THE BRIDGE TO COLLEGE
Demonstrating Interest
By Robert A.G. LeVine
Beyond an applicant’s resume of academics and activities, the most important factor in college admissions is the ability to present oneself clearly to the admissions representatives. However, the second most-important factor is demonstrating real interest in a college.
College admissions is competitive for applicants, but it is also competitive for the colleges. When well-qualified candidates apply to several schools, they often receive multiple offers of admission. The colleges then compete to “yield” acceptances from the offers they have distributed. Although the top five most-selective colleges collect around 80% of their admitted students, the next five or 10 (including most of the Ivy League) are chosen by barely 50% of the students to whom they extend offers. For colleges that are not in the top 20, the yield percentages are small.
As a result, when they evaluate applications, admissions representatives are looking for more than just qualifications and personal qualities. They are evaluating the sincerity of the applicant’s interest in the college.
For the best private universities, admissions decisions are not linear. Students are often accepted by “better” colleges but rejected by lower-ranked ones. Last year, one of our students was accepted to both MIT and Oxford, but was rejected by Northwestern University, a fine school but one with a lower reputation. Her mother wanted to understand why. I told her that the Northwestern essay, while pretty good, felt like Northwestern was the student’s “back-up” school. Mother laughed. “It was!” she said. And Northwestern can tell.
Letting a college know that you are deeply interested results not only in an admission offer, but also more money through merit scholarships. One of our students received a very healthy scholarship from Tulane University, while her four roommates – all of whom had higher test scores – received no money.
Why does this happen? Because the admissions representatives choose the students who sincerely want their college.
There are myths everywhere about how to get the attention of a college. One of the craziest I’ve heard was this one: “Keep clicking through the college’s website. They’ll see your interest!” No, they won’t. All they will see (if they bother to count your clicks) is your IP address.
How do you demonstrate interest effectively? Here are three successful strategies:
First, connect with the admissions representative covering your area. This does not mean that you have to visit the college. If the college visits your school, show up and talk with the admissions rep. Get a business card. Send an email. Even if you can’t meet them in person, contact the admissions office, identify the person who evaluates your high school, and send them an email, call them, or perhaps try to schedule a video chat. Don’t worry about “selling” yourself to them; get them to sell the college to you by asking intelligent questions. Remember, whenever you communicate directly with a school, be prepared and mature. They evaluate every communication you make.
Second, when writing an essay explaining why you want to attend a college, give your personal reasons for wanting to enroll. Do not regurgitate what they say to you on their website or brochures; they are trying to convince you to apply. Also remember that the college experience (and education) goes beyond the classroom. Demonstrate not only your sophistication about their curriculum, but also your understanding of their campus environment (its assets and community, not its beauty).
Third, be timely. Filing your application right before the deadline indicates that the college is not your first choice. Moreover, because admissions reps become tired later in the season, your brilliance might be muted by their fatigue. You don’t have to apply “early” to demonstrate interest, but don’t file your application at the last moment.
Think of the application process as more than merely showing your qualifications. The best results come when you let them see your sincere interest.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.