Taken from Kristina Dell's Daily Beast/Newsweek article on 4/4/11
OMG! More high school students this year are interested in writing and want to choose schools where they can do more of it, says Montesano. “We have more clients than ever who want to build up creative-writing portfolios,” he says, “so they’re looking at colleges like Sarah Lawrence for creative writing and Vassar and Occidental for screenwriting.” Many have spent the summer between their sophomore and junior years at writing workshops to hone their skills.
Apparently, the increased interest in writing has resulted in better college essays, at least for some schools. “I do think the writing skills have improved,” says Miller of Brown. “Or maybe it’s the editing skills,” he jokes.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Applicants From Technology Havens Have the Admissions Edge
Taken from Kristina Dell's Daily Beast/Newsweek article on 4/4/11
Schools like to say geography doesn’t matter, but if you’re from a technology haven like Seattle, Palo Alto, or San Jose, you just might have a subtle advantage. “Good high schools in tech hubs are getting in more kids to top schools than they used to,” says Montesano of College Match, who cites liberal arts feeder schools like Lakeside School in Seattle and Katharine Branson School in Marin County as having that edge. Why the leg up? “It’s nothing more than colleges wanting kids whose families are tech people, especially if they work for blue-chip tech firms," he says. "Google is the future, and they want kids from those families.”
Schools like to say geography doesn’t matter, but if you’re from a technology haven like Seattle, Palo Alto, or San Jose, you just might have a subtle advantage. “Good high schools in tech hubs are getting in more kids to top schools than they used to,” says Montesano of College Match, who cites liberal arts feeder schools like Lakeside School in Seattle and Katharine Branson School in Marin County as having that edge. Why the leg up? “It’s nothing more than colleges wanting kids whose families are tech people, especially if they work for blue-chip tech firms," he says. "Google is the future, and they want kids from those families.”
Ivy League for Graduate School Is the New Goal
Taken from Kristina Dell's Daily Beast/Newsweek article on 4/4/11
Sure, almost any student would love to gain admission to an Ivy right off the bat, but many have become next to impossible to get into. “The super-reach schools are completely out of reach,” says Montesano of College Match. “You’re looking at a 6 percent admission rate for Harvard.”
So more families have started to take a long-term approach to the college admissions process. For many, the endgame isn’t college; it’s graduate school. Some are considering sending their kids to top-notch state schools to save tens of thousands of dollars with the idea that Stanford or Yale will make a great graduate school. Others are searching for programs that allow a student to go to school for six years and gain a B.A. plus a J.D. to save a year of time and tuition. Whitman, Hamilton, Occidental, and Bowdoin have such programs.
Sure, almost any student would love to gain admission to an Ivy right off the bat, but many have become next to impossible to get into. “The super-reach schools are completely out of reach,” says Montesano of College Match. “You’re looking at a 6 percent admission rate for Harvard.”
So more families have started to take a long-term approach to the college admissions process. For many, the endgame isn’t college; it’s graduate school. Some are considering sending their kids to top-notch state schools to save tens of thousands of dollars with the idea that Stanford or Yale will make a great graduate school. Others are searching for programs that allow a student to go to school for six years and gain a B.A. plus a J.D. to save a year of time and tuition. Whitman, Hamilton, Occidental, and Bowdoin have such programs.
Toughest Admission Year on Record!
This year may well go down as the most competitive in the history of admission at America's top colleges as Newsweek/ Daily Beast reporter Kristina Dell observed:
"The toughest college admissions year on record reached its apex this week as nervous seniors obsessively checked their email or a website to discover their fates. (Waiting for the fat or thin envelope? So 2005.) The hotter-than-ever Ivy League schools, which all had a record number of applicants this year, notified the lucky ones at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
It has been an especially stressful process this year. The weak economy and a wider acceptance of the common application—Columbia used it for the first time this year and had a 32 percent jump in applicants over last year—has meant the competition is steeper than ever. Over the past five years, applications to the eight Ivy League schools plus MIT and Stanford skyrocketed from just over 200,000 applications to almost 300,000 early and regular applications, for a total increase of more than 40 percent."
"The toughest college admissions year on record reached its apex this week as nervous seniors obsessively checked their email or a website to discover their fates. (Waiting for the fat or thin envelope? So 2005.) The hotter-than-ever Ivy League schools, which all had a record number of applicants this year, notified the lucky ones at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
It has been an especially stressful process this year. The weak economy and a wider acceptance of the common application—Columbia used it for the first time this year and had a 32 percent jump in applicants over last year—has meant the competition is steeper than ever. Over the past five years, applications to the eight Ivy League schools plus MIT and Stanford skyrocketed from just over 200,000 applications to almost 300,000 early and regular applications, for a total increase of more than 40 percent."
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