About Us
Welcome to CampusCompare, the starting point for finding your best-fit college. Discover more than 7000 2-year and 4-year colleges and dive into the real-time College Current from colleges across the country.
6 Ways to Search
Location
State
Major
Major
Career
Career
Ivy League
Ivy League
Sports
Sports
A to Z
A to Z
Find Your Perfect Fit
What Are My Chances?

Compare Schools

Financial Aid Calculator

Posts Tagged ‘early action’

The Common App and UCA Revised

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

General college applications like the Common App and the Universal College App are increasing in popularity as a one-size-fits-all college admissions application.

But sometimes one size doesn’t quite fit everybody. For instance, you may not be interested in the same college major across all the schools that you are applying to. Or you may not require the same kind of financial aid at each institution. Or, you may not want to apply for Early Action or Early Decision at every school.

The standardized applications are trying to include these differences without reverting back to the institutions’ individual applications.

Beginning July 1, 2008, when the next admissions cycle starts, the online Common Application will include a handful of questions that may be answered differently for different colleges within the Common Application itself. These questions include academic interest, career interest, decision plan (Early Decision, Early Acceptance, rolling, etc.), entry term (Fall or Spring), and financial aid intent.

The online Common App will also let you hide certain answers for certain schools. For example, if standardized test scores are optional at a particular school, the college may decide to suppress all standardized test scores. The Common App will then prevent that college from seeing your scores. These changes will cut down the number of alternative versions that you need to write - which means less work for you!

The Universal College Application also allows users to tailor your application, but to a lesser extent.

If you realize that you made a mistake (be it grammatical or if you provided wrong information), the Universal College App allows you to make a copy of your submission, make the desired changes, and then submit the desired application to other designated member colleges or universities.

All this to say, standardized application doesn’t mean that you are standard in any way. These tools will only help you stand out from the crowd!

POSTED BY Reisa Resource IN Applications
04.29.08
RSS 2.0 | PERMALINK | TRACKBACK
1 COMMENT

When Grades Aren’t Enough

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Sometimes grades aren’t everything when it comes to getting into college. Let’s say you and another student– let’s call him Bobby for argument sake–are both applying to Colgate University in Business Administration. And let’s say you both scored 2200 on your SATs. You are both ranked 3rd in your high school class. You both play for the high school football team with desire to play college football and do volunteer work at the hospital three days a week after school.

How does Colgate decide who to admit to its program? Well chances are you and Bobby would probably be sitting at the desks next to each other in college next fall, considering you both have such stellar marks. But you get what I mean. How do colleges break a tie when college acceptance rates are tight?

Well, many colleges and universities track your interest in attending and will use it as a factor in the admissions decision. They measure how many times you communicated with the admissions office, if you have contacted faculty members. Even if you have taken campus tours. Some even say that applying for Early Action and Early Decision can tip the odds in your favor because it shows that you are committed to the school.

Also, private colleges are more likely than public colleges to give weight to extra-curricular activities or the personal essay.

It seems like you need more than grades to make the grade.

But don’t worry, Bobby has nothing on you!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

POSTED BY Reisa Resource IN Admissions Process
04.24.08
RSS 2.0 | PERMALINK | TRACKBACK
NO COMMENTS

Is it too Late for Early Action and Early Decision?

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Early Decision and Early Action are getting a makeover.

Harvard and Princeton have dropped the Early Decision process last fall. That means, that you can no longer secure your spot in your first-choice college if you are admitted, before hearing from other universities. Harvard has also done away with its Early Action plan, in which you apply early to your college of preference and receive a decision well before other students. Now there is only a single admissions deadline- January 1st.

According to an article in the Harvard Gazette: “Then-interim President Derek C. Bok stated that the change was designed to make the admissions process simpler and fairer. In his words, ‘early admissions programs tend to advantage the advantaged,’ as students from more sophisticated backgrounds often use the system to increase their chances of admission, while first-generation college students and those from high schools with fewer guidance counselors and other resources may miss out.”

In other words, these universities have revamped the EA and ED plans because they say that these programs create an unfair disadvantage for low-income students by forcing them to make decisions about colleges before hearing about all of their financial aid offers. These moves are part of a larger plan to make private Ivy league schools more affordable and bring in a more diverse applications and a broader student population. Many ivies are replacing loans with grants and waving their tuition fees for middle and low income students.

At the same time that these changes are happening, the numbers indicate that students are using EA and ED programs more and more. Many students believe that applying and finding out early takes the stress off the college admissions process by securing them a spot early.

So what do you think?
Do you think that EA and ED provide an unfair advantage to students from high-income families?
Or
Do you think that EA and ED are helpful programs in the admissions process?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

POSTED BY Reisa Resource IN Admissions Process, In the News
04.23.08
RSS 2.0 | PERMALINK | TRACKBACK
2 COMMENTS
« Older Entries