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Transcend Your Potential

Coalition prompts won’t change for 2018-19—applicants are invited to think outside the textbox

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Courtesy Nancy Griesemer

The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success announced last week that Coalition essay questions will not be changing for 2018-19.

“As you introduce the college application process to new students and parents, please know that the Coalition Essay questions will remain the same for next year,” said Annie Reznik, the Coalition’s executive director in a message targeted to college counselors.

This announcement follows a similar one from the Common Application advising that prompts for the Common App personal statement would also remain the same in the fall. Not surprisingly, the decision not to make modifications to either set of prompts was most welcome in an industry that’s become increasingly exhausted by what seems to be continuous change.

In fact, the prompts for the two applications are not terribly different from one another. They seem to be trying to get at the same kinds of responses. AND both sets of prompts provide a “topic of your choice” option—a great fallback position for essays that don’t quite answer one of the questions posed.

But looks can be deceiving. The wise applicant will closely review the two sets of prompts and think about how differences in instructions and allowable format may have an impact on the way an essay appears or presents itself to the reader.

At a minimum, consider the allowable length. The Common App, last year, set essay length at between 250 and 650 words. This restriction was firmly enforced by limiting essay submission to a textbox, maintaining a hard word cutoff as well as inviting a handful of quirks and formatting issues.

The Coalition, on the other hand, allowed colleges to set their own word limits and choose whether to locate the essay in a textbox among college-specific questions or in the upload section of the application.

Note that not everyone is totally sold on the idea of giving colleges so much freedom to structure applications how they wish because it potentially causes confusion and/or may result in extra work for applicants. But others saw the Coalition as providing an opportunity for applicants to think outside the textbox and produce essays with attractive fonts, symbols, links to online media and illustrations.

With an upload, hard word cutoffs don’t really exist. Instead of word or character counts, the essay is generally limited by kilobytes (KB). The essay may be converted to a PDF, thereby guaranteeing that it looks the way the applicant wants it to look and allowing readers to click live links provided within the text.

The Common App used to do it that way, and the Universal College App has always given students the choice of whether to use the textbox or upload their essays. The Cappex Application provides for a similar choice. So while the Common App might be the most visible and familiar of the application providers, it’s clearly in the minority when it comes to flexibility in formatting the personal statement.

During the 2017-18 application cycle, about 55 Coalition members out of 102 with live applications used Coalition prompts and located the essay in the upload section. Only just under 15 members located personal statements in textboxes. A handful slavishly reproduced Common App requirements by not only locating personal statements in textboxes but exactly replicating prompts and word limits. And when asked why, colleges uniformly responded that they thought it was only fair to stick to one set of rules.

Agree or disagree with colleges giving students a choice of applications as well as application formats and requirements, it’s important to be aware of differences—advantages as well as disadvantages. While neither application has so far announced major platform changes for the coming year, it may make sense to begin considering the difference between an essay confined to a textbox vs. one that encourages creativity through an upload.

For the record, the 2018-19 Coalition essay questions are as follows:

  • Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
  • Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution.
  • Has there been a time when you’ve had a long-cherished or accepted belief challenged? How did you respond? How did the challenge affect your beliefs?
  • What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What’s the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?
  • Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.

Colleges continue to welcome applicant résumés

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Vanderbilt University allows resumes on both the Common App and the Coalition application.

High school students who invest time creating résumés may be handsomely rewarded in the college application process. Of 689 Common Application member colleges and universities that are “live” as of this writing, at least 224 — or about one-third — have made specific provisions for or even require the submission of this handy document.

This hasn’t always been the case. In fact, there remains a lingering controversy over the appropriateness of asking students to develop and maintain résumés throughout high school. And many colleges are very deliberate about not including them as part of their applications.

In her blog on college admissions at the University of Virginia, Jeanine Lalonde makes a point of repeating every year, “The Common App has a resume upload function and lets each school decide whether they want to use it. We are one of the schools that turned that function off. We prefer the Common App activity section to the various ways people choose to present their activities on resumes.”

But many college advisers and lots of colleges very much disagree.

“Almost as soon as I start guiding a student through college planning, I learn about the student’s interests and hobbies and discuss the importance of extracurricular commitment in and out of school – both for college admission and life enrichment. That naturally leads to an analysis of student engagement and the creation and continual updating of a résumé,” said Judi Robinovitz, a Certified Educational Planner in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Florida. “The résumé becomes far more than a list of activities. Rather, it highlights a student’s accomplishments about what she has done, why, how, and, most especially, how these actions have impacted lives (hers and others’).”

Robinovitz adds, “Here’s an important secret: when you share a thoughtfully prepared and detailed résumé with anyone who will write a recommendation, you’re likely to get a stronger and more anecdotal piece of writing that supports your application. Plus, through résumé creation now, we lay critical groundwork for undergraduate summer job and internship applications – and ultimately, for graduate school and vocational opportunities.”

In other words, a résumé represents an opportunity to collect, keep track of and reflect on accomplishments. And it’s likely to be a document the student will have to maintain, using different formats and styles, through college and beyond.

Most school-based and independent college counselors agree there’s no reason to include a résumé with a college application if it totally duplicates information contained in other parts of the application, unless of course, the school specifically asks for one. And plenty of colleges outside of the Common App system do, such as Georgetown University, Virginia Tech, MIT and the University of Texas at Austin.

For students using the Common Application, basic extracurricular-related information may be presented in the Activities section, which provides space to describe involvement in ten activities. Within each activity, the Position/Leadership blank allows 50 characters to give a solid indication of your position and the name of the organization in which you participate. A second box allows 150 characters to provide insight into what you’ve done and any distinctions you earned.

The Coalition provides space for extracurricular activities in the Profile section of the application. Students may enter up to eight activities and are asked to specify “the two primary activities that have taken up most of your extracurricular time during high school.” For each activity, the student is allowed 64 characters for the activity name (Cashier, Wegmans Grocery Store, Fairfax VA), as well as 255 characters for “one brief sentence describing the primary function of this activity” and an additional 255 characters to “[L]ist any positions/honors/awards received in this activity, if any.”

Students using the Universal College Application (UCA) may enter up to seven “Extracurriculars, Personal and Volunteer Experience[s]” and up to five employers or job-related activities.  While the characters allowed are more limited (35 for extracurricular and 32 for jobs), students are encouraged to provide more details in the Additional Information section.

But for some students, these activities sections are still limiting and don’t provide enough of an opportunity to showcase specific accomplishments or direct attention to relevant online content. In this case, the applicant has a couple of options.

 

First, check member questions for additional opportunities to provide details about extracurricular activities. This is where some Common App members have made provisions for an upload of a fully-formatted résumé. These include:

  • Boston College
  • Brandeis University
  • Brown University
  • Bucknell University
  • Claremont McKenna College
  • Colgate University *
  • Cornell University
  • Dartmouth College*
  • Davidson College**
  • George Mason University
  • George Washington University
  • Howard University
  • Johns Hopkins University**
  • Kenyon College
  • Lafayette College
  • Macalester College
  • Mount Holyoke College
  • Northeastern University
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Santa Clara University
  • Trinity College
  • Tulane University
  • Union College*
  • University of Cincinnati
  • University of Massachusetts-Amherst
  • University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
  • University of Pennsylvania*
  • Vanderbilt University*
  • Washington University in St. Louis*

Another option is to see if the college offers an alternate application that allows for résumé uploads. For example, the UCA provides for fully-formatted résumés by allowing PDFs to be uploaded in the Additional Information section of the application. Before going forward with this plan, however, it’s wise to check with the college first to see if they’d like a copy of your résumé as part of your application for admission. They may not!

A résumé can be a very powerful document for pushing your college candidacy forward. It can serve to color between the lines or provide extra detail beyond what may be crammed into a standardized application form.

If given the opportunity, use it. But make sure it reflects well on you and contains accurate and up-to-date information.

*     This school also made provisions for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.
**  This school does not specifically provide for résumé upload on the Coalition Application.

Common App introduces an improvement that largely goes unnoticed

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Pepperdine University

For nearly a decade, the Universal College Application (UCA) has offered students the opportunity to include on their applications a “live” link or URL to online content such as YouTube, LinkedIn, personal websites, blogs, etc. In this regard, the UCA was way ahead of the competition, offering an option that both colleges and students seemed to want. Despite repeated calls to include a similar field on their application, the Common App opted to strengthen partnerships with outside vendors like SlideRoom (frequently charging applicants a separate fee) and resisted signs that colleges were increasingly transitioning to inclusion of digital credentials as part of the admissions process.

With the debut of the Coalition platform, the idea of making digital media available as part of the college application became more institutionalized. Videos, audio presentations and pictures can be easily uploaded to the Student Locker and transferred to applications for colleges requesting them. And most Coalition colleges opted to also use the upload function for the personal statement—something the Common App dropped a couple of years ago in favor unwieldy “text boxes,” which definitely limit an applicant’s ability to control format, embed live links and use different characters or pictures as part of their essays.

As the Coalition built on a precedent established by the UCA and opened students to the possibility of introducing colleges to their digital sides, the Common App responded by creating a relationship with ZeeMee, originally an online resume-building site high on visuals and low on written content. In the spring of 2016, the Common App introduced the new partnership with an “infomercial” at their annual conference and offered colleges the opportunity to have a field dedicated to ZeeMee included in their “member questions.” A number of colleges accepted the offer, some by stridently advertising for and recruiting students to the ZeeMee platform. Others were moderate in their requests and still fewer (one or two) suggested that students could include a link to ZeeMee or other online media if they chose.

But the times are changing. Without any promotion or advertisement from the Common App, many member colleges adopted the more “generic” URL field in their 2017-18 applications and are using this opportunity to encourage students to provide links to any site—not just ZeeMee. In fact at least 45, or about six percent of Common App members with live applications at this point, intentionally give students a wider opportunity to provide a link to a website of their choosing.

For the record, an additional 125 Common App members (as of this writing) appear to limit their requests to or provide dedicated fields for ZeeMee URLs—some with very strong marketing language.

But this welcome application development seems to have largely gone unnoticed. Perhaps it would be even more welcome if the link were “live” and a reader could click on the URL and go directly to the site—an opportunity the UCA has offered students and admissions readers for close to ten years! Unfortunately, the current state of Common App technology apparently requires readers to copy and paste the URL into an internet browser to access content. Nevertheless, the inclusion of a more general question in the bank of member questions is an acknowledgment of the value of this information to the admissions process.

Here is a sample of Common App members electing to move away from promoting a single site to opening their application to the inclusion of any URL:

  • Antioch College
  • Brown University
  • Centre College
  • Colorado College
  • Earlham College
  • Eckerd College
  • Florida Institute of Technology
  • Florida Southern College
  • Hampshire College
  • Kenyon College
  • Lafayette College
  • Marist College
  • Occidental College
  • Pepperdine University
  • Pitzer College
  • Texas Christian University
  • Union College
  • WPI

Franklin and Marshall, Hamilton and the University of Mary Washington make similar requests on the Coalition application.

And while the URL requests are fairly generic and don’t steer applicants in any particular direction, the award for best wording by a Common App member goes to the University of Mary Washington:

“Some applicants maintain an electronic profile (such as ZeeMee) that exhibits talents, creativity or other information to share with the Admissions Committee. If you maintain such a site, and would like the Admissions Committee to view it, please enter the URL here.”

The cleverest college award goes to SUNY Purchase, which gets around the deficiency in Common App technology by instructing applicants to be creative about uploading a document containing a link:

“For video submissions, post your video to YouTube or Vimeo and submit a document here with the URL link to the video.”

Note: For the nearly one-third of Common App members providing for submission of fully-formatted résumés, you can include URLs on those documents, upload them as PDFs and assume the links will be conveyed as live, thereby providing direct access to any online content you wish readers to see. Click here for more information on colleges that welcome your résumé.

Another Undergraduate Admissions Season Begins

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August 1 marks the official start to the 2017-2018 undergraduate admissions cycle, and this year Admissions Intel is celebrating by giving you the chance to join Admissions Intel on Patreon. Learn a bit about the big trends to look out for this admissions season and the three distinct membership levels that will give you even greater access to the expertise you’ve grown accustomed to on the free side of AdmissionsIntel.com.

Part 2: even more 2017-18 essay supplements

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University of Richmond

Colleges are currently in the process of rolling out essay supplements for 2017-18. And Erica Riesbeck, senior assistant director of admission for the University of Richmond makes good arguments for starting to work on these essays sooner rather than later.

According to Ms. Riesbeck, the top five reasons for getting to work on Richmond’s supplements now are:

  1. You didn’t get your dream summer job and you have plenty of extra time.
  2. Covfefe. Typos are infuriating and noticeable—build in extra time for proofreading.
  3. Stress relief/parent relief.
  4. Bragging rights.
  5. Free tuition to the first admissible student who applies! NO—just kidding. Richmond promises to review your application for merit scholarships if you apply by December 1.

And the folks at Georgia Tech offer sound advice reinforcing this wisdom:

  • Get started early. Don’t wait until the last minute to complete your essays!
  • Write and edit your essay in a document editor. Once you have the final draft, you can cut and paste it into your online application.
  • Don’t overthink it. It may not be easy to write about yourself, but just write what you feel most comfortable with.
  • Don’t write what you think we want to read. Write what you want to say!
  • Don’t blow off the essay! We wouldn’t ask you to write it if we didn’t find it to be an important way to get to know you, and what you have to bring to Georgia Tech.

Now that the July 4th holiday is past, you can start checking college websites for essay supplements—required and optional. And note that both the Coalition Application and the Universal College Application (UCA) are open for business with individual colleges launching applications (and writing requirements) according to their own timelines.

In addition to those posted yesterday, here are a few additional colleges that have already posted 2017-18 essay supplements:

University of North Carolina

Carolina’s supplement will provide you with four prompts, and you will choose two. Each response will be limited to 200-250 words.

  • Tell us about a peer who has made a difference in your life.
  • What do you hope will change about the place where you live?
  • What is one thing that we don’t know about you that you want us to know?
  • What about your background, or what perspective, belief, or experience, will help you contribute to the education of your classmates at UNC?

University of Michigan

Essay #1 (Required for all applicants. Approximately 250 words.): Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.

Essay #2 (Required for all applicants. 500 words maximum.) FRESHMEN APPLICANTS: Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School (including preferred admission and dual degree programs) to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests?

University of Oregon

[T]ell us, in your own unique voice, something about you we cannot find elsewhere on your application. We purposefully do not prescribe any one topic for the personal statement, because we want you to share what’s important to you. If you need some direction, though, a few topics you may consider include your future ambitions or goals, a significant experience that is integral to your personal identity, or a special talent or unique interest that sets you apart from your peers (500 words).

Second Essay (optional; 50–500 words—choose one)

Describe an experience with discrimination, whether it was fighting against discrimination or recognizing your contribution to discriminating against a person or group. What did you learn from the experience? In what ways will you bring those lessons to University of Oregon?

Or

The University of Oregon values difference, and we take pride in our diverse community. Please explain how you will share your experiences, values, and interests with our community. In what ways can you imagine offering your support to others?

University of Richmond

Pick only one:

  1. Sometimes asking the right question makes all the difference. If you were a college admission counselor, what essay question would you ask? Please craft and answer your own essay prompt – in your response, reflect on what your chosen question reveals about you.
  2. How will you use your Richmond Guarantee?

University of Washington

Short response (300 words): Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds.  Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc.  Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the University of Washington.

Optional: You are not required to write anything in this section, but you may include additional information if something has particular significance to you. For example, you may use this space if:

  • You are hoping to be placed in a specific major soon
  • A personal or professional goal is particularly important to you
  • You have experienced personal hardships in attaining your education
  • Your activities have been limited because of work or family obligations
  • You have experienced unusual limitations or opportunities unique to the schools you attended

Vanderbilt University

Briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150-400 words)

Villanova University

Submit one Villanova Essay (of 250-1000 words) from the three choices below. Please note: the Villanova Essay should have a separate and distinctive response to that of the Common Application Essay.

Option One: At Villanova, we believe that it is our similarities that make us strong, but our differences that make us stronger.  Please tell us about a relationship that you have with someone who is different from you and how that has changed who you are today.

Option Two: “Become what you are not yet”– Saint Augustine
When you daydream, who do you hope to become in the future?

Option Three: Describe a book, movie, song or other work of art that has been significant to you since you were young and how its meaning has changed for you as you have grown.

Virginia Tech

You may respond to up to three of the essay prompts (choose one, two, or three) as you feel they support your individual application. (250-300 words)

  1. What are the top five reasons you want to be a Hokie?
  2. If there is something you think would be beneficial for the Admissions Committee to know as we review your academic history, please take this opportunity to explain.
  3. Our motto is Ut Prosim (That I May Serve). How is service to others important in your life?
  4. We believe strongly in the Virginia Tech Principles of Community and the value of human diversity affirmed therein. Share a perspective or experience related to your culture, age, color, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status that might explain how you will enrich the climate of mutual respect and understanding here.
  5. Virginia Tech is one of six senior military institutions in the country. How will this setting contribute to your college experience?
  6. Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
  7. Submit an essay on a topic of your choice.

Please note that Virginia Tech will not be accepting the Coalition Application this year. According to admissions staff, the CollegeNet application will go live in mid-August with this new set of essay prompts.

Wellesley College

[R]espond to the following topic in two well-developed paragraphs:

When choosing a college community, you are choosing a place where you believe that you can live, learn, and flourish. Generations of inspiring women have thrived in the Wellesley community, and we want to know what aspects of this community inspire you to consider Wellesley.  We know that there are more than 100 reasons to choose Wellesley, but the “Wellesley 100” is a good place to start. Visit the Wellesley 100 www.wellesley.edu/admission/100) and let us know, in two well-developed paragraphs, which two items most attract, inspire, or energize you and why.

Getting started: colleges share 2017-18 essay supplements

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In what continues to be a challenging landscape for college applicants and their advisers, one ray of light may be the level of effort some colleges appear to be putting into updating their websites with application requirements for 2017-18.

And this includes descriptions of new policies and deadlines as well as posting essay prompts and writing supplements.

In all fairness, it looks like some schools have decided this is not the year to make major revisions in their writing requirements.  Bringing on new technology or adding a new application option may be enough for one year.

Nevertheless, it’s helpful for some students, particularly those returning to school early or those with significant fall obligations, to be able to get started on essays sooner rather than later. And with many colleges adding early admission options and/or moving up deadlines to coincide with the October 1 launch of the federal financial aid application, the smallest bit of extra time can only help.

For the record, essay prompts and other application specifications are almost always found on college websites. The Common Application and the Coalition Application have already posted prompts for personal statements, although one sets a 650-word limit enforced by software and the other strongly suggests a 550-word limit not enforced by software.

The Universal College Application (UCA) gives the applicant freedom to write on whatever topic they wish and allows for 650 words.  The Cappex Application offers a required 600-word personal statement along with a second optional essay.

For the Common App, the Coalition App and the UCA, member colleges are free to decide whether or not to require a personal statement and many will opt out of this requirement.  Supplementary essays will be at the discretion of individual colleges and will either come as questions within the body of the application or as separate writing supplements. Note that the Cappex Application will not include additional writing requirements.

With luck, applicants will find supplementary essay prompts posted in advance of official application launch dates, which appear to vary from college to college. Some launched on July 1, and others won’t launch until October 1, 2017.

Here is a sample of colleges that have already posted their additional essay prompts for 2017-18 (University of Virginia prompts may be found here):

Dickinson College
Why have you chosen to apply to Dickinson?  (There is no recommended minimum word count, although the Common Application does have a limit of 800 words)

Georgia Tech
[Y]ou will be asked to respond to the prompts below.

  1. Beyond rankings, location, and athletics, why are you interested in attending Georgia Tech? (max 150 words)
  2. Please choose ONE of the following questions and provide an answer in 150 words or less.
    • Tech’s motto is Progress and Service. We find that students who ultimately have a broad impact first had a significant one at home. What is your role in your immediate or extended family? And how have you seen evidence of your impact on them?
    • Georgia Tech is always looking for innovative undergraduates. Have you had any experience as an entrepreneur? What would you like Georgia Tech to provide to further your entrepreneurial interests?
    • We challenge our students to “be comfortable being uncomfortable”. Tell us about a time in high school that you felt outside of your comfort zone and the resolution.

Georgetown University
Short Essay: Briefly discuss the significance to you of the school or summer activity in which you have been most involved. (approximately one-half page)

Compose two brief essays (approximately one page single-spaced each) on the topics given below.

All Applicants: As Georgetown is a diverse community, the Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.

Essay Two:

  • Applicants to Georgetown College: Please relate your interest in studying at Georgetown University to your goals. How do these thoughts relate to your chosen course of study? (If you are applying to major in the FLL or in a Science, please specifically address those interests.)
  • Applicants to the School of Nursing & Health Studies: Describe the factors that have influenced your interest in studying health care at Georgetown University. Please specifically address your intended major (Health Care Management & Policy, Human Science, International Health, or Nursing).
  • Applicants to the Walsh School of Foreign Service: Briefly discuss a current global issue, indicating why you consider it important and what you suggest should be done to deal with it.
  • Applicants to the McDonough School of Business: The McDonough School of Business is a national and global leader in providing graduates with essential ethical, analytical, financial and global perspectives. Please discuss your motivations for studying business at Georgetown.

Johns Hopkins University
Successful students at Johns Hopkins make the biggest impact by collaborating with others, including peers, mentors, and professors. Talk about a time, in or outside the classroom, when you worked with others and what you learned from the experience. (Up to 400 words).

Princeton University
Short answer (1): Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences that was particularly meaningful to you. (Response required in about 150 words.)

Short answer (2): Please tell us how you have spent the last two summers (or vacations between school years), including any jobs you have held. (Response required in about 150 words.)

In addition to providing a few details, write an essay of about 500 words (no more than 650 words and no fewer than 250 words). Using one of the themes below as a starting point:

  1. Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.
  2. “One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.”
    Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University and co-founder of Blackplanet.com. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University.
  3. “Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.”
    Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy and director of the Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows, Princeton University.
  4. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay.

And engineers:  [W]rite a 300-500 word essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering, any experiences in or exposure to engineering you have had and how you think the programs in engineering offered at Princeton suit your particular interests.

Trinity College
You may select one of the following prompts and write an essay of 250-650 words.

We live in an urban-global age with more than half of the planet’s people living in cities. Trinity College is an urban liberal arts college deeply engaged with the local community and committed to making an impact across the world.  How do you aspire to use your education to impact local and global communities?

Our mission states:  “Engage. Connect. Transform. As the preeminent liberal arts college in an urban setting, Trinity College prepares students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives.” Keeping the three pillars of the mission in mind, how do you see yourself contributing to the Trinity community?

 University of Chicago
Question 1 (Required): How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to U Chicago.

Question 2 (Optional): Share with us a few of your favorite books, poems, authors, films, plays, pieces of music, musicians, performers, paintings, artists, blogs, magazines, or newspapers. Feel free to touch on one, some, or all of the categories listed, or add a category of your own.

Choose one (required):

Essay Option 1: “The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”–Joseph Joubert
Sometimes people talk a lot about popular subjects to assure ‘victory’ in conversation or understanding, and leave behind topics of less popularity, but great personal or intellectual importance. What do you think is important but under-discussed?

Essay Option 2: Due to a series of clerical errors, there is exactly one typo (an extra letter, a removed letter, or an altered letter) in the name of every department at the University of Chicago. Oops! Describe your intended major. Why are you interested in it and what courses or areas of focus within it might you want to explore? Potential options include Commuter Science, Bromance Languages and Literatures, Pundamentals: Issues and Texts, Ant History…a full list of unmodified majors ready for your editor’s eye is available here:  https//collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/majors-minors.

Essay Option 3: Earth. Fire. Wind. Water. Heart! Captain Planet supposes that the world is made up of these five elements. We’re familiar with the previously-noted set and with actual elements like hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, but select and explain another small group of things (say, under five) that you believe compose our world.

Essay Option 4: The late New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham once said “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life. I don’t think you could do away with it. It would be like doing away with civilization.” Tell us about your “armor.”

Essay Option 5: Fans of the movie Sharknado say that they enjoy it because “it’s so bad, it’s good.” Certain automobile owners prefer classic cars because they “have more character.” And recently, vinyl record sales have skyrocketed because it is perceived that they have a warmer, fuller sound. Discuss something you love not in spite of but rather due to its quirks or imperfections.

Essay Option 6: In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose your own question or choose one of our past prompts. Be original, creative, thought provoking. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun.

University of Georgia
Here are the five essay questions, with Essay 1 being required and Essays 2-5 being four options from which the applicant selects one.

(Required) The college admissions process can create anxiety. In an attempt to make it less stressful, please tell us an interesting or amusing story about yourself that you have not already shared in your application.

Choose one of the following four:

  1. UGA’s 2017 Commencement speaker Ernie Johnson (Class of ’79) told a story from his youth about what he refers to as blackberry moments. He has described these as “the sweet moments that are right there to be had but we’re just too focused on what we’re doing …, and we see things that are right there within our reach and we neglect them. Blackberry moments can be anything that makes somebody else’s day, that makes your day, that are just sweet moments that you always remember.” Tell us about one of your “blackberry moments” from the past five years.
  2. Creativity is found in many forms including artistic avenues, intellectual pursuits, social interactions, innovative solutions, et cetera. Tell us how you express your creativity.
  3. Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
  4. Describe a problem, possibly related to your area of study, which you would like to solve. Explain its importance to you and what actions you would take to solve this issue.

University of Illinois

  1. Explain your interest in the major you selected and describe how you have recently explored or developed this interest inside and/or outside the classroom. You may also explain how this major relates to your future career goals. If you’re applying to the Division of General Studies, explain your academic interests and strengths or your future career goals. You may include any majors or areas of study you’re currently considering. Limit your response to 300 to 400 words.
  2. If you select a second-choice major other than the Division of General Studies on your application, write a second essay explaining your interest in this major, too. Again, limit your response to 300 to 400 words.

Bonus: click here for even more 2017-18 essay supplements!

UVa announces essay prompts for 2017-18

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University of Virginia

The University of Virginia announced yesterday that essay prompts for fall 2018 applicants will be looking very very similar to those in previous years, with only a few minor tweaks to keep things interesting.

“I share our essay prompts for next year each June with the hopes that we’ll give you plenty of time to think about which one is right for you,” explained Jeannine Lalonde, “Dean J” of the UVa Admissions Blog. “If you are thinking about writing your essays this early, I hope you’ll revisit them before you actually submit an application. It’s amazing how much can change in a few months.”

In addition to a personal statement required of all UVa applicants, students will be asked to write two short responses to prompts provided in the member-specific section of the application.

As in past years, UVa is “looking for passionate students” to join a “diverse community of scholars, researchers, and artists.” Prospective “Hoos” are asked to answer in approximately 250 words one of a series of questions corresponding to the school/program to which they are applying:

  • College of Arts and Sciences: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?
  • School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: If you were given funding for a small engineering project that would make everyday life better for one friend or family member, what would you design?
  • Kinesiology Program: Discuss experiences that led you to choose the kinesiology major.
  • School of Nursing: School of Nursing applicants may have experience shadowing, volunteering, or working in a health care environment. Tell us about a health care-related experience or another significant interaction that deepened your interest in studying Nursing.
  • School of Architecture: Describe an instance or place where you have been inspired by architecture or design.

For the second essay, applicants are asked to pick one of four questions to answer in a half page or roughly 250 words:

  • What’s your favorite word and why?
  • We are a community with quirks, both in language and in traditions. Describe one of your quirks and why it is part of who you are.
  • Student self-governance, which encourages student investment and initiative, is a hallmark of the UVA culture. In her fourth year at UVA, Laura Nelson was inspired to create Flash Seminars, one-time classes which facilitate high-energy discussion about thought-provoking topics outside of traditional coursework. If you created a Flash Seminar, what idea would you explore and why?
  • UVA students paint messages on Beta Bridge when they want to share information with our community. What would you paint on Beta Bridge and why is this your message?

UVa joined the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success in September of 2015 and may offer that application as an option for this fall, in addition to the Common Application. Both platforms have already posted their personal statement prompts. Although the questions are very similar, it’s worth noting that while the Common App word count is between 250 and 650 words, the Coalition “strongly recommends” that personal statements stay within 500 to 550 words.

And in the college admissions world, it’s wise to take these kinds of recommendations very seriously!

12* Common App members will use new ‘Courses and Grades’ feature for 2017-18

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Among several enhancements announced by the Common Application for 2017-18, one that seems to respond directly to the need for reduced paperwork and reliance on extraneous document transmission systems is the new Courses & Grades feature. While still a pilot program with participation limited to 12* institutions, the new section follows an industry trend, adopted last year by the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success, toward greater use of self-reported transcript information and has the potential for eliminating dependence on third parties to send such documents either electronically or via the U.S. Postal Service.

For now or at least for purposes of the pilot, the Common App is still requiring that students arrange to have official transcripts sent in addition to completing the Courses & Grades section. Presumably, this is to allow for research on student accuracy, as this is an experiment for the Common App. But it’s not really that new to admissions. A number of institutions, including those in the University of California and Rutgers University systems as well as the University of Washington and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have been using the “honor system” with great success for years.

“A major advantage of collecting self-reported information through the application process is the match to the applicant’s file,” writes Nancy J. Walsh, UIUC’s director of undergraduate admissions operations, in an article for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). “[W]hile the applicants are being asked to do a little more work on the frontend by completing the self-reported academic record, they don’t have to worry about the prospect of a transcript being lost somewhere between the high school and the admissions office, which may make them miss an important deadline. There is certainly less demand on the mailrooms in admissions offices, but on the high school side as well during application season.”

And the data provided by students is usually very accurate. In the case of applicant information, a college can always require that an official transcript be submitted for verification once a student commits to attending. In fact, UIUC reports that only four students had their admission offers rescinded for transcript problems out of almost 7,600 freshmen who enrolled for fall 2015. Other schools requiring self-reported transcripts report similar results.

The Common App’s new Courses & Grades section will be found under the Common App tab of the application, along with Profile, Family, Education, Testing, Activities and Writing. A few qualifying questions will be asked and the student will be provided with an instructional “wizard” designed to walk them through how the section, which is formatted as a grid, should be completed.

In order for a student to use Courses & Grades, s/he must have access to their high school transcript. The transcript must use grades, and the high school must use semesters, trimesters, quarters or block scheduling. Students who fall outside these parameter—those students whose high schools use narratives instead of grades or those with transcripts in a foreign language for example—will not be required to complete Courses & Grades.

The 7 out of 12* original colleges requiring Courses & Grades from students who apply using the Common Application include:

Chapman University, CA
George Washington University, DC
New York School of Career & Applied Studies of Touro College & University System, NY
Ohio State University, OH
Purdue University, IN
University of Southern California, CA
West Virginia University, WV

Again, according to Common App instructions, “Counselors who have a student using Courses & Grades must still send an official transcript for that student (part of the School Report).” Questions about this requirement should be directed to the Applicant Solutions Center.

Courses & Grades will launch with the rest of the Common Application on August 1, after a brief break starting on July 24.l

*7/31/2017:  Since this article was originally published, five colleges have dropped out of the program. For 2017-18, only seven colleges will be participating in the new Courses & Grades component of the Common Application.

Yale finds creative use of technology opens new possibilities for admissions

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Yale University.

Yale University is experimenting with the role digital media can play in college admissions. Using technology advanced last year by the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success, Yale’s admissions readers in some cases became admissions viewers and experienced what will likely become a third dimension in college admissions—the creative use of media to present the case for admission to a highly selective institution.

Staying on the cutting edge of technology is challenging in any field, but changes in college admissions since the introduction of the electronic application are almost beyond description. Stacks of manila folders tucked into walls of file cabinets have been replaced by application “platforms” configured to align with enrollment management software, which oversees a process that is increasingly data-dependent and data-driven.

 

And the work has become less cyclical and more continuous as applicants have the luxury of starting applications earlier by entering information that “rolls over” from one year to the next.  Marketing begins with the administration of the first PSAT, with even the earliest scores sold to colleges anxious to get their names before potential applicants. There’s hardly a moment to reflect on successes and failures before it’s time to gear up for the next group of recruits turned applicants.

But as almost anyone involved in college admissions would agree, something isn’t quite right with this picture—the entire college admissions process is due for a major overhaul. And a handful of deans and enrollment management experts are ready to try.

“Technology has transformed how we process applications and how we read applications, but not how we create content for these applications,” commented Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admission.

Like many others charged with overseeing admissions, Quinlan felt the time had come for Yale to experiment with application content that responded to the pervasiveness and availability of digital media.  While the Common Application set the standard, others saw a market ripe for innovation.

“I really felt we needed to make a change. We were looking at more and more essays that felt like they had been written by 47-year olds and not 17-year olds,” said Quinlan. “We thought we needed more material—different material—in the review process.”

Enter the Coalition application. Born out of concern that reliance on a single electronic application was a risky proposition and developed with a view toward attracting a wider, underserved audience, the Coalition application as built by CollegeNet looked for ways to integrate creativity and give colleges the kind of basic flexibility they wanted in an application platform.

“After the fall of 2013, we needed to bring more options into the application space,” Quinlan explained. “We thought giving students a choice of applications would be better for colleges and better for applicants.”

One of over 90 colleges that originally joined the Coalition and 47 that actually launched applications for 2016-17, Yale viewed this as an opportunity to design a substantially different set of application specifications from those contained in the Common Application.

Students applying to Yale could choose to write two additional 200-word essays (beyond the personal statement and other short-answer questions) for the Common Application or they could choose to write one 250-word essay and provide an upload related to that essay on the Coalition application.

While many Coalition members chose to simply replicate requirements laid out on the Common Application, Quinlan decided to offer alternate but not totally different requirements on Yale’s Coalition application. He kept the prompts the same for both applications, but used the Coalition application’s functionality to support links to digital media.

“It was critical to our review process that we not give preference to one application type over another. Our results from the first year bear this out; the rate of admission for students who submitted the Common Application and for students who submitted the Coalition Application were nearly identical.”

Nevertheless, the results were exciting. While only about one percent or 300 of Yale’s applicants used the Coalition application, the advantage of providing students with a choice of how to present themselves was clear. In some cases, the online media helped “separate” a student or verified some element of the application that didn’t come through strongly enough in a recommendation or through a student’s writing.

“We found certain situations, for example, where a video component made a difference—showed examples of kinds of characteristics we’re looking for.”

To illustrate his point, Quinlan talks about an application Yale received from Justin Aubin, an Eagle Scout who lives and attends high school in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Justin’s recommendations were excellent, and he was an outstanding student. But Yale has lots of those applicants.

What made Justin stand apart was a video his older brother filmed to document the construction of Justin’s Eagle project. In this distinctly amateurish record of decisions made as the work progressed, the Yale admissions office could easily see how Justin managed and supervised younger scouts and how he exhibited compassionate leadership, which inspired respect from the group as a whole.

The additional essay Justin provided put the video in context. But most importantly, he presented information that highlighted and underscored character traits Yale values and wants to bring to campus in the classes they admit. Other information on the application suggested this was possibly the case, but the video nailed it.

Justin Aubin was eventually admitted and will be attending Yale in the fall as a member of the class of 2021. And Quinlan credits Justin’s creative use of digital media—submitting the video—as making the difference

In all fairness, Yale isn’t the first institution to allow videos and other digital media to be submitted as part of an application for admission. Goucher College in Maryland and George Mason University in Virginia and others have video options available through institutional applications.

And it’s not all that unusual for colleges to offer several different application formats with differing requirements. In fact, smaller colleges make clear that their institutional applications are often more popular than the standardized Common Application.

In addition, last year’s applicants could use ZeeMee, an online resume promoted in questions on the Common Application, or SlideRoom—a Common App partner—to provide more visual support for their talents and interests.

But the difference for colleges using the Coalition application was that they could design their own questions and media integration. They didn’t have to rely on a third-party website that might encourage more “freeform” or off-message responses.

Yale’s new application was no more difficult for staff to review than the two-essay Common App version and could be scripted to allow for comparable responses across applicants using either platform. Linking the digital media to an essay prompt was key to the success of the experiment.

“Staff enjoyed doing something else. It was a way to experiment with new ways of interpreting new kinds of application content.”

Quinlan has a great deal of respect for the Common Application and has no interest in changing that relationship, which has worked very well for Yale. But he does want to offer students a choice of application platforms.

“We want the two applications to be different so students can be thoughtful about which they use and what they decide to present to us.”

While he expects to “tweak” the essay prompts offered in the Yale supplement, Quinlan will continue to provide the digital media option in the Coalition application. “We will maintain the two applications for next year with the same set-up.”

And students will be free to choose the application platform that best presents their credentials and makes their case for admission to Yale University.

For the record, the Coalition application will make available new functionality on June 15. And for the coming year, the roster of institutional members will grow to 135.  After July 1, colleges can open individual applications according to their own timelines.

A conversation with Alex Stepien on the Cappex Application and College Greenlight

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Swarthmore College accepts the Greenlight Scholars application.

Alex Stepien literally worked his way to the top at Cappex—an all-purpose college and scholarship search website that includes College Greenlight among many tools and services provided to college-bound high school students.  After graduating from the University of Michigan, Stepien joined the company in 2008 as its first Account Executive and now oversees the entire operation as CEO responsible for maintaining relationships with 600 colleges and universities across seven countries as well as for launching both the Cappex and Greenlight Scholars applications.

It’s a big job, and Stepien is an extraordinarily open and engaging executive with lots of plans for enlarging the Cappex role in college admissions, not the least of which involves targeting a nationwide audience including low-income and under-resourced students and families served by College Greenlight.

Last fall, Cappex entered the college application market with a product designed to capitalize on relationships with students developed through its basic college-and scholarship-matching services.

“In our surveys and conversations with students, we’ve heard that essay supplements and application fees represent huge barriers for application completion,” explained Stepien. “Our application simplifies the process by doing away with fees, getting rid of repetitive and burdensome supplements and reducing duplication of effort in the process.”

And while the Common Application and the Coalition squared-off in a more visible competition for market share, Cappex quietly worked behind the scenes to develop products they thought would streamline the process of applying to college and appeal to students looking for less complicated and more straightforward tools for conveying credentials to a variety of institutions.

So far, the strategy appears to be working. Colleges already accepting the Cappex Application include the College of Wooster, Whittier College, University of Tampa, Northland College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Cornell College, and Queens University of Charlotte. And among the colleges accepting the Greenlight Scholars Application are Swarthmore College, the University of Dayton, and the University of Rochester. And for the record, both the Cappex Application and College Greenlight will be adding to their rosters of participating colleges and universities for 2017-18.

To help families and college counselors—both school-based and independent—become familiar with the Cappex and Greenlight Scholars applications, Stepien agreed last week to answer a series of questions.

Question: Now that you have basically completed one application cycle, how would you characterize your first year of operations?

Our pilot year was a successful start for the Cappex Application. We saw a strong response from our college and university partners with 70 institutions participating. Students voiced excitement about the ability to apply directly to the schools they were connecting with on Cappex.com.

Question: Would you have done anything differently? What were some of your biggest problems? Biggest successes?

Given that it was our pilot year, we wanted to make sure we got it right and had a strong foundation before we actively promoted the application, only really building awareness to the student community after our soft launch on September 1. We heard from a lot of our students, “I wish I knew about this earlier!” So this year, we’re launching on August 1, and have begun building awareness of the Cappex Application much earlier.

Question: Do you anticipate any major changes in the platform for the coming year?

We’re making significant improvements and technology investments this year, focused on streamlining the student experience and making the path to adoption easier for our college partners. Among the many enhancements, students will be able to import their existing Cappex profile information into the application; benefit from Cappex’s responsive user-interface that works great on smartphones, tablets and desktops; and utilize our Application Manager feature to organize applications in process and stay on top of deadlines.

For our college partners, we’ve focused on getting them the data they need in the easiest fashion possible, to allow for a streamlined import for reading. Improvements in the onboarding experience for colleges are contributing to an increase in adoption. This represents a huge win for students as it increases the number of colleges they can apply to via the Cappex Application.

Question: How are you reaching out to students and counselors to make them aware of the Cappex Application for the 2017-2018 cycle?

We have a robust marketing plan scheduled for the months leading up to and through the Cappex Application launch, highlighted by unique content and training materials, email notifications, webinars, and exhibiting at NACAC. We hope to see you there!

Question: Do you expect to welcome new members for 2017-18?

Absolutely! We’ll be sharing a full list of participating colleges in the near future, but we anticipate the roster will be well over 100 institutions this year.

Question: Why would a student choose to use the Cappex Application over the Common App, the Coalition App, or the Universal College Application? Who is your target audience?

Every year, over 1 million high school seniors create accounts on Cappex to use the platform’s tools through the college discovery and search process. They trust our best-in-class tools to help them research and choose the right college, so it’s only natural to be able to immediately act upon that information within the platform they trust and apply directly to those schools with the Cappex Application.

The simplicity and ease of use of the Cappex Application make it the right solution for every Cappex user, as well as every student across the country who will apply to participating colleges.

Question: Could you explain the relationship between the Cappex Application and College Greenlight?

The Greenlight Scholars Application uses the Cappex Application Platform, but is designed to showcase the strengths and talents of first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students. The Greenlight Scholars Application includes questions that help identify non-cognitive predictors of academic success, such as the student’s drive, commitment and interests.

College Greenlight works with a network of 1,200 CBOs to help them help their students.  College Greenlight students can engage with colleges that are actively trying to recruit low-income, first generation and minority students, in addition to all of the college opportunities that are available on Cappex.com.

Question: How have you structured The Cappex platform to make it user-friendly for counselors? Why would a counselor recommend the Cappex Application to students?

The Cappex Application is easy for students and easy for counselors.  We’ve built our counselor facing tools with ease-of-use in mind, so there’s no need to create, remember or manage unnecessary credentials just to submit letters of recommendation or transcripts. Cappex offers a free counselor portal and resources accessible to any school counselor across the country.  More than 30,000 counselors across the country are already recommending Cappex to their students as the place to research and discover colleges.

This is the first part of a two-part series on the Cappex and Greenlight Scholar applications.

All content © 2017 by Admissions Intel