I read some interesting articles today that might shed some light on the whole admissions process.
The first was at http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/selecting-high-school-courses/ about selecting high school courses. Every year students come in to schedule their courses, and sometimes their number one concern seems to be choosing courses that are easy. Not all feel that way, but when those students also tell me that they want to go to a more selective school, red flags go up. Schools look carefully at your academic record, and they are not interested in students who are not interested in learning. A high GPA based on A's in classes like gym or choir will not get you very far at schools with a lot more applicants than freshman spaces.
The second was related: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/30/education/20091130choiceStudentCard.html. This gives a look at how a college collates all that information that they receive. Some of it sheds some light on my job as counselor. When I fill out a Secondary School Report, sometimes called the Counselor's Report, they ask me a variety of questions about your academic record. They ask me about:
- your class rank, which is where you stand among your fellow students by GPA, stated as x/y, with x being your standing and y the total number of students in your class. For example, HGCS's Class of 2014 has 45 members. If your GPA put you at #10, you would be 10/45. Because we are a small school, you can pretty quickly be out of the top 10%, or even top 25%, but college admissions officers understand that smaller groups will require a closer look at grades and test scores. If the class is highly competitive, you can be 10/45 with pretty close to a 4.0 GPA. These are things I will discuss on your report, particularly if your rank is a bit low for your GPA.
- the high school program based on my knowledge about the classes available to you. A student who has taken all or most of our advanced placement and honors classes will have had our Most Demanding level of classes, someone who just took a few may have a Demanding level, those who took none of the advanced classes (including a 3rd year of language) will receive an Average rating. The more selective the college, the more they are going to want to see a higher rating on this one.
- colleges also ask me to send a school profile along with the form, which tells them what courses we offer, and whether we have Honors or AP level courses. It also has statistics on SAT scores and college attendance. This information is considered important; students who have access to only a few AP courses won't be penalized for not taking as many as a student who had access to a lot of AP courses. Of course, another way to improve your application is to show that you pursued other options, such as internships, dual enrollment classes, online classes, summer college credit classes, etc. Colleges are looking for students who are interested in learning, who are engaged in actively pursuing opportunities for that learning. It isn't a requirement, but in an age of increasing numbers of applicants for college spaces, it can make a difference. If this is impossible due to financial issues, having a job is also helpful. You may think serving ice cream at the local ice cream store is not very educational, but holding a job tells the college a lot about your initiative and work ethic.
- information about the other students in the class: they want to know what the highest GPA in the graduating class is. Again, this gives them some information about the competition in your class; if you have a 3.99 GPA and are 12/40, seeing how close your GPA is to the top gives them some perspective. They are also interested in how many of our students go to 4 year schools. This also tells them something about the school environment in which you have spent your 4 years.
- whether you have been disciplined by a suspension: this is limited to the years from 9-12th grade, and should you receive a suspension after you have applied, I am expected to let them know of the change. This doesn't mean that you are doomed as far as admission to your first choice school, but it does mean you need to be proactive if this is the case. You should address this somewhere on the application, and if there is no place to discuss it, you need to type up a short explanation of what happened and what you learned or how you have changed since then. Ignoring it is not a wise choice. And they will be asking me about it, as well, so being accurate is important.
Also on the form shown on the second site I mentioned is your contact with the college. If you have a first choice school, you should be contacting them. Visit the school, and make sure you at least say hello to your admissions representative. Email with questions. If you have an interview with someone, send a thank you. If you never contact them, they will not know you are definitely interested in their school.
