THE BRIDGE TO COLLEGE
Four Admissions Tips (Plus One) For 11th Graders and Their Parents
By Robert A.G. LeVine
It’s getting closer, that stress-ridden time when 12th graders apply to colleges. In a few months, that may include your family. If so, you are wondering: Am I doing enough? Am I missing something?
Let’s focus on the four things – plus one – that juniors and their parents need to know for successful admissions efforts.
First: Get good grades! You undoubtedly know to get good grades, but perhaps you don’t realize how significant this year’s marks will be. When you apply to college, your application will likely be submitted before any grade 12 scores are available. So, do well in your last high school year, but do not overstress. Make sure to balance your school work with your admissions effort.
For now, if you are struggling in any class … pay attention and do something about it! Ask your teacher for help; look at your syllabus to understand where you are in the context of the entire course; take advantage of the many, many instructional videos that are available online; and ask your parents to hire a tutor. Do not let anything get in the way of your success.
Second: Be involved in school and beyond! Especially for our top colleges, a student’s current involvement in extracurricular activities foreshadows their potential involvement at the university level. Be involved in your school and be involved beyond your school. Think geographically, even internationally. But, please, please, please avoid chasing the “checklist” of summer programs, passion projects, internships, research, and charitable efforts. That doesn’t work. If the checklists worked, then everybody with a complete checklist who applied to a top school would be admitted. That … does … not … happen.
The rule is “you be you” – that way, they can find you – but if there are exceptions to a rule, then for extracurriculars, the exceptions are (1) have leadership titles (the applications have a field to insert them); (2) show them your community service (everyone has to do service, so don’t be the kid who seems to hate other people because service is not listed on their application); and (3) be physically active (because those who are physically active during college give three times more money in alumni donations).
Third: Get your best test score! Choose either the SAT or ACT (not both) and prepare as well as you can before the test. For most people, we recommend SAT but look at the formats and decide which you prefer. Do not rely upon a practice test score. It is not a good indicator of future performance. Focus on formats. Once you have chosen a test, take it as many times as necessary (three is usually the limit in terms of your performance), then decide if you should or should not submit your test scores. For some schools, you will do better by submitting your scores, but for others, you may wish to rely on your grades alone. However, you cannot make those decisions without having scores, so give it your best shot instead of whining “I’m not a good test taker.” Finally, pick test dates that work with your schedule(s) and start preparing two to three months in advance. FYI: for SAT, we typically recommend the test administrations given in March, August and October (the other test dates are in the midst of busy school seasons).
Fourth: Talk with your teacher! Our top universities request and require recommendation letters from teachers. The best letters come from people who know you well, regardless of their position or stature. In other words, it’s the letter – not the author – that impresses. The better they know you, the better your teachers can help you. Chat with them about why they chose their subjects; how your future matches with what they teach; or simply ask for advice.
And as an extra bonus …
Fifth: Communicate with your counselor! In January or February of grade 11, your college counselor will start getting to know you, usually through a meeting. Counselors have the ability – and responsibility – to help students achieve their top schools. The better they know you, the more they can help you. But it’s more than that: when you appreciate their efforts, they will naturally appreciate you too and thus help you a bit more than those students who do not appreciate them. By informing your counselor of your plans and efforts (and asking for their advice) as much as possible, help them to help you!
Let’s do this!
Robert LeVine is the founder and CEO of University Consultants of America, an independent educational consultancy assisting students around the world with applications to colleges, universities and graduate schools. For more information, call University Consultants of America, Inc. at 1-800-465-5890 or visit www.universitycoa.com
FAMILY MATTERS
Communities and Milestones
By Anu Verma Panchal
A few months ago, I had the good fortune to stand by my parents’ side as they celebrated a significant milestone, their golden anniversary. One of my favorite parts of the event was that in addition to uncles, aunts and cousins, we had with us their closest friends, the extended “framily” that had helped my parents recreate a sense of home and family when they were thousands of miles away from the place of their birth.
Circa 1980, with a toddler and 6-year-old in tow, my parents moved to a little town in Zambia called Kabwe. They knew no one and nothing about this new country beyond my dad’s offer letter and one phone call with a relative who had once lived in Africa.
But on their very first evening, there was a knock at the door. It was a young Malayalee couple with two little boys our age. Hearing that a new family from Kerala had arrived, they had stopped by to welcome us. From that one introduction, my parents were immediately absorbed into a group of friends.
The same thing happened every time we moved towns. The news of our impending arrival reached before we did, and we were pulled into existing Malayalee social circles. Our weekends were spent at each other’s houses, uncles in safari suits swilling whiskey, aunties in sarees holding deafening conversations while we ran around and played. As the years passed, my parents grew into the veterans who welcomed new families and organized the elaborate cultural events that gave the community a sense of home away from home.
And all around town – and across the South Asian diaspora – others were doing the same thing. In Tamil, in Bangla, in Hindi, they created communities that served a familial function for each other. Community building seems to be in our genes. Or, as a friend once told me, “We’re like goats ... we can only travel in packs.”
During the college years and in my early 20s, plugging into the local desi community was nowhere close to being a priority; in fact, I reveled in the freedom from it. It was irritating, even, to see the insularity that I imagined permeated those associations. Why move to another country and only hang out with the same people? Why not at least try to assimilate?
It was only when I became a parent that I found myself searching, maybe even yearning, for some small level of connection. I wanted my daughters to learn Bharatanatyam like I had, wanted them to celebrate Hindu holidays and go to the temple occasionally. Does that mean that I want my communities to be restricted by ethnicity, language or religion? Certainly not. I am blessed with close “framily” from many backgrounds, and I enjoy Gasparilla as much as I do Onam and Navaratri.
Yet I am grateful for the generations who came before we did and established everything from the Tampa India Festival to the India Cultural Center so that we now have the option to dip a toe, an ankle or our whole selves in cultural life if we so desired.
A week before my older daughter was due to leave for college, I took her on one of our habitual visits to the Hindu temple here in Tampa. By a happy coincidence, the pujari on duty that day was the same one who had presided on the day that we had taken her on her first temple visit when she was a 6-month-old baby. “You’re the one who carried her to the front of the room when she was born, and now she’s starting college,” I told him. He beamed. “Look at that!” he marveled.
Look at that indeed. That kind of continuity doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of hard work from a lot of people who came before us, many of whom we’ll never even know. The roots they put down gave us the luxury to pick and choose how much we want to hold on to, because some variation of it has been preserved here for us.