<p>I just figured what I want from college and found schools that I want to go to. So my advice for college search is:</p>
<p>-decide what you want
-search a database (I used the collegeboard college search)
-choose schools
-refine the list until you are happy</p>
<p>A note to students you should listen to advice you get from friends and family but don’t take all advice.</p>
<p>Descartesz-</p>
<p>There are no honest reasons for dropping the SAT requirement. As I said, SATs are standardized and put all students on an equal footing. They are ultimately much more fair than a sample of work or a high school rank. A high school rank and high school gpa depend a great deal on the quality of the high school. The correlation between average SAT scores and graduation rate is very high, about .9.</p>
<p>You said a school might be “lothe to put their applicants through the expense and pressure of testing”. I don’t buy this for a second. The school is willing to charge $40K a year and subject students to hundreds of arduous exams over four years. </p>
<p>You said “The college has found that some test-averse students can nevertheless be excellent admittees and wishes to encourage these students to apply”. I don’t think a test-averse student is a good candidate for college. A school with this motivation must be willing to lower expectations. </p>
<p>You said “The college has concerns about the identification of high test scores with economic privilege and, regardless of the truth of the matter, feel that they would be more welcoming of lower income students by removing testing as a required filtering mechanism”. This is tantamount to saying that the school is lowering admissions standards. Why doesn’t the school waive the SAT requirement for low income students or give less weight to the SAT score? </p>
<p>You said SAT scores don’t add much to a school’s ability to select successful applicants. But SATs are highly correlated with college GPA and graduation. SATs are the most unbiased and fairest admissions factor. Why not drop high school rank or gpa or extra curriculars?</p>
<p>Schools that drop the SAT requirement have an ulterior motive and hide their true rationale.</p>
<p>One of the most difficult aspects of the college search is finding schools that are strong in your particular major. Sometimes schools with a strong overall reputation lack strength in specific majors (e.g. engineering at Harvard). Sometimes schools with an otherwise unimpressive overall reputation have great programs in particular majors (e.g. ChemE at U Delaware). The Gourman Report, Rugg’s recommendations, and the IPEDS website can provide some guidance about the strength or size of particular departments. Consensus of knowledgeable professionals is also helpful, as are NRC ratings and production of PhDs.</p>
<p>DS did a few things:
– Looked at schools that he knew had good programs in his major and tried to find out which programs that school considered as among its peers, or near-peers.<br>
–Researched who taught in departments at schools he was interested to see where <em>they</em> went to undergrad.<br>
– Also looked at who’s doing interesting research (via blogs, publications, etc.) in his intended area of study to see where they teach.</p>
<p>The admissions bloggers at MIT post every year about “If you like MIT, you might also try…” That was a good source of other leads – including to schools that weren’t obviously akin to MIT.</p>
<p>Some of the stuff I’ve mentioned won’t work for everyone. DS1 has been very focused on a particular area for quite a while and feels strongly that this will be his life’s work. He also comes in with a lot of the underlying coursework completed.</p>
<p>I expect the college selection process will be entirely different for DS2, who revels in exploring lots of new experiences and subjects. He’s not ready to commit to a major any time soon. (This is fine. He’s a sophomore.) For him, a campus that offers many options will probably be a better fit. Strategy as to EA/rolling/RD and range of schools will probably be quite similar.</p>
<p>Schools need the whole package, since one variable (SAT, GPA, etc.) alone is not enough.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/sat-i-faulty-instrument-predicting-college-success[/url]”>http://www.fairtest.org/sat-i-faulty-instrument-predicting-college-success</a></p>
<p>What is the SAT I supposed to measure? </p>
<p>The SAT I is designed to predict first-year college grades - it is not validated to predict grades beyond the freshman year, graduation rates, pursuit of a graduate degree, or for placement or advising purposes. However, according to research done by the tests’ manufacturers, class rank and/or high school grades are still both better predictors of college performance than the SAT I.
How well does the SAT I predict first-year college grades? The College Board and ETS conduct periodic studies of the SAT I. This usually involves examining the relationship between test scores and first-year college grades, generally expressed as the correlation coefficient (or r value). The College Board’s Handbook for the SAT Program 2000-2001 claims the SAT-V and SAT-M have a correlation of .47 and .48, respectively, with freshman GPA (FGPA). This number is deceptive, however. To determine how much of the difference in first-year grades between students the SAT I really predicts, the correlation coefficient must be multiplied by itself. The result, called r squared, describes the difference (or variation) among college freshman grades. Thus, the predictive ability (or r squared) of the SAT I is just .22, meaning the test explains only 22% of the variation in freshman grades. With a correlation of .54, high school grades alone do a better job, explaining almost 30% of the variance in first-year college performance.</p>
<p>First, I looked into the schools that adults have been planting into my head as a kid growing up in LA (USC, UCLA).
Then, I looked into my USNWR rankings for Best National Colleges and for undergrad business. Then I looked into undergrad econ and graduate MBA schools on other rankings. Then I asked around about the schools. And that’s that.</p>
<p>collegehelp:</p>
<p>Please note I personally do not hold all the views that I cite as reasons for not requiring standardized tests. I offered them as reasons a school might cite for doing so and they seem “honest” reasons. Whether you or I agree with them, I do not find them transparently thin and therefore prefer to see schools motivated by them as pursuing worthy goals rather than cynically exploiting rating metrics.</p>
<p>As Charlie’s World posts, the College Board’s own studies show modest correlations between SAT scores and first year grades (generally before students get to focus on their majors and, thus, diverge in academic challenge). I believe such studies also tend to show that combining SAT scores with HS GPA give the best prediction, but it is unreasonable to maintain absolutely that a school could not find other worthy methods. And, while the cost and pressure of standardized tests is certainly trivial to the cost and pressure of college itself, it is nevertheless reasonable to follow a course of minimizing cost and pressure overall if alternative evaluative methods are known.</p>
<p>By “test averse” I, of course, mean averse to standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. Here I can only rely on my personal experience in holding that there are students who do well in classroom settings, including taking class room tests, that nevertheless fail to show the same level of achievement on high-stakes tests. Moreover, I cannot say for certain that this is a relevant deficiency in these students. Perhaps, if permitted the education a college offers, they would go on to do admirable things with their lives. If college admission committees have had the same experience, it is “honest” of them to try to pursue this kind of student.</p>
<p>Finally, I believe waiving test requirements for disadvantaged students would require that need be considered before admission is evaluated and this, of course, would be a violation of some schools’ “need blind” policies. (I do imagine, however, that need-aware schools are probably doing as you suggest, giving less weight to standardized tests in the cases of disadvantaged students.) And, by making these tests optional, the school is, in fact, giving less weight to their role in evaluation.</p>
<p>I think we are at risk of highjacking this thread if we continue further on this topic. I will not be responding further and will cede you the last word if you wish it.</p>
<p>Two things to consider re Tokenadult’s excellent description of the process…</p>
<p>Firstly, if your child is naturally inclined towards highly-selective schools by intellectual bent, and has the stats to make him or her a reasonable candidate, finding a <em>really</em> sure bet safety that s/he would actually like to attend seems to be significantly more difficult. If you have a state school that fits the bill, you are in luck. If not, your kid may fall victim to yield strategies at slightly less selective but very attractive schools, and even more so where s/he seems like a shoo-in. Everyone has heard multiple stories of kids with great stats being rejected or wait-listed at safety schools. The likelihood of this seems greater if you have not been able to visit the school and interview, since you may be thought of as not having “shown the school enough love.”</p>
<p>Secondly, if you wait until you hear the results of your early app (or apps) on 12/15 to apply to RD schools, you may well find that it is too late to schedule an interview–even an alumni interview–at many of them…which leads back to point #1.</p>
<p>This is particularly difficult for those who cannot find the time or money to visit potential safeties, or who live in an area where travelling adcoms and/or alumni interviewers are hard to access.</p>
<p>Charlies World and Descartesz-</p>
<p>SATs are an excellent predictor of college success and they measure something quite different from high school rank and high school gpa. There is no valid reason to drop them from admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Using the IPEDS database, I was able to calculate a correlation of about .73 between graduation rate and SAT 75th percentile which means that SAT scores account for about 50% of the differences in graduation rates among 942 universities. This is an underestimate of the true relationship between SATs and college success because many students fail to graduate even though they are in good academic standing (they transfer). I excluded LACs. The unit of analysis was the school, not the individual student, in this analysis.</p>
<p>SATs capture a type of information that is very different from high school rank and high school gpa. The correlations between SAT and high school rank/gpa are about .3, which means there is only a 10% overlap in the “meaning” of SATs and high school rank/gpa. So SATs contribute important information not captured by high school rank and gpa.</p>
<p>The correlation between high school rank/gpa and college gpa is about the same as SAT scores and college gpa but they mean somewhat different things. </p>
<p>SATs are more important in selecting successful students in some majors than others. They are not as relevant in the Arts as they are in say Business, Humanities, and Social Sciences where they explain about 50% of student gpas. SATs predict final cumulative gpa as well as first year gpa.</p>
<p>In the Business, Humanities, and Social Sciences, high school rank and gpa contribute almost nothing to predicting success over and above SATs.</p>
<p>Finally, there is the ethical argument for using SATs in admissions decisions. They even the playing field, treat all students the same, are unbiased.</p>
<p>College applications should be easy if you do your research and are prepared. Use your high school counselor when preparing. There are also a number of good sites you can get good info from.</p>
<p>I was looking for some information and found the following tips regarding college apps and where to go to school.</p>
<p>What colleges are looking for when they reveiw your college app:
High school grades
SAT scores
Your interview
Extra-curricular activities
other requested test scores
Your essay
recommendations
ACT scores if required
Your answers to questions on application form
Your true interest in the school
Are you a good choice for their school
TOEFL fo international students
GED if you needed to take it
Is their school a good choice for you</p>
<p>What should you include on your college application:
Required test scores
All relevent information
Remember to proof read your app
Have someone else proof read your app
Make sure you get app in by deadline
Don’t just write to fill up space
Answer questions directly
Answer questions honestly</p>
<p>Tips for Your college interview:
Try to relax
Ask intelligent questions
Do some research into the school
Be prepared
Arrive early
Try to sell yourself without being fake
Be confident
make eye contact
Be prepared to talk about yourself
They will understand your nervousness</p>
<p>Your checklist for choosing your school:
Location - city or rural
Cost
Weather
in-state or out of state
Sports facilities
Available sports
School reputation
Homecoming
On campus job availability
Are there shops nearby
Is there an airport near by
Religious affiliate
Study abroad opportunities
students services
Transport availability
Food - Dining hall
Residence halls
Off campus living
Medical services available
safety and security
Scholarship availability
Financial aid
Teacher ratings and rep
Size of school
demographics
Fraternities and sororities</p>
<p>I really learned a lot in researching about applying to college. The following info was found in the College Help Guide (<a href=“http://www.collegehelpguide.com%5B/url%5D”>www.collegehelpguide.com</a>) if anyone is interested where i got these tips from. </p>
<p>The collegeboard site also has some good info. Don’t forget to check out some of the government sites for college app tips and info on financial aid.</p>
<p>The key is preparing for college early. Many say you should start your search during your junior year or even earlier. You want to get in the school you want so make sure you put fourth your best in your college apps and SAT test scores.</p>
<p>Great advice - I wish we had some guidance like this with my oldest. Thanks, TA.</p>
<p>I think 2-3 well-chosen safeties, including a financial safety, is plenty. A financial safety is important in case the grant aid awards are disappointing.</p>
<p>Then 3-4 matches.</p>
<p>The emphasis should be on the 4-5 reaches. Many applicants aim too low. Many applicants lack confidence or are intimidated by prestige names. The advantages of being a small fish in a big pond are many. Try to get in at the most selective schools you can. Selectivity is associated with educational quality.</p>
<p>I see there has been much discussion among the interesting replies in this thread about how many safeties are enough. I have become convinced, bearing in mind the defintion of “safety” that I posed in this thread, that one safety is enough. But you have to find it in time. In another thread, Chedva pointed out the problem of a student who doesn’t have many rolling admission or nonrestrictive early action colleges to apply to that fit the student. I think it is crucial to find one, no less than one, sure-bet safety college that has a suitable program and will give an earlier rather than a later answer to an application for admission. I acknowledge that I am lucky, in my state, insofar as State U has an honors program and rolling admission and a very early “on the spot” admission process such that my son can now soon in fall 2009 about one admission result. If we lived somewhere else, or if he had very different preferences in colleges, the search for a safety would be harder. But one safety is enough–just keep looking for it until you find it. </p>
<p>Once you’ve found the safety, then (as collegehelp recently posted) think big. As several replies have said, a “match” college with a low base acceptance rate might just as well be called a “reach.” Indeed, that is what I do. I figure all my son’s other target colleges should be regarded as reaches and not counted as sure things. One sure safety anchors the list, and then everything else on the list is a target that may not be reached, but which is worth applying to if it is plainly more appealing than the safety college somehow. I urge my son to think big in how he applies, but we don’t invest any ego into getting into a particular college. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/437718-admission-favorite-college-unworthy-goal-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/437718-admission-favorite-college-unworthy-goal-students.html</a> </p>
<p>Economists have said that building a list include one sure bet safety and a suitably sized bunch of “reaches” is “optimal,” and that seems to be the real-world result. Apply to a reach, and you might not get in, but apply to a safety, and by definition you’ll get in, and if you apply to several reaches, you may get into one of those also.</p>
<p>Query: Is not one problem w/ that top-heavy approach the fact that a student who is truly reaching may find him or herself “compelled” to go to a school where he or she may struggle? Isn’t it prudent to focus on real matches w/ at least one anchor safety, with a few reaches so that the student can feel confident that he or she finds his or her correct level?</p>
<p>If the point is to get into the highest ranked school possible, I see why it is a good idea to be top heavy, but if the idea is to find the most suitable school, I am not sure that works.</p>
<p>I figure if an admission committee at a highly selective college admits an applicant, especially from among a flood of other applicants, the applicant is ready to thrive at that college. For me, just paying the bills while going to college was a struggle of a kind, so I urge my children to look at colleges with great financial aid, which are mostly colleges that are pretty hard to get into and quite academically challenging. They may or may not get in, but if they do get in, someone must think they can handle it.</p>
<p>My definition of a reach is a school where you are within 50-75 SAT points of the 25th percentile. You might be in the lower quartile, but you will have lots of company. Beyond 50-75 points below the 25th SAT percentile might be too ambitious.</p>
<p>DON’T apply to more than ten schools. It will only drive you insane. Ten is more than enough; I applied to eight including my ED (from which I was deferred).</p>
<p>Be prepared to change your mind, because you will. From the very beginning I was very gung-ho on a city school, and applied early to Columbia. I would still be very happy to go there, but since my deferral I’ve completely fallen in love with Oberlin. I think that a lot of people start really focused on cities and realize that that’s not the most important aspect of the process. Conversely, I have a friend who started off wanting all middle-of-nowhere schools, visited GW and realized she really wanted to be in a city. She’s going to Brown. You will definitely change your mind at least once during the process, so don’t get yourself so set on one thing.</p>
<p>Mostly: everything will be fine. Really.</p>
<p>Also, with regards to SATs: I agree that they are important and are needed to put students on an equal footing. But at the same time, I have two good friends, both very intelligent – one EXTREMELY so – who utterly and completely bombed the SATs. They will, I am sure, do very well at whatever school they end up attending. Their minds just didn’t work the way the SATs want your mind to work.</p>
<p>How do you check which colleges have a strong program in a subject you are interested in?</p>
<p>My son found a rating for graduate programs in his major which gave specific suggestions for good places to study at the undergraduate level. He used this as a resource in building his list. He also had a secondary interest which he found info on in college guides and online, and then checked out the program in his major at those schools which piqued his interest.</p>
<p>–Talk to your mentor/post-docs/grad students if you are working in a lab/doing research. A good friend got a completely different story about the “best” places to attend vs. prestige schools for someone interested in doing hands-on lab research beginning freshman year. </p>
<p>–Look at which schools send the most students on to PhDs in your subject area (if you want to pursue one yourself) – this may not be terribly helpful as a measure of quality, but it gave DS a list of possibilities to investigate.</p>
<p>–Read the course catalog. Find out what core/distribution requirements are. See how deep the upper level courses go. DS found that the more actual classes (vs. independent study), the stronger the department. To him, it was a sign that there was a critical mass of students prepared to take on that level of work. On the other hand, if a student is looking to work one-on-one with a prof for extended independent study, that is an option you’d want to see available, as well.</p>