Will the Financial Crisis Impact Selective Admissions?

Have you wondered how the current financial crisis is affecting college admissions plans? Here's a poll that About.com took recently that suggests it's having a big impact. The results: 1/3 are staying the course. 2/3 are lowering their sights, including 4% that are now planning to put off college.

Another harbinger of future issues is that many college endowments have declined "steeply". Could this reverse the recent trend of increases in financial aid at the well endowed elite schools?

Over the next year or two the financial crisis could make it easier to get into that selective college, but harder to pay for it.

11/18/08 Update: Accepted Admissions Almanac has just posted about a Yale Daily News article reporting record numbers of early applicants. One of the reasons cited is their strong financial aid program.

Three Different Essay Writing Resources

Tonight I stumbled upon and entered three different 'Essay' resources into Admissions Directory, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I started by reading this post on Omniac Attack written by Mark Truman, an Admissions and Test Prep counselor/blogger who I really enjoy reading. It was posted a few months ago with the premise that summer is a good time to start on your essay(s). Even if you're not already underway, it's not too late to start. In fact Mark's first point in his article "4 Tips on Nailing Your College Admission Essay" is to start writing early. It's still early. Get started!

Continuing to catch up on past Omniac posts I found this one about a current Yale student and admissions blogger that described his (obviously successful) essay tips. Besides providing some good essay advice, 'Daniel' also included all the different drafts of his essay and commentary on the changes he made between each of them.

In his post, Daniel also raved about a book called On Writing the College Application Essay: The Key to Acceptance at the College of your Choice. I haven't read (nor heard of this book), but 24 people rated it 4.5 stars (out of 5) on Amazon, and of course Daniel used it to get into Yale!