College Admissions Counseling

How do I go about choosing a college major? My son doesn’t know what he wants to major in at college.  Can he still find a good college? These are typical questions that I hear on a regular basis. And my answer is always the same. For most students applying to college, you do not need to worry about what your major will be once you get to college.

Why is that? Part of the issue is that college exposes students to many areas of education that they had no experience in at their high school. If you don’t know what anthropology is, you aren’t going to say that is your major. Students are also changing and maturing during this time and interests change. Most students change their major once they are in college a number of times. I have heard that the average student considers 6 majors before deciding what they will finally major in. I don’t think that is bad because a large part of college should be self exploration and the exploration of education topics you know nothing about.

Don’t get me wrong. I have little sympathy for students who spend 4 years taking a totally random array of courses and then find themselves without a major because they don’t have more than 2 classes in any area. But spending the first year or two exploring options, and finding out what you are truly passionate about makes sense to me. Once you have decided where your interests are, then declare your major and go about focusing your efforts.

The exception to this approach is for those majors that require focused study throughout college. For example, most engineering majors start working on the major as soon as they start freshman year.  For students with this type of major, examining who they are and whether they truly want to major in that field must come in the high school years.

My friend, Tom Bottorf, over at GetCollegeFunding, disagrees with this approach in a recent article entitled “Undeclared major can be costly.” Tom’s argument is that a student should enter college knowing what their major will be citing statistics about students without early declared majors often transferring or dropping out of college. It is true that a student might find that their first college does not have the field they are interested in and have to transfer although in my experience this actually does not occur very often if the student did a proper self examination of who they are before choosing a college. Look at the graduation rates of top liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore and Carleton each of which has a 93% graduation rate. As small liberal arts colleges they have limited options for majors yet very few students transfer or fail to graduate.

It is the unfortunate truth that whether students have an early declared major or not, on a national basis there are a huge number of students who transfer or drop out.  Investigating the rate of transfer and the graduation rate of colleges a student is considering might help lessen that number. If you know that most students are not satisfied after their first year and transfer out, or that few students graduate, you should have concerns about whether that college is a good choice for your needs.

The issue, in my opinion, is not whether the student has declared a major or not. The issue is whether the student took the necessary actions before choosing a college to make sure that their college choice was the best choice for their needs. If the student takes the time to consider their needs, they are more likely to graduate and stay at their first choice college. That is why planning for college is such a critical action.

Albright College, a private liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, has announced that they are going test optional beginning with students applying for admission in 2009. Like other colleges that have gone test optional, Albright’s stated reason is that they have found little correlation between test scores and first year grades or graduation rates.

For a complete list of test optional colleges go to Fairtest.org.

Tom Bottorf at GetCollegeFunding has an article that clearly explains why predicting financial aid can be so difficult. Basically, Tom explains that the average financial aid award listed by colleges is just that, an average, and the individual awards can vary dramatically.

I have often discussed the information that families need to know if financial aid is a concern. For those colleges that do not provide 100% of a families need, the understanding of how your statistics, such as grades and test scores compare to the average student, can help estimate whether the college might sweeten your aid offer. If your grades and test scores are on the high side for that college, you may get a better than average aid award. But if you have typical grades and test scores for that school, your aid award may be worse than the “average”.

Several years ago, the admissions department at Harvard put together a note to prospective students on ways to avoid burnout. The advice provided applies to all students considering applying to selective colleges and I  recommend that all students read this note.  The note discusses the often excessive actions taken to gain entrance into the “right” college as well as options such as taking a gap year before starting college.

I would urge one caution in reading the note. In discussing the various options that Harvard students take during their gap year, the prospective student may get the impression that they need to do something impressive during their gap year. While many students will travel during this gap year, there are many other options for students who might not be able to afford international travel. Note that some of the students stayed in the US and simply worked at a job that they found interesting during the year. The simple act of working at a regular job can be impressive to the admissions committee of a selective college because so few students work at a real job.

I was recently provided a copy of the book “Getting to the Quad: Your Guide for the College Experience” by the creator, Michael Bergman.  The book is designed to help high school graduates manage the transition from high school into college. The book is a collaboration of college and high school faculty, staff and alumni who all helped provide ideas, tips and suggestions for making the college process as simple as possible.

The book starts with a section called “Going to College-That Whole Application and Choosing Thing”.  This section is a broad overview of some of the issues students need to consider in finding the right college. Although the section is not meant to be comprehensive, it suffers from an overly general approach to what should be a careful approach to finding the best college. However, the book improves after the first section with a great deal of helpful information including practical information not general seen in other books.

For example, in section 5, there is a real world discussion of summer internships, cover letter tips and resume tips. Section 7 has advice on choosing classes, time management and note taking tips, among other suggestions.

More information about the book, including the table of contents,  is available on the website GettingToTheQuad. You can also buy the book through the website.

With everything else students have on their plate to find the right college, making the transition from high school to college need not be one of the things students need to worry about.  With a list price of $14.95 I would recommend the book to make the whole transition smoother.

The federal government has a new grant program that starts today for students who plan to become teachers. The name of the program is the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education, or TEACH, for short. The program provides up to $4,000 per year in grants for 4 years to undergraduates. Graduate students may qualify for $4,000 a year for 2 years. To qualify for the grants the student must maintain a certain grade point average and agree to teach in a “high need” subject in a “high need” school for at least 4 years within 8 years of graduation.

The biggest catch to this grant program is that if the student fails to follow all of the requirements, the grant turns into an unsubsidized Stafford loan. The Congressional Budget Office is estimating that 80% of students receiving the grants will fail to complete the program.  Those students who do not complete the program will potentially have the standard loans that many students receive and if they don’t complete the program will have the additional loans from the converted grants. In other words, these students may have the worst of all possible worlds with higher loans than other student

This program again points out the risks involved in many parts of the college admissions process for the uninformed. Knowledge truly is power and as students and parents facing the world of college admissions, you owe it to your self to be an informed consumer.

The College Board and ACT have jointly announced new concordance tables for their respective exams. For those of you not familiar with concordance tables, it is a way to approximate a score on one test with a score on the other test.

You will note that there are actually two concordance tables, one for comparing the ACT composite score with the SAT Critical Reading and Math score. There is a separate concordance table for comparing the ACT combined English/Writing score with the SAT Writing score. Here is a quote from the College Board on how to work conversions:

“From ACT to SAT:

The ACT Composite score does not contain the ACT Writing Test score. For this reason, you will get the most accurate estimates if you use the tables as follows:

• For students who do not take the optional ACT Writing test:
  • use Table 1 to concord an ACT Composite score to SAT (CR+M) score on the 400-1600 scale
• For students who take the ACT Plus Writing:
  • use Table 1 to concord from the ACT Composite (which does not include ACT Writing) score to SAT (CR+M) score; use Table 2 to concord from ACT Combined English/Writing score to SAT Writing score; then simply add SAT (CR+M) concorded scores and SAT (W) concorded scores to get to the SAT 600-2400 scale

From SAT to ACT:

• Add the SAT Critical Reading and Mathematics scores together; Use Table 1 to concord from the SAT (CR+M) score to the ACT Composite score; use Table 2 to concord from SAT Writing score to the ACT English/Writing score”

I always encourage the students that I work with to take practice exams of both the SAT and ACT to see on which test they have the better score. Having an updated concordance table will help all students to compare their respective scores to see on which test they perform the best. Once you know which is your better test, focus on that exam for your practice sessions.

U.S. News has officially announced that they will have two new features in the 2009 edition of America’s Best Colleges.  The first new feature is that U.S. News has asked college presidents, provosts and admissions deans to name schools that are “up and coming” colleges. Given that one of the greatest criticism’s of the U.S. News rankings is that top college officials have little basis for rating other colleges, the peer assessment portion of the ratings, it is curious to see how these same officials will name “up and coming” colleges. Moreover, many top college officials have announced that they will no longer participate in the peer assessment ratings and presumably these same officials will refuse to participate in the “up and coming” rating.

The second new feature is that U.S. News has asked high school counselors for their views on undergraduate programs. While some high school counselors have a good understanding of many of the colleges to which their students apply, many more are too overworked to devote as much time as they would like to their students counseling needs. To think that these same counselors are going to have time to rank colleges or have the knowledge to adequately rank colleges is absurd.

I have always said that the U.S. News ranking issue can be helpful because of the raw numbers that are provided on various colleges. But to believe that colleges can be rated in the way attempted by U.S. News is ridiculous. And the two new “features” are clearly more focused on silly marketing rather than trying to provide legitimate helpful information to students and families in the college search process.

This time of year many families are trying to figure out how to pay for the cost of college. One of the most common options are loans but not all loans are created equal. The Federal Trade Commission has a new fact sheet out called “Student Loans: Avoiding Deceptive Offers“.  This fact sheet reviews the two basic types of loans, federal loans and private loans, and discusses how to avoid a number of problems that may occur with private loans and with loan consolidation.

I always encourage families to consider federal loans before turning to the private loan market, but sometimes, there is a need for private loans. All families considering taking out a private loan, or doing a loan consolidation, should review this helpful fact sheet.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about how 529 plans can be used to reduce the cost of some colleges. 529 plans, for those unfamiliar with them, are savings plans which provide certain benefits for families saving for the cost of higher education. For more information on 529 plans go to savingforcollege.

With the high cost of college most families are looking for ways to reduce their out of pocket costs. Most of you know that I am not a huge fan of outside scholarships for most students since the real benefit of such scholarships often goes to the colleges and not the students. However, if one of the college in which you are interested participates in one of these 529 plan reductions, that can be a real savings. Always ask the colleges financial aid office if they participate in such a program. It may save you some money.