THE BRIDGE TO COLLEGE
Some Things Endure, Some Things Change, Some Things Return
By Robert A.G. LeVine
How does admissions Work? There is no easy answer.
Students have been using an ever-tweaked online version of the Common Application for almost a decade. It hasn’t changed that much: of the five tabs in the application, only two are part of the evaluation, and the “Common” portion is not different from the old paper version of the application. But then again, some of the pieces have changed a lot.
Let’s take standardized testing as an example. A decade ago, SAT ruled the world … until the ACT started to outsell the SAT. Then a “new” SAT was born in 2016, one which promised to be more user friendly, got rid of its (annoying and mostly useless) writing section, and which also inflated its scores to change the competitive sales balance between SAT and ACT. There were Subject Tests … until there weren’t; they were eliminated a few years ago (in favor of AP tests, sold by the same company, College Board). Then came Covid, during which most U.S. schools went “test optional,” meaning that students could choose whether or not to report their SAT scores. Of course, that didn’t happen where I live; Florida public universities required SATs throughout.
Then, MIT again made standard testing a required component of its application. Hmmmm …. Last month, Dartmouth announced that it was reactivating its standardized testing requirement. Last week, Yale announced it was doing the same.
And that “new” SAT of 2016? They have changed it again this year. To our eyes, it’s becoming even easier, so we wonder: Will SAT be used to evaluate applicants, or will it be used only to corroborate other academic indicators like grade point average. If you can’t get a great SAT score today, will your great GPA be respected or diminished in value by an admissions office?
In this ever-changing admissions world, the answers are neither easy, nor consistent.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action could not be used (discretely) in admissions. However, at the very end of its decision, the Court left an opening for viewing race in the context of all relevant factors. So how did the colleges respond? Because the new application was not released until five weeks after the Court’s ruling, the colleges changed their supplemental essays to ask how an applicant would contribute to the college’s community. We saw a lot of those essay prompts last year.
Will we see them again next year? Maybe, maybe not. This “new” essay prompt, in many ways, led to a repeated message, one which already could have been communicated in the main Personal Statement. Perhaps the colleges will preserve the new prompt just to be safe. Perhaps they will adjust the prompt a bit. We won’t know until the applications reopen in August.
Then there’s the medical school problem. The medical school application process has an entirely different schedule, one that starts about two months before the undergraduate schedule. Last year, that meant the medical schools released their secondary essays before the Supreme Court decision. Gulp! Were the med school prompts appropriate without adjustment? Many were unsure, and as a result, last year the medical schools seemed to delay their interviews and decisions for months beyond normal. Next year, will med schools adopt the new “undergraduate” question as an additional essay?
We won’t know until June.
Then there is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) issue. This year, the timing of financial aid information was delayed, so many colleges are contemplating a delay in announcing their admissions decisions because of the FAFSA issues. Back when Covid happened, many colleges became aggressively proactive at pulling people off their waiting list in order to maximize their income from the class. Might that happen again this year because of the FAFSA effect?
Over the years, we have identified how certain parts of the application affect admissions decisions. Personal Statement essays really have not changed (although the essay prompts have changed, slightly). Supplemental essay prompts change every year for some schools but not for others. Interviews? Before Covid, they were usually conducted in person. With the pandemic, some schools stopped interviewing, while others started interviewing online and others started asking for 2-minute videos instead of interviews.
What will happen this year? As consultants, our job is to keep our clients apprised of all the changes so you can perform at your best.
Robert LeVine is the founder and CEO of University Consultants of America, an independent educational consultancy assisting students around the world with applications to colleges, universities and graduate schools. For more information, call University Consultants of America, Inc. at 1-800-465-5890 or visit www.universitycoa.com