CC OPs can be disrespectful to their free-app schools. I’ve seen this in a list of prospective college choices:
College 1: “dream school”
Colleges 2-9 : other attributes of awe, respect or adoration
College 10: “free app”
However, “free ride” – as if venerable colleges can properly be compared to amusement park attractions – has always appeared much more disrespectful to me, though the usage does appear to be widely accepted.
Has Colby’s Financial Aid policy changed recently?
I don’t know anything about Colby’s history, but I know that the amount of non-loan based Financial Aid they give, according to their NPC, is greater than any other school I checked, and I checked a bunch.
If this is new, that could account for the increase in apps, but it sounds like Recruitment might be the cause of the uptick.
I agree with the poster who asked why it even matters. OP, with all due respect, it sounds like you have an ax to grind with Colby.
If they were hiring fewer professors so they could increase recruitment, and they were lowering their standards, I could understand your concern, but why is an increase in applications necessarily a bad thing?
http://www.golocalprov.com/lifestyle/college-admissions-remove-barriers-watch-applications-surge
The people disagreeing with me on the timing are simply not correct. In a February 12, 2015 article in a highly reputable publication, Steve Saunders, an executive at Colby, is quoted as saying it was dropped for the 2014 - 2015 application cycle, so the class of 2019. Applications jumped 50% this year. The guy from Colby confirmed it in black and white. Isn’t that enough proof?
This tactic is not a secret. Also, when schools reverse the policy like Boston College and Drexel did after discovering it was not beneficial, applications immediately plummet. When Drexel dialed back some changes and made it harder to apply, applications dropped close to 50% immediately.
The fallout of plummeting yield is a concern. You can already see it in Colby’s 28% number, the first year of this change in policy. Drexel’s dropped from slightly over 30% to 8%. So, it was all fiction.
Of course the yield went down in the first year of major increase of applications. The admissions committee had never dealt with that many applications. However, you simply cannot assume that the yield will continue to plummet over the next 5 years. Does it make sense to you that as the school gets a consistent number of a higher amount of applicants, the admissions committee will become well-equipped to increase the yield by admitting those students who make it clear that Colby is their top choice? Do you not think they’ve factored increasing yield in their admissions meeting this year?
The article you referenced includes the story of one student who decided to go to another college, and then applies his situation to thousands of other students that applied that year. Drexel and Colby are incomparable-8% yield versus 28%-there is in no way a crisis in yield numbers. Wesleyan’s yield rate was 33%. The article is just one opinion, and cannot be held as the dominant truth. I will acknowledge that the yield must be better, but the admissions board and school is not in a “crisis”.
Colby is not going to “dial-back” and make it harder to apply, as this goes against some core values of the college. Take UChicago for example: the yield rate dropped at first, in their efforts to get more applications, and is now 60.3% (2014) after several years. It is not a fiction that more students are applying and want to come to Colby. It sounds to me like you have some sort of issue with the school personally, and are using illogical evidence to justify your issues to make them seem more rational. It is completely okay to not like Colby, but I can only hope that you take in more important information than “promotions” when making a college decision.
Maybe there were two different essays that were dropped, at two different times. One in the 2010/2011 application cycle (see the link I posted earlier, colby official, black and white), and then maybe a different supplemental essay that was dropped for the 2014/2105 application cycle?
Sorry but some of this is odd. For the quality of Colby, increasing the number of apps is nothing to be suspicious of. It doesn’t mean they’ve dropped standards down or let key faculty go. It means they have a larger pool from which to choose the best kids. And there’s a surplus today of highly competitive kids,
I get the distance thing. For us, eg, Carleton would have been a challenge. Amherst is even further from Logan airport.
Select a college on the basis of its strengths for your kid and how he feels about it.
I understand your opinion, and the concerns you have of yields and gaming, adam2020. I have researched also.
Maybe some students turn in apps because they are free. Maybe some have essay “Burnout”. I could speculate and try to apply numerical values using your info, but all I can be certain of is why I applied.
I have more than a singular interest. There was an extensive checklist that I had to have in a College or University.
Colby checked all of my particular boxes. Since you like links, I will try to include some.
After review, I believe that the Nescac schools were more of what I was looking for.
I strongly believe mind and body are connected. I want a healthy environment.
I found that Bowdoin, Colby and Middlebury all checked that box really well.
I wanted a happy and collaborative campus.
http://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=happiest-students
Colby and Middlebury fit the bill. (Vandy didnt want me:)
I wanted outstanding and accessible professors.
http://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=most-accessible-professors
http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/50-schools-best-professors/
I wanted great financial aid. I wanted to graduate with NO DEBT.
http://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-with-the-best-financial-aid
I am a baseball player.
https://www.colby.edu/athletics/venue/baseballsoftball-complex/
Middlebury has an incredible new fieldhouse, but this is their coach’s last year there. New coaches sometimes need time to settle. I have met 7 NESCAC coaches. Colby’s baseball coach was the most friendly, approachable and interesting coach I met. Coaches impact happiness a lot for players, so I shook hands and took the effort to speak with all of them. Four coaches sent recruitment packets to me, Colby’s included community volunteering opportunities.
I am a science junkie.
Colby has research facilities that include a cell culture laboratory, an advanced microscopy suite, and a DNA sequencing facility. Great research opportunities. Not one, but three professors who I have been researching, I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from them. Their premed offerings are top notch. Their acceptance rates into excellent med schools are also superior.
I wanted to be closer to the coast, I like the ocean.
I like to ski…Not a lot of opportunity for either in TN.
I am 6’2 and 190… and I eat a lot. UNLIMITED meal swipes.
If I’m dreaming a big dream, I wanted opportunities to possibly intern at Fenway.
http://www.truebluela.com/2014/11/10/7190353/galen-carr-david-finley-dodgers
http://archive.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2005/01/21/inside_jobs/?page=full
I could keep going, but this is already crazy long.
University of Chicago and Vandy sent me enough mail to wallpaper a house.
Colby sent me one nice mailer. It was enough.
Adam2020 – Your opening question was “is Colby too promotional?” Although I have a distinct recollection of the elimination of the essay earlier, let’s assume that it occurred in 2015. If you go back and review the common data sets, you will see that the application fee was eliminated in 2006 or 2007. As pointed out by the other posters, many other colleges have eliminated the supplemental essay – some recently and some not so recently. Why is Colby’s elimination more problematic to you than the elimination by other colleges? Is it because of the large bump in applications, whether or not the large bump was caused by the elimination of the essay? Would it bother you if the bump was caused by Colby flying admissions folks out to Texas (and Tennessee) to talk to students at various high schools? You may want to think through why you are troubled by the admissions bump. But remember, if you are new to the game, if you track admissions bumps over the last 30 years, you may find that a number of schools experienced sharp increases in applications at various times. The University of Pennsylvania was quite a different school in the 1970s and 1980s in terms of admissions difficulty than it is today.
I will confess that it bothered me when a kid I know withdrew his application to a Claremont college, but the Claremont college ignored the withdrawal and waitlisted him anyway. I strongly suspected that the school did so to keep the stats up and it is not disputed that one Claremont was caught fudging its numbers. The numbers fudging didn’t seem to affect the school’s ranking or the kids who got terrific educations there. It seems to me that eliminating an essay is a bit more benign than fudging numbers.
Marketing is distinct from academe. Colby was an extremely strong academic school before the applications bump. It is still and will remain an extremely strong academic school. The kids who attend Colby are terrific and the collegiate experience is equal to or better than the usual suspect LACs. It seems to me that these factors are the important ones when your son decides where he will attend college, but that’s just me.
Your son needs to make a decision. If he feels that the marketing is too promotional for him to be comfortable as a student at Colby, then he really ought to go elsewhere. If he loves the school, I think you should keep an open mind, as you may also grow to love Colby.
@midnightpizza
Excellent post! You made a very informed decision
I’m going to regret doing this but… I find the original post regarding Colby’s surge in applications irrelevant and feel it falls into the category of “why do we care?”. If for some reason it rubs the poster the wrong way, why apply to the school in the first place? Is it not the students decision where they apply and then where they attend? Colby had a surge in applications, so what. If it is feels indecorous, don’t go. I guess they have enough other applicants to pick from. My daughter choose Colby. She submitted the application because she loved the opportunities the school provided. No thought was given to the lack of fee or suppliment essay. She’s fallen in love with Maine and Waterville. She had her choice of many fine acceptances, most had a fee and an additional essay or two, do you think she remembers? President Green is a remarkable force and has made some amazing changes in his short time at the school. As a parent, that meant more to me when my daughter decided to attend than the “surge” in applications.
Official release on admissions this year:
So, I am going to agree with Colfac. If you are able to search back on this fine site to the Colby forum 2010-11, you will find some posters asking where Colby’s supplemental essay is. This leads me to believe that the essay was in fact eliminated in that year. That essay was a bear. There were four or five prompts, one asking about a Rachel Carson quote and its world significance. That is quite different than description of “tell me why your interests align with Colby,” so perhaps indeed there were two stages of “essay” elimination. Incidentally, it could be argued that some of the colleges’ common app supplements are not essays at all, designed to take no time at all to complete but maintaining the appearance of a supplement.
This quibble, however, has no bearing on the Colby experience. It is a terrific place, with lots of dynamic things going on. Midnight, keep working toward Fenway. There are several Colby alums in the MLB – including Fenway.
I am Colby. My wife is Colby (2 years behind me) I am a Partner in a leading Consulting firm and have hired 3 Colby grads (2014, 2009, 2001). I have a group of 8 close friends from Colby, to this day, 25 years later - as do all of the people I hired. More importantly, beyond this inner circle, I have never met a Colby alum, ever, who was not still in love with the school and the experience they had while attending. The school is not too promotional, it is simply something very special. They are just getting the word out.
Strikes me like there is an ax in some of these responses here.
As a parent of a Colby student, I can reconfirm the attachment the students feel toward the school, their peers and their professors.
For whatever reasons (and does it really matter?) community engagement and inclusion is very significant at Colby; students at Colby are a very happy bunch.
Greene attends everything - He lives and breathes the school he champions at sporting events, lectures and all types of informal gatherings - it shows in his engagement with Waterville, and his long term plans for the school. Waterville will be significantly revitalized with Colby’s help IMHO.
I am sure there are more than a few WL students who will happily attend in OPs place if the promotion is so unappealing.
I don’t check College Confidential very often, but check the Colby thread from time to time because my son is a student there. The initial post is an example of why I infrequently visit CC. Too many people looking at colleges through a lens which doesn’t make sense, or matter to me. If you actually care about writing extra essays, application fees or lack thereof, distance from the airport, and the whole “promotional” aspect of a college, then you simply don’t evaluate colleges the way I do. Pay attention to the posts on this thread that were written by people who either attended Colby ( like Sandro87 above), have a child there (peppermintlounge above) or who have obviously done some careful research (Midnightpizza above). Trust us, it’s a very special school for all of the right reasons, and will help launch your child into adulthood as a quality human being. It appeals to kids just like mine- very bright, hardworking, social, outdoorsy and adventurous, who want to live in a community of like-minded students. My son is already sad that he will graduate next year. Colby is an experience he will hold close to his heart forever.
Have to agree with SweetPear, except to the extent that the student does not ‘need’ to be social before attending - mine wasn’t - but will be once there because the spirit of inclusion is very strong. Visit the school. Stop a random student. Ask him or her what they think. You’ll get all the right reasons to attend.
For us, it was the financial aid reviews and no loan policy that was appealing. Also, I don’t really know about those essays anyway. What proof is there that the student actually wrote it? My D was waitlisted tho. I have a feeling that a lot of students are middle to upper middle who cannot afford their federal EFC.
Many colleges have gone from largely regional status to national status over the last several decades (Stanford and WUSTL leap to mind.) and in most cases, it has benefited them enormously. It has allowed them to select from a larger pool of excellent candidates, lowered their vulnerability to demographic changes in their own region, and increased employers’ awareness of the school outside the traditional region to name a few.
It takes time to make this change, and I’d guess that while it’s happening, students from outside the traditional area will accept at a lower rate than the ones within it, but I don’t think that fear of lower yield numbers during this transition – which could take at least a decade – should prevent the administration from trying to make itself known outside of New England.
I spoke with someone who works in admissions at a SLAC (but not Colby) about this. I had hypothesized above that a surge in applications might translate into a lower yield given that the “newer cohort” of applicants may have other traditional preferences,. What I learned was that while this can happen, many admissions offices have found the opposite to be true. The increase is applications signals the increased popularity of the school, and as a result, yield may actually improve. Which is all to say, you just don’t know what’s going to happen!