For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Today’s response is from Dan Becker, admission counselor at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylavnia.
I’ve looked over a number of short responses on supplemental questions that were taken directly from the same student’s longer essay for another school or scholarship. They seemed really out of place and were obviously re-purposed bits that didn’t directly address the prompt. Perhaps they just seemed obvious to me, because I had already seen the longer versions for the earlier prompts? I don’t think so. In all the cases where I said “this looks like an obvious re-hash,” there were the same two issues.
The response didn’t directly answer the prompt. It was generally related to the prompt, yes, but didn’t answer the question.
The response was narrative—telling a story—when the prompt called for a basic explanation.
If you must re-use an essay section for a supplemental, please keep these two things in mind.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Today’s response is from Carl Forbes, associate director of admissions at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
If a college or university is “test optional,” that simply means that they do not require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of their application. Students may submit scores, and many do submit scores, but they are not required to submit scores. There are three good reasons for a student to apply to a test-optional school and decide not to submit test scores:
1. The student didn’t take the SAT or ACT, so they don’t have any scores to submit.
2. The student took the SAT and/or ACT, but they don’t think the scores are a good refection of them as a student.
3. The student wants to take a stand against standardized testing by supporting test-optional programs and increasing the number of applications submitted without test scores.
When I first spoke with Diana just two months ago, she was frustrated and demoralized because she really didn’t know how to get started with college applications or who to go to for help. Things aren’t free an easy, but they’re certainly looking better: she’s applied to eight colleges and has an acceptance. Read her short-but-full interview below.
If I’m counting correctly, Katie has applied to 12 colleges already, and has got acceptances from four of them. She’s also working furiously to finish her audition videos and wrap a school play. Did you know there’s basically a Common Application for theater auditions? I didn’t. Read about that and more as Katie reports on her October.
Jenna’s admissions experience is really great to read, because it reminds us how many bright, successful students have a story that’s quite different than the ones we tell ourselves over and over about how college applications work. By early November, she’s already applied to at least nine colleges—and been accepted to at least two! She has a preferred major, but she knows it’s likely to change. She wants to write a great essay, but has also gone quite a way into the process without having one finished. Jenna is just one of hundreds of thousands of college-bound seniors who are working hard and are aiming high, but aren’t agonizing over the one perfect application to the one perfect super-selective school because they think it will give them a perfect life. Cheers to Jenna!
There are a few things I know about plagiarism in high school. It's rampant. High schools tend to be pretty lax about it—it's seen more as a teaching opportunity than a reason to destroy someone's yet-to-begin career. Teachers warn that colleges are much more strict and you better learn your lesson or there will be dire consequences.
But how often do we hear about someone suffering dire consequences from cheating in college? Rarely. The "things will be more strict in college" threat seems about as empty as the "this will go on your permanent record" threat. How exactly do colleges treat plagiarism? The answer isn't simple. It depends on the circumstances, the school, and the professor. It's very subjective and case-by-case. And it’s usually dealt with very quietly.
So here's a story about an actual case of plagiarism and the consequences. It's by no means the only way that plagiarism gets treated, but I think it's fairly typical.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I’ll post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
(See all the past Three Quick Questions posts here.)
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Today’s response is from Lauren Samuelson, admissions counselor at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I’ll post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
(See all the past Three Quick Questions posts by clicking on the “Three Quick Questions” tag at the bottom of the post.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Today’s response is from Caroline Randall, Director of Admissions at St. John’s College.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I’ll post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
(See all the past Three Quick Questions posts by clicking on the “Three Quick Questions” tag at the bottom of the post.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Today’s response is from Caitlin Ebbinghaus, Senior Assistant Director of Admissions at Wabash College.
When colleges ask about your special circumstances, and not all of them ask, it's not about feeling sorry. It's about understanding what kind of resilience you have and how you got it. Nobody makes it out of high school and into college without friction and resilience, so it's okay to think about your own. There are plenty of ways to think about your special challenges.
I put up an online survey for students about college admissions last month, and I’d like to report on the results. There’s nothing at all scientific about this survey: I only got 126 responses, and most of those were from a high school where I made a presentation…including time to take the survey. Percentages are rounded. I didn’t do any statistical analysis.
Still, I think the answers are quite illuminating, especially since the seniors who responded were a diverse crowd of college-bound, successful high school students.
The most significant overall theme I see is that local reigns supreme. Even for these students (at a college prep magnet school for gifted students) who have access to information and representatives from all over the nation, most of their attention is in state. Almost every school named was in Texas, a well-known “elite” university, or—in the case of Rice—both. Here at the details.
For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I’ll post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Today’s response is from Nick Radner, Admissions Counselor at Denison University.
As I’ve been talking to clients and other 12th-grade students lately, Early Decision keeps coming up. Whether or not to apply E.D. is a difficult choice for a lot of people. While I’m generally more “pro-E.D.” than a lot of other advisors, that enthusiasm is tempered with a number of reservations. So let’s go over some of the reasons to apply Early Decision, and also some of the reasons not to.
There’s a new feature coming to Apply with Sanity called Three Quick Questions. I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country (the subject line of the e-mail is “Three quick questions”), and then I hope to hear back from them. When I do, I’ll post them on Apply with Sanity. It’s that simple.
I sent out a test batch of 10, just to see if I got any responses. One came back almost immediately, so I’m considering that an initial success. Let’s hope more come in soon.
The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique and that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.
Here’s the first response from Conner Green, Assistant Director of Admission at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Most college admissions counselors, at least publicly, will tell you that the rankings are worthless, that they’re one of the main villains ruining college, and that the world would be better off without the rankings. I don’t do this. Honestly, I’m glad that the rankings are out there. There are several things that rankings are good for.
