Dear Mr. Cobb

Today is decision announcement day at UVA and Duke :-)




March 26, 2009

Gregory Cobb
Roswell, GA 30075
United States

Dear Mr. Cobb:

Congratulations on your offer of admission to the University of Virginia! One of the greatest pleasures in being an admission dean is inviting distinguished and talented students to join our academic community. We acknowledge your achievements and express our confidence in your continued success. On behalf of the Admission Committee, it is my pleasure to extend this offer of admission to you. We have mailed you an official letter with important enclosures which you should receive shortly...

Greg W. Roberts
Dean of Admission

UVA Decisions to be Announced This Thursday

Dean J, the blogger from the UVA Admissions department announced their decision day with a video today.

How Admissions Decisions are Made

Here's an interesting inside look at how Vanderbilt makes final admissions decisions. I bet this is pretty typical of most selective colleges.

Today is the last day they'll be making decisions -- which will be mailed out in about a week.

Admissions Notifications Going Online

We're getting close to when admissions decisions are announced (roughly the start of April). MIT recently announced that they'd be publishing their decisions a couple of weeks early this year (for a very clever reason) and "exclusively on-line". Clearly this is the way all schools will communicate decisions in the future.

Greg heard from University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign several weeks ago. That acceptance was posted online, followed a week later by the 'big envelope'. Just today Georgia Tech rolled out their online notification system for the first time. Fortunately Greg was accepted there as well. He's now into both of his 'safety' schools. I wonder how we'll hear from the other three?

Update: I checked their admissions sites and here's how "the other three" seem to notify applicants:

• Stanford: will send an email to applicants after 5pm PT on April 1
• UVA: Traditional letters and status available on your personal application status page on their site.
• Duke: It seems like they email you with instructions for how to check online

Update II: ...and here's more detail from the UVA Admissions blog on when and how to see your decision.

Financial Perspective on a Gap Year

A 'Gap Year' is when you take a year 'off' between the end of high school and the start of college. Taking a gap year seems to be increasing in popularity based on all the articles I've read recently. Traditionally the reasons to take a gap year have been to pursue some passion, mature for a year before starting college or to decompress from an intense high school experience.

This New York Times article describes a few 'financial' reasons to consider a gap year, especially in light of the current economic turmoil. It suggests several ways that a gap year can help relieve pressure on a family's near-term financial situation or provide access to new student loans and grants that will become available in 2010.

The other interesting tidbit I learned is:

"Students who have already applied for admission, who now may be waiting to hear where they got in, can simply ask to defer for a year, something college officials say they usually accommodate."

Until now I didn't know how easy or difficult it was to be granted a deferred admit. For some students this could be an attractive option -- especially this year.

(Update) Today's the day for gap year articles I guess. Here's one that I found in the Atlanta Journal that illustrates some of the more 'traditional' benefits of taking a gap year.

Applications Up! Applications Down! Which is it?

The swirling cross currents of the economy and college applications in 2009 continues.

Last week I reported that four selective colleges that I watch (a couple to which Greg has applied) were reporting record applications this year, including a 20% increase at Stanford. A California mom commented that she had noticed the same thing at other selective colleges.

But Bloomberg reports today that seven of the eight top liberal arts colleges posted application declines this year, including a 20% drop at Williams. The main culprit -- the poor economy and the high tuitions at these schools. Of course later the article reports that all of the Ivy League schools reported increases in (& probably record) applications. I guess their high tuitions are worth more than the small liberal arts schools!

One additional piece of evidence supporting the 'poor economy = frugality in college applications' is this article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution that reports record applications for Georgia state schools. The primary explanation? Kids staying closer to home and taking advantage of Georgia's generous Hope Scholarship.

So it seems to me like the top tier schools are still in high demand, but everywhere else poor economy is having an impact, both up and down. This is a helpful turn of events if you're applying to schools with declining applications -- assuming you can afford them.

MIT Decision Day: 2 Weeks Early This Year

Matt McGann just posted on the MIT Admissions blog that admission decisions would be posted online on Saturday 3/14, at 1:59 pm.

At first I scratched my head. This is more than two weeks early! How does an overloaded admissions department get through all those applications and accelerate their decision by this much?

Once I read the comments, and Matt's post more carefully it became clear. He wrote:

"Receiving your decision online is as easy as pi. When decisions are released Saturday at 1:59pm"

Hmmm... easy as pi. 3/14 at 1:59...

3.14159 = pi. :-)

Clever these MIT guys... Happy pi day! (at least for those smart and lucky enough to be admitted.)

Advantages of Small Liberal Arts Colleges

One of the hardest parts of the admissions process for Greg was figuring out how to figure out which colleges he was interested in.

A fundamental choice Greg faced early-on was whether he was interested in a small liberal arts college, or a larger university. Mark Montgomery, an independent college counselor and active admissions blogger (Great College Advice) that I follow, has recently published a couple of great posts on the characteristics of liberal arts colleges that may help with this decision making process.

In this first post Mark does a video interview with the Director of Admission at Millsaps College in Jackson Mississippi. In this second one he video interviews a Professor of Economics who focuses on the student/professor interaction at Millsaps. I found the video format Mark used especially effective. In 10-12 minutes you get a really good sense of the personality of Millsaps, some of the characteristics that could make it attractive to you, and by extension characteristics that may be found more broadly at other small liberal arts colleges.

So if you're curious about, or debating the merits of small liberal arts colleges, I suggest you click on the links above and watch Mark's two video interviews.

2009, A Record Year for Select College Applications?

This is an admittedly unscientific sample, but it seems like the selective colleges have received a record number of applications this year -- and in some cases have blown away the prior records (which were probably set last year). To wit:

- Stanford reports an increase of 20% over last year, an all time high, and anticipates a 7.5% acceptance rate

- MIT's applications grew by 2,000 to 15,600, a new record.

- UVA reports "...that applications went up dramatically this year (we're up over 22,000 applications), probably due to our move to the Common App"

- Vanderbilt has "...received a total of 19,244 applications for the Vanderbilt entering class of 2009, the most ever received at Vanderbilt"

In UVA's case adopting the Common App had an impact. There's also the 'baby boom echo' effect. This is the peak year for high school graduates from baby boomer parents. So, lots of ambitious seniors applying for a fixed number of slots in the selective schools. But I'm scratching my head how these two factors, in the midst of the worst recession since the '30's, lead to a 20% increase in applications at Stanford (which has been using the Common Application for awhile).

If you have any theories on why this is, please leave them in the comments.

Have you heard any other 'record applications' stories. Please leave those in the comments as well.