colleges say the committee would likely include the regional representative who knows about a school’s academic rigor and extracurricular offerings.

Still, some schools want to do things even faster.

Yvonne Romero da Silva, formerly at Penn and now vice president for enrollment at Rice, is focused on shaving a few more seconds off the process by reducing the number of text boxes into which readers can add notes and streamlining drop-down menus.

“Little things like that, after 40 files, really add up into concrete minutes,” she said, adding that the main goal is to spend that time on reading more closely.

Mr. Richmond, the senior from New Hampshire, agonized over his essay, about coming to terms with being gay.

“I can’t even tell you how many hours I stared at the page, just thinking about word choice, what I wanted the sentence to sound like,” said Mr. Richmond, who was accepted early to Swarthmore.

Then again, he said, “The process worked for me.”

Corrections & Amplifications
A photo above shows Mary Tipton Woolley and Xan Roseberry in the admissions office at Georgia Tech. An earlier version of the caption incorrectly gave their names as Mary-Tipton Woolley and Xan Rosenberry, and it incorrectly said the office is in the Georgia Tech Admissions Building. Separately, an earlier version of another photo caption incorrectly gave Rick Clark’s first name as Rich. (Jan. 31)

Appeared in the February 1, 2018, print edition as ‘Top Colleges Speed Read Applications How To Stand Out In Eight Minutes.’

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