What to Do When Colleges ACCEPT You

March 29, 2010
By: Jeff Brenzel, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University.

The first week of April is just around the corner. For the past year, you have focused heavily on where to apply to college, and then how to win the hearts of people like me. You've been increasingly anxious about the results as the decision dates loom. Oddly, all this effort may have left you surprisingly unprepared for a task that is just as challenging as making your applications.
Here are a few thoughts based on several years of observing what happens after students get their envelopes, whether thick or thin, and they are suddenly faced with a big decision.

* If you receive some rejections, you will tend to dwell on them. It's only natural -- what we can't have suddenly seems far more valuable or interesting than what we can have. You will be tempted to revisit every step of your high school career and your application process, pondering what you might have done differently. But there is one and only one good answer to any rejection letter you receive, dream school or not: "Your loss, baby." Then move on.

* If you are like most students, the process has now delivered to you a handful of admission tickets to the greatest shows on earth. Every one of your colleges has infinitely more opportunities to offer than you could pursue in a lifetime. At one of these places you are going to take friendship to a new level, go adventuring and exploring, make your own decisions about what to do and how to do it, perhaps develop a permanent intellectual interest or a personal mission. Smell the roses. Put the acceptance letters up on your wall. Recognize how profoundly fortunate you are to live in this country and to be presented with opportunities that most of your peers around the world would give virtually anything to experience.

* Now for something practical. To the extent humanly possible, wipe out every assumption you have made up to this point about these schools. Let there be no reaches, good fits or safeties. Throw away all the ranking lists. Stop obsessing over selectivity or prestige. You now know more -- a lot more -- about colleges than you did when you first started looking. The shoe is on the other foot now -- colleges will be falling all over themselves to win your favor. Treat all of this as a brand new game, and do not be too hasty about putting any school aside. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard a student say, "I wish I had looked more closely at the schools that accepted me. I wish I had actually talked to more students who attended those schools and also more students at the school I finally picked. I was blinded by what I thought I knew about my first choice school."

* Most important step: if you possibly can, visit schools that accepted you, even if you have visited them already. Let me repeat this. Go back for another visit to the schools you are seriously considering. When you arrive, act like you are just starting your search. You may be amazed at how some of the schools have changed since you first visited or differ from what you've been reading in the brochures. Why? It's because you have been changing and you are continuing to change now that you face a real decision. When you walk onto campus, try to avoid finding reasons not to like a place -- things that turn you off. Instead, try the much more useful exercise of picturing yourself there as a student, thriving and enjoying both the educational opportunities and the campus scene. This may involve picturing yourself in some new ways as well. This is a good thing.

* Do something that can be very hard: ask your mother, father and/or guardian what they truly think about the schools that have admitted you. Insist that they be specific about their impressions, and weigh what they say in the light of what you know about their good judgment. Why do this? First, they care about you and may know you in ways you don't know yourself. Second, they have often been paying close attention to the differences among colleges. Third, they are probably going to be paying or helping to pay for this. Make it clear that you would like to make up your own mind, that you view certain things differently than they do. But ask them, listen to what they have to say, and weigh it carefully against what you think. By approaching them directly, you will also save everyone the agony of communicating by subtle hints, bizarre facial expressions, comments to relatives, or desperate pleading.

* If you haven't done it already, you also need to talk with your backers about the money. I am always amazed at how many families have somehow gotten to this point without a serious discussion on who's paying for what and how much difference a difference in price is going to make to the final decision.

* If you can follow these steps and hold off the rush to judgment, you may be very surprised to find yourself strongly considering a school you did not originally put at the top of your list. And if instead, you end up confirming your first choice after all, you will do that only after giving it a very sober review in light of the competition and the finances. This is not only healthy, but it is going to make you much more knowledgeable and realistic about what to expect when you arrive on campus.
Remember above all else that no college is going to be paradise, and that all colleges have something truly outstanding to offer you. As much as the deans who admitted you hope to see you on their campuses come September, what we hope even more is that you make a wise, thoughtful and fruitful choice, one of many more to come.

Posted on: huffingtonpost.com

UC Sleuths Seek Proof for Glorious Claims on Admission Applications

Mercury News
January 31,2010

Did you donate the profits from your violin recital to support a homeless shelter? Were you part of a deer rescue squad during a major forest fire? Was that you who donated gallons of blood to the Red Cross?
Well, if you said so on your UC application, you better be ready to prove it.
Like no other higher education system in the nation, the University of California has a quiet team of vigilant auditors that review the accuracy of randomly selected applications — and may yank ones shined up by too much balderdash, big-talk or bull.
"We expect integrity," said Han Mi Yoon-Wu, admissions coordinator for the 10-campus university system. Although falsification is not a major problem, she said, "students need to know that they might be selected, and they should make sure that everything on the application is accurate."
Run out of a modest office park in Concord, the UC investigation team aims to prevent an arms race of fictional accomplishments among those seeking a seat at the most competitive UC campuses, such as Berkeley and Los Angeles. The vast majority of applicants will escape challenge; only 1 percent of its 134,000 applicants are pulled for review. But those who bump up the baloney in claims on their application forms do so at their own peril.
While all American universities seek official verification of grades and test scores, most others rely on the honor system for more personal assertions. "The system in California is quite unique," said David Hawkins of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. "Colleges have always kept an eye out for suspicious-looking essays that might have been plagiarized, but few bother to actually check."

Array of evidence
This month UC sent letters to 1,000 applicants for the 2010 freshman class asking them for evidence to support claims made in their "personal statements" and lists of accomplishments. The application cops do not target suspects; rather they employ a vast, random but high-stakes process designed to keep students honest. Their biggest weapon: the fear factor they may pick yours.
So with a deadline on Monday for students to mail back proof, the office gets daily deliveries of a wide and colorful array of evidence from those who have been challenged. There are photos, certificates and DVDs, theater playbills, pay stubs and newspaper articles.
"One young man sent a wood and brass plaque," proving he did indeed win an athletic award, said sleuth Mary Jacobson, a soft-spoken and meticulous woman who leads the four-member team.
Someone sent in a diploma as proof — written in Chinese. A French translator verified another student's claim that he graduated from a Toulouse-based language immersion school.

Not too personal
The verification program was created in 2003 after UC's shift to a so-called "comprehensive review" of students' applications — in which students are measured not just by academic success but out-of-the-classroom accomplishments.
California's top students offer stunning accomplishments, and the vast majority are honest, said Yoon-Wu. "But there was concern that some kids would start to pad their applications to make themselves look better," she said. "Students feared that there are others not telling the truth."
They look for only provable claims. For instance, they don't question insights or inspirations — but they may ask for evidence of participation in the Rose Bowl Parade.
They don't dig into more private disclosures, such as sexual orientation, abuse, pregnancy or parental divorce.
If "prove-it" requests are returned as undeliverable, the UC team tries to find the students before canceling their chances to attend school.
"One student became homeless after submitting his application," said Jacobson. "We eventually contacted his counselor and made the school his temporary address. He was able to verify his accomplishments."
Students acknowledge that applications are embellished, but many insist that outright falsehoods are rare.
"People rarely outright make things up, but lines are definitely blurred," said Kriti Garg, a junior at Cupertino's Monta Vista High School. For instance, the title of "club president" could mean running a prizing-winning organization or hanging out with a handful of friends, she said. "However, at my school, even though there is a strong competition to get into top-tier universities, people try to stay as technically correct as possible — they don't really want to risk anything."

Few outright fibs
For those who err, there is worry. On the popular College Confidential Web site, one anxious student wrote: "I've made a pretty serious mistake on my app. Instead of 2 hours/week I wrote 12 hours/week. Now UC sent me a letter asking to verify. ... It would really suk if I get my app withdrawn."
The lucky ones are given the benefit of the doubt, often after prolonged negotiations.
"A young woman sent a DVD of 200 dancers on stage, and indicated she was one of them. We believed her," said Jacobson. "Another said she worked for her mother, who had recently died. She asked if we wanted a death certificate. Of course, we said no." UC investigators say they find few instances of outright fibbing. More common are instances of vanished course work — typically, a failed class that was later repeated. Some applicants — about 15 each year — fail to respond to repeated requests for proof. For those who are caught, there's always next year and a possible second chance. But the indiscretion is noted in permanent records, said Yoon-Wu. "We keep a record."

by: Lisa M. Krieger

How Not to Get Into College: Submit a Robotic Application

Wall Street Journal
December 23, 2008
Swamped by a rise in early applications from the biggest class of high-school seniors ever, college admissions officials have some advice for the class of 2009: Be yourself.
Although this year's applicant pool is by many measures the most highly qualified yet, admissions deans at a dozen top-tier colleges and universities said in interviews last week that they're also seeing a disappointing trend: Too many students are submitting "professionalized" applications rendered all too slick by misguided attempts at perfection, parental meddling and what one admissions dean describes as the robotlike approach teens are taking in presenting themselves.
Among the symptoms: Too many formulaic, passionless personal essays. Too many voluminous résumés devoid of true commitment. And too many pointless emails and calls from overanxious students and parents -- a trend one dean labels "admissions stalking."
"We keep looking for authenticity and genuineness, for kids who are their true selves," says Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions at Ohio's Kenyon College. Instead, anxious students, and the adults who help them overpolish their applications, "leach all the personality out" of them, she says.
One factor, of course, is competition. Officials at more than half the highly competitive schools I contacted report sizable increases in early-decision applicants. In vying for admission to high-status schools, many students are forgetting what should be the main point of the process: finding a good fit.
Also, officials say, a growing emphasis in high school on test scores and grades has made learning seem like a race, and merit like something that can be quantified in data and lists -- thus the multipage résumés some students send to buttress their applications.
Instead, admissions officials offer applicants this advice.
Don't hide behind a polished veneer. Some applications are so "corporatized" by parents and other coaches, says Seth Allen, dean of admission at Iowa's Grinnell College, that the real applicant becomes almost invisible. This is the exact opposite of what most colleges want to see, Mr. Allen says. A telltale sign of parental meddling, says Kenyon's Ms. Delahunty, is the word "heretofore" or too many semicolons in an essay. Then, "you know the lawyer-parent factor may have been at work." Some parents even slip up and sign the applications themselves.
Pick essay topics that inspire you. While as many as one in five applicants this year are describing overseas service trips, which are certainly a worthy pursuit, too many of the resulting essays are merely shallow recitations of facts: "I went here, I did this, I made great friends, it was uncomfortable and oh, wow, I really know how less-fortunate people live now," says Grinnell's Mr. Allen. He wants deeper revelations, he says: "How did this really impact you? Give us insight into what you were feeling."
Kenyon's Ms. Delahunty says she'd rather read an essay about such everyday topics as the challenges of changing a tire in a Minnesota winter, or growing up as the only boy among eight children, if they revealed more about the writers.
Don't stalk the dean. Some applicants barrage admissions offices with numerous recommendation letters or emails with little value other than re-affirming interest. At Barnard College, one applicant sent eight thank-you notes to every person she'd met during a campus visit, from the receptionist on up, a practice Jennifer Fondiller, dean of admissions, calls "overkill." Such efforts have no bearing on applicants' fates.
Don't be afraid to take risks. Amid an overabundance of qualified candidates, colleges want applicants with traits that set them apart and promise to enrich the campus community. In a presentation recently to high-school students, says Jean Jordan, Emory University's dean of admission, this application question came up: "If you were a song, what would you sing?" The students, Ms. Jordan says, seemed baffled; one asked in bewilderment, "What should I sing?"
Ms. Jordan's firm reply: "Whoa. Be yourself."
By SUE SHELLENBARGER