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College Admissions 101 Why getting into college is easier than you might think. Presenter: Jermaine Taylor Founder, Sponsoring Young People

+College Admission: From Application to Acceptance, Step by Step by Robin Mamlet and Christina Vandevelde

Robin Mamlet is the former d e a n o f a d m i s s i o n a t Stanford, Swarthmore and Sarah Lawrence, where she made more than 100,000 admissions decisions. Christine VanDeVelde is a parent and journalist for such national papers as USA Today and the San Francisco Chronicle. www.collegeadmissionbook.com

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The Big Picture

“More than three-quarters of students are accepted by their first choice college.”

-  Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA www.heri.ucla.edu

“What that means is that college-bound teens have an excellent chance of getting into a school that is right for them if they prepare properly.” “College-bound students should not be intimidated.”

-  Robin Mamlet & Christine Vandevelde

+ So what are your chances? From the Chronicle of Higher Education Courtesy of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA

chronicle.com/article/This-Years-Freshmen-at-4-Year/63672/

The statistics are based on survey responses of 219,864 first-year, first-time students a t t e n d i n g 2 9 7 f o u r - ye a r colleges and universities full time in the fall of 2009.

Acceptance:

ü  79.2% of students got into their first choice school

Enrollment:

ü  95.3% enrolled at one of their top three schools

ü  4.7% enrolled at a school outside of their top three

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Need more reason to be confident?

n  There are more than 2,600 four-year college and universities in the United States alone.

n  More than 80% of institutions accept more than half of the students who apply.**

n  The average acceptance rate at all colleges nationally is 67%**

n  Nearly eight of ten graduates would attend the same college if they could go back and do it all over again, according to the American Council on Education.

**2010 State College Admission NACAC, Page. 6

+So where is it difficult getting in?

+Beware of “snake oil salesmen”

“There are snake oil salesman in every field, and they are preying on vulnerable and anxious people.”

- Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania

http://nyti.ms/1bDGjEp

+Can I get a little advice here? How an Overstretched High School Guidance System Is Undermining Students’ College Aspirations

• 6 in 10 college-goers give their high school guidance counselors failing marks • 48 % said they felt like “just a face in the crowd.” • “Students who get perfunctory counseling are more likely to delay college and make more q u e s t i o n a bl e h i g h e r education choices.”

www.publicagenda.org/files/can-i-get-a-little-advice-here.pdf

+Quit listening to your guidance counselor!

n  “In focus groups conducted as part of the project, young people often characterized their meetings with counselors as dispiriting and unhelpful, especially if the student happened to be one who didn’t stand out as “college material.” – Can I Get a Little Advice Here? (Public Agenda)

n  “It’s a national scandal. Shame on the schools of education in this country. There are hundreds of schools that produce these graduates who are essentially irrelevant to families seeking advice.” – Lynn O’Shaughnessy, a nationally recognized college planning expert and author of The College Solution

www.publicagenda.org www.thecollegesolution.com

+Guidance counselors are untrained The vast majority of schools of education across the U.S. require NO college counseling or advisement requirement to graduate with a Master of Science in School Counseling. Some schools, like Syracuse, offer courses such as “School Counseling for College Access and Retention,” but such courses are only given as electives and are rarely, if ever, a staple of the core curriculum. Currently, about 25% of American high schools have a staff member dedicated to college admissions full-time.** At most high schools, “college counseling” is seen as an “added duty.”

**Jess Brondo, Admitted.ly: http://tcrn.ch/18rpXx3

+Part-time gig? On the contrary. While college counseling is generally seen as an “added duty” at most schools, some of the most selective (and expensive) schools across the country take it VERY seriously. “Most schools just don’t compete,” says Gwyeth Smith, a nationally recognized college advisor with over 30 years of guidance experience and the subject of Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right Colleges—and Find Themselves

Ø  Poly Prep Country Day: 4 full-time staff

Ø  Illinois Math & Science: 4 full-time staff

Ø  Stuyvesant High School: 3 full-time staff

Ø  Average U.S. high school: 0

www.gwyethsmith.com

+ A college admissions hero

She planned for six top students to secretly visit Holy Cross College, the competitive, mostly white college in Worcester, Mass., where she had developed some contacts.

When All Hallows' new principal, Sean Sullivan, found out about the trip, he objected, saying there was no way they would be accepted to such a selective college. They went anyway. A few months later, acceptance letters came back: six for six.

“After that, I told Kathy, ‘Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing,’” said Sullivan.

http://bit.ly/1dFmSuj

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Quotes “The results are now in,” David Leonhardt, Washington Bureau Chief for the New Yo rk T i m e s , w r i t e s i n a M a rc h 2 9 , 2 0 1 3 , T i m e s a r t i c l e e n t i t l e d “A Simple Way to Send Poor Kids to Top Colleges.” “And they suggest that basic information can substantially increase the number of low-income students who apply to, attend and graduate from top colleges.” Says Sam Fullwood III, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress: “As much as we don’t like to believe it, America’s stark class stratification begins at the schoolhouse door. It must not be allowed to matriculate further into the nation’s colleges and universities.” “College matters a lot for social mobility,” argues Richard V. Reeves, policy director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution. “Getting more poor kids into colleges, and getting the brightest into the best colleges, ought to be a national mission.”

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We can do better. We have to.

Sponsoring Young People

www.sponsoringyoungpeople.org

Let’s create a college-going culture for every young person! #college