High School and Admission

Parents, Help Students Manage That Nasty Time Between Application and College Admission

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The college applications have all been submitted.  Check.  It is the end of a long road leading to this point.  For students, and their parents, there may be a let-down.  As relieved as you are to have this process finished, you and your student have been so focused on the college application process for so long that you’re not sure what to do now.

Can you really be expected to just stop everything and wait for the admission letters to arrive?

This is a good opportunity for you to model some behavior and attitudes for your student as you both shift from the high gear of getting applications ready to waiting for responses.  Here are three behaviors that parents can model for students during this time.

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Five Conversations You and Your Student Should Have as You Begin the College Admission Process

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Your high school student is about to embark on the college admission journey.  And of course, as your student embarks on this journey, you will be along for the ride. Congratulations!

You will inevitably hit some bumps along the way, but the journey can be a meaningful one as well.  If you’re hoping to minimize the bumps and maximize the rewarding parts, it’s important that you and your student have some discussions before you set out.  As with any journey, having an itinerary and a map helps the trip go smoothly, but so does being open to some detours and side trips along the way.

As you and your student get ready to begin the admission process, we’d like to suggest five conversations that will help you both prepare. Don’t try to fit everything in at once, give yourselves time to talk and think, but addressing these topics early in the process with help prepare everyone for what might lie ahead.

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The Race to Place: A College Parent’s Guide to Advanced Placement

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As July approaches each year, many high school students eagerly await the release of Advanced Placement scores.  These scores may determine whether students will receive college credit or have the option of being placed in advanced, upper level college courses.  If you have a high school student, you may be wondering whether your student should be taking Advanced Placement, or AP courses.  If you have a student about to enter college, you may even wonder whether your student missed an important opportunity.  The short answer is, it depends . . .

Advanced Placement, or AP, courses allow students to participate in college level classes as part of their high school curriculum.  Most students who take an AP course then take the national exam for that course at the end of the year.  Students who receive a score that is high enough may receive college credit and may be exempted from taking certain introductory level classes. More than 2600 colleges in 100 countries grant credit for AP work.  31% of schools consider AP scores as they award scholarships.  AP courses and exams are offered in over 30 subjects.

What are the advantages of taking on the harder work of an AP class?

There are several advantages to taking AP classes:

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Your College Freshman: The Summer Flood of Information

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When your student was in high school, they probably received what may have felt like an overwhelming amount of recruiting material from colleges.  Some may have come in the physical mail, and much of it may have come electronically.  Whatever its form, it just kept coming.

Now that your student has been accepted to college, has paid the deposit at their chosen school, and is about to head to college in a few short weeks, there is a new flood of information arriving — and this flood may make the earlier information seem like a mere trickle.  There is an important difference this time: this information is crucial and should be carefully read and considered.

Lots of summer information

Although some of the summer information arriving from your student’s new college may come in hard copy through the mail, much of it will come electronically.  And the information that arrives electronically will be sent to your student, not to you.  It will most likely arrive at your student’s new college e-mail address, so it is important that your student make sure that they set that up as soon as the college sends the log-in information.  Be sure to ask whether that’s done.

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What Is Enrollment Management?

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If you are about to send your child off to college, you wonder a lot about how your student will succeed, and you may also wonder what the college will do to help your student succeed.  There are a lot of individual offices, departments, programs and personnel who will intersect with and support your student.  Sometimes, it may seem impossible to keep it all straight.

The college’s Strategic Enrollment Management process will help the college ensure that there is a comprehensive plan in place to help shape the school’s enrollment and support its students.  Colleges want to build the best entering class, but also help those students succeed and graduate.

Enrollment Management, often referred to as Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) is comprehensive process which institutions use to help them shape their enrollment and meet their goals.  Essentially, rather than many different areas of the institution work independently, Strategic Enrollment Management allows the institution to look at the entire process of how they recruit, admit, enroll, retain and graduate students.  It often also includes how the institution intersects with its alumni as well.

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College Is a Next Step — That’s All

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Heading off to college is a big step. Your student has anticipated this step for a long time and probably worked hard throughout high school to get ready, apply, and make that final decision.  As parents, you’ve been involved — sometimes in the thick of it all and sometimes on the sideline — and you are also anticipating a big change.

But as big as that step to college seems, it is just that — one more step.  And the step is that much easier for your student when they are prepared.  Perhaps one of the reasons we all have so much anxiety about the college admissions process and the college transition process is that we see it as a giant leap rather than a step.

Your student has taken steps throughout their life — some bigger than others.  There were those literal first steps, then daycare or preschool, kindergarten, middle school and high school.  Remember how scary each of those steps felt at the time?  Your student may have learned to ride a bike, have a first sleepover, play in a first athletic game, give a first music or dance recital, talk to a girl or boy (!), go on a date, and learn to drive a car.  Scary, right?

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Should Being Undecided About a Major Matter When Choosing a College?

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We ask our high school students to make some big decisions about their lives.  Often, it feels as though, as adults, we switch back and forth between ”You’re too young to understand,” to ”Now it’s time to decide what you want to do with your life.”  Is it any wonder that many high school students, in the midst of trying to select a college, may feel overwhelmed?

What are you going to do with your life?

As your high school student approaches their junior and senior year of high school, the two questions they are probably asked more often than any others are ”Where are you going to apply to college?” and ”What are you going to major in?”  For a student who may not yet know what they are interested in majoring in — and that may be as high as half of all entering college students — answering the first question may be harder.  Students who don’t yet have a major in mind may find it harder to select a college.

There are many different reasons why students may not have a major in mind as they search for a college.  It’s important that parents help their students understand that it’s fine not to have a major in mind yet.  (One study suggests that as many as 75% of students who enter college with a major change their mind anyway.)  But not having a major in mind means that there is one less factor to consider when looking at various schools.

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Why Can’t My Student Find Out His Place on the Admissions Waitlist?

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Your student has been waitlisted for admission to his first choice college.  He has officially entered the limbo in which more and more students (perhaps as high as 10% of applicants) find themselves.  He’s not in — but he hasn’t exactly been rejected either.  It is rather like trying to fly standby — you don’t have a seat on the plane, but there is a chance that you might get one.

What exactly is a waitlist?

The waitlist is a list of students who are qualified for acceptance to the college, but for whom the college does not have a current place.  Some students may actually be overqualified, and the school is waiting to see whether they are accepted and choose to attend a more selective school.  The college doesn’t want to waste a spot in their accepted student pool on someone they assume will probably attend another college.  Other students may be slightly underqualified and are given a ”courtesy” place on the waitlist as a softer form of rejection.  This may be especially true of students who are related to alumni or wealthy donors.

But most students on the waitlist are fully qualified to attend the school.  The waitlist becomes a safety net for the college if their ”yield” (number of accepted students who make a deposit) is low.  As students apply to more and more colleges, the yield may become more unpredictable.

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College Student Hopes and Worries

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As high school students work through the college admissions process and then anxiously await those all-important admission letters, they — and their parents — are filled with hope, and also worry.  It is the nature of the process.

Since 2003 The Princeton Review has conducted an annual survey investigating those hopes and dreams.  This year, the survey was available from August 2014 to March 2015 and was completed by slightly more than 12,000 students and parents.  80% of the respondents were students and 20% were parents.  The results of this survey provide a window into some of the dreams and application viewpoints of these students and parents.  Many parents may find it reassuring that they are not alone in their feelings.

The admissions process and finances

73% of those responding reported ”application stress;” This represents 17% more than those indicating stress in the first year of the survey in 2003.  The greatest source of stress for most students was the testing — taking admissions exams.  The second greatest source was the application process itself — completing admissions and financial aid applications.

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What Do Parents Want from Colleges? Where Do You Fit In?

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Students have a lot of decisions to make when it comes to choosing a college.  There are many factors to weigh — and then after the logical decisions have been weighed, there is the issue of finding the right ”fit.”  But most students do not make the college decision entirely alone.  They turn to their families for advice.

As a parent, you probably have some clear ideas about what you want for your student as she makes the college choice.  Although the decision should ultimately be hers, you will weigh in and share your feelings and opinions.  Of course, your student may, or may not, listen.

A recent poll conducted by Noodle Education surveyed nearly 1000 middle class parents about what they consider important in choosing a college.  Two-thirds of the parents surveyed had college bound high school students and one-third had students currently in college or less than one year out of college.

Consider the findings of this poll and think about what your responses might be.  What do you consider important?  Then consider asking your student.  Do your responses match?  If not, this might be a great opening to a conversation — not to change your student’s mind, but to explore her thinking — and learn more about her.

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