4 Tips on What To Do When Admissions Rates Drop
Boston College, down 5 points to 27%
BU, down 3 points to 22%
Emory, down 3.5 points to 18.5%
Harvard, down .62 points to 4.58%
Tulane, down 3.5 points to 17.5%
UCLA, down 2.1 points to 14%
Virginia Tech, down 17.4 points to 56%
Face it. These numbers don’t make your heart flutter with hope. If anything, they make your stomach churn with fear. Watching admissions rates fall like this in a single year makes you feel like you’re betting on a stock market that’s crashing.
But you don’t have to get caught up in the anxiety of it all. There are actually steps you can take to get ahead of the process, and it starts with being smart about how you apply. To do that, here are four tips!
Start with putting together a great college list. This consists of identifying only 6-10 schools that span the selectivity spectrum and that have other qualities that will make you happy. That copy of U.S. News and World Report that you just tucked under your pillow has to go. Instead of fixating on the schools it tells you are “good,” you need to figure out which schools are good for you. You need to ask yourself, “Who am I? What matters to me? What do I want in a college experience?” The more you determine what makes a great fit for you, the more you can demonstrate that you’re a great fit for a school. And that helps so much with getting in.
Set realistic expectations. The other day a mother called declaring that her son, with nearly a 4.0 GPA, was going to apply to Williams and Amherst as safety schools. If you’ve read Stairway to College Heaven, you know that in no universe are Amherst and Williams safety schools for anyone. If anything, they are reaches for everyone! So use the published GPA and test score stats to identify not only reach schools, but also target (where you’re in the middle 50th percentile) and safety (where you’re in the top 25th percentile, except when considering the Top 25 Schools, which are reaches for everyone) options. Only that way will you ensure that you’ve got great choices, no matter what, next year.
Don’t ask your friend’s neighbor’s sister’s orthopedist’s son for input. All the gossip you hear about somebody being unhappy at one school, or about another person coming out super-successful from another, ultimately have nothing to do with you. Everyone is different and no school is perfect for everyone. Instead, focus on the elements that make a college right for you. You can start with taking into consideration a variety of fit factors, from school culture, academic climate, and setting to academic offerings, size, geography and whatever else is important to you. You won’t need those outside voices telling you what to think! When you find that you can mentally block out the rumor mill, a lot of your anxiety will melt away.
Demonstrate interest in colleges. There are so many pieces to the application process that people take as “optional”: visiting a campus before getting in, doing an interview, attending local information sessions, writing that extra essay, or following colleges on social media. Even though colleges claim that you don’t have to do these things, you should still most definitely do them. With the massive increase in applications admissions offices receive, they are having a hard time figuring out who’s serious about coming and who’s just applying to apply. By demonstrating interest you’ll be cluing the admissions reps in to the fact that they are one of your top choices, and that can go a long way.
Just like in so many other areas of life, being proactive and smart in college admissions ultimately gets you better results. So, if you demonstrate interest, ignore the rumor mill, set realistic expectations, and put together a great college list, you can watch those admissions rates continue to drop, yet feel so much more in control.