<p>Hi. The National Association of College Admissions Counselors recently released a survey of their members that showed some changes in the factors that admissions officers are using. The percentage of admissions officers who rely on the strength of the student's curriculum appears to be rising, while the percentage who look at the student's overall GPA and school ranking is falling. For a story I'm writing for USNews.com, I wondered if any parents who've been through the college admissions process a couple of times in the last several years have noticed changes in the way college admissions offices deal with their children.
Thanks,
Kim Clark
<a href="mailto:KClark@USNews.com">KClark@USNews.com</a>
202-253-8593</p>
<p>U. Delaware a few months ago said they were using rolling admissions. This week they sent out a letter saying they are going to make all decisions in March.</p>
<p>I was irritated that UVa tightened up their some of their AP credits for new applicants. My son went from having 4 classes worth of credits so far to zero.</p>
<p>University of Michigan used to recalculate GPAs to remove weighting and then take AP and honors courses into consideration when looking at quality of curriculum. That changed last year when they stopped recalculating GPAs and now look at weighted GPAs. Hurt my S in a sense in that he chose regular US History for Jr. year as opposed to APUSH thinking that he would have a higher grade in the class, and that would be the more important factor. Turns out that he worked just as hard, but would have gotten that 1.0 bump in that class’s grade if he had taken the AP one.</p>
<p>Just take the most challenging courses you can, but ensure that you enjoy what you are learning. Not all colleges value the same things and it is impossible to keep up with the changes, so it is not worth trying to game the system. Don’t let those Adcomms rule your lives during these irreplaceable teen years.</p>
<p>Interesting info about the shift in admissions criteria. I haven’t observed it myself, but the timing of this shift is interesting given the state of the economy. I think it probably will allow colleges to take more upper-middle-class-to-affluent kids, because they’re the ones who tend to predominate in the elite private and high-tax-base suburban schools that can afford to offer the most AP classes and other “advanced” curricular opportunities. Kids from poor urban and rural school districts, and those from low tax-base inner ring suburbs, will be less competitive. The result, I suspect, is that colleges will enroll more full-pays and close-to-full-pays, alleviating the strain on their FA budgets. Probably not unintentional.</p>
<p>They know where the bread is buttered.</p>
<p>The question I’d ask is: Are colleges still looking at applicants’ course load in context of the high school they attend, or just valuing AP classes irrespective of where they go to school?</p>
<p>IOW: High School A offers just 3 AP classes, and Student A took all 3. High School B offers 15 AP classes, and Student B took 10. Will they be more impressed with Student B because he took 10 APs and ignore the fact that Student A didn’t even have that option? Will Student B get in, as mini and bclintonK suggest, because he lives in an affluent community – and the college will deny Student A on the pretext of not having a rigorous enough curriculum when it really just wants to deny on the basis of economic factors?</p>
<p>I, for one, hope they consider what is available to each student at their high school. My son’s HS, for example, offers only 3 AP classes (Calc, English Lit & Grammar, and Government). He has/is taken/taking them all, and has taken the most rigorous schedule available in all areas. I also hope they look at the fact that he self-studied for the AP Chemistry and Bio exams and did pretty well. I suppose that’s why the admissions process can take SO long at certain schools - there is much to consider.</p>
<p>Hi Kim,
Interesting topic, I look forward to reading your article in US News… I have noticed that most of the admission sessions I’ve attended have stated that they are looking mostly at the rigor of your high school transcript over test scores. I think they are still focusing on GPA but most competitive private high schools have stopped the class rankings in the past few years because most of the students are all high achievers so it is hard to rank the students at that level and have it be a fair picture of where they would fit in at a university or college. I think looking at the rigor of the academic program would give a better indicator that the student can handle a difficult course load in college. After all, they also want to make sure that students enrolled can also graduate because those statistics matter too.</p>
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<p>How can that possibly be true in a meaningful way?</p>
<p>I can see it being true in a macro sense – the number of high school graduates in the northeast is declining steadily, and not all colleges have the ability to attract foreign applicants, so at the margins some colleges may be moving from kinda-selectivity to de facto open admissions, or close to it. And the admissions officers there may have abandoned looking at GPAs and rank in favor of something that will indicate whether the student is likely to bomb out immediately, or to harm classmates. But at actually selective colleges (of which there are still some remaining), if the percentage of admissions officers looking at GPA has declined, the decline will have been from ~100% to ~99.9%.</p>
<p>Might colleges be changing their weightings? Sure. Both because challenging oneself at a top-quality high school probably produces a more college-ready kid than does acing easy courses at a dysfunctional school, and because of the budget advantages of concentrating on richer kids at suburban schools.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t agree more. We do have a life in case anyone forgot.</p>
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If the college wanted to deny Student A because of economic factors, it would, and it would look exactly the same as if they denied Student A because they didn’t feel someone with fewer AP courses (regardless of the number available) would be less prepared. Colleges don’t tell people the reasons for rejection, there isn’t always one definitive reason, and information on reasons never leaves the college. It doesn’t matter why they deny someone, because no one else will ever know. Imagine the lawsuits and contested decisions if they gave reasons.</p>
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Wow, that’s very unfortunate. They should stick with what they professed at the start of the admissions cycle and not change it until the next one.</p>
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Where is this information coming from? Anyway, I would think that the student’s curriculum matters, as well as how well they do in that curriculum. GPA isn’t so important when a college has the full transcript. For example, a 3.0 GPA could mean several different things. B, B, B, B = 3.0; A, C, A, C = 3.0; A, A, F, A = 3.0. Those individual grades, and the specific courses they were in, matter more than just the number. So a more in depth look at a student’s grades would be superior to looking at a number. As for class ranking, well, it isn’t as important as either of the other two named factors, in my opinion, but it can provide good context, as long as heavy weight isn’t put into small differences (ie, 20 and 24, or 4 and 5, or anything like that).</p>
<p>I would expect colleges to be constantly revising their criteria, but if it does end up hurting poorer students, then that is reprehensible. I know some top colleges have recruitment efforts for poorer students, but this is not the norm (I have only experienced it with one), and I wouldn’t be surprised if many schools put bettering their budget above admitting students of all socio-economic backgrounds.</p>
<p>First, I must say that this is the one of the best tips I have every read on CC.
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<p>Kim - I am a traditionalist and there are two key admissions factors being manipulated and that drive me crazy. The first is class rank and the second is the “superscoring” of the ACT/SAT. </p>
<p>Class rank - I fully understand that class rank is an indicator of future academic success and can understand why it is used for the selection process. But… the fact that upwards of 35% (I have read higher numbers) schools no longer report rank or are “rank optional” suggests that there is an imbalance as to how kids are selected. If you run an Academic Indicator on the same child with and then without rank, the difference can be staggering. (I believe there is one somewhere on the main College Confidential site). My point is that colleges cannot possibly compare two identical kids if one school reports rank and the other does not.</p>
<p>Along the same lines on the rank issue is the reporting on the Common Data Set or to USNews. If a high school does not rank and a child is at an 11% rank the college is more likely to take that child than one with identical stats from a school that reports rank. Either use the same guidelines for all applicants or discontinue this factor.</p>
<p>I am very curious as to why colleges now “superscore” the standardized tests. And again, what is reported on the Common Data Sets and to USNews? Is it the superscore or the composite score from a one time sitting? Here it seems like they are trying to make it fair, whereas the rank issue is not equal among applicants.</p>
<p>I’m interested in how some colleges want a financial aid form submitted very early in the process. They say it is because they want to give you a financial aid as early as possible, but I’m suspicious it is designed to allow more need-based admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Here is a novel idea; kids should take courses in high school that prepare them to do college level work. That is what high school is for. </p>
<p>Imo, it is nonsense that kids are loading their class schedules with AP.</p>
<p>Kim, because adcoms don’t tell us why they did/didn’t reject our kids, I don’t think parents can really speak to a shift in criteria in particular cases. </p>
<p>Ds1, a college freshman, was accepted at almost every school at which he applied, and he had a quite rigorous courseload and strong test scores but a not-so-great class rank (by cc standards). I have no idea what got him accepted. His younger brother likely will have a less demanding courseload and a lower class rank but better test scores. I imagine he’ll have a lot of success when he applies, too, but I’ll never know why. Ds1 was an Eagle Scout; ds2 isnt, but he is president of his class. Are these equivalent in the eyes of the adcoms? Probably not. There are just too many variables in a kid’s app to know exactly what clicked with an adcom.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that AP classes aren’t important to college admissions, but I do think evaluating rigor involves more than counting the number of AP classes a student took. Rigor can also be measured by how many credits a student has. Does the student take seven classes for four years or does the student drop down to five classes for junior and senior years? Does the student take four years of science or three? Does the student take a tough senior schedule or does he take five classes with one being PE and another being a teacher’s aide? </p>
<p>My oldest son went through the application process last year. I think his acceptance to the school he’s attending was possible because of the rigor of his high school classes. It was obvious from the application form that rigor was paramount.</p>
<p>Kim,</p>
<p>Our DD had stellar SAT’s (NMF), good EC’s, and great essays. She had a not super GPA (3.7 weighted) and terrible class rank (her HS doesnt publish it, but adcons probably could figure it out) This was in part due to her attending TJHSST, a HS which you surely know about, if you work for USNEWS. </p>
<p>We were told by several AdCons that they took into account the TJ factor and were not deterred by rank. Some tippy top schools clearly still considered GPA very important. The only school that we considered that we think rank would have been an issue, was UVa. DD was admitted to Lehigh, RPI, and Case Western. </p>
<p>Clearly some schools still heavily value rank and GPA. Some can see the issues with rank at a competitive HS, and even the many issues with using GPA alone as a measure. AFAICT they use standardized test scores, essays, recommendations, outside academics, etc. I am not sure that that represents a change though.</p>
<p>My D is a sophomore and is just beginning to think about college. She has been told that college admissions officials will look favorably on a transcript that reflects the most challenging load that her school offers. It has been explained to her that most competitive colleges and universities will look at her application holistically and will not compare her to students at other schools. They will look at what she did in the context of her own school. This past weekend we were at a college fair where she asked the representative of a top selective university what GPA and test scores she would need to be competitive. He barely glossed over this general information after he explained to her that her application would be given more weight if she were a student at a selective high school such as a math and science magnet or a governor’s school. Turned us both off and made us question the information that she has been given about college admissions. However, it changes nothing because my D loves and is actively involved in her large suburban takes all kids high school!</p>
<p>Let’s face it. What adcoms want are kids that are hitting the mark in rigorous (ie Ap) classes, doing well on those tests (ie grade inflation) and rounding their lives out with something they like. I know it has been said that adcoms look at transcripts based in that High School’s bubble, but really…who is fooling who? If an adcom was looking at two identical applications and one kid had taken 14 AP classes, scored well on all tests vs a kid that took none or a couple, and all things were similar, why not take the child that has a proven track record of being able to do the the upper divisional work. Fair? Probably not, but it’s life.</p>