Weekly Column Patrick OConnor College Admissions Advice from College Admission Officers at Hot Schools
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If a college you love is too far away to visit, there’s a good chance the college will come visit you. Some popular colleges will visit high schools in the fall, so ask your school counselor if the college you care about ever pays your school a visit. If they don’t, they may still visit your area; they’ll just host a visit on a weekend or at night, usually at a hotel. These hotel visits can draw a big crowd (300 or more!), but since the information is valuable, you should go—and be sure to ask a question! These same colleges often host meetings with school counselors—hey, you’re not the only one who needs to keep up with the hot schools! I had the chance to attend one of these breakfasts last week, which was hosted by five strong colleges, and they had some good ideas to pass along: APs or college classes? High school students often decide to take classes at a local college instead of taking the AP classes their high school offers. The thinking here is colleges will be more impressed by a student taking “real” college classes than students who stay at the high school and slave away over AP courses. The reps at the breakfast—from Duke, They didn’t address what to do if you want to take a college class that isn’t offered at your high school—your best bet is to call the admissions office of the colleges you’re interested in and ask. Surprises in this year’s applications. The college reps were asked if they saw any trends or changes in the applications they read this year. They said they saw an increase in the number of students who indicated an interest in math, science, and business. This isn’t unusual—an increase like this also occurred in the last bad economy, since students wanted to make sure they would have marketable job skills—and since the economy is taking its time turning around, it’s likely these majors will also be popular ones next year. Counselor letters. Like most colleges, these five require a Secondary School Report, where counselors are asked to provide some basic information on each student. This is also an opportunity for the counselor to share their thoughts about the student, or talk about any unusual circumstances the student might have been through in high school. The reps said they knew it was hard for counselors to write good recommendations on their students, since counselors have to see so many students—they said they thought counselors had about 200 students to see, when in fact it’s usually much higher. They encouraged the counselors to write as much as they could about each student, and then they talked about some counselor “recommendations” that are a form where the counselor basically says the student was never suspended or expelled, or has a criminal record. My advice? Counselors can really cheer for you, but since they have so many students to see, you’re going to have to make the first move. Respect their time and space, but find a way to get your counselor to get to know you; if every other applicant sends in a checklist, your counselor’s letter will help that much more.
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