Admissions Academy Blog

Essay Writing: Start Early and Be Yourself

•  Posted by Sarah Ziegler on June 23rd, 2009 in Admissions, Articles of Interest
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Summer is here, and for many students, now is the perfect time to begin brainstorming and writing college essays. Although most colleges have not yet released their applications for the upcoming admissions cycle, the topics for a student’s core personal essays are already available. Instructions for UC’s two personal statement essays for freshman and transfer applicants are available here. For the nearly 400 colleges that accept the Common Application, students can preview the essay prompts here.

Application essays serve a unique and important role in admissions as the only piece of a student’s application that conveys his or her own voice and experience. Academic records, standardized test scores, teacher recommendations, and even interviews tell part of the story, but only in essays can students speak directly to admissions officers in their own words.

For students struggling to begin or unsure what direction to take with their writing, The Choice, a blog from New York Times education writer and author Jacques Steinberg, offers an insider’s view of what makes an essay successful by Martha Merrill, dean of admissions at Connecticut College.

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NYU changes test policy for Class of 2010

•  Posted by Sarah Ziegler on April 22nd, 2009 in Admissions
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Students applying for admission at NYU for the fall of 2010 now have multiple choices in satisfying the university’s standardized test requirement. In the past, applicants were required to submit scores from either the SAT Reasoning Test or the ACT with Writing, plus two SAT Subject Tests. Now, students can meet NYU’s testing requirement by choosing among the following five options:
* SAT Reasoning Test plus two SAT Subject Tests,
* ACT with Writing,
* SAT Reasoning Test plus two AP Tests,
* Three SAT Subject Tests (one in English Literature or History, one in Math or Science, and one of the student’s choice; Foreign Language tests will not be considered), or
* Three AP Tests (one in English, History, or Social Science; one in Math or Science; and one of the student’s choice; Foreign Language tests will not be considered).

NYU joins a growing number of colleges that are rethinking their standardized test policies. FairTest, a national organization that advocates for limited and appropriate uses of standardized testing, tracks colleges that deemphasize the SAT or ACT tests in admissions. Read more about NYU’s new testing policy here, including the rationale behind the switch.

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Rankings and College Selection

•  Posted by Sarah Ziegler on April 17th, 2009 in Admissions
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On April 15 and 16, admissions officers and professionals gathered at Wake Forest University for the “Rethinking Admissions” conference to discuss current research and best practices in selective college admissions. One of the most anticipated sessions matched Yale University’s admissions dean Jeffrey Brenzel, an outspoken critic of rankings such as those published by U.S. News, with Robert Morse, director of data research for U.S. News & World Report, and Richard Vedder of Ohio University, a collaborator on Forbes’ college rankings. Jacques Steinberg of the New York Times summarized the discourse well in his blog, and the official conference blog offers updates from its numerous sessions.

Despite their differences in opinion, the three men did find common ground. All indicated that rankings are here to stay, that the inherent complexity of choosing among creates a demand to help simplify the process. Professor Vedder went as far as saying that, “It is anti-American to be anti-rankings.”

Another point of agreement centered around the idea that rankings should be more personalized to each student. One strong complaint to current magazine rankings is that they support the myth that there are a set of “right” or “best” colleges for everyone. Many factors — size, location, academic programs, general education curriculum, diversity, gender balance, and cost, to name a few — influence whether a college is a good fit for a student. While choosing schools from magazine rankings can make the daunting college selection process easier, students should be aware that magazine rankings alone, at least not in the current form, do not provide enough information to determine their college lists.

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