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.

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.

Essay Advice from Admissions Directors

Greg is embarking on his admissions essay journey so I've gathered some advice from what I think is a really credible source -- admissions directors. These are the folks that have to read thousands of these essays every year. Who better to give advice on how to impress and stand out from the crowd?

Interestingly they all have similar suggestions in the articles that follow. These same points have been echoed by many other admissions directors during our college visits. This consistency, and the source, gives me great confidence in this advice. In the links below you'll learn:

• Show, don't tell.
• Keep the essay narrowly focused and detailed.
• Let your own voice shine through.
• Take risks. Make it interesting.

Writing an application essay is a hassle, scary and prone to procrastination. But these admissions directors point out that it's your best opportunity to talk directly to the admissions staff and to make the case why they should accept you -- instead of the thousands of other applicants with similar qualifications.

These are all quick, easy reads and I highly recommend you invest a half hour internalizing their advice before you embark on that outline and first draft.

John C. Conkright, Dean of Admissions, Randolph-Macon College

Parke Muth, Senior Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, UVA

Thom Golden Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions Vanderbilt - Part 1

Thom Golden Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions Vanderbilt - Part 2

Admissions Directory Weekly Roundup (9/21)

Here are the college admissions resources that were added to Admissions Directory over the past week:

Unigo College Search

The Women's College Coalition

Work Hard, Play Hard, Work Hard Some More at MIT

Vanderbilt Class of 2012 Profile

Colleges May be Visiting Your Area This Fall

(updated with several additional schools including Northeastern, Rutgers, SMU, Tulane & Washington U. in St. Louis)

I just noticed a link on the MIT admissions site with their Fall travel schedule. MIT shows up here in Atlanta in mid-October. Here's MIT Admissions Director Matt McGann's overview of what will be covered. If you live near a major city it's likely that many selective colleges will be visiting this Fall. Check the admissions sites for colleges you're interested in to see if they'll be visiting your area. As another example, here's Carnegie Mellon's Fall travel schedule.

College Travel Schedules:

MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Vanderbilt roadshow schedule -- a 56 city blitz.
Duke
Stanford
Johns Hopkins
UVA
Cornell
Drexel University
Northwestern
Princeton
Purdue
Penn
Harvard, Princeton & UVA
Dartmouth
Columbia
NYU
Northeastern University
Rutgers
SMU
Tulane
Washington University (St. Louis)

1,204 Start Vandy Applications in First Week

According the the Vandy Admissions Blog 1,204 prospective member of the class of 2013 started the Vanderbilt version of the Common Application in the first week that it was available (July 1 - July 8). This is another reminder that it's never too early for Seniors to get started working on their applications. The Common App is a good place to start since it is now accepted at 346+ schools.

On your marks, get set...

Campus Visits, Same ol' Same ol'

Greg and I have done 6 campus visits over the past year. Starting last summer with Emory and Georgia Tech, then on to Princeton, Vanderbilt, Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. We did Emory and Georgia Tech to kick-start the process, because they were in our back yard (and Greg will apply to Georgia Tech). For the others we happened to be in the area and they were schools he might consider.

Our main conclusion... If you just take the standard student-led campus tour, sit through the hour long admissions director's canned powerpoint, and walk around the campus a little on your own, they all seem the same. Same high academic standards, same selective admissions, same awesome students, same pretty buildings and amazingly, multiple acapella groups (no lie, four of the six tour guides showed us the cupolas and arches under which they performed).

So Greg isn't finding these tours all that helpful as a way of sifting through the colleges and has resisted investing the time visiting more. That said, we've convinced him to go on one more college tour in the waning days of summer, before school starts. Next Tuesday we head to Duke, Virginia Tech and UVA, all schools on his 'long list' and here in the southeast.

The thing I need to figure out, between now and then, is what we should do differently this time to make these three tours more informative and helpful than the last six were.