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Demonstrating Your Interest to Colleges – Make it Count

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Franklin & Marshall College

As I visit colleges and talk with admission counselors, it has become rather clear that how much interest an applicant shows in a school really can matter.

Like anything in the college application process, applicants cannot afford to rely on doing the minimum and expect to be considered a strong applicant. Especially at the more selective schools where there are just too many applicants already.

What admission counselors are interested in are students who can do the work and who are likely to enroll. This is called yield and it’s something I talked about in a previous post:

Why Demonstrating Your Interest Matters

This is the aspect of the process that so many families fail to see. As much as an applicant may have worked hard to achieve strong grades and test scores, in the world of selective admissions, they have to be more than just grades and test scores if they are hoping to be competitive. At a certain point, a vast majority of the applicants can do the work but there are only so many seats in the incoming class. So as much as an applicant’s grades and test scores may look great on the surface, it’s also about how the college values other aspects of their profile when they are trying to make decisions.

And that’s where showing your interest in a school can help your chances.

But, there’s a catch.

As I mentioned already, if you want to make the most of this process and really position yourself as a strong candidate for a school that you are truly interested in, then you have to do more than the minimum.

What’s the minimum?

Just attending an information session and tour when a college offers an overnight program complete with an interview and the opportunity to sit in on a class and meet with current students.

Not even visiting a college who is within driving distance when they clearly state on their website that priority consideration for admission and scholarships will be given to students who visit.

An applicant who sends an email to an admission counselor to say how much he or she loves the school and then fails to continue the conversation when the admission counselor replies and asks the applicant a few follow-up questions.

If you really do love a college and you really do see yourself there then you really do need to go the extra mile to make sure the college knows this. Really, you do.

So, fill out the card and email the admissions counselor. Visit campus. Do all of those things. But, do more as well. Instead of just sending an email to say how interested you are, engage in a conversation about your major or a particular aspect of the school that excites you. Ask about meeting with or talking to faculty or current students. See if you can arrange to sit in on a class or spend an overnight on campus so you can attend an event or game. Schedule an interview with admissions – and don’t let distance dissuade you. Many schools will do interviews by phone or Skype knowing that finances can prevent a student from getting to campus. If you can’t get to campus, check to see if the school is running any admissions or alumni receptions in your area and connect with the school through social media.

College is one of life’s great journeys but it requires some hard work along the way. Put your best effort into this process and make the most of all opportunities to connect with colleges and admission counselors. You’ll be glad you did more often than not.

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric May 12, 2015 , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Need Blind Versus Need Aware and Why You Should Know the Difference

Muhlenberg College

Muhlenberg College

If you’re like most families, you’re concerned with how much four years of college is going to cost you. My boys are two and six years old, and I worry about it already. And while so much of the college search is focused on working through the differences between colleges to find that “right school”, all too often one major difference is overlooked.

That difference is whether a school is need blind or need aware.

Need blind schools don’t consider an applicant’s financial need when making admissions decisions, but many are not able to meet applicants’ full need with their financial aid packages without adding work study (which rarely helps a family pay for college) and unrealistic loan options. Highly selective colleges like Yale and Harvard belong to a very small group of schools who are completely need blind and who meet full need. Due to massive endowments, they have unlimited financial aid budgets. If a student is admitted to these colleges they will have 100% of their financial need met.

Need aware schools do consider finances in their admissions decisions, but this control can give colleges the ability to meet full need for all accepted applicants. They must manage an annual financial aid budget that has limitations but by paying honoring these limitations, the colleges are trying to make sure that the student can actually attend. While some students would say a need aware policy is unfair and that decisions should not be made due to financial constraints, the reality is that there is only so much money to go around.

Some schools are a combination of both and while neither approach is perfect, you absolutely need to understand how their application review operates. Earlier this month I was visiting colleges in eastern Pennsylvania and several of them indicated that they are need blind until they get to the last 15-20% of their decisions. At that point, an applicant who has a greater ability to pay would get the nod over a student who was going to need significant financial aid in order to attend.

So how can a family best assess its options? Ask the right questions, of course.

When you visit a college or talk to admission counselors at high school visits or college fairs, ask them if they are need blind or need aware. Let them explain how they review applications so that you can fully understand how your ability to pay may affect your college applications.  You may be disappointed by what you hear, especially if you feel your family’s financial situation may affect your chances at a need aware college, but without knowing how a college will treat you, you run the risk of greater disappointment when the financial aid award doesn’t come close to making the school affordable.

In the college search and application process, information is everything.

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric May 04, 2015 , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Why You Should Be Considering Liberal Arts Colleges

College admissions

Dickinson College

Several weeks ago I wrote a piece on the benefits of liberal arts colleges where I talked about a few aspects that help these colleges stand out as great places for undergraduate students. If you missed it, here it is:

The Benefits of Applying to Liberal Arts Colleges

Over the past couple weeks I have visited several colleges in Pennsylvania that fit this model: small populations, no graduate students and a focus on combining the liberal arts with pre-professional studies. In other words, these colleges are trying to teach students how to think about what they are learning from multiple perspectives. They are preparing them for a rapidly changing world where life is more of a zig-zag than it is a straight line.

Today, I want to share some examples of what students at these colleges are doing that I feel demonstrates the value of what these colleges have to offer.

At Muhlenberg College I had the pleasure of hearing from a couple students who were really doing some outstanding things in preparation for their future careers. A finance and economics double major had interned at the United Nations through the advice and mentorship of one of his professors from the international studies department and will be interning at Price Waterhouse Cooper’s this coming summer. Another student who chose Muhlenberg over Brandeis University and Boston College due to the focus on undergraduate students and more accessible faculty had interned at Covidien after his first year when most of the other interns were juniors in college.

At Franklin & Marshall College I met a student who was double majoring in economics and international studies. After her first year, she was able to work on a research project where she was analyzing economic development in emerging regions in other countries. She’s planning on studying abroad next year to get more involved in this research.

At Dickinson College art history majors are required to curate their own shows. It’s a standard they are held to so that they can demonstrate everything they’ve learned. As a result, Sotheby’s recruits on campus.

At Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, students are being encouraged to begin research in their first year with nearly 30 students in the biology department having been published in the last decade. One student I met, a rising senior pre-med major, had already completed three separate research projects related to her interests in cognitive development and was going to be spending her summer on campus in a research lab for a fourth time.

While these are just a few examples of what students are doing, I feel they represent some of the tremendous benefits at liberal arts colleges. There’s been a long-standing criticism of liberal arts colleges saying they are too focused on languages, the “soft sciences” and the arts – areas which are perceived as less desirable for employment than the traditional areas of business, engineering, nursing and accounting. Personally, I think the criticism is uninformed nonsense. The students I met at these colleges were working hard, they were having life-changing experiences, they were learning how to attack problems from multiple perspectives to produce outcomes that positively affect different people and, most importantly, they were growing and developing as learners and as people.

I’m not sure what’s not to like about that.

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric Apr 28, 2015 , , , , , , , No Comments
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Why College Applicants Should Brand Themselves

Why Students Should Brand ThemselvesAccording to the American Marketing Association (AMA), branding is defined as a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

In other words, your brand is what makes you stand out against the competition.

And while I don’t necessarily like to use the word competition when we talk about the college admissions process, students are very much competing against one another for acceptance at the most selective schools in the country. Branding yourself in the process can very often play a significant role in whether or not your application is given that extra consideration.

When I was in admissions, I was always looking for evidence that a student truly had a grasp of what it would take to do well in their chosen field. I worked very closely with business majors and nursing majors and beyond challenging courses and strong test scores, students who had compiled some experiences through job shadows, informational interviews, research projects, part-time jobs or internships, clubs, activities and advanced coursework  which supported their interest most definitely had my attention. To me, they were vested in their future. They were taking the steps to learn more about their interests and their field of choice.

I’m a firm believer that if you do more of what you love, if you invest your time in the things that matter the most to you, if you delve deep into the subjects you are both interested in and good at, you will find success in life. Along the way you will also demonstrate to others what you are all about and what matters most to you. You will be demonstrating your brand as a person.

So, here’s how you get started.

Stop doing the things you think other people expect you to do and start doing things you are good at, the things you love to do and the things that are most important to you:

  1. Take the honors or AP option in the subjects at which you excel the most and where the subject is closely aligned to your major of interest.
  1. Reach out to someone in the local community who does what you think you might want to do in your future and ask to interview them or, even better, shadow them for part of a day.
  1. Volunteer your time to a cause or organization related to your interests.
  1. Join a club at your school and figure out a way to add something of value to it and the people involved.
  1. Find a part-time job that gets you in the door somewhere where you will learn more about your major or your intended field.

It’s never too late to start building a brand towards your future. Not only will you better yourself for it, but admission counselors will get a much deeper impression of who you are and why you should be part of their new class. Do that and you may just separate yourself a bit in the application process.

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric Feb 25, 2015 , , , , , , , , No Comments
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The Benefits Of Applying To Liberal Arts Colleges

Ursinus College

Ursinus College

Whenever I start working with a new student, I have them complete an assessment for me. I designed the assessment based on a decade plus of working with students as both an admission counselor and an academic adviser and one section focuses on college attributes: size, location, cost, campus atmosphere, etc. As we break down their answers, the conversation inevitably arrives at the differences between research universities and liberal arts colleges. As I advise my students, here are some of the benefits of liberal arts colleges that any applicant should consider.

Smaller Classrooms

Since most liberal arts colleges enroll less than 3,000 students, the resulting class sizes are smaller than what you find at larger, public universities. Instead of passively sitting in a lecture hall with 300 students, you will find yourself in a class with 15-20 students. The classes are more active and revolve around discussion and debate. Professors will know your name and will be more vested in your learning and growth.

Focus On Teaching

Most liberal arts colleges have little to no graduate school population. The key here is that opportunities for research and special projects are therefore readily available for undergraduates. It also means that courses are taught by the professors, not graduate teaching assistants and that you have more access to them to talk about what you are learning and what you want out of your college experience.

Cost

A long standing myth is that liberal arts colleges, due to their published cost, are more expensive to attend than public universities. However, liberal arts colleges can cost the same as public colleges due to their ability to award significant merit-based or need-based scholarships. Couple this with the fact that liberal arts colleges do a much better job graduating their students in four years than public universities do, and you could realize significant cost savings.

Critical Thinking

As much as you may want to attend a public university for a specific pre-professional major (though many liberal arts colleges like Ursinus College do offer pre-professional majors), liberal arts colleges are focused on teaching students to think critically, to analyze problems and to develop solutions to those problems. Show me an employer who doesn’t value that in a candidate.

Networking & Relationships

Because the environment is smaller, the relationships which are formed with other students, professors and staff are often stronger, more intensive and long-lasting. Whether it’s being mentored by a professor or forging relationships with classmates that may provide long-term professional opportunities, liberal arts colleges help you develop what you know as much as they help you grow through who you know.

While a liberal arts college may not be for everyone, there are some key benefits to be had. At the end of the day, you have to spend the time to understand what it is you want out of your college experience so that you can make the best decisions for yourself.

If you would like some assistance with your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

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Eric Feb 09, 2015 , , , , , , , , No Comments