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College Match

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Storytelling & Your College Personal Statement

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“The universe is made of stories, not atoms,” wrote poet Muriel Ruckeyser.

As an author and instructor, I’ve worked in hospital systems, high schools, colleges, universities, and conferences helping people turn their wonderings and idea fragments into finished work ready to present to the world.

All editors are story-whisperers; companioning high school students as they write their college essays is especially exciting. Often, the story turns out to be different than what the student thinks, so it’s like that classic movie plot twist when a homeowner discovers a hidden room in their house that’s been there all along—but with the writing experience, opening the door leads not to horror but to adventure!

And at the other end of the process, the college admissions officers evaluating your application get to meet the strongest, most vibrant version of you as they learn through your essay how you can contribute to their community life.

Announcing Open Enrollment: College Admission Academy for 9-11th Grade Students. Open Enrollment Until June 1st

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Dear Parents of rising 9th, 10th, and 11th-grade students,

I am happy to announce that my Admission Academy Course is now open for summer enrollment through June 1st. This course is for all rising Freshmen – Junior level students.

It’s a 4-week course that starts June 14th and runs until July 14th.

This class is all about you. That may sound a bit selfish, I know, but this course will not only show you how to succeed in college, but it’s actually going to give you the best strategies to thrive at college and whatever else your life path may bring. As well as having fun along the way!

 

This course comes in 3 stages: 

 

1.    Values: Visioning What Matters to You

2.    Goals: Colleges & Academics

3.    Actions: Personal Projects & Beyond

Class will be held online Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week. With two session topics per day.

You will also receive one-on-one sessions throughout the course. We’ll talk about your personal vision and life goals so that I can recommend the perfect colleges and extracurricular opportunities for you.

Beyond working with me and my team, you will have a community of peers to help you keep pursuing the goals you’ve set for yourself. The community channel will remain open year-round, so you can continue to benefit from the connections you make with others during the live class.

I’m really excited about this course and I hope you’d like to join us this summer. If you are interested, simply click the link below to learn more on how you can join! Enrollment closes June 1st.

View Admission Academy Course

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

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   vs       

 

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

– – – – – –

13 Colleges Where It’s Hard to Get Accepted

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Source: US News Education

The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.

Applicants to the nation’s most selective colleges face a formidable challenge. These college hopefuls must distinguish themselves among thousands of other bright, high-achieving students, so even sterling academic credentials may not be sufficient for them to get into their dream schools.

But students who are anxious about their admissions prospects may find it reassuring to know that a majority of colleges are not exclusive schools. In fact, at more than 1,000 of the 1,268 ranked undergraduate institutions that provided fall 2017 acceptance rate statistics to U.S. News in an annual survey, a majority of applicants were admitted. The average acceptance rate among all ranked schools that participated in the U.S. News Best Colleges survey was 66 percent.

However, there is no sugarcoating the fact that getting into top colleges can be incredibly difficult. At each of the 13 schools with the lowest acceptance rates in fall 2017, fewer than 1 in 10 applicants were admitted. The average acceptance rate among these highly selective schools was only 7 percent.

Two institutions on the list are National Liberal Arts Colleges, schools that emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines. The remaining schools are National Universities, research-focused institutions that offer a variety of undergraduate majors plus an array of master’s and doctoral degrees.
Among these 13 schools, eight are located on the East Coast, three on the West Coast and two in the Midwest.

Admissions experts say that applicants should understand that highly competitive schools scrutinize every portion of the college application, including not only test scores and grades but also admissions essays and recommendation letters. Experts also suggest that applicants with lofty ambitions consider applying to both highly ranked universities and liberal arts colleges, since the chances of getting into any particular school of this caliber is very small.

Below is a list of the 13 colleges where it was most difficult to gain acceptance in fall 2017. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

School (state) Fall 2017 acceptance rate U.S. News rank and category
Harvard University (MA) 5% 2, National Universities
Stanford University (CA) 5% 7, National Universities
Columbia University (NY) 6% 3 (tie), National Universities
Princeton University (NJ) 6% 1, National Universities
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 7% 3 (tie), National Universities
Yale University (CT) 7% 3 (tie), National Universities
California Institute of Technology 8% 12 (tie), National Universities
Pomona College (CA) 8% 5 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges
United States Naval Academy (MD) 8% 22 (tie), National Liberal Arts Colleges
Brown University (RI) 9% 14 (tie), National Universities
Northwestern University (IL) 9% 10 (tie), National Universities
University of Chicago 9% 3 (tie), National Universities
University of Pennsylvania 9% 8 (tie), National Universities

 

Should I Tell Colleges I Am Asian-American? Yes

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As America’s leading admission strategist, when I speak with parents about admission to “super-reach” colleges like Harvard and Princeton, I am often asked, “should my Asian-American student indicate his or her racial identity as an Asian American on their college applications? Will it hurt their chances of admission to Harvard?” I always say, “Yes, they should indicate their racial identity” and give my students the following advice to help themselves to stand out from even the most crowded and competitive college application pools.

Over the past 20 years, a great majority of my majority-Asian clientele have been admitted to virtually every Ivy League college, Stanford, MIT, and CalTech. In fact, five of my students recently earned admission to Harvard, and from what I can see, racial discrimination has not been much of a factor—three of the five students self-identified as Asian-American on their applications. For my team and I at College Match U.S., we see the applications as an opportunity to express a student’s uniqueness and showcase their impact on community and society as a whole.

Here are five rules every student should follow to showcase their uniqueness in their application.

Rule 1: Consider that Admission to an Ivy is a Long Shot and Protect the Downside

We all know that undergraduate admission to Harvard or Princeton is, statistically speaking, a long shot. Let’s look at the numbers: in the US each year roughly 2.2 million high school leavers apply to 4 year colleges. Of this group, the top 20% or about 440,000 represent the most hard-charging students in America. Most of these 440,000 top students do not get into Harvard, Princeton, or Cornell. From my 20 years of experience helping students gain admission to Ivies, it is the top 10% of the 440,000–about 40,000 top students from across the US of all races and economic classes, who have a clear chance of their application landing them in Harvard Yard. Still, it is great to shoot for the stars! To protect the downside, make sure that you fall in love with some great colleges where the admit rates are between 10% and 25% or even closer to 40%. This will relieve some of the pressure in case the long shot doesn’t pan out.

Rule 2: Develop a Strategy to Help You Stand Out from the Pack

That corny advice that high school graduation speakers often give about finding your true calling and passion and listening to your unique voice can help high school students create the type of uniqueness that places like Harvard crave. In my experience having coached hundreds of students over the past 20 years, creating uniqueness is often more simple and fundamental: it is about peeling away the layers of external influence to identify the student’s life goal and the unique qualities, or points of difference, to discover what makes them tick. By expressing a goal such as, “Making an impact on society by making health care more accessible” a student can plot out steps to achieve this goal, while in high school. This type of self-actualization is what colleges are looking for. There are some great resources to help. For example, my book Brand U: 4 Steps to the College of Your Dreams offers exercises to help your student create a “vision” along with actionable steps to reach their respective life goals.

Rule 3: Link to a Higher Purpose to Identify and Create Evidence of Your Uniqueness

How does a student find something unique about themselves –compared with the 2.2 million other high school students that year? Students can start by identifying what makes them different and then link their out-of-class activities to this uniqueness. For example, if you say you help protect the environment, doing an experiment that tests chemical compound transport in groundwater would be a great way to prove this passion—especially if the student creates an experiment and enters it in a science fair and wins a prize. Third party validation for skills, abilities, and passions is almost mandatory from an admission perspective because potential and promise is tough for admissions officers to interpret and score–they trust reputable third-parties such as science fairs to demonstrate ability at the regional, state, or national levels.

Rule 4: Look Beyond the Ivy League to Consider a Fuller Range of Options

What if the Ivy League, MIT, and Stanford were just the tip of the iceberg and that there were hundreds of Little Ivies and Little MIT’s out there to choose from? As an early evangelist of Loren Pope’s theories about Little Ivies, in my practice I have guided hundreds of families toward the right colleges–schools that match their values and provide students with the skills and experiences to achieve their life’s goals. College choice guru Loren Pope, showcases a range of “colleges that change lives”.  In “Looking Beyond the Ivy League”, Pope, demonstrates just how much Little Ivies can do in terms of preparing students for graduate schools and careers. I have found that these Little Ivies exist in virtually every part of the country from Whitman in Washington State to Rollins to St Lawrence near the Canadian border in Upstate New York and everywhere in between.

Side Note: New Ivies Crop Up

The rise of an increased number of elite colleges can now be measured in terms of both the quality and quantity of applicants. For example, universities and liberal arts colleges on the West Coast now feature more prominently in the admission picture and often overlap increasingly with Ivy League applications. A great example of a “West Coast Ivy League” college is Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Reed has produced the second-highest number of Rhodes scholars for any liberal arts college—31—as well as over 50 Fulbright Scholars, over 60 Watson Fellows, and two MacArthur (“Genius”) Award winners. A very high proportion of Reed graduates go on to earn Ph.D.s, particularly in the sciences, history, political science, and philosophy. Reed is third in percentage of its graduates who go on to earn Ph.D.s in all disciplines, after Caltech and Harvey Mudd; Reed is highest in sending students to graduate programs in biology. “West Coast Ivy League” colleges also include: Caltech, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Occidental, Pomona, Reed , Scripps, Stanford, USC, and Whitman College.

Rule 5: Check “Asian-American” Proudly on Your Applications!  

My response  to parents and students that ask, “should I divulge my Asian heritage” is a resounding and empathetic “YES!” The data has spoken – race is part of identity—identity is a strength not a weakness for admission and regardless of identity and race everyone has to defy stereotyping. Digging deep to identify what makes you unique is what elite colleges crave. To get in, you’ve got to give them what they want–uniqueness and some demonstration that you’ve taken steps toward actualizing your life’s goal.