THE BRIDGE TO COLLEGE
Three ‘Hidden’ Issues That Destroy College Applications
By Robert A.G. LeVine
Discussions about highly-selective college admissions usually address the same things – courses and grades, SAT scores, building a resume, and writing great essays. However, three important issues go underappreciated:
Recommendation letters, interviews and how you write the list of activities.
Great recommendation letters are critical for admissions success to America’s top schools. As the last item that admissions readers review, recommendations can catapult students to success or drop them out of consideration. Years ago, after our student did not achieve his Ivy League dreams, he showed me his recommendation letters. When Brian asked, “Did the letters hurt me?”, my answer was simple. “No, they didn’t hurt you, but they didn’t help you. In a highly competitive environment, you need better support from your high school.”
Too many people think that collecting a recommendation from a well-respected person will win the day. Wrong. Great recommendations are not about the caliber of the writer. It’s all about the caliber of the letter. So, when selecting a recommender, focus on how well they know you. The best recommendations are the most personal. In addition, don’t just ask for the honor of a recommendation; talk with the author about why you chose them, why they made a difference to you, and what your academic goals may be. In other words, give them information and directions.
Like great recommendations, great interviews can make the difference between success and failure. Interviews generally happen after the admissions office has conducted its initial evaluation of your application. Therefore, for those who are “in the running” from their applications, the most significant new information is an interview report. As a former interviewer for Harvard, I know for a fact that my strongest interview reports helped applicants leapfrog into the class ahead of others who were higher rated after the “first read.”
But how do you interview successfully? First, understand that interviewers usually know little to nothing about your application. For confidentiality reasons (and laws), they are given very limited information. They honestly know basically zero about you, but they want to learn about you. That means that the student is the puppeteer, not the puppet. You know about you, while they do not. Therefore, instead of focusing on their possible questions, focus on your answers. Too many times, I asked a question about a student’s interest, only to get basically silence.
Do you like music? “Yes.”
What kind of music? “All kinds.”
Any particular artists or genre? “Umm….”
Second, you should feel comfortable with the interviewer. They do this volunteer work because they love their alma maters and take pride when students whom they interview are admitted. They actually want you to succeed. Think of the interview as something a journalist needs to write a great article. It is not meant to be an interrogation.
Third, realize that the admissions office already has your qualifications, so do not approach an interview as an opportunity to restate your qualifications. Admissions reps do not care about a volunteer interviewer’s evaluation of your intellect or potential. They want to know if you’re a good conversationalist, someone who can contribute to their campus community. Just be real.
As for that “resume” you have been collecting over the years, understand that if it’s not written well in your application, it never really happened (at least not impressively). For that reason, how you write the activities list is perhaps even more important than what you did. There is a real art and science about doing this successfully. We have published several articles about this but start with this understanding: your “resume” is just a drop-down listing with very limited words. In fact, you have only 150 characters (40 words) to describe years of hard work. So, don’t write full sentences. Write phrases, delete words, and use abbreviations! That way, you can get more content into your application. Every character counts!
The truth is that an application has multiple parts, all of which are important. Grades will not matter if your teachers do not write well about you. Do not allow your lists to look like you scribbled them with crayon. And respect the interview process to get a final push that may put you over the top!
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.
LIFE STORY
A VULNERABLE YET SO ENDEARING INDIA!
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By Nandini Bandyopadhyay
The bleak, dusty streets, crowded with the masses. Haggard stray dogs, their legs rickety and their fur matted and grimy. Little bits of filth and garbage piling up in the alleys, surrounding the overflowing bins. I had seen them many times before. This was not new, but this time it was different.
The incredible white marble mausoleum rising out of the mist. An inverse-towering arrangement of geometrically precise stairs in an 8th-century stepwell. Thousands of people selflessly cooking, cleaning, and serving to feed the poor. I had seen them many times before. This was not new, but this time it was different.
This January, I went to visit India, like I have been doing for the last several years after moving to the USA. This was not new, but this time it was different. Five of my American friends were coming with me.
Some of my Indian friends had been skeptical and told me that it was a crazy idea. They had been eager to point out the pitfalls; my American friends wouldn't be used to the crowds, they could get sick, or they could just end up disgruntled and overly critical of India. Other friends were excited for me, and one of them even bought a ticket for the same trip, just to be a part of this experience.
It was a seven-day trip, and my friends and I experienced a host of emotions. The sight of the Taj Mahal in the early morning, as the morning mist added a certain mystique, left them awestruck. In every city we visited, artisans were carving solid wooden doors inlaid with bone sculpting intricate tables from marble, or painting huge blocks of fabric with vegetable dyes. On the other end of the spectrum, stepping into the Gurdwara’s industrial kitchen, with hundreds of men and women preparing and serving food for free to thousands, was humbling in a different way. To most of the world, India is often associated with a huge population and abject poverty, but once you behold this kind of selfless service or seva, one’s perspective is completely changed.
Looking back on the trip now, I realize that I was like a watchful mother and India was this brilliant precocious child who was disorganized and unpredictable in ways more than one. She dazzled me with her brilliance at one moment, and saddened me with her indifference the very next. I felt the need to protect her, like any mother would. When I overheard two strangers whispering about the abject poverty and decrepit homes in the poorer suburbs, I bristled even though I knew they were right. But when someone spoke to me about the beautiful fabric, or the jaw-dropping architecture, or the artistry, my heart was full of inexplicable joy, just like any mother’s heart would be.
I had often explained the whys and hows of India to my children. I told them stories and read them poems about India. We watched Indian movies, they learned Indian music, and I cooked Indian food. So when they visited India, they knew what to expect. But this time, with my friends, the prep time was measured in hours, not years. And maybe that’s why I felt so protective about India. It’s not that I was ignoring her inherent issues; I was actually more aware of them, as I was looking from a different perspective, from a visitor’s point of view. India is always going to be my motherland, and I always will feel loved and protected there. On this trip, the roles were reversed. Suddenly, I felt myself stepping into those huge shoes, trying to love and protect her just like any mother would do for their child.
This trip to India was not new, but it was different. Coming to India with my American friends pushed me to see a unique perspective, which made India feel more vulnerable and yet so lovable.
Nandini Bandyopadhyay of Tampa has a master’s in Comparative Literature and has been published in both Bengali and English.