Kevin McMullin

College admissions advice for students, parents, and counselors

St. John’s College

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Stjohns_santa_fe_3
Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM

The home page of the St. John’s College website reads: 

“The following teachers will return to St. John’s College next year: Plato,
Newton, Galileo, Cervantes, Dante, Melville…”

The list of recognizable names continues on and fades into the background.

No, St. John’s doesn’t literally reincarnate history’s greatest minds, but its unique
“Great Books” program means that students spend all four years reading,
studying and discussing the most important books in Western tradition.

[Read more…]

Honesty and Senioritis

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Seniors have undoubtedly heard that an admissions decision from a college can
be revoked if a severe case of senioritis results in an academic decline.  But this month’s edition UC Notes Digest reminds students
that it is their responsibility to report such an academic decline
immediately. In fact, doing so might
even help your case.

Think of it like this. You wrecked the family car.  The
good news is that nobody was hurt.  The
bad news is that the car is totaled and there’s nothing you can do that will
make that fact go away.  Which smarter
move?  Immediately tell your parents
everything that happened, or keep it to yourself and wait for the inevitable
day when they notice that the family car hasn’t been seen in weeks?

Easy one.  Tell your parents.
Immediately.  At least you’ll get credit
for being honest. 

This
article isn’t saying that just being honest makes the academic decline OK,
but it’s a lot better than sitting quietly and hoping that the admissions
offices don’t notice that your grade in AP calculus was totaled beyond
repair.

what 2do and not 2do

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My wife interviews freshman applicants for one of those Ivy League schools everybody wants to go to.  Last week, she got her list of applicants to contact and promptly sent each of them a personal email inviting them to schedule their interviews. 

So far, only one student has responded to her email.

If you’re a senior who just applied to college, congratulations—you’ve done the hard part.  But you’re not really done yet.  Colleges routinely contact applicants by mail and email asking you for additional information (or to schedule interviews), and you need to make sure you respond promptly and appropriately.

Here at Collegewise, we remind our students:

1. On your college applications, list an email address that you check regularly (and by “regularly,” I mean at least once a day).  And if your email address is something like wildncrazypartygirl@yahoo, get a new email address. 

2. Once you submit your applications, open every piece of mail and read every email a college sends you. Just because it’s not yet time to expect a decision doesn’t mean that mail or email isn’t important. 

3.   If a college asks you to send anything, to respond to anything, or take any action, do it right away.  Don’t rush to the point you get careless, but remember, once you apply to a college, you’re pretty much on stage.  Lagging in your response time doesn’t show a burning desire to attend.

4.   And when communicating with a college rep over email, remember that this is a professional correspondence; you are not text messaging a friend.  Spell carefully and use punctuation.  Do not compose sentences like “i really hope 2b at Princeton next fall! see u soon!”

Colleges (and my wife) are reasonable.  They’re not going to ding a kid just because he took an extra day to respond to an email.  But they’re also human, after all.  I won’t speak for my wife, but I know I would already like the kid who responded right away.  And the kid who wrote me, "sorry i’m writing u back so late i have been soooo busy w/ school," wouldn’t make such a good impression.    

Unannounced Visitors

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A lot of families tell us how hard it is for them to make time to travel and see colleges.  And we bet a lot of our blog readers read the entries about our own college visits and think to themselves, "Well, of course these Collegewise guys visits schools all the time.  It’s their job!”

And those readers would be right.

We make the time to visit schools because it’s our job—well, that and the fact that we are huge college nerds who desperately need more productive social lives.

But one thing you might not notice from our posts is that a lot of our visits weren’t planned for the sake of visiting the colleges.  Christina toured Vanderbilt after her brother’s graduation, checked out UOP during a visit to see her best friend in Stockton, and traversed the natural campus of UC Santa Cruz while visiting her cousin.  When we visit family or friends, we make at least one college visit part of the itinerary.  It’s not just part of our job—it’s part of our (nerdy) nature.

Where is your family planning to travel this year?  Where will you be going to visit friends or family?  And what colleges could you see while you’re there?

Make the most of the college opportunities when you visit friends or family.  Take a tour of a nearby college.  Buy a sweatshirt and a mug while you are there.  Take pictures and send them to us at info@getcollegewise.com. We might even post them on our blog! 

You’ll learn more about that college and what kind of environment will eventually be right (or wrong) for you.  And you’ll have done so without having to spend additional time or expense.

It’s not just a good idea to get out there and learn more about colleges; if you’re a high school junior who wants to eventually find the right college for you (or if you’re that junior’s parent), it’s your job, too.

5 New Year’s Resolutions for High School Kids

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It’s that time of year when we make our New Year’s resolutions, and we’ve got a few recommendations for high school kids to help them enjoy the ride to college a little more.  So, here are our Collegewise “Top Five New Year’s Resolutions” that might not be so obvious, but will definitely help you get accepted to college. 

  1. Set a goal to actively participate in at least one class this semester. 

Colleges don’t just care about the grades you get; they especially appreciate students who actively participate in class.  So raise your hand.  Answer questions.  Show the teacher you’re interested and engaged.  Doing so will go along way towards showing the colleges you can succeed in their classrooms.

  1. Get more involved in a current activity.

Before you add more activities to your plate, ask yourself if you would enjoy being even more involved with something you already do.  Can you take a leadership position, take on a project, or make an impact in some way?  Remember, a long list of activities isn’t as impressive to colleges as is a significant commitment to the things you really enjoy. 

 

  1. Find a way to pursue a subject you like.

Colleges are always impressed by a sincere interest in learning.  So ask yourself what you really want to learn about, and then find a way to do it.  Do an extra project.  Take an extra class or attend a summer program.  The subject could be anything from calculus to civil war history to sports medicine.  What’s important is to show colleges that you do have intellectual interests and you don’t mind going the extra mile pursuing them.

 

  1. Be yourself.

It’s not necessary to mold yourself into something you’re not just to please the colleges.  For example, a lot of students worry that their lack of athletic talent will hurt them in college admissions.  It won’t.  If you don’t like sports, but you love math, embrace your love of numbers, join the math club and become its fearless leader.  Colleges appreciate individuality a lot more than they do efforts to conform into something you’re not.

  1. Spend more time looking for the right colleges.

A lot of students talk about wanting to get into the “best” schools.  But don’t forget to look for the right schools–the ones where you will be happy and successful for four years.  This year, resolve to do some college soul-searching to determine what you really hope or expect to gain from your college experience.  Investigate a variety of schools and try to find the right match.  Doing so will make your life easier, your high school years more productive, and your college applications more successful.

Holiday Party

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We recently celebrated the completion of our senior season with our annual holiday party.  Collegewise social gatherings aren’t usually of interest to the outside world, but I was struck by two things.

Cwgang_2 1.  We really are a handsome company when the men clean ourselves up.

2.  Lots of colleges (not just the brand name schools) graduate smart, dedicated, passionate, interesting, likeable people who love their jobs.

 

Top left to right: UC Irvine, Cal State Long Beach, UC Irvine, Colgate, Columbia, UC Irvine and Northwestern.  Bottom left to right:  University of Chicago and Case Western.

Have a wonderful holiday…

What Do Those Essay Prompts Really Mean?

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College essay prompts often reflect the personality of the school and its students.  That’s why, if a certain essay topic inspires you to write a 10-page thesis, well, you might have found your perfect match.  Below are five actual essay questions from this year’s applications, along with some insight into how these questions reflect the schools and their students.  The names of the colleges who posed the questions have been withheld..

Essay topic #1
“You have just completed your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217.”
Did you hatch a 10 year plan on your 10th birthday that detailed your academic rise, summer internships, and college plans? Then this school might just fit the bill for you. The college that poses this essay question seeks out candidates who have definite plans for the future. These are highly motivated students who want to use this university’s resources to attain those goals that they probably set at age ten.

[Read more…]

Texas Christian University

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Fort Worth, TXTcu

Two words: Horned Frogs.

There are some colleges where the mascot is just the poor
sap in a smelly suit. But for others, the mascot is a central part of the
school’s identity. Take the TCU (Texas Christian University) "Horned
Frog," for example.

From the stadium chants of "Go Horned Frogs!" to the "Frog
Family Homecoming" for alumni in October, TCU’s Horned Frog is a part of
their campus culture. Nowhere is this more apparent than at home football
games, a staple of TCU’s student spirit. In fact, all TCU students recently
received a letter from second-year Chancellor Victor J. Boschini welcoming them
back to school and inviting them to the Horned Frogs’ nationally televised
opening home football game against Northwestern. It probably wasn’t hard to
garner support. The Frogs were coming off an 11-win season and a top 25
post-season ranking in 2003.

He signed off his letter with the following: "So be prepared to study like
your future depends on it (it does!), and play safely – for the same reason.
Indeed, that’s what Horned Frogs do!"

[Read more…]

Start Out on The Right Foot…

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Rightfoot_2All the admissions officers we’ve met are good people who would much rather admit than deny kids. But during the pressures of admissions season, some applicants’ actions can drive the admissions folks crazy. Here are five tips to make sure you don’t inadvertently start out on the wrong foot.

1.  Follow directions.
You can avoid most common mistakes in college applications by reading and following the directions.  For example, if a college asks you to list your activities in the space provided, and you send them a resume instead, you just showed them that you couldn’t follow a pretty simple direction.  So read the directions and do exactly as they instruct you to do. No matter how much you think you might be helping your case by doing things your own way, you’re always better served following directions.

2.  Make sure you read the admissions websites carefully.
When is the application deadline?  How many letters of recommendation are required?  When is the last date you can take the SAT?  You can find answers to these and many other common questions from applicants on the admissions websites.

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Just Being Yourself Can Help You Get Into College

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Pink_aber_shirt I’m not Arun Ponnusamy, the former Caltech and University of Chicago Assistant Director of Admissions and the usual contributor to this “Inside the Admissions Office” column. I’ve never even worked in an admissions office. But I think I can teach you a little something about college admissions by sharing some things Arun might not tell you.

Arun wears a lot of pink. I don’t know many men who can wear pink and really pull it off, but I swear Arun can do it. He’s actually got what some people might call a pretty well developed fashion sense, which is interesting considering he was raised in rural Ohio. Think small town. Think farms. Think of a situation where his dad wasn’t a surgeon in his small town. His father was the surgeon in his small town. To watch Arun coolly navigate the hippest areas of Los Angeles, all decked out in his silky pink shirts, hip-hop music playing in his grey Scion, you’d never know that instead of a paper route or a job in retail, his part time job during high school summers was shoveling cow poop.

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