Last week I covered what seniors, who are finishing up college applications this month, might want to do with their winter break. Other high schoolers may not hav those particular deadlines looming, but they still get a break from school, and there are things they ought to consider doing over that break.
It’s really hard to talk about what to do over the winter break, because there’s just so much variability to how things are going for seniors. In the past, I could count on a few things from my 12th grade readers: they were in high school, they were looking forward to a break, and they had relatively stable lives. I understand those things aren’t ever true for absolutely every high school senior, but for the ones reading college admissions advice websites I pretty much took those things for granted.
Not so this year.
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 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.
This response is from Larissa Marple, Assistant Director for Regional Recruitment at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Miami University?
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 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.
This response is from Whitney Puckett, Assistant Director of Communication & International Admission at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.
What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Hollins University?
I’ve made pretty clear that my approach to college applications is to treat the search like you’re beginning a relationship, and to watch out for the “am I worthy?’ mindset. There’s another common approach—one that I think stills falls into that mindset—that is both common and rational. Let’s think about it as the Transactional Approach to college admissions.
The Transactional Approach treats college admissions like a large purchase. (Of course, college really is a large purchase, costing thousands of dollars and putting most students into debt. But what I’m talking about here is choosing and applying to colleges as a purchase as well.) It treats the facts of your application—grades, test scores, activity list, and essays—as currency, and asks what’s the best school I can get into with this application? It usually bases “best school” on selectivity and rankings.
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 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.
This response is from Tyler Clausen-Wolf, Admission Counselor at the Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania.
What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Haverford 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 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.
This response is from Rodrigue Lembven, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Case Western Reserve University?
Thanks to Breya, I learned what a Dorm Haul video is, and now I’m watching them too. (It seems you can have a pretty sweet dorm room if you have Bed Bath & Beyond or The Container Store giving you lots of free stuff.) But Breya isn’t just watching videos. She’s sending off early applications, applying for scholarships, and even joining a new school organization. Things aren’t great—she’s still in virtual school and anxious—but her tone sounds more calm and steady than last month. Read the full interview below.
I sent these questions to Julianna—and heard back from her—on election day. On top of one of the most contentious elections in American history, we’re in the middle of another wave of the Covid pandemic, with US cases up over 40% from where they were two weeks ago. It’s not a great time to be a high school student trying to figure out college next year, or even to be a high school student trying to figure out high school this year. But Julianna is still optimistic, still excited. Read this month’s interview below.
As much as we understand the concept of holistic admissions, it’s hard to remember how it actually works. I’ve talked to many, many people—both students and adults—who can tell you what holistic admissions means, but then go on to say that it’s “really” all about test scores. Or that someone got into a particular college because of their essay. Or didn’t get into a particular college because of their essay. But holistic means that there’s not one single piece of information that leads to your acceptance or denial. It’s just hard to really believe that colleges take the whole application into consideration, and then evaluate it in a nebulous, non-checklist kind of way. So let’s use an analogy to perhaps make the process more intuitive.
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.
This response is from Rebecca Kahn-Witman, Senior Assistant Director of Admissions at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.
What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the University of Chicago?
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.
This response is from Amarit Ubhi, Admissions Counselor at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.
What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Willamette University?
Tyra is ok, but she’s not having the best fall. She hasn’t seen her best friend in a long time, her grandfather’s not doing well, she seems less certain about her vet program than she did a month ago, and about ten percent of her school has tested positive for Covid so far. Read the full interview below.
I caught up with Breya this week to learn a bit more about her and her college plans. She’s been very involved in her school, and she has an impressive list of colleges where she may go next year. But at the moment, like so many high school students right now, Breya is mostly working alone at home. Read the full interview.
