Harvard Increases Tuition and FinAid for 2006

"Tuition Set to Rise 4.75% Next Year"
By Evan H. Jacobs, Crimson Staff Writer
The Harvard Crimson - March 24, 2006

Harvard College today announced a 4.75 percent increase in tuition for the 2006-2007 academic year, bringing overall tuition to $43,655 per student.

The College also announced a 6.2 percent increase in scholarships for the upcoming academic year, bringing total aid to $90 million.

Both tuition and aid will increase at a slightly faster rate than they did last year, when tuition was raised by 4.5 percent and scholarships were increased by 5.8 percent.

The average student aid package next year will be just under $33,000, according to a press release issued by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Office of Communications.

“We are very pleased to offer such exceptional financial support to our undergraduates,” Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby said in the press release. “We do so because quality deserves quality: outstanding students from all backgrounds deserve an equal chance at securing a strong education.” ...

Reed College Application Volume Sets Record

"Reed College Receives Record 3,052 Applications"
Press release - Reed College (Portland, Oregon), 24 Feb 2006

PORTLAND, OR (February 24, 2006) – Reed College has received a record 3,052 applications for 345 freshman spaces in its Class of 2010.

"This represents a 15 percent increase over last year and is the fourth consecutive record year for applications,” Dean of Admission Paul Marthers said. “While a number of our peer institutions are also reporting higher applicant numbers this year, few if any can match the unbroken expansion in appeal reflected in Reed’s 76 percent increase since 2000–01. We think this may be an indication that Reed’s special status even among small, selective national liberal arts colleges is attracting more and more attention from students and parents."...

Marthers said he anticipates that Reed will offer admission to 40–42 percent of those who have applied, down from 45 percent last year. The Reed admission office will mail decision letters near the end of March and immediately prepare to host visits, throughout the month of April, from admitted applicants and their families....

More Students Are Applying to More Schools

College Applications: How Many Is Too Many?

Multiple applications have been one of the major trends in college admissions in recent years. To put it simply, more and more high school students are applying to more and more schools.
Fifteen years ago, a typical high school senior applied to 3 or 5 different schools. A study by NACAC (the National Association for College Admissions Counseling) found that today that number is closer to 7. But news reports tell of students who go far beyond that. The New York Times recently profiled a California senior who applied to 21 different universities and colleges.

Is this really necessary, or wise?

The Common Application and online applications have made multiple submissions much easier (and, in the case of the many schools that waive application fees for online submissions, cheaper). Today, a student can send the same basic application material to a dozen different schools with a few clicks of a mouse.

That's not a bad thing. The greater ease of preparing and submitting college applications – along with greater access to information about school options – frees prospective students to pursue opportunities they might not have been able to a decade ago. Students are better able to identify educational institutions that support their interests and goals, and to compare admissions and financial aid offers.

But there are also social and psychological reasons driving the trend toward multiple applications, and they are not completely benign.

Anxiety about college admissions is a major reason why some students apply to a dozen or more schools. Applicants are so intimidated by the acceptance rates at the most selective colleges and universities that they worry they will have nowhere to go unless they fire a volley of applications off to every institution they can think of.

Peer pressure is another factor in the rise of multiple applications. Some students apply to particular schools just because their friends are, or because there is a sense that 'everybody' ought to want to go there. In other cases, students may simply enjoy the validation that comes with an acceptance letter. A student may not seriously want to go to school X, but likes being able to tell people that he or she got in.

Anxiety about a major life passage and an inclination to be sociable are both normal adolescent (and human) behavior. Acting out those impulses through multiple college applications is not, in the greater scheme of things, all that awful. It's not like someone is burning down buildings. But the time, energy, and money a student has to put into preparing 12 or 15 or 20 college applications could certainly be put to more enjoyable and more productive use.

What's more, college applicants actually harm their admissions chances when they apply to too many schools.

Admissions officers tell us that they know when they're reading an application from someone who is applying to a slew of other schools. The essay has a thin, generic quality that suggests the applicant is not serious about getting in. That sense of a lack of interest on the applicant's part makes it easy to reject them.

Here are 3 steps toward a more practical approach to college applications:

1. Be choosy. Decide which schools you would be happy to accept an admissions offer from before you submit any applications. Don't wait until you have an offer in hand to decide whether you want to attend that school or not. Don't apply to a school you wouldn't want to attend.

2. Be realistic. By all means, apply to one or two stretch schools. But also apply to one or more schools you're bound to be admitted to. Similarly, apply to a dream school that you could only attend if an admissions offer came with a generous aid package; but also apply to a school you could pay for yourself if funding doesn't come through.

3. Be focused. College admissions aren't run like lotteries. You don't stand a chance of winning simply by buying a ticket. The way to beat those daunting admissions statistics is to submit a strong, clear, focused application to the handful of schools you are best suited for. Research the schools you most want to attend and figure out what it is about you that is a perfect match for the school's strengths, values, and traditions – and submit an application that conveys those things.

We always tell our clients to prepare their written materials with a specific school in mind. A metaphor we often use is that an admissions essay should be like a Valentine's note that makes the school feel like it's the applicant's 'one and only.'

Start your college application process by identifying the schools that you want to be a part of your life. Follow through by submitting applications that express your feelings – and that lay out the reasons why your chosen schools should feel the same way about you.

Brown Admits To Get an Updated Acceptance Packet

"'Elegant' Revamped Admissions Mailings Greet Accepted Students"
By Melanie Duch
The Brown Daily Herald - March 17, 2006

Mailings from the Office of Admission got a makeover this year. About 2,400 accepted students from both the regular and early decision applicant pools will receive a "stylish" and color-coordinated assortment of written materials and a car decal in their forthcoming deliveries from Brown, according to Dean of Admission Jim Miller '73.

Michael Goldberger, former director of admission and current director of athletics, said admissions mailings became more and more weighed down with information over the 20 years he worked in the admissions office. He added that this trend caused "all sorts of problems" with coordinating the individual packages sent to accepted students.

Miller, who was appointed dean of admission last year, brought up the possibility of revamping the packets several months ago, and others in the admissions office were receptive to the idea.

"We're going to try to make the admission package a littler cleaner. We have been putting a lot of appropriately beautiful stuff in there," Miller said.

Among the items undergoing changes are the folders and the acceptance letters, which Miller said would be more "elegant" than before.

"We're trying to coordinate whole presentation … color, style, tone," Miller said.
Accepted students will also receive admissions certificates this year, which Miller said are "sort of official."

The office also added Brown car decals in the initial acceptance letters, all of which were purchased directly from the Brown Bookstore.

David Pagliaccio '10, who was accepted early decision to Brown but also received acceptance letters from Brandeis and Drew universities, said he did not really notice Brown's admission letter because all the letters he received were "pretty similar."...

Another reason Pagliaccio did not really pay much attention to his admission letter was because he already knew he was admitted when he received it, having checked his decision online several days before.

Because admissions letters are often mailed the same day the decisions are available online, "almost everybody" chooses to check the admissions office's Web site rather than wait for the mail, Goldberger said....

U. of Pennsylvania Signs On to Common App

"Penn Switches to Common App"
By Megan Steiner
The Daily Pennsylvanian - March 15, 2006

Penn is exchanging its individualized application form for a more generic one.
The University plans to switch to the Common Application -- a standard form accepted by 300 American colleges and universities -- this July.

Penn denied the common application for years while its peer schools accepted it, but now the Admissions Department says that the Common Application will help Penn to attract a new demographic.

In February of 2005, Stetson told the Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn did not accept the Common Application because "the seriousness with which students use the common application is suspect."

Until now, the University accepted only its own individualized application, which included two essays and several short answer questions.

The University will now require a supplement to the more bareboned Common Application. It will likely include previously used questions such as why applicants are applying to Penn and what the 217th page of their autobiography would say, according to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Stetson.

Stetson said that the switch was prompted by research and discussion with other schools that found that the application has been successful in reaching racial, ethnic, geographic and economic groups that are typically underrepresented. Reaching more students in those groups was the primary motivation for the change, he said....

Colleges Receive Corrected SAT Scores for Thousands of Students

SAT Scoring Gaffe Raises Questions on Standardized Tests

Anyone who cares enough about college admissions to be reading this blog has probably heard last week's news about a technical glitch that resulted in incorrect SAT Reasoning Test scores being issued for approximately 4,000 out of the roughly 450,000 students who took the test last fall.

Applicants and admissions officers were understandably upset both about the mistake and about the way the College Board informed people of it.

To its credit, the College Board did take the initiative to do right by test-takers who got inaccurately low scores by sending their corrected scores to colleges and universities and by refunding the test fee. And the College Board has stressed, fairly enough, that only a small number of test-takers were affected (about .8 per cent of the October pool), and that the vast majority of those errors involved scores that were off by as little as 10 points. We're not aware so far of a single admissions decision that has been reversed on the grounds of the corrected test scores.

But the College Board did itself no favors by taking so long to correct the scoring problem or to notify affected applicants and schools. (Press reports suggest the College Board was aware of a scoring problem by late December, but did not notify schools until more than two months had passed.) Its spokesmen also dragged their feet in admitting that, in a handful of cases, the inaccurate scores were wildly off, in at least one case by almost 400 points.

What are college applicants to do? On the one hand, they pretty much have to take either the SAT or the ACT if they want to go to college. (Even those schools that don't require a standardized test score for admission often want one for scholarship consideration or class placement.) On the other hand, it's become obvious that there is no firm guarantee of getting an accurate test score.

One source of consolation is to keep in mind that your SAT or ACT score is just one part of your college application. (Similarly, your GMAT score is only one part of your business school application, and your LSAT score is only one part of your law school application.) Admissions committees interpret your score in the light of all the other information you provide in your application. That includes things that you have much more control over, particularly your essays and your recommendation letters.

By all means do your best to prepare for whatever standardized test you're required to take and get the best score that you can on it. But put even more effort into crafting a persuasive application packet (including strong essays, letters, and resume and extracurricular activities list). It's those other things that will give the admissions committees an idea of who you really are and why they want you at their school.

A Look Inside Middlebury's Admissions Committee

"Getting In - The Admissions Process"
By Molly Walsh - Staff Writer
The Burlington Free Press - March 12, 2006

MIDDLEBURY -- Millions of high school seniors will find out next month if the colleges they applied to want them. In the meantime, students can only speculate on what admissions officers are saying about them and how the decisions will be made.

A two-hour session last week with the admissions committee at Middlebury College -- one of the most selective and well-respected liberal arts schools in the United States -- offered a glimpse at what goes on as admissions officers make the decision to accept, or reject, an applicant.

This year, admissions officers at the small, Vermont campus with the signature gray stone buildings expect to admit 20 percent of the 6,187 students who applied.

The target acceptance rate is lower than usual because Middlebury applications are up 17 percent over last year. The jump might be because Middlebury admissions officers visited more high schools than usual last year -- well over 1,000 -- or because the college climbed up a few positions in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings.

Dean of Admissions Robert Clagett is not a fan of the rankings, regardless of how the college performs.

"As everyone knows, educational institutions are not like toaster ovens that you can compare in Consumer Reports," he said in an interview.

High school students are not like toaster ovens either, but colleges such as Middlebury are in the position of evaluating and comparing them, and ultimately leaving some students on the shelf because they are not shiny enough.

At Middlebury every application is read twice by admissions staff.

About 40 percent of the first-year class has already been accepted through early- decision admissions. About 1,500 applicants who fall below the school's standards have been weeded out. That leaves several thousand others who are being reviewed this month. Decision letters go in the mail March 31. E-mail notification is set for April 1....

Applicants the committee tended to endorse quickly were mostly academic titans. They were often in the top 5 percent of their class, with all or almost all A's in the most difficult courses available at their schools, and near perfect SAT or ACT scores. The admitted applicants often listed numerous extracurricular activities, although the impact these had on the decision-making process was unclear to this reporter.

Committee members clearly searched the applications for signs of leadership, passion and unique achievements, but their decisions seemed to say that specialists would still need top grades across the board and might not be forgiven for earning a C in AP chemistry while perhaps also appearing on Broadway.

That said, the committee did appear willing to take a chance, occasionally....

Coming Soon: A Paperless Common App

Common Application Makes Paperless HS Transcripts Possible

Many college applicants have been tripped up in recent years by the need to follow up online applications with paper copies of high school transcripts. That will soon be a thing of the past – for applicants to Common Application member schools, at least.

The Common Application recently completed a year-long test run of software that allows high schools to electronically submit students' transcripts, school profiles, and teacher recommendations to colleges and universities that use the Common Application. The organization plans to make this new feature available for applicants to all Common Application member schools this fall. This will mark the first time that large numbers of college applicants will enjoy the convenience of completely paperless college applications.

As any AP English Lit student should be able to tell you, though, technological progress often has a darker side. Here are three things that college applicants should keep in mind as they deal with paperless applications:

1. This 'totally paperless' experience will be available only for the 277 colleges and universities that accept the Common Application. That list may not include the schools you want to apply to.
2. Many of the schools that accept the Common Application have their own, supplemental application forms – and it's to your advantage to complete and submit them. Those procedures may or may not involve submitting things on paper.
3. Many applicants have sabotaged their admissions chances by lapsing into overly casual language in their online applications. Remember, a college application isn't an instant message, even if it is done completely online. Use proper written English in all your applications and admissions correspondence. Sentence fragments and random abbreviations make a poor impression on admissions officers, even if they do appear on a computer screen rather than on paper.