Expert's Forum

Getting In: A College Admissions Primer

Volume 4 / Issue 1 / Fall 2003

The Duke Gifted Letter interviewed college admissions officers at several leading universities for insights into what students and parents should know about the college admissions process. They share their advice with us here.

DGL: What major assumption do high-achieving students often have about getting admitted to your institution?

Admissions officers agree that students’ biggest misconception is that high test scores are all they need to get in.

UC-Berkeley: They do not realize the importance of their pattern of courses and grades earned over time, the strength of their overall curriculum, and the rigor of their senior year.

Students do not realize the high volume of applicants who have test scores and grades similar to theirs.
—Pam Burnett

Sewanee: Test scores come in third to strength of curriculum and performance in that curriculum. Most [experts] know that rigor and classroom performance are better predictors of success in college, and that is what we are trying to do—predict who is going to be successful in college.

DGL: Should my child take the basic coursework and get straight As or take AP and advanced courses and risk getting a lower grade?

The consensus is that students should do both. However, admissions officers would rather see a student take the hardest classes available and get lower grades than take nonchallenging classes and get easy As.

UT-Austin: In a selective-admission environment, the reality is that enough students will have done both to fill [an incoming freshman] class before reaching those who did poorly in advanced courses or well in basic courses.

Oberlin: Students seeking academic challenges will risk getting a lower grade in order to take a more challenging class to feed their love of learning.

Davidson: The purpose of choosing challenging courses in high school is not to help you get into college but to help you once you arrive on campus. The more challenge students encounter in their high school curriculum, the more prepared they are to deal with the rigors of higher education.

Northwestern: One of our first expectations is that students are in the AP courses; we note negatively when a student seems to be dodging most of the tougher courses, even with As.

DGL: How should students approach writing the application essay? What things grab your attention or increase your
interest in an applicant?

Admissions officers stress that students should not rehash information on the application but should tell them something new and let their personalities show. Most important, the essay should be well organized and free of grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Oberlin: Students should do the best they can without trying to guess at what will impress the admissions office. After all, every reader in an admissions office is different, and several people may read a given application. Be yourself, but keep in mind that most readers disdain poorly proofread, unfocused essays that don’t comply with the rules of standard written English. There is no magic essay that will get a C student into a selective college. Yet an A student who submits a disorganized essay full of grammatical mistakes may join the ranks of those who are not admitted.

Duke: What grabs our attention is a well-written, insightful, personal essay. Gimmicks are not necessary and generally don’t work. The essay should be approached as an opportunity to write well about a subject of interest and thus reveal something about the writer.

Davidson: The best advice for students is that the essay is the only part of the application where others are not speaking for you and where you have a chance to speak directly to a staff member about your hopes, fears, opinions, and experiences. A successful essay will incorporate personal anecdotes and thoughts in captivating prose. The chances are that you will not pick a topic that is entirely unique, but you can highlight what distinguishes your experience from that of other applicants and why that makes you a solid candidate for admission.

UC-Berkeley: When you answer the essay prompts, avoid generalizing or summarizing what has already been provided in your application. Help us understand your assertions by elaborating with specific examples.

DGL: How do admissions officers deal with the dilemma of a parent’s editing or helping write their child’s essay? How much help is considered too much help?

Everyone agrees that parents should only help proofread. Any help with writing and editing would not only be unethical but take away from the student’s self-expression.

UC-Berkeley: It’s fine for parents to provide feedback and suggestions, but students should write their own essays. When reading the essay, readers are looking for the authentic voice of the applicant. A parent’s help can reduce the impact of the message.

Duke: Too much help is when the student’s voice is lost. Essays can become overpolished. At that point they sound like the writing of an adult rather than of a 17- or 18-year-old, and they become weaker rather than stronger. We don’t expect students to avoid help, just to place that help in the proper context.

Selective colleges prefer applicants who are able to do a number of things well, or a small number of things exceptionally well.
—Christoph Guttentag

DGL: Do you recommend that applicants put their energies into only one or two extracurricular activities, or do colleges prefer applicants who are involved in a large number of activities?

Although students naturally want to try out lots of different activities, admissions officers caution against excessive involvement without depth. They want to see a student’s ability to commit and succeed.

Sewanee: Serial participators rarely leave a mark at their high schools or colleges. We would rather see meaningful involvement [in a few activities] than superficial involvement in multiple activities.

Davidson: As they search for an area of interest, students will often come down with the “sampling syndrome” and jump from one activity to another. While this exploration is understandable, we look for leadership potential and extracurricular experience that will help enhance the student body. The most successful applicants follow their interests with dedication and make real contributions to each organization or endeavor they pursue.

DGL: What role does community service play in an applicant’s admission file? How do you know that the service is genuine, not something done just to make an applicant look good?

Not all colleges require community service, but they all look for commitment and impact in any extracurricular activity.

Davidson: Demonstrated service leadership in a community or a school tends to stand out, especially when students consistently support causes or groups for which they have a deep passion. I would certainly caution against using service as résumé “padding”; [what counts is] not always the amount of time spent on a project but the action taken and outcome of the effort.

Oberlin: We look for students who fill their time with passionate pursuits. These might include community service, working after school to help support the family, practicing a musical instrument several hours a day, or simply commuting a long distance to attend a more academically satisfying school.

DGL: How do you ensure that students from small, rural, or economically disadvantaged high schools with few AP courses or opportunities for honors-level work are evaluated fairly alongside students arriving from large, more comprehensive high schools?

Admissions officers emphasize that they carefully review each application in the context of the academic opportunity available to the student and do not penalize students for the schooling that is available to them.

Duke: We pay very careful attention to the profile provided by the high school and evaluate each student’s academic accomplishments in the context of what is available at his or her school.

Northwestern: We ask ourselves what the student did with what was available to him or her; using this contextual reading, we are able to admit a good number of students from rural or underserved urban schools.

Oberlin: We consider evidence that the student has sought additional academic challenges outside his or her home school’s traditional curriculum, perhaps at a community college or through a summer experience, documented self-study, or a private study under the supervision of a trusted teacher from the school. We look for students who love learning and are successful at pursuing their love. This success can be expressed in a myriad of ways beyond simply having “AP” on their transcript.

UT-Austin: We add no extra weight in our process for the high school that a student attends. Most students don’t have a choice about where they will attend school, and we don’t believe that it is fair to punish the student for the level of schooling his or her community is able to afford.

DGL: If a student is wait-listed for your school, what does this really mean? How likely is it that the student will eventually gain admission? Can the student increase his or her chances for admission once on the wait list? If so, how?

Those colleges that offer wait lists make it clear that most students on the wait list do not gain admission. However, they do have some advice for those students.

Sewanee: First, finish your high school year strongly. An upward trend in grades always impresses admissions folks. Second, if you really want to be selected off a waiting list, then make sure you express that to the college or university. Let them know that they are your first choice and that you would come if selected.

Northwestern: We keep a relatively small wait list, so a wait list offer does connote genuine interest in and respect for the student’s record. Students should let us know of their continuing interest; the reply card is nice, but so is a note with any senior year updates that makes clear the student’s continuing interest.

Always be yourself and not someone you think the admissions committee wants you to be. Be original, but be yourself.
—David Lesesne

DGL: If your institution accepts letters of recommendation and/or teacher evaluations, what do you look for in support of an applicant?

As with the student essay, colleges want to hear new information that is not included on the application. In particular, they want to hear personal stories about the applicant that back up the information on the application.

Northwestern: Detailed information, beyond the grades or list of activities, that encourage us to think that the student will be an active contributor to the classroom and campus.

Duke: Anecdotes that support the qualities referred to in the recommendation. Generalities without support do not help distinguish an applicant.

Sewanee: The best recommendations come from individuals who really know the student. It is incumbent on the student to ensure that the individuals writing the recommendations know them well.

The undergraduate admissions office personnel who partcipated in this forum were Pam Burnett, University of California, Berkeley; Debra Chermonte, Oberlin College; Christoph Guttentag, Duke University; David Lesesne, University of the South (Sewanee); Page B. Neubert, Davidson College; Keith Todd, Northwestern University; and Bruce Walker, University of Texas at Austin.