Parent Opportunities to Meet College Admission Officers

Of the two fairs I attended, the first one was held at a downtown hotel and had a much more diverse attendence. The second one was at a hotel near the airport and was a lot more upscale clientele. Both sets of colleges in my mind were equally prestigious. Tons and tons and tons (like several a day for a period of probably a month) visit the private school my kids attend. The meetings are held in the counselor's office, so they aren't intended to draw large crowds. But they are mentioned on the schools website calendar, so someone could theoretically get the info and see if they could attend. There is a big fair comig to the field house of a college next week. I saw this mentioned in a free weekly city newspaper. This mentioned explicitly that hs students, parents, and guidance counselors were welcome to attend.

tokenadult · September 27, 2007, 1:07pm

Marite posted a link in the Parents Forum

<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/09/27/at_elite_colleges_new_aid_for_the_middle/?page=2%5B/url%5D">http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/09/27/at_elite_colleges_new_aid_for_the_middle/?page=2</a>

which, as parent jackief pointed out, is a press report on a college information session. For parents who attend meetings like this, the news story is familiar information.

mgw1979 · September 27, 2007, 1:26pm

A quote from Stanford's assistant dean of admissions that I find very offensive:

"It's a question of choice. Where's the give and take?" said Warner, adding that some parents may have to decide whether to buy a bigger house or send their child to an expensive college.

As a middle class parent, I can assure Warner that I'm not choosing between sending my child to an expensive college or a bigger house (and who is looking for a bigger house as the number of kids home decreases?!) If my expected contribution is $20K (a number cited in the article), I'm choosing between essentials such as having any money for my retirement and not needing my kid to support me vs. an expensive college.

tokenadult · September 27, 2007, 2:10pm

Hi, mgw1979,

Have you received financial aid offers from any colleges yet?

After edit: I wouldn't take a comment like the quoted comment from the Stanford assistant dean personally. He is reacting to stories like the ones below, from the Chronicle of Higher Education (reposted on Matt McGann's MIT admission blog):

Chronicle of Higher Education:

Bizarre parental behavior has also invaded the financial-aid process. Admissions and financial-aid administrators say it has become fairly common for parents with substantial six-figure incomes to seek financial assistance. "I have never seen so many families with incomes of $200,000 to $300,000 applying for need-based aid," says Ms. Britz. "They look at their financial outlays and think they have need. But it's really about lifestyle choices they have made."

Joellen Silberman, dean of enrollment at Kalamazoo College, received a three-page, single-spaced letter from a cardiologist explaining that his take-home pay of $17,000 a month might seem like a lot, but really wasn't. Ms. Silberman was unpersuaded.

Another parent called to complain that his son had not received any need-based aid. When Ms. Silberman explained why, the parent said he would hop on his private plane and fly to the campus to straighten her out. But he flew out the same way he flew in -- empty-handed.

<a href="http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/before/helping_your_parents_through_this_process/crazy_admissions_stories.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/before/helping_your_parents_through_this_process/crazy_admissions_stories.shtml</a>

tokenadult · October 2, 2007, 2:10am

Hi, everyone,

This evening I attended the Yale information session in St. Paul. I was at another meeting until the last possible minute, so I arrived a little late, to see a standing-room-only crowd in a public library meeting room. There were at least forty, maybe more than fifty, students and parents there. I stood way in the back to listen to the presentation.

Yale admission officer Nicholas Strohl, a Yale alumnus, was talking about Yale's curriculum when I got into the room. He said that Yale is between the two extremes of a curriculum with no requirements whatever, in which students can take whatever courses they like, and a curriculum with common required courses for all students. He said that at Yale students select courses according to their interests from a few broad areas required of all students. He was a history major and didn't want to take a lot of math and science courses. He did have to take some (nonmathematical) science courses to fulfill Yale degree requirements, and said that Yale has many accessible math and science courses for students who don't plan to major in those subjects. He took an elective course in astrophysics that was quite interesting. He also took a lot of elective courses in economics, a subject he likes.

Yale's requirement for graduation is to take 36 courses over eight semesters. Of those, 12 courses must be in the student's major subject. About 15 percent of Yale students double-major. Even more could, except many Yale students take such a wide assortment of elective courses they never accumulate the courses for a second major. Some as-if doubled single major subjects are already set up at Yale, for example economics and math, or physics and philosophy. If an interdisciplinary major that you would like isn't already set up, you can request an individualized interdisciplinary program. Mr. Strohl knows a student who is studying what she calls "nanoscience," a combination of courses from several different departments. Yale has no preprofessional majors as such, so there isn't a major called "prelaw" or one called "premed" nor is there a business major. But Yale studies can lead to professional school, so Mr. Strohl knows a theater studies major who went to medical school, and students with other majors who went to law school, and there is preprofessional advising at Yale. Mr. Strohl says Yale's liberal arts education makes you an "engineer plus" or a "doctor plus" and more attractive to employers.

Study abroad is promoted vigorously; Yale President Levin would like to see 100 percent of Yale students have some sort of international experience before they graduate, whether that is traditional study abroad, intensive language study, or personal travel abroad. Yale has campuses in London and in Beijing where Yale students may take regular Yale courses. The most common form of studying abroad for Yale students is studying somewhere overseas during a summer. These programs can be student-designed and Yale-supported. For example, one student wanted to practice Buddhist monastic life in Taiwan, and he was able to fly to Taiwan and spend a summer in a monastery there with Yale funding. Another student wanted to do historical research on the development of pub culture in Ireland (!) and he spent a whole summer traveling to pubs in northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and then returned to Yale to write his senior thesis on his chosen topic. Funding for that travel--and presumably for a lot of beer--came from Yale's history department.

Mr. Strohl then took questions on academic life at Yale.

Student: How can one take a class not in the Yale catalog?
A: Find a professor, maybe do a directed study in that area. The residential colleges [about which there is more below] can sponsor a teacher, for example on the subject of TV comedy writing. It's possible to take many classes at Yale that don't appear in the catalog.
Student: Can one triple major?
A: It's theoretically possible. There are sometimes overlaps among required courses for majors, making double majors take less than 24 courses. Many students take a variety of elective courses.
There are no official minors, but you can list on your resume what courses you took. Mr. Strohl was a history major and applied for a job as a history teacher. He was hired in part because of his many elective courses in economics, and ended up teaching more AP economics courses than history courses at that school.
Student: Are there internships abroad?
A: Yale has a study and travel office that helps students find overseas opportunities. Yale alumni have formed Bulldog clubs all over the world that love to help alumni network to hire students for paid internships over the summer.
Student: How many courses do students take each semester?
A: One must take 36 courses over eight semesters, so basically 9 courses per year. Taking 4 a semester is easy; 5 is doable; some students take 6.
But Yale students are very active in extracurricular activities. The saying at Yale is "Don't let your classes get in the way of your education."
Parent: Can a student defer admission?
A: Generally, one can routinely defer enrollment for a year. Ask if you need to defer for longer, explaining the reason.
Parent: Can a student get a leave of absence?
A: Sure. You can take a leave for a semester or for a year. The directors of a Yale choral group typically take a whole year off to plan the group's foreign travel schedule. You take your courses in eight semesters, so you can't take really light loads of just one or two classes per semester. Of all Yale students, 94 percent graduate in four years, and 96 percent in six years.
Student: Can high school students who have studied college courses transfer their credits to Yale? Does Yale except PSEO [dual-enrollment] credits? [This is the single most frequently asked question at Minnesota college meetings. It gets asked EVERY time.]
A: Yale doesn't accept credits from other colleges. AP test scores or IB test scores can be used to gain "acceleration credits" that allow a student to graduate early. Most students who could graduate early choose not to. You're not going to run out of challenges. Yale is stingy with outside credit, but you can always take a more challenging class. You are free to take harder courses.
Student: What AP scores get [acceleration] credit?
A: 4s or 5s.
Q:
A: Most majors require a senior thesis.
Student: How popular is engineering?
A: Yale is thought of as an arts and humanities college, so not as many would-be engineers apply, but when they are admitted, they find they have a good ratio of students to professors, and get lots of one-on-one attention from the engineering progressors. Freshmen can work in research labs.
Yale is building the Malone Center, a major new science building. It has just bought the $100 million former Bayer company facility near the Yale campus, saving considerable time in expanding research space for Yale students.

The Mr. Strohl began speaking about residential life at Yale. Yale alumni look back most fondly on their experiences outside of class. Yale's residential colleges define the Yale experience.

It used to be really hard to explain what Yale's residential colleges are like, but now everyone knows about Harry Potter, so we can say that Yale is like Hogwarts, and the residential colleges are like the various houses at Hogwarts. Yale's 5,300 undergraduates have a home within a home, as there are twelve residential colleges each with about 400 or 500 students. A student's Yale diploma is actually handed to the student during a ceremony at the student's own college.

The residential colleges are a way to make things more personal. Each college is a cross-section of the student body. If, for example, Yale enrolled twelve students from Alaska one year, probably each one would be assigned to a different college. Athletes, art majors, and all other kinds of students are mixed among all the colleges. College friends are different from you; you live with them, you dine with them, and some become your best friends. If you ask twelve different Yale students which residential college is the best, you'll get twelve different answers, but Berkeley College is the best. :)
Parent: What about Skull and Bones?
A: The senior societies are something distinct from the residential colleges to which all Yale students belong. They are not a big part of college life.
Student: What's the different between a residential college and an ordinary dorm?
A: The residential colleges are living spaces, but they also have dining facilities, and recreational facilities, some of which are unique to each college. Each college has a master, who has a budget for activities. You might take a ski trip with other students from your college at the college's expense, or go to the theater in New York City.
Yale students must live on campus for two years. About 87 percent live on campus all four years.
Your residential college master is not the same as your major advisor, but the master checks up on your academic progress and signs your registration forms.
Student: Can students from one college use the facilities of another?
A: You can use them all. "We just approved intercollege dating." [laughter from audience] Many colleges have special events called master's teas, in which some celebrity may visit a small group of students for tea and crumpets, and in those cases sign-up priority is for students in the particular college hosting the event, but it is possible to meet many famous people in master's teas at other colleges. Meryl Streep is a fellow of Berkeley College.
Student: What percent of students are international students?
A: About 10 percent.
Student: What's the process for starting student clubs?
A: Yale will give you money. Some examples of clubs are

The Antigravity Society (a club that juggles with flaming torches, or anvils, or other unlikely objects).

The Free-Style Dueling Society (which uses plastic swords to set up sword fights on campus).

The David and Lauren Society, which sponsors parties which you can attend if a) you are named "David" or "Lauren"; b) you know someone named David or Lauren; or c) you would like to meet someone named David or Lauren.

Student: Is it easy to start a club?
A: Two students and an idea gets $500.
Student: Are there fraternities?
A: There are three fraternities and three sororities. They are not a big part of campus life. All fraternity and sorority parties are open to nonmembers. Greek life is largely outside of Yale policies. Yale neither discourages nor encourages Greek societies. The residential colleges fulfill many of the same social functions.
Student: How is the food?
A: Berkeley College was visited by the Wall Street Journal food editor, who wanted to learn about the college's new menu featuring all organic products and emphasizing locally grown food. People are surprised how good the food is.
Student: How are students selected for each college?
A: [joking] They use the magic hat [from the Harry Potter books]. The process is designed to keep students from grouping together with similar students. You can petition to join the same college your parent or grandparent belonged to, and you can petition NOT to be in the same college as your sibling, but that's it.

Then Mr. Strohl turned the subject to admission and financial aid.

Yale has a nonbinding early action round in its admission process. You can apply by November 1, get a response by December 15, but don't have to reply to Yale to accept an offer of admission until the following May 15. You can compare offers of financial aid from different colleges. Note that other colleges have a BINDING early decision round. Yale's early action round is a single-choice early action (SCEA) program. Yale requires that you don't apply early to any other early action or early decision college. But you can apply to as many colleges as you like during the regular decision round, and you may apply to "rolling admission" colleges (typically state universities) and to scholarship programs according to their deadlines.
People notice that the base admission rate is higher for the early action round than for the regular admission round. Yale says this is because there are stronger applicants in the early round (students who have already compiled a strong academic record by the end of junior year of high school) and because all recruiting of athletes is done in the early round. Yale doesn't bump you into the college if you apply early and are on the edge; maybe some other colleges do.
Student: Do you require SAT II tests?
A: Yale requires either
a) the current SAT I and two SAT II tests,
or
b) the ACT with writing.
What students submit depends on what state they live in. Yale has no preference for either test.
Parent: The number of applicants?
A: 20,000 applications.
1,900 acceptances, for an overall acceptance rate of about 9 percent.
All applications are reviewed holistically and contextually. There are two readers for every application. All final decisions are made by committees. Yale does not presort applications. Yale does not make up its own common GPA scale. Yale looks at each school according to its context.
First Yale looks at academic factors, because it is an academic institution. The transcript is the most important element of the application. The admission officers look at the high school program and to what degree you challenge yourself. A rigorous, challenging high school program is given more weight in the admission process than test scores.
Yale gets more qualified applicants than it can take. Yale estimates that 15,000 of the applicants are academically qualified to be admitted, so decisions go beyond academics. There is no secret combination of extracurricular activities to gain admission. Do what's satisfying to you.
Residential college deans sit on admission committees, because they are looking for applicants who will be members of a residential community.

Mr. Strohl said, "Here's some free advice, which is rare for college admission. If Yale appeals to you, apply, but have a sensible list of colleges to apply to, so you can surely get into three to five of them, even if you can't get into another three to five of them. Close your eyes and daydream about what it would be like to be a student at each college. If you can't imagine being happy there, don't apply to that college. If, God forbid, you are only admitted to one college, make sure it's one you'd be glad to go to. Leave yourself with good choices."
Parent: Does Yale require interviews?
A: We attempt to offer interviews to all applicants. Once you submit your contact information, our alumni network finds someone to interview you. The alumnus receives no information about you except what high school you go to and your contact information. The interview is a fresh look at the applicant to get at what kind of person the applicant is. And students can use the interviews to learn about Yale. Don't worry if an interview isn't scheduled for you.
Student: Do you require letters of recommendation?
A: Two recommendations are required, from academic teachers. If someone else knows you well, you may submit a supplemental recommendation in addition to the two academic recommendations.
Student: Supplemental materials?
A: Yale only has a system for evaluating art and music materials, which are routed to professors in related departments. Yale has no system for evaluating science papers or the like.
Student: What does Yale think about home educated students?
A: We have applications from homeschoolers every year, and we accept some every year. I don't have numbers about that. You might have to explain your homeschooling program in a way that corresponds to a high school counselor's school profile. We're interested in knowing about your learning program.
Parent: You mentioned the vigorous promotion of going abroad. If a high school student is living abroad as he applies, is that good?
A: We are interested in what students have done. If you can't go abroad, that's not bad.
Parent: How are regular courses compared to honors courses? If my daughter is taking honors [name of subject], but only gets a B, is that a disadvantage compared to taking regular [name of subject]?
A: Challenge yourself to a reasonable extent. [Both my son and I, talking about this parent question afterwards, reflected that the parent who asked the question probably hasn't considered how many young people her daughter's age pursue the same extracurricular activities she does, unrelated to that subject, but study that subject at the AP level.]
Parent: So a B+ grade doesn't automatically exclude a student from Yale?
A: We're not looking for perfection. We don't take a lot of students with perfect transcripts and do take a lot of students with imperfect transcripts.
Q:
A: Get your application in as early as possible, as that allows checking online whether or not it is complete.
Parent: Is getting a Yale undergraduate degree an advantage for getting into Yale graduate school? [The parent probably really meant "professional school."]
A: There is no feeder system, but it could be an advantage. Yale has 94 percent medical school placement, compared to a nationwide figure of 37 percent.
Parent: Does a student have to audition to be a theater major?
A: Just a few majors have special admission requirements, for example architecture--which is a rare undergraduate major. You are eligible for almost all majors just by being admitted to Yale.
Student: Can nondrama majors participate in plays?
A: Yes, there are many opportunities to perform.
Student: Can a student deferred after the early round send in more application materials?
A: [after explanation of "admit," "defer," and "deny."] Yes, we want you to send in more materials. Being deferred means we are interested in you and want to know more.
Parent: Does Yale have five-year M.A. programs?
A: Yes, it has some five-year M.A. programs.

Then Mr. Strohl turned the topic to financial aid (which I was surprised took so long to come up).

Yale provides NEED-BASED financial aid, and there is NO upper limit on the number of students who may receive it; in fact, we are searching for more students who need aid to admit.

Yale has a list price for tuition, room, board, and incidental expenses. We calculate what your family can pay. We fill the gap--with no loans, only grants. There is a family contribution for some families, and a student contribution for all students. Students can fulfill their $4,400 student contribution through part-time work (and Yale's minimum wage is $11.20 per hour, the highest in the country for student jobs) or through outside scholarship awards, or through taking out student loans. The typical Yale graduate has only $15,000 in debt, a manageable amount, for an education with a list price of almost $200,000. For families with joint incomes under $45,000, there is NO expected family contribution, and the family contribution is sharply reduced for incomes under $60,000.

Do any of the Yale parents or alumni here have any comments on this?

Are any of you expecting to attend Yale meetings in your town?

<a href="http://admissions.yale.edu/events/%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.yale.edu/events/</a>

sewbusy · October 2, 2007, 8:50am

We attended the Yale session on 9/25 in Richmond, VA with David Reiman and our session appears almost identical to yours. I did not take notes (did that with S1), but tokenadult gives a great recap.

I was surprised at the $4400 expected student contribution as this is quite higher than what S1 is expected to contribute at his peer institution.

We were told that Yale REALLY prefers the online application and prefers no additional materials but will read everything you send.

As tokenadult notes, the presentation really focused time on what it's like to live at Yale from a social perspective and I thought this gave a real sense of the college for those kids who had not or can not visit campus.

The admissions officer was highly energetic, very knowledgeable and articulate, but also very down to earth. Probably one of the better info sessions we've been to.

tokenadult · October 3, 2007, 8:46am

[quote]
The admissions officer was highly energetic, very knowledgeable and articulate, but also very down to earth. Probably one of the better info sessions we've been to.

[/quote]

That's what I've now seen at one, and heard about at two, Yale info sessions in my town. By contrast, Stanford one year sent out a very inarticulate admission officer to speak here. I'll see what this year's Stanford show looks like next week.

tokenadult · October 9, 2007, 2:05am

I attended the Stanford information session in my town this evening. It was in the same downtown Minneapolis hotel where I first saw a Stanford information session three years ago. Traffic was good tonight, so I arrived quite early and saw admission officer Julia Rose Ando as she was setting up the table outside the meeting room with brochures and bookmarks. She remembered my son (a student in the pioneer class of Stanford's EPGY Online High School, as she remarked) and me from our attendance at the Exploring College Options program in May at another Twin Cities hotel. As I greeted her a passerby mentioned the Stanford-USC football game played last Sunday, on which I congratulated her. As other people came up to the table in the next half hour she seemed to remember many of them or their names from high school meetings or receiving emails, so she seems to have a good memory for people interested in Stanford.

The music in the main meeting room was MUCH better than the music I heard three weeks ago at a different hotel before the Caltech meeting. It was well performed Romantic era solo piano pieces, most of them familiar to me because my wife is a piano teacher. The meeting began with Ms. Ando turning off the beautiful music, which was a good attention-getter in that large room. Then she surprised me by saying that the music was not professional recording artists, but current Stanford students. There must be some very good musicians among the newly enrolled students at Stanford.

This year's meeting was more lightly attended than the meeting I saw three years ago. Ms. Ando gave a very articulate opening talk, beginning with giving Stanford's history. Stanford was founded in 1891 and subsequent President Herbert Hoover was in the pioneer class. The university is named after the son of Leland Stanford, the railroad tycoon, who died young. Mr. and Mrs. Stanford wanted the university to be a memorial to their son, so the university's official name is Leland Stanford Junior University, but usually it's just called Stanford. [In other places, I have heard various jokes made that Stanford is a "JUNIOR" university, just an overgrown junior college, but of course that is said by alumni of other colleges.] The most common informal name for Stanford is "The Farm," because the campus is formed of what was originally the Stanford family farm, consisting of 8100 acres of land.

From the beginning Stanford has been co-educational, open to people from all backgrounds. It was originally tuition-free. It has students from every state and all over the world.

Stanford's quarter system means students can choose 50 percent more different classes over the course of a college career than students at a semester-system college. It's like getting fifteen weeks (my notes say "eighteen weeks" were Ms. Ando's words) of subject study in ten weeks.

Students declare their majors at the end of sophomore year. Stanford has many unique majors; students are well advised to attend lots of different classes to discover interests. Listing your major choice as "undecided" is a good thing in the eyes of the admission office--there are many possible majors at Stanford.

Stanford has overseas campuses, usually offering home-stay programs, so those can have language prerequisites.

There are 6,500 undergraduates on campus, making Stanford medium-sized among research universities. 1,650 new students are admitted each year. There are fewer than 20 students in a typical class. The student:faculty ratio is 7:1; the student:bicycle ratio is 7:6, because bicycles are a great way to get around on the large campus. Introductory seminar courses are capped at 16 students. They are offered in many interesting subjects.

There are interdisciplinary courses. The physics of photography course is taught by a Nobel laureate, and students take photos, develop them, and learn about the science and history of photography. There are also interdisciplinary majors. The most popular major on campus is human biology, known at Stanford as Hum Bio, a course combining biology, anthropology, sociology, and chemistry, and a very popular major for students who want to study medicine. There is even a themed dorm for Hum Bio. Another Stanford interdisciplinary major is symbolic systems, an appropriate major for Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley grew up near Stanford because Stanford alumni founded many high-tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Google, and YouTube.

Stanford is a collaborative place. Stanford looks for students who are excited and passionate about learning. Stanford wants undergraduates to do research, and budgets $4 million per year so that undergraduates can do research in any discipline.

We were the first Minnesota audience to see the new Stanford admissions video. The slickly produced video showed students from all over, including a girl from northern Minnesota, and lots of first-generation immigrants (shown with both their birth hometown and hometown at time of application). The video scenes showed Stanford's famous and bizarre marching band, lots of athletics, various performers and musical groups, and undergraduates working in labs. A professor said Stanford is "not as locked into tradition" as some east coast colleges, and another said the students "don't hoard knowledge; they share it."

A panel of three young alumni introduced themselves after the video. Carter Dunn, who has both B.S. and M.S. ('04) degrees from Stanford, said he was in the engineering program in Japan. He noted that Stanford also has an overseas engineering program in Berlin, and the students who go to those programs come back with much improved proficiency in Japanese or German, because they live with local families. Stanford even finds those students internships while they are overseas.

An alumna, whose name may not be spelled correctly in my notes, is now a graduate student at the U of Minnesota. She is originally from Madison, WI, so she knows the upper Midwest. She is a graduate of the small systems program. She rowed crew and played ultimate Frisbee while at Stanford, and studied in Santiago, Chile for a quarter.

A third Stanford graduate was an alumna who grew up in Minneapolis and Golden Valley, MN. She has a B.A. ('03) and M.A. ('04) degree from Stanford. She sang in an acapella group that performed jazz and hip-hop music, and was a senator in Stanford's student government. She played rugby for a week, but discontinued that after injuries. She spent a summer in Greece while she was a student.

After the panel introductions, there was Q and A.

Parent: Please tell us about the quarter system.
Alumna: I loved the quarter system because of the greater diversity of classes. It's intense. It's maybe not like fifteen weeks in ten, but you start the class and right away begin preparing for tests.

Parent: What about core requirements in classes?
A: There are some required classes in English, and a required introduction to the humanities (IHUM) course, which is not always a course a student wants to take. There is writing class for a year. There is also a year of required math and science, and one alumna noted that she took a very introductory computer science department course that was largely building webpages to fulfill part of that requirement. Ms. Ando noted that one can test out of some core requirements with AP tests.

Student: How is the housing?
A: It's spectacular, and it's guaranteed for four years. The alumnus said he had been in every which kind of housing, including staying in a frat house without being a member of the frat, and living in a co-op housing community, which he described as a very good experience. One alumna said that she got what she thought would be a bad choice one year when her housing assignment priority was low, namely the Asian-American theme house, an older dorm with double rooms, but she ended up liking the cultural experiences there.

We then left the meeting because of a schedule conflict. I like the Stanford meetings a lot. I'd love to hear what you hear at any meeting you attend.

tokenadult · October 9, 2007, 2:07am

My son, wife, and I all attended this evening's Carnegie-Mellon information meeting in suburban Minneapolis. My son and I have been to a CMU meeting in a previous year. This year we got to the meeting late because of schedule conflicts.

As we arrived, the admission representative Robert Tallerico had just finished playing a video showing lots of students and their activities at CMU. He mentioned that Pittsburgh has 86,000 students attending ten different colleges and universities and is thus the second-largest college town in the United States after Boston. He said the CMU campus is about five miles from downtown Pittsburgh in an upscale neighborhood. (I have been to Pittsburgh but I don't think I have ever seen the CMU campus.) The campus is near a park like New York City's Central Park--the park had the same designer.

He said there are hundreds (really? so say my notes) of applicants to CMU each year from Minnesota. [Dozens from Minnesota, and hundreds from the Midwest? I wonder if I recorded this wrong, or misheard it.] The campus is very international and diverse. He said the most common question an admission officer from CMU will hear is "Why do you admit so many internationals?" He said the answer is that you meet more different people that way as a CMU student, and that adds to the experience.

Carnegie-Mellon has an overseas campus in Doha, Qatar. It also has overseas programs in Greece, in Indonesia, and in Australia, and is the only non-Australian university allowed to issue Australian graduate degrees.

All classes are taught by members of the CMU faculty except for the introductory computing class (a class on how to operate computers on the CMU network) and the first-year writing class, which is taught by Ph.D. students. There is a 10:1 student:teacher ratio. The average class size is from 25 to 35 students. About 75 percent of classes have fewer than 20 students.

There are many campus activities and clubs. About 15 to 18 percent of students participate in Greek fraternities or sororities.

You can study abroad pretty much anywhere in the world through CMU, even in Antarctica, where some CMU physics majors have done undergraduate research. The study abroad office helps students travel to Europe, Australia, South America, and Asia.

Carnegie-Mellon has Division III NCAA sports. About 80 percent of students participate in intramural sports. The most popular sport is Ultimate. The CMU teams are the Tartan, "the most feared piece of cloth in the NCAA." A new mascot for the Tartan teams is the Scots Terrier.

Housing is guaranteed for four years. About 75 percent of students live on campus all four years. Some students who go off-campus find that they can't come back to on-campus housing once they have left, but the guarantee works if you stay on campus. CMU is a "happy, vibrant campus community." There is food-court-style dining; not everyone dines in the same building. Dining plans are required of on-campus students.

Two students at Carnegie-Mellon are majoring in bagpipe performance, the only such students in the country. The bagpipe majors have been interviewed by national news media about their unusual major, which reflects CMU's Scottish heritage through founder Andrew Carnegie, who immigrated to the United States from Scotland.

Spring Carnival is a big event on campus, and draws back more alumni than the autumn homecoming. There are no classes for a week during Spring Carnival. There is a buggy race that started with Soapbox Derby-like cars some decades ago, but now features very small, aerodynamic, and rather fast (30 to 40 miles per hour) vehicles pushed by a student and steered by a small student inside. Short students are recruited each year to be buggy drivers.

The Fence is a CMU institution. The original fence was painted once by a frat to announce a party, and gradually it became a campus tradition for student groups to paint the fence to announce group activities. Each group that desires to paint the fence must paint it between midnight and 6:00am, and no other group may paint it if the first group to paint it guards the fence in person. So there are often tents holding students who stay overnight near the fence. The true, original fence won a Guinness Book of World Records recognition as the most painted object in the world and eventually collapsed under the weight of so many layers of paint. The replacement fence is still a proud campus tradition.

CMU has Career Center to make sure graduates have somewhere to go after they graduate. Carnegie-Mellon does better at placement than any university in the country. All students have career advisors, including the fine arts students. There are between 1,200 and 1,300 new graduates of CMU each year, but there are 10,000 on-campus recruiting interviews each year. Many universities publish placement statistics for graduates six months after graduation, but CMU publishes such statistics for graduates as of graduation day, when 90 percent of graduates have a job or other plan lined up.

Pittsburgh has twice been named the most livable city in America. Western Pennsylvania is an area with a lot of sportsmen, and school pupils there get the first day of hunting season off from school.

Mr. Tallerico showed a video (which my son and I saw the last time we attended a CMU meeting) about how CMU is viewed by employers. Theater producers were overrepresented in the video, but Bill Gates also appeared talking about computer science at CMU, which he holds in high regard.

Then Mr. Tallerico talked about applying to CMU. He said CMU uses the Common Application with its own supplement, and that all forms may be submitted online. Two letters of recommendation are required, and one should come from a counselor. Don't submit more than three letters of recommendation; that shows you haven't thought about who knows you best.

The question students always ask admission officers is "What are you looking for?" CMU is looking for

1) Secondary school performance.

The transcript and choice of courses is important. When a teacher writes a letter of recommendation, the teacher often has more to say in your favor if the course was not a course that you easily aced, but rather a course where you started out slowly in and had to really work in to get an A.

2) Non-academic information.

Let CMU know about your activities, including part-time jobs. Anything that takes up your time is good to tell CMU about. CMU is looking for "well-rounded students," who succeed both inside and outside the classroom. Your essays are important because you have control of them. You can still do something about your essay after your grades and activities are mostly history. Tell CMU something that is not in the rest of your application when you write your essay. If CMU's admission committee likes the person who submitted the app, after being won over by the essay, they are more likely to like the application.

3) Standardized testing.

You should submit an SAT I or an ACT score, and CMU has NO preference for one test over the other. Take either or both test as many times as you want. CMU takes the highest scores, so if you aren't satisfied with your first test results, be sure to take the tests again. Some colleges at CMU require various combinations of SAT II Subject Tests. There is a portfolio review for fine art students, and a very decisive audition for performing art students.

CMU has both merit scholarships and need-based financial aid. There is no separate application for merit scholarships, and the usual federal FAFSA form for need-based aid.

The average need-based package for CMU's annual cost of attendance of $49,000 is $22,943 (down a little bit in the most recently reported year from previous years) of which $18,094 is grants. About 10 percent of the class will have merit scholarships, so don't expect one of those.

The meeting ended with a video showing alumni, including astronauts (more than one), inventors, and many performers and artists.

After the meeting, my son talked to an alumna who studied computer science and is now a lawyer. She told him about a classmate of hers that invented something while still an undergrad, making enough money to buy his mother a house. I said, "That's the right story for us." :)

We went home tired but glad to get more information about CMU. I'd love to hear what you have learned at regional information sessions in your town. I'm off to the NACAC Minnesota National College Fair tomorrow.

tokenadult · October 11, 2007, 7:45pm

This year I visited the Minnesota National College Fair very briefly. I have attended it three times before. What I noticed, arriving at the hour the fair opened on opening day, is that a student interested in nationally known liberal arts colleges outside of the student's home region could get a significant amount of individual time with admission officers from such LACs at a college fair. A lot of booths were mobbed with students, but I easily had time to have unhurried one-on-one conversations with admission officers from Knox College and Reed College, and I passed by other LAC booths where no one was stopping to talk to the admission representative. So if you are shopping for out-of-region LACs, a National College Fair event is not a bad place to do that.

citygirlsmom · October 11, 2007, 7:48pm

My D walks around the fairs and looks at what city a school is in- if its not in a city or state she would consider, she moves on

We once stopped by a booth just because the lady looked so lonesome- it was for a school in Arkansas....probably not a super destination for many Cali kids, no matter how amazing a school it might have been

sewbusy · October 11, 2007, 8:33pm

tokenadult: I think our sons are applying to a very similar list of schools! Thanks for the CMU report, they don't visit us here until the end of the month.

bookworm · October 11, 2007, 9:03pm

tokenadult,
Is it part of your job to learn about colleges? I cannot believe you attend fairs for so many years just for S.

tokenadult · October 11, 2007, 9:27pm

Learning about college admission has been an avocation of mine since my oldest was an infant, because I am active member of homeschooling support groups. My first online FAQ about college admission relates to college admission for homeschoolers. Now I'm a board member of a state association for parents of gifted children, and once again lots of college admission issues come up.

tokenadult · October 28, 2007, 3:16pm

Okay, there are still some NACAC National College Fairs

<a href="http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/Events/CollegeFairs/NCF/FallNCF/%5B/url%5D">http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/Events/CollegeFairs/NCF/FallNCF/</a>

coming up today through next week, so I'll write a little here about one kind of event you can participate at during a NACAC college fair: a workshop on a specialized topic. Earlier this month in Minnesota I attended the NACAC National College Fair there, and specifically attending a workshop called "Playing the Selective College Admissions Game."

The presenter of the workshop was an admission officer from Illinois Wesleyan University. I don't have his name in my notes and seem to have misplaced his business card. He said he has given a workshop with this title five or six times now. He cringes at the word "game" in the title (which actually comes from the title of a book published in the 1990s).

He opened the workshop with a quiz, promising to give quiz answers at the end of the workshop (and those will be in my notes below):

1) Are there more public colleges or private colleges in the United States?

2) In what state is Williams College?

3) Is the College of William and Mary public or private?

4) Which college has the largest NCAA athletic program (interscholastic teams in the most different sports) in the United States?

The Illinois Wesleyan University admission officer said that the earlier your student starts making college visits, the better. That gets the student used to thinking about characteristics of different colleges. Visits can be built into family vacations.

The term "highly selective" as a description of colleges is part of the media frenzy surrounding college admission today. Acceptance rate is just one factor that makes a college "selective"; there are other factors. Selectivity illustrates that there is both supply (colleges looking for students) and demand (students looking colleges). Arbitrarily, a college can be defined as "highly selective" if it accepts less than half its applicants. [According to the College Board's posting of Common Data Set data, Illinois Wesleyan doesn't quite make that cut, at least not recently,

<a href="http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1557&profileId=1%5B/url%5D">http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1557&profileId=1</a>

although plainly the admission officer thought that his college is in this category. Illinois Wesleyan does have a test score profile for admitted students

<a href="http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1557&profileId=6%5B/url%5D">http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1557&profileId=6</a>

of the kind you'd expect at a selective college.] Of the 4,140 colleges in the United States (public, private, four-year, or two-year), there are only about 150, or about 4 percent, that admit half or less of their applicants. In the United States, 95 percent of colleges admit the majority of students who apply.

Highly selective colleges are also called "reach" colleges, even for good students. When you're applying to college, you also want to have back-ups [what are called "safeties" often on CC.]

There is not a magic formula for admission. "The best advice I can give is study hard." Most students in the applicant pool are qualified to attend the college they are applying to. There is only a 9 percent admit rate at some Ivy League colleges and only about a 10 percent admit rate at the United States Coast Guard Academy. [College Board says the Coast Guard Academy admits 24 percent of applicants, but that is still highly selective by the definition of the workshop.]

Junior-year and senior-year coursework is the most recent indicator of an applicant's readiness for college. It's important to get good grades throughout high school, especially in the later years. Once colleges look at the applicant's academic profile, then they look at other factors.

What can you do to separate your application from thousands of others? Activities, work, or community service. We don't value one activity more than another. We want to find students who can stay involved while they do their academic work. We look for students who can give back to their communities. More activities are not necessarily better. Leadership helps.

Parent Question: I have a problem with leadership as a criterion. My daughter is reserved; she's good at a lot of things, but leadership positions at her school are a popularity contest.

A: I would never tell a student to gear high school years to getting into college. Enjoy your high school years; find your own way to get involved and make an impact.

Highlight your experiences. Those may be living in a different place, or having an unusual family background.

A strong sense of intellectual curiosity is paramount. Your grades will show on your transcript, but we'll also look for a love of learning not for grades' sake. Having thirty-five books on a summer recreational reading list was one impressive application. The faculty are looking for students like that.

High School Counselor Question: Some kids are in many activities but superficially, but some are precociously socially mature. Do colleges want to know that?

A: For sure. Highlight that in your counselor letter.

Parent Q: My child is in a specialized magnet school [she named it] for the final two years of high school, but the high school's counselor just left; what do we do?

A: The freshman-sophomore-year counselor might be a helpful person to write to some colleges, or else a current teacher.

Some factors are beyond your control. Don't sweat the small stuff, e.g., geographical diversity, gender, ethnic diversity.

The question is always, what else does the student bring to the table besides a G.P.A.? Some colleges enroll hundreds of valedictorians. Most colleges review applications for months; there are difficult decisions to be made. I'd rather think that colleges are looking for reasons to ADMIT students.

Parent Q: Do colleges look at rankings of high schools?

A: It varies. Most high schools include a high school profile as part of the counselor letter for each applicant. It's difficult to know what a high school G.P.A. means. Colleges look at the student's transcript. A student from Eden Prairie High School [the largest high school in Minnesota, in a prosperous suburb] with more than 1,000 students in a graduating class has different options from a student from a high school with twelve students per graduating class.

Parent Q: Are public high school students at a disadvantage? I was taken aback to learn from Concordia College [Moorhead, MN] what number of private school students are there.

A: I think that's unfortunate. It's not completely equal. And yet we visit more public high schools, and we admit more public school students.

Parent Q: Are parents who can contribute money to the college favored?

A: There is a business aspect to admission decisions too.

Parent Q: What advice do you have for students?

A: Counselors have a heavy load of students; start the college application process early.

On the subject of "demonstrated interest," many colleges want to see interest.

Parent comment: I have a friend who is a Cornell alumnus, but his child didn't get in because the child didn't demonstrate interest.

A: The best way to demonstrate interest is to visit the campus. Meet an admission officer and fill out an information card. Attend regional information sessions. If an interview is encouraged, do an interview. Keep up contact with the admission office. Illinois Wesleyan has travel vouchers to make visits possible for students. Some colleges assist parent travel.

Early Decision versus Early Action

Early decision is a binding, signed contract. It is for students who want one college. I'm not a big fan of it.

Early action is not binding. The national reply date for students with more than one offer of admission is May 1st. An early decision contract is the highest form of demonstrated interest.

Parent Q: Why would Northwestern University deny some students who apply as early decision applicants?

A: They may feel they have better applicants in the regular decision round who will accept an offer of admission.

Parent Q: What about application essays? My child is stressed out. Will a student be rejected if grades and scores are[n't] bad?

A: For most students, the essay doesn't make a difference.

Parent Q: Then what does make a difference?

A: If the student doesn't make an effort on the essay. Proofread it and revise it. Talk about what is important to YOU.

Parent Q: What about the ACT and SAT?

A: This is controversial. The tests are going to be a huge part of the admission decision. I'm not a big fan; I think there is too much emphasis on tests, but the reality check is that there are thousands of applicants.

You have to be strong in all areas. But it's okay to have reach colleges. Aim high.

Counselor Q: Does applying early decision waive the opportunity to receive financial aid?

A: No. Most ED colleges have good need-based aid. You can get out of the ED contract if the financial aid offer is inadequate to meet your demonstrated need.

Student Q: How important is the essay on the ACT with writing?

A: Check each college for what it does with test essays. My college looks at its own essays rather than the test essays.

Parent Q: Couldn't a student use a test essay subject as a college essay topic?

A: It's possible.

Quiz answers:

1) There are about three times as many privately operated colleges as public colleges. [I have found this a figure hard to independently confirm; I think the majority of ENROLLMENT is at public colleges.]

2) Williams College is in Massachusetts. It is perhaps the top, or one of the top, private liberal arts colleges in the country, but many people in the Midwest have no idea where it is. [I know about Williams from a few CC participants, notably mini, and from one local alumnus whose son is on the same soccer team as my son.]

3) William and Mary is a public college.

4) The largest NCAA athletic program in the United States is at Harvard, which has more interscholastic sports teams than any other college.

The quiz answers illustrate that there is a gap between perception and reality. Selectivity should not be the sole basis for choosing a college.

tokenadult · October 28, 2007, 10:54pm

Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia now have a joint website to post the schedule of their joint travel program.

<a href="http://www.harvardprincetonuva.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.harvardprincetonuva.org/</a>

Those three colleges have abandoned their former early admission programs, freeing up the month of November to do more regional visits than competing colleges. (Hmm, smart idea.)

<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519210%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519210</a>

So as the regional college visit season winds down for the fall, there is still the chance in several parts of the country to see some of the most nationally known colleges give their spiel.

tokenadult · October 30, 2007, 1:21pm

I'd love to hear from other parents what they think about meetings with college representatives.

tokenadult · November 3, 2007, 6:24pm

I THINK the link below

<a href="http://admissions.richmond.edu/visit/travel.html%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.richmond.edu/visit/travel.html</a>

is a new posting to this thread. There are still information sessions going on in November. I'd love to hear any reports from parents about sessions you attended.

csleslie51 · November 4, 2007, 6:30pm

This goes back to college fairs, not college information sessions. Because hardly any colleges will take the time to come and visit schools in our area, most of our students have to either rely on a large college fair 3 hours away or go and visit/call schools themselves for personal information. This year the school district paid for 2 buses to go to the fair which allowed about 85 kids who otherwise might not have had the opportunity to talk to reps and scout out schools. The kids came back really excited and full of information. There were about 160 schools from across the US and the attention paid was really appreciated. College info sessions would have been great but if this is the best we can hope for at the moment, so be it.

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