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“I don’t want to go to a school that’s smaller than my high school.”

August 30th, 2009 No comments »

This is a phrase I frequently hear in regards to why a student isn’t applying to any liberal arts colleges.  I get it: with typical populations ranging from 1,000 to 2,5000, they really are small.  But that can be a very good thing.  Knowing what I know now, I wish that a teacher or counselor had pushed me to seriously consider small liberal arts colleges.

These schools are defined not only by size, but also by major choices—most, if not all, are in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences (think English, international relations and physics), as opposed to career-based programs (like business and engineering).  As high schoolers increasingly cite more materialistic reasons for going to college (e.g., training for a specific job, making more money), the liberal arts are ever more dismissed.  The fact that the names of these schools may not be as recognizable as some of the larger universities is another reason applicants frequently—and misguidedly—disregard them.


It pains me to see students overlook these institutions, which are such amazing places to learn.  Here are a few things to consider before you make the same mistake:

  • Better teaching: True, there are more Nobel Prize winners on large university campuses.  But those types of schools pull big-name academics in a dozen different directions.  The research projects of the professors and their graduate students usually trump the instruction of undergraduates, who may only see these academic celebrities in large lectures, if ever.  But at small schools, there are no graduate students, and there is less emphasis on an academic’s publishing record. At a liberal arts college, teaching the freshman-through-senior bunch is absolutely a professor’s primary goal.

  • Residential community: All schools will say that learning continues outside of the classroom.  However, their living environments aren’t typically crafted to ensure that that means anything more than you doing your homework in your dorm room. The residential experience at a liberal arts college is designed so that the time spent at school and at home is more continuous.  Plus, your fellow students are not only smart, but extraordinarily passionate and curious: they wouldn’t come to a tiny (and frequently less-desirably-located) school if they weren’t.  Together, you can’t help but continue to develop your love of learning and passion for community 24/7.

  • Hard books: College should be difficult.  The books you read should be challenging.  You should know Aristotle and Augustine and Rousseau, and why they matter.  It should sometimes be brutally painful to dismantle their works, and to talk and write about what they mean. But once you learn how to do this, you’re going to have the training to analyze and communicate difficult concepts anywhere in life, including in your future career.  These sorts of mental acrobatics are unique to the liberal arts, and valuable in a different way than the career-oriented training that is frequently more useful if picked up later on, whether that’s in law school or at your first job.

If you’re at all curious about liberal arts colleges, I’d recommend checking out these websites for more information:

  • Collegenews.org (http://www.collegenews.org): News and perspectives on the nation’s top liberal arts colleges.
  • Colleges That Changes Lives (http://www.ctcl.org/): A non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the most student-centered colleges; they’ve identified about forty of the lesser-known small liberal arts colleges that they think fit the bill.

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Post by Shannon, Committee Member

(Committee Collaboration)

I’ll offer a few thoughts to Shannon’s.
I had the smaller school experience and loved it. My wife had the large state school experience and we occasionally get in the discussions about how different our college experiences were. (She now wishes she had attended a smaller private college.)

My encouragement to college-bound students is not to let the current economy deter you from looking into liberal arts colleges. Many have great scholarships and grants to offer. That being said, I always caution students to consider the amount of debt they take on in comparison with their chosen major/profession. If you want to be a teacher and you have to wrack up $100,000 in debt to get the degree and credential, you will be paying that off for a VERY long time. However, if you receive generous grants and will graduate with only $20,000 in student debt, then you will feel much more open in your options after graduation.

I completely agree with Shannon’s statement regarding “hard books” – if you learn those critical thinking skills, you can apply them to any career.

Finally, if you are interested in building a network to help support your post-college life, you are much more likely to develop a larger number of personal relationships with smaller classes, smaller dorms, knowing your professors, and staying active on campus.

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Gillespie, The Admission Committee, LLC

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Posted in Choosing a college

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What is the first thing an admission committee sees on your college application?

August 24th, 2009 No comments »

The first information an admission committee will see about a student is the basic personal information – name, birthday, address, high school, etc. At this point, the committee is already starting to form an opinion about a student. Do they know the high school? Is it a good one? A student can’t really change her name, birthday, or address. But one crucial piece of information she has complete control over is . . . the email address. Right off the bat, the committee members will start to form an opinion based off of what the student has chosen for an email address. It tells them something about the student. Some students may want to reconsider putting “iLovepooHbEar87″ as their email address, even though they’ve had it since they were ten years old. (For us admission folks, its hard to imagine college students having had email since they were ten!) I remember a student having an email like “nameboobear” and we joked in the office about it reading “boob ear”. Now these are basically harmless. They don’t tend to set the committee on the wrong path. But, names like (I’m not kidding here, and pardon the reference) “ganggbiotch69″ are definitely going to tell the committee a great deal about the applicant before they ever even look at her activities or read her essays.

I highly recommend students choose a new gmail address specifically for applying to colleges. The student can have it linked to her regular account if she will have a problem remembering to check it frequently (and you must check it frequently for communication from colleges). But, this way when the committee sees “sallysapplication”, “timstudieshard”, “admitashley”, or “thebestapplicant”, they are already seeing that this student has taken the college application process seriously. It’s such a small aspect, but it’s one of the easiest things to do to make sure that you are not setting the wrong tone before you even get a chance to introduce yourself.

I have not seen this bit of advice in any college admission help book, it just comes from many laughs during long hours in admission committee.

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Post by Gillespie, The Admission Committee, LLC

(Committee Collaboration)

Allen is right about e-mail addresses; we also got a good laugh over a number of them in my committee.  My advice, though, is to simply set up an account under your name.  I know certainly other colleagues who would be impressed with the types of addresses listed above, but I would think it were too gimmicky–and I know I’m not alone.  I’ll think you’re taking not just your application, but yourself seriously if I see a simple dianedmiller@gmail.com ormdavis@yahoo.com.

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by Shannon, Committee Member

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Posted in Admission Application, Strategy Ideas

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Try this strategy when trying to develop rapport with an admission officer.

August 24th, 2009 No comments »

This is a strategy I never saw during my time as an admission officer, but I think it would be effective.

Admission folks have mixed opinions about the “annoying” applicants – the ones that call and email you almost EVERY day. For some, I have seen their strategy pay off in the end. But then for others, it just digs a deeper hole and eliminates any chance of being admitted. Some students try to send an email to update the admission counselor on their latest award or test score. This might cause the admission officer to pull up the file to try to remember the student, but many times the new information is not substantial enough to require a second consideration.

But, consider this strategy. Instead of updating the counselor with things about your ACCOMPLISHMENTS, how about sending a personal note by snail mail that contains a profound quote or thought. “Hello Allen, thought you might enjoy this thought. Hope it brightens your week.” Now, had a student sent me a series of 6 or more meaningful quotes, I think I would develop a high regard for that student. One, it’s academic and thought provoking – exactly what we look for in the process. Two, the hand-written approach is the best way to convey sincerity. Three, the repetitive nature of “adding value” would eventually cause me to know that student’s name and almost look forward to the new quote to arrive in the mail.

Like I said, no one ever did this. It is just a strategy to which I would have responded positively as an admission officer that got all kinds of forgettable correspondence from applicants.

You can find the quotes for free online and you’d spend less than $10 on the cards and postage.
So, give it a shot.

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Post by Gillespie, The Admission Committee, LLC

(Committee Collaboration)

I’m really intrigued by this idea.  The tricky part would be walking the fine line between compelling and contrived.  I think the key would be making it relevant.  If I got a card with Gandhi’s “Be the change” quote (which we’ve all seen a million time in essays), I wouldn’t be impressed; I might actually be annoyed.  But if I had mentioned something of interest to you during my visit to your school–anything from my school’s solar power research to young people voting to my love of Chipotle–and you sent me a pertinent quote or news clipping, that might be memorable in a good way.  I would especially like it if you included a (short) thought of your own to let me know that you were actually engaging with me and the material, and not just pulling an attention-getting stunt.  It’s a bit more difficult if you’ve never met the counselor, because there’s not yet an established rapport, but again, the key would be making it relevant–to you and your application, and to the school or counselor.

And I firmly believe in the hand-written note.

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by Shannon, Committee Member

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Posted in Admission Officers

What’s this talk about “branding” the admission application?

August 23rd, 2009 No comments »

The idea of branding in the admission process came about from the realization that the most selective schools were no longer looking for well-rounded students, but for specific  students with talents that would create a well-rounded class. The branding concept in admission is for the student to strategically produce an entire application that conveys and reinforces a specific message or brand. The more on message the applicant, the less distracted the admission committee will be in envisioning spot in the freshman class for the applicant.

A quick word on branding in general. “The ultimate driving machine”, “just do it,” “I’m loving it,” are all slogans used by big names – BMW, Nike, and McDonald’s. They reinforce a larger brand identity of each of these. Everyone clearly knows that BMW is an expensive car that tries to provide the best driving experience possible. Everyone knows that Nike makes athletic wear. The brands of these companies include much more than a one line slogan (Nike’s clothes look cooler than Reebok, Nike’s shoes are expensive, but good, Nike now has clothes that communicate with your iPod) but the slogan hopefully sums up the brand – Nike is all about enhancing your athletic performance. In the same way, your application should be a careful coordination of facts and stories that will cause an admission committee to generate a one line summary sentence about you. “The next Steve Jobs.” “Eagle Boy Scout who started a regional non-profit.” “Math quiz set on achieving a PhD and teaching low-income students.”

Does this work for any brand idea in the application process? Not necessarily. You could brand yourself as a world-class equestrian, but if the school does not have a riding program or club, this would be of little value to the class. However, if you were able to show what skills you have acquired from your world-class experience and show how they had affected other areas of your life and would impact your future relationships, the committee would have material to help them envision your role within the freshman class.

The best use of a brand is matching it up with a central pillar of the university’s identity. Consult the university’s mission statement (easily found in most admission view books), and decide how your determined brand identifies with part of the university’s mission statement. If it does not, you should strongly consider whether that is the right school for you.

Now of course you cannot say “my brand is _____.” This will need to come across naturally throughout the many sections of the application – the “resume” section, the short answers, the longer essays, the transcript, and the recommendations.

  • Resume/activities – You will want to position your activities with those you consider most important first. This could be the activities at which you have excelled or the activities that line up with the university’s priorities. Do you have activities during both school year and summer that reinforce your brand? Or do you just vacation all summer long?
  • Short answers – Regardless of the prompts you will need to look for a way to naturally tie in your intended brand. I stress naturally, because you still need to answer the prompt and stay on target. Admission officers hate it when you don’t answer the question. If the question is about “the most influential creative work on your life,” you will want to select a work that impacted your brand, not just a good book you read or the movie you can quote.
  • Essay – We encourage students to tell stories with their application essays. You’ll see us saying that over and over on this blog. So when it comes to branding with the essay, you should either have the story involve your desired brand elements, or have the outcome/lesson of the story be a major catalyst in the development of your brand in your life.
  • Transcript – If you are trying to build a brand that says you are a standout journalism student, your transcript hopefully has AP English, Journalism, Year Book, etc. If you just like to write, but never challenged yourself with the classes available to you, the admission committee may not easily identify your brand.
  • Recommendations – By now you are getting the point. Choose recommenders that have to do with your brand!

There is much more to this topic, but hopefully this post has helped introduce this concept that has become widely popular in the past several years.

If you plan to use the Essay Selection service, we will look for those connections between your list of activities and your proposed essay topics. If you use The Full Committee service, our committee will have the opportunity to confirm whether or not your brand comes across loud and clear in your application.

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Posted in Admission Application, essay

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