“White, Asian-American and affluent students commonly take the SAT more than once, but disadvantaged students are less likely to, and it’s holding them back.”
The Soul-Crushing Student Essay (NY Times)
The Growing College Graduation Gap
First, some good news: In recent decades, students from modest backgrounds have flooded onto college campuses. At many high schools where going to college was once exotic, it’s now normal. Now for the bad news: The college-graduation rate for these poorer students is abysmal. Even as the college-attendance gap between rich and poor has shrunk, the gap in the number of rich and poor college graduates has grown.
Stop Asking About My Kid’s College Plans
Everywhere I go, people want to talk about one thing: college.
Rolling Admissions: 10 Frequently Asked Questions (U.S. News)
10 of the most frequently asked questions about rolling admissions answered, in brief.
Why Is a College-Admissions Code of Ethics Such a Big Deal? (Chronicle of Higher Ed)
This week the DOJ requested information from several members of a committee that recently helped revamp NACAC's “Code of Ethics and Professional Practices,” an extensive list of rules and standards that govern the college admissions process. Why is law-enforcement’s top agency sniffing around an admissions association’s long-winded ethics code?
Department of Justice Probes Admissions Ethics Code (Inside Higher Ed)
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into whether the ethics code of the National Association for College Admission Counseling violates federal antitrust law.
One way to write a great college admissions essay? Tell your story out loud. (WA Post)
Most application essays aren’t memorable, admissions experts say. A few are so awful they stand out. And some are so powerful that they change a student’s chance of acceptance, or help win scholarships.
Uncertainty, Unpredictability, Chaos (Slate)
Next year will be confusing for students, families, and most colleges in the admissions process.
How to Survive the College Admissions Madness (NY Times)
For too many parents and their children, acceptance by an elite institution isn’t just another challenge, just another goal. A yes or no from Amherst or the University of Virginia or the University of Chicago is seen as the conclusive measure of a young person’s worth, an uncontestable harbinger of the accomplishments or disappointments to come. Winner or loser: This is when the judgment is made. This is the great, brutal culling. What madness. And what nonsense.
The Absurdity of College Admissions (The Atlantic)
How did getting into an elite school become a frenzied, soul-deadening process?
Acceptance rates at highly selective colleges have plummeted in recent years. Exclusivity has always been baked into their brand: Only about 3 percent of 18-year-olds in the U.S. go to schools that admit fewer than half their applicants, making the “college-admissions mania,” as The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson once put it, “a crisis for the 3 percent.” Still, it’s a mania to which more and more teensare subjecting themselves, pressuring applicants to pad their resumés and tout superficial experiences and hobbies, convincing them that attending a prestigious school is paramount. And critics say that mania has even spread into and shaped American culture, often distorting kids’ (and parents’) values, perpetuating economic inequality, and perverting the role of higher education in society as a whole
A college-admissions edge for the wealthy: Early decision (WA Post)
Many of the nation’s top colleges draw more than 40 percent of their incoming freshmen through an early-application system that favors the wealthy, luring students to commit to enroll if they get in and shutting out those who want the chance to compare offers of grants and scholarships.