Dartmouth College
On a recent rainy Tuesday I set out on my first college visits since the Covid Pandemic began. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post spotlights of each of the ten schools on my tour.
Driving into Hanover, New Hampshire it’s impossible not to notice how interwoven Dartmouth College is with the town. Cute cafes and shops line the main street leading to Dartmouth’s Green. Considered “the heart of campus,” the Dartmouth Green is bounded by the college-owned Hanover Inn on one side and Baker Library on the other. (The Baker Bell Tower plays the Alma Mater at 6pm each day, and students regularly put in song requests to be played throughout the day. Tradition is a HUGE part of the Dartmouth experience from the bells to homecoming (and its 75-foot bonfire) to Winter Carnival.)
At just under 4400 undergraduate students, Dartmouth College is the smallest of the Ivies (and often considered the most conservative, though Princeton might beg to differ). It is also the Ivy most focused on the experience of its undergraduate students (its 2100 graduate students are in engineering, business, medicine, and advanced studies). Students rave about the faculty, routinely describing them as engaging, dynamic, and accessible. Faculty who choose Dartmouth do so because they love teaching, knowing that the choice means living in rural NH rather than in one of the dynamic cities and towns that are home to other Ivies and elite schools. Students are able to participate in paid research internships with faculty, and more than two thirds of classes have fewer than 20 students.
Dartmouth has a unique schedule, affectionately known as “D-plan.” Instead of the usual two semesters or occasional trimesters, the year is broken into 4 10-week terms, including one over the summer. Students are required to spend three terms on campus during freshman and sophomore years, and must be there the summer after sophomore year. Many students (over 60%) choose to go abroad, most often in one of Dartmouth’s faculty-led programs. Popular majors are in the social sciences, engineering, biological sciences, foreign languages, and economics.
Dartmouth has a reputation as a bit of a party school, in large part because of the popularity of Greek life on campus, though the school has done much to reduce this in recent years. College-sponsored programming is offered every Friday and Saturday night and includes fun events such as comedy shows and roller skating. The college owns a small ski mountain, about twenty minutes away, and the Dartmouth Outing Club is the oldest in the US. In addition to participation in winter sports and a general love of outdoor activities, Division I and club sports are popular.
Dartmouth is exceptionally competitive for admission, accepting only around 9% of its applicants. It does fill around 45% of its freshman class through Early Decision… if you have your heart set on Dartmouth, your chances of admission do go up by applying early. The school offers free tuition and no loans to students from families with incomes less than $100,000 a year but does not award any merit or athletic scholarships.
Dartmouth offers an excellent education and experience for the right student. If you’d like to explore if it’s a best fit for you or are interested in putting together your strongest application, call us 617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.
Let’s talk about grammar!
Really? You read that and you’re still here? Okay…
I love grammar. A lot. I taught my first college class when I was 25-years-old. I was scared. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew grammar. Grammar was a concrete set of rules that no one could mess with. I may not have known how to make students better writers, but I could make them better grammarians, and no one could argue that I was messing that up.
I wasn’t exactly the best teacher back then.
The truth is, most people don’t know their misplaced modifiers from their split infinitives, and this includes college admissions readers. Still, most students beginning their personal essays get hung up on essay format and grammar, when really these are the finishing details. The things to give attention to at the end.
Remember, admissions officers already have your grades, test scores, and transcripts. They know what kind of student you are. They’re not judging your ability to write a perfect essay. They’re trying to get a better understanding of what kind of person you are and how you’ll fit into their college community.
Your application details reflect you, the student. Your personal essay reflects you, the human, and most humans aren’t grammar experts, so relax. Don’t let the technical stuff get in the way of your ability to tell a great story about who you are.
Some tips for pushing past writing anxiety:
Don’t think about grammar and structure. At least not in the first few drafts. The most important thing is for you to get things out of your head, and worrying about technical stuff is putting the cart before the horse.
Talk like you. Ever had a teacher say you shouldn’t write the way you talk? What they probably meant was, write like a classier version of you. You with a suit on. You without cursing or saying “like.” But of course you should write the way you talk because you talk pretty good -- I mean well. You’re applying to college, aren’t you?! Most importantly, as a college student and later, a professional, you will find that your professors, clients, bosses, and colleagues expect your authentic voice, both in person and on paper.
Be you. Always.
Read it aloud. You may not be a grammar expert, but you are exposed to a lot of speech and writing that adhere to the basic principles of good grammar. In fact, when you speak, you probably adhere to those principles too, so when you hear something that sounds off, weird, or wrong, it probably is. If your own work trips you up, stop and change it, or maybe circle it and come back to it later. Better yet, read it out loud to a parent or a friend. They can help identify things that sound awkward and help you brainstorm solutions.
It’s easier to hear a grammar mistake than to see it.
Forget the 5 paragraph essay. It’s a great tool for elementary and high school writers, but it’s not useful for an essay like this. The personal essay is just that -- personal. Think about it like a conversation between you and someone who wants to get to know you better. Tell them a story about yourself that helps them get there. It doesn’t require a thesis statement and three distinct details in three distinct paragraphs. It requires something honest, specific, and representative of the awesome person you are.
We’d love to help you with all the stages of the personal statement. Email us at info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.851.9975) and let’s chat.
Rethinking Car Stickers
Dad: “How many colleges are in the U.S.?”
Us: “Nearly 4000.”
Unsurprisingly, this dad had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that while there are 4000 different possibilities, he sees the same college stickers on the cars around town: Harvard (sometimes); UMass Amherst (a lot); assorted familiar locals (everywhere)...
So where are the stickers for the rest of those 3,980 schools? Are they less good? Is there something wrong with them?
The short answer: Nope. Not a thing. The real problem is a lack of exposure, and ultimately, a failure of imagination.
Over the last couple of decades, college mania has exploded. Ranking agencies have grown in scope and influence, rewarding colleges that invest in the things the rankings care about. This, in turn, makes colleges more concerned with rankings. Of course this then drives families’ desires to send their kids to schools that generate buzz and promise a future of elite networks and professional success. And all this keeps driving the rankings… it’s a never-ending cycle in which so many schools seem impossible to get into and nearly impossible to afford. It’s more than enough to make your head spin.
But is all this competition among colleges really that important? A lot of smart people are happy to tell you the answer is no.
A growing body of evidence shows that ultimately, it’s not where you go but what you do there that matters. (Frank Bruni’s book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania is a great place to read more about this.) It’s why we talk so much about best-fit in our work with clients and families. A top-ranked school may be your best-fit but don’t be seduced into thinking it’s because of its ranking.
If a college is your best-fit, it will be because it offers small classes that are taught by professors who are rewarded for teaching and who engage students in lively discussions that inspire and excite them. Or it will be a medium-sized school a little farther away from home with internships that encourage students to explore which career paths feel right. Or it will be a school where 90% of its students participate in study abroad and bring their globe-spanning experiences to enrich the experiences of everyone on campus.
If you limit your ideas of what college should be to the experiences being offered by a handful of schools, you will miss out on innovation and creativity and the opportunity for personal growth.
But we get it: it’s easy for us to encourage you to explore exciting and lesser-known options; it’s a little harder to be the car in the parking lot with a sticker from a college no one’s ever heard of.
Our advice is to embrace a healthy perspective: focus on what’s best for your kid and on the process-- it should be exciting and exploratory, not panicky and ulcer-inducing. Start by asking the right questions. Read about LOTS of different schools, not just the ten or twenty you’ve heard of. Learn more about the rankings and what they actually measure (hint: it’s really a measure of a college’s power, not the quality of education or the experience it provides).
In our work with students and families, we ask lots of questions. We work really hard to get to know our students and to think about what their experiences might be in different environments. We create best-fit lists of schools to explore that include variety. Sometimes we even throw in a few schools that we know aren’t going to be best-fits but will be really helpful for comparison. And we don’t worry about car stickers. They can be fun. But they shouldn’t get a vote in such an important --and potentially life-changing-- decision.
If you’d like to talk about how we look at schools and build our best-fit lists, give us a call (617.447.0186) or email us at info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat. We’d love to help.
You’re kind of a big deal.
As we’ve noted in past blog posts, the current test-optional trend means that college admissions officers are spending more time evaluating the whole student-- including high school grades, course selection , and extracurriculars. The Common App Personal Statement helps tie them all together and give some insight into who you are not just as a student, but as a person, so it's an important piece of the application puzzle.
If you’re a rising senior, it’s hard not to have the personal statement on your radar. You’ve seen examples of students’ successful personal statements on YouTube and TikTok. Your parents probably know that The New York Times publishes the best college essays each year. And a quick Google search will turn up hundreds of insider tips, do’s and don’ts, secrets, and pointers for how to write a successful essay.
So you can be forgiven if sitting at a laptop to start this thing feels completely overwhelming -- but it doesn’t have to be.
You + the right list = a successful essay.
Here’s the thing: if you’ve narrowed and selected your college application list in a thoughtful way, taking into account who you are and who you hope to become, you’re one step closer to writing an essay that demonstrates why you’re a great candidate for admission.
Applying to a school because it’s close to your house? Because it has an impressive brand name? Because your cousin went there? Because the basketball team is on TV? These aren’t great reasons. Think deeper.
Is the school supportive of first generation students? Does it offer opportunities for community engagement? Does it have a robust coop program or study abroad? Does it support undergraduate research?
Why is it a good fit for you?
What you want from your college experience says a lot about you. Approach the personal statement as an opportunity to show college admissions officers how your values and expectations align with the character and mission of those colleges. You -- and they -- are looking for a good fit.
“I'm not that interesting.”
“Nothing’s ever happened to me.”
“My life is pretty good. I have nothing to write about.”
Sound familiar? We hear this all the time from rising seniors. This is why it can be so hard to begin writing.
Start by giving yourself a break. You’ve spent the last 17 years figuring out who you want to be, and you’re not close to done. Whether you’ve had a defining life experience or not, you are still a set of amazing qualities. You might be a great team leader or someone who loves working with kids. You might be an experienced outdoors-person or a supportive sibling and friend.
Don’t short change yourself. These qualities matter. They tell an admissions officer what kind of roommate, student, and community member you will be. Remember, that final list of schools will be lucky to have you. You just need to develop a concise, clear statement that communicates what makes you, you.
We’re excited to get to know you and find out what makes you a big deal. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s get started.
Should I visit over the summer?
Back in pre-pandemic days, most college counselors and consultants had a pretty firm rule: don’t visit campuses when classes aren’t in session. The thinking went that a prospective student wouldn’t get a sense of what the school was actually like -- she needed to see real students, observe real time classes, and smell real food in the dining hall.
A few consultants and parents took a different approach, believing that seeing a campus in person mattered most and that sometimes summer travel was the only option. But for the majority of prospective students, the recommendation was to visit as many campuses as possible during the spring of junior year of high school. And if that wasn’t possible, to visit after admissions decisions were released.
Then the pandemic hit and everything we thought we knew flew out the window. Students waiting to visit colleges until accepted could no longer travel. How could they commit to a school 2500 miles from home when they’d never seen its campus? In most cases they didn’t, choosing the schools they’d been able to see in person whether those schools were their best fits… or not.
Virtual Visits
In the year since, colleges have invested a lot in creating virtual visits. High school students in Massachusetts can join campus tours in Minnesota-- seeing inside dorms, classrooms, gyms, and dining halls-- narrated by entertaining students giving the inside scoop about life at their schools.
In our post-pandemic world, sometimes the only thing missing is the actual smell of food in the dining hall.
Boots on the ground
Our advice is pretty simple— start by exploring the great online content schools created: go on a virtual tour of a campus, watch a few student videos, attend a virtual information session, and use those tools to take some schools off your list that don’t seem like a great fit, and maybe add some unexpected ones that check a lot of your boxes. Then, think about the reality of travel and what’s possible.
Does your family have the time and financial ability to visit some schools (we’re big fans of incorporating campus visits into regular vacations!)? Are you considering schools that involve at least one flight every time you go back and forth to school? Will visiting that school, and maybe taking a flight to get there, help you decide how comfortable you’d be making that trek for four years? Will seeing the campus help you decide if it’s the best fit?
In many cases, the answer is yes.
While we agree that visiting a campus over the summer isn’t an ideal way to see a school, we also think that the reality of busy family life (not to mention the last year plus of not being able to travel) makes it necessary. You’ll still get to walk around the campus, take a tour, and see the dining hall. You’ll see a typical dorm room and be able to imagine if you can fit your vintage t-shirt collection in the dresser.
Another reason we encourage visits whenever families can make them work is simple exposure and motivation. High school is hard. There’s a lot being asked of our kids these days. Getting to see some beautiful and exciting campuses can be great inspiration during that all important junior year and when it’s time to sit down and put those killer applications together in the fall of senior year.
In the end, we believe in flexibility. If visiting campuses is easiest for your family over the summer, we think that’s great and encourage you to make it happen. If you’d like to talk about putting together a list of potential schools to visit virtually or in person, send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.447.0186) and let’s chat.
I struggled in math. Now what?!
Last week we got a call from the parents of a student finishing his sophomore year. He’s a great kid and an excellent student-- hard-working but doesn’t take himself too seriously, engaged in his coursework, and curious about the world around him. In spite of this, he’s had a tough year in his math class. Where he earned A’s in all of his other courses, his final math grade is likely to be in the C+/B- range. He’s had some difficulties with the teacher-- they’re not a great fit for each other-- and Algebra is just tough for him.
His parents called to get our advice and thoughts on a few different questions:
How will this grade -- lower than anything else on his transcript -- affect his college applications?
What can they do over the summer to make sure he is prepared for the math portion of the PSAT (usually taken Fall of Junior year) and SAT (he’ll take it next Spring for the first time)?
How can they boost his confidence so the difficulty of that one course doesn’t affect how he feels about school or his ability to work through difficult academic situations??
Here’s what we shared:
The important thing to remember is that one less-than-perfect grade isn’t going to keep a great kid from getting into great colleges. While this class was a struggle for our client, we’ll help him build a narrative that tells the story of this struggle, including what he learned about himself and his ability to work through challenges. We’ll also strategize a plan for success in future math classes so that his transcript shows a trajectory of growth and improvement.
While we think it’s a great idea to spend some time this summer getting familiar with the PSAT, SAT, and ACT and doing some healthy prep work for them, we think it’s equally important to take a break from stress and anxiety and get some breathing room. And this brings us to #3…
Take a break! This past year (really 15 - 16 months) was really hard, like really really hard. High school students suddenly found themselves at home. With their parents. All. The. Time. Some students started this year fully remote, some hybrid, and some full-time and in-person. Some had their academic schedules totally reshuffled and classes taught in longer or shorter blocs. Some students who struggled with a particular class for a ton of different reasons couldn’t get the support they would usually have access to in normal times. It added up to a lot of extra stress and a lot of extra unknowns.
So what does taking a break look like?
In this case, we advised our client and his parents to focus on finishing out the year strong-- getting through final projects and tests with as much grit and grace as he could muster. And then, slamming the door on it for a few weeks, ideally a full month.
He needs some time to let his brain rest, to have some fun, to get some distance from the stress he’s been under. When he’s feeling restored, we suggested he start doing some twice-weekly work in math to review what he worked so hard to learn this year, to re-engage with what was confusing and keep working towards understanding, and lastly, to begin working with a test-prep tutor. While we expect most schools will stay test-optional for the coming year, it’s still a great idea to be prepared to take the SAT or ACT. There are amazing tutors out there who not only understand the tips and tricks for success but can also seriously help reduce test-taking anxiety, which always results in higher scores.
Whether you’re struggling with what to do after a tough course, want some advice on how to choose classes next year to strengthen your college applications, or want to build a strong narrative telling your story, we’re here to help. Give us a call (617.447.0186) or email us at info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.
College Athletics: Where do I fit?
Nearly 8 million high school students in the U.S. participate in athletics, and many of them hope to compete at the college level. You may be one of them, putting in the hard work every day to beat your personal record in the mile or nail the upper 90 on a direct kick.
I was one of them too. In truth, I spent way more time perfecting my jump shot than understanding Algebra. And I was lucky to earn an athletic scholarship to a Division II college that offered me opportunities I might otherwise not have had.
But as you might have guessed, I’m not giving A’ja Wilson any competition for MVP of the WNBA. So, what’s the benefit of participating in competitive athletics as high school kids if under 7% of those students will play in college? And even fewer will earn scholarships to do it?
Leadership, commitment, teamwork
These are skills that aren’t easily learned in a classroom. Sports teach us humility, confidence, dedication, and perhaps most important, the ability to fail and recover from those failures. While I may have the occasional nightmare about losing the 1991 Connecticut Girls Basketball State Championship (no, that never goes away), I still sleep pretty well at night and am content to spend my adult life complaining about the Celtics.
Even if you weren’t the best player on your lacrosse team, the skills you learned and practiced as a dedicated member of a team will make you an attractive prospect for college admissions officers -- as much as they are looking at applicants’ GPAs and AP classes, they are looking to find students who will be good roommates, classmates, and members of the college community. They’re looking for good teammates.
College Athletics: Cutthroat Intramurals
One spring, after my basketball season had officially ended, kids in my dorm asked me to join their coed intramural softball team. I thought it would be a low-pressure, fun way to get outside and hang with friends in the off-season.
I was mistaken.
My team captain had us practicing twice a week, where I was directed to devote more time to fielding ground balls and improving my swing. It was...intense. But it was also really fun. I met new friends, kept in shape, and didn’t have to lift weights or wake up for practice at 5:30am.
College intramural or club sports can be a great way to continue playing the sport you love at a competitive level. When thinking about colleges, investigate their club programs. You’re likely to find traditional options like basketball, soccer, and flag football, but you might find other activities to try out like ultimate frisbee or squash.
Being a part of a team doesn’t have to end with high school.
NCAA Athletics
Division I and II athletes likely have a good sense of what they’re getting into when it comes to playing college sports. There will be 6am practices, long bus rides, weight training, film-watching, games, oh right, and classes. In addition to in-season work, these students can expect pre-, post-, and off-season work as well.
In other words, being a Division I or II college athlete is a job, and it’s a difficult one. Students should talk with current and former Division I and II athletes to help ease the transition from high school to college and to prepare themselves for the responsibility that comes with this opportunity.
And don’t get me wrong, Division III athletics can be highly competitive and time consuming as well. The difference is that Division III programs don’t have athletic scholarships to give, though most Division III athletes receive some need- or merit-based aid. And at some colleges, admissions officers will take recruitment status into consideration when evaluating applicants. However, this generally means that student athletes must meet the college’s admissions standards and submit a strong application, so that work still needs to be done.
What Division III athletes must consider seriously is their commitment to the hard work of being on a team in an environment that puts less emphasis on athletics than their Division I and II counterparts.
Whether you’re wrapping up your athletic career or looking for a best-fit school where you can keep playing, let us help you develop an application that makes the most of your high school athletic experiences. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat. We would love to help you find your place.
https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/probability-competing-beyond-high-school
https://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/play-division-iii-sports
Why Visit Campuses?
As a kid, my summer vacations included big family reunions held in rented houses often on big lakes. We kayaked and canoed, roasted marshmallows, and hiked up mountains that felt like they took days when it was probably a few hours.
Unlike most kids, I always spent some part of those summer vacations wandering around the nearest college campus. When we rented a house in New York’s Finger Lakes, it was Cornell University. During our reunion at Lake Winnipesaukee, we spent an afternoon at Dartmouth. My grandfather was a professor of education at Cornell College in Iowa (interestingly, the first Cornell), and trips there included lots of rounds of frisbee golf across its golden campus. Later, reunions in North Carolina and South Carolina included afternoons at UNC and College of Charleston. By the time I started high school, I’d probably seen two dozen schools.
In November 2013, my husband and I took our two young daughters for their first trip to our alma mater, Bates College. Walking across its beautiful quad, we told them stories of the Ice Storm of 1998 (it was definitely a capitalized Ice Storm) and omelets in the dining hall by candlelight until power was restored. My husband showed them the music department in Ladd Library where he had his work study job, I pointed out the Office of College Relations where I had mine. It was fun and silly and special. And they listened raptly, trying to imagine this other existence of their parents.
Just before the pandemic took hold, I took a close friend and her daughter for a tour of Bates and nearby Bowdoin. We explored both campuses talking about being a student at a small liberal arts college-- developing close relationships with professors and mentors, exploring classes in different disciplines to broaden minds and try out different futures, having so many campus events and activities to choose from that a weekend spent away felt like a hard choice, and being part of a devoted Alumni community with access to amazing internships and networks in cities across the globe.
Centered in all of these visits was always the idea of exploration. It was never about selling a particular college or an experience. As a kid, I loved visiting colleges because my parents and my grandfathers and my aunts and uncles loved visiting colleges. When I started to look for my own school, it was with that spirit of seeing what’s out there and finding my best-fit.
Exposure and exploration are the fun parts of the college search, a chance to see what feels right. Maybe it’s that small liberal arts college where the community and the campus are thriving and where most students study abroad. Maybe it’s that large urban university where the campus is the entire city and no two weekends are alike. Maybe it’s an honors program at a big state school where classes are small and personal, but social events include football games with tens of thousands of cheering fans.
I still love visiting campuses. And now that we’ve begun to emerge from the pandemic, it’s likely that colleges will once again throw open their doors and their classrooms to visits from prospective students, whether those prospective students are 7 or 17.
If you’d like help building a list of schools to visit, give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat. We would love to help you find your place.
I haven’t started yet! Should I freak out?
Generally, we recommend not freaking out.
The college search process does have stages, though, and the earlier you begin, the less stressful and more productive each will be. Hiring a college admissions consultant (like us!) in the early stages can make the process a little less intimidating and a lot more fun.
Where do I start?
Start with you. What do you know about what a college campus looks and feels like?
By the time she was in high school, my oldest daughter had visited the university where I was a professor dozens of times, so that was her model for college--medium-sized, private, and in the middle of downtown Boston.
In the summer after 9th grade, she went to soccer camp at Williams College, a small college in a charming New England town. Later that summer, on a trip to Washington DC, we toured American University, a college on the larger-size just outside the heart of the city.
She didn’t end up applying to any of these schools, but each gave her an opportunity to imagine herself in a particular environment. She learned she didn’t want an urban campus, but she didn’t want to be in the middle of nowhere either. She didn’t want to be at a school as big as American, but also not as small as Williams.
Thinking about the basics early -- close to home or farther afield? Cold or hot? Northeast or Southwest? -- will make building your college list easier later.
Building a resumé.
In each year of high school, you are building a resumé for college admissions officers. This can sound like a lot of pressure, but it doesn’t have to be. Your classes, grades, activities, hobbies, and interests are beginning to tell a story about who you are that will catch the attention of admissions readers.
A college admissions consultant (us again!) can help you thread the pieces of that story together in a way that best reflects who you are as a student and community member. We might challenge you to join a club you’d be perfect for or to take that additional AP class you’re hesitant about.
Throughout our work together, we’ll help you to think about the connections between your academic and extracurricular activities, and guide you toward a best-fit college list that reflects your interests and potential.
As I wrote in our May 10th blog post, preparing to apply for college is largely about getting to know yourself -- what you love, what you’re good at, what challenges you -- and then telling a coherent story about who that is. The earlier you begin to think about the story, the more compelling it will be.
Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.
Likelihood to Enroll
Last week we wrote about admissions terms like test-optional and holistic admissions. Another term we’re running across more and more often is Likelihood to Enroll (or LTE factor). It sounds simple enough, but in reality it’s part of a huge change in the last twenty years in how college admissions work. The catalyst for this change? Predictive analytics.
What is predictive analytics?
It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like-- the use of data and statistical algorithms to predict future outcomes. Long ago, before US News & World Reports started its rankings and before colleges became insanely expensive, admissions officers were tasked with bringing in a fantastic class of students each September that met the general standards of the institution, kept its budget in the black, and were likely to be positive and successful alumni. But as colleges more and more come to resemble businesses in an effort to move up in the rankings, admissions officers are now most often defined by four metrics of success:
Filling every available seat.
Accepting the fewest number of applicants to achieve the highest selectivity rating.
Maximizing tuition revenue.
Ensuring admitted students graduate within six years, preferably four.
This change has redefined the traditional admissions office; its primary concern is now Enrollment Management. And this is where predictive analytics come in, and specifically Likelihood to Enroll.
So, what is likelihood to enroll?
It sounds straightforward enough-- isn’t it just how likely a particular student is to enroll in a particular school? In reality, it’s based on data-gathering from every possible source.
Put simply, every time you interact with a school-- signing up for emails, requesting a viewbook, attending an information session online or in person, saying hi to an admissions officer at a college fair (and giving them your name and contact information), following the school on social media and liking its posts-- this data gets sent to the school. And the school’s very sophisticated enrollment management software uses an algorithm to calculate your LTE factor-- your likelihood to enroll at the school. This is part of your admissions application file, and when it comes time to make a decision about whether to put you in the admit or reject pile, it counts for a lot. Why? Because admissions offices are focused on those four factors above and the LTE helps them get there.
What does that mean for you?
It means that you can help your chances of being accepted to the schools you’re really interested in by boosting your LTE factor.
How do you do this? All the ways mentioned above. For the schools you’re seriously interested in, demonstrate that interest by:
Signing up for admissions emails;
Requesting admissions materials;
Visiting campus if you can;
Attending an information session in person or online;
Checking in with admissions officers at college fairs and giving them your name and contact information;
Following them on social media and liking their posts and stories;
Sending a personal note after an interview with an admissions officer.
If you’re interested in more ways you can make your application stand out for admissions officers, give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.
Asking the right questions.
Who am I and where do I belong?!
If you’re a high school student and questions like these are keeping you up at night, take a long, deep breath. These are big ones. In fact, you’ll be asking them your whole life, so they’re not prerequisites for selecting the right college.
We get it, though. When you’re beginning the college search process, it’s hard not to consider the big questions. But whether you’re a person who’s wanted to be a marine biologist since your first trip to an aquarium or one who hasn’t quite nailed down your passion yet, we believe you should swap out the overwhelming existential questions for ones you really can answer:
What do I love, what am I good at, and what’s out there for me?
These questions can help you begin building a list of best-fit colleges, ones that are ready to support the amazing person you already are, and that will help you realize the person you want to be.
What do I love?
The best way for you to begin thinking about your best-fit college is to consider your interests. These can often lead you to fields of study or careers you hadn’t thought of. Do you love sports? Love the idea of being a member of a school community that rallies around its athletic teams? You don’t have to be a college athlete for this to be part of your college selection criteria or to pursue a career related to athletics.
The same goes for music, film, hiking, reading, singing, video games, skateboarding, and so much more. The things you love can hold the key to a successful college experience as well as a future career.
What am I good at?
Math? Field hockey? Drums?
Sometimes this can be a hard question to answer and so we sell ourselves short. At May First, our students fill out several surveys from which we begin to build a complex student profile. We want to know if actively contributing in the classroom is your thing, or if you’re the kind of learner who prefers to absorb and reflect before speaking. We want to know if you’re a great team leader or a steady, reliable team member. If you work well under pressure, or if you prefer to start early and work slowly.
The skills you’ve developed in the classroom, at work, at practice, in your community, and in your home can be the foundation for life-long success and help you to build that best-fit college list.
What’s out there for me?
Identifying what you love and the sometimes subtle ways in which you excel both in and out of the classroom can be just as important as your GPA in determining the right college for you. It can mean the difference between applying to schools with 80 students to a class or 15, or to schools focused on coop or study abroad. It might be as mundane as applying to schools in a big city or a rural town.
We think the best part -- the most fun part -- is finding the answer to what’s out there for me? Because the answer is, something great. Something that is your best-fit.
Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.
Holistic Admissions?
Lately we’ve noticed some new terms creeping into the already crowded landscape of admissions jargon. Test-optional is probably the most familiar from the recent admissions cycle. Another term we’re hearing a lot is Holistic Admissions. It’s been around for a while, but this year it started cropping up everywhere.
So, what is holistic admissions?
At its simplest, the concept means that admissions offices using holistic admissions are committed to looking at the entire application instead of filtering out students based on GPAs and test scores. (How many of us imagine admissions officers of elite colleges looking at our GPAs and test scores and putting us in the admit or reject piles without even glancing at the rest of our painstakingly put together application?) While GPAs and curriculum still matter--a lot--now the personal statement, letters of recommendation, and activities both in and out of school play a much stronger role in determining whether a particular applicant will be a successful and engaged member of the school community.
There are a number of colleges that went test-optional long before the pandemic: Bowdoin College made submitting standardized test scores optional in 1969 and its neighbor, Bates College, did the same in 1984. The University of Chicago, another elite institution, decided to stop requiring the SAT or ACT in 2018. With increased scrutiny of the implicit bias and inherent systematic inequality in standardized tests as well as rampant cheating scandals (Is it time to finally get rid of the SAT and ACT college admissions tests), these schools have demonstrated that removing standardized test scores from admissions criteria doesn’t affect a college’s ability to admit outstanding students. Beyond that, diversity of the student body has greatly increased at many test-optional institutions and there has been no statistical decline in graduation rates or student GPAs.
Simply put, holistic admissions is working for these schools.
What does that mean for you?
As a high school student thinking about where to apply to college, it means you should still be making thoughtful and informed decisions about what courses to take and you should still be working hard and doing your best in these courses. It means the personal statement is a great opportunity to catch the attention of admissions readers and show why you would be an excellent addition to their student body. It means that asking teachers who know you well and will speak to your unique strengths and interests to write your letters of recommendations matters now more than ever.
And it means we’re here to help.
Give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.
holistic admissions - test optional - personal essay - best-fit
Hey, high school juniors!
Congratulations! You’re nearing the end of the most important and challenging year of your high school career. And you did it all during a pandemic.
Once you’ve had some time to appreciate all of your accomplishments (even if the major one was just getting through it), you will need to begin thinking about the college selection process. Here are some things to consider as you get started:
Things have changed.
College and university admissions practices looked a lot different in 2021. Applications at many elite colleges were up over 50% from the previous year. As a result, some college acceptance rates dropped considerably. Conversely, applications at colleges with less name recognition were down. Both scenarios provide challenges and opportunities that might seem daunting for the class of 2022; we’ve even heard the current college admissions landscape referred to as “the wild west.” But what does this mean for you?
We think it means opportunity.
Test Optional...for real.
Some of the pivots college admissions offices made during the pandemic are likely to stick. Most significantly, colleges suspended standardized testing requirements for the class of 2021. Although some will inevitably return to required ACT or SAT scores, research conducted by Fair Test, the National Center For Fair and Open Testing, reveals that at least 1,360 four-year institutions "have already announced that they will not require fall 2022 applicants to submit standardized exam results before admissions decisions are made.”
We believe this shift gives the class of 2022 a broad palette of options. If that Ivy League reach feels even more remote now that it’s posting a 4% acceptance rate, you have an opportunity to explore colleges and universities you might not have otherwise considered. This is the perfect time to find that hidden gem or the just-right fit you didn’t know you were looking for.
The Personal Essay takes center stage.
As colleges and universities are increasingly adopting test-optional processes, admissions counselors are taking a more comprehensive and holistic approach to assessing applicants. This means truly considering the whole student, from extracurricular activities to course-building. In this new landscape, colleges and universities are looking to get to know potential students on a personal level. What kind of community member will they be? How do their interests align with our university’s mission and identity? Will they succeed intellectually and personally?
To get the answers, admissions counselors are looking more carefully than ever at students’ personal essays. As a member of the class of 2022, you have an exciting opportunity to craft an essay that reflects your unique personality and experiences, and that convinces that best-fit school that you are exactly who they’re looking for.
https://fairtest.org/university/optional