The College Dating Game
As the school year begins, the ancient drums of the college dating game call the high school juniors and seniors to action.
The dating game? Isn’t that some lame 70’s game show? 
Well, yes. But it’s not a bad analogy for today’s college applicant, so says a recent study by Harvard University and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. According to their study of college admissions selectivity, elite schools are getting more and more selective every year. Students applying now are on average 10% less likely to be admitted than students in 1972.
So what affect does that have on the college admissions game? More and more students are looking for ways to become “more attractive” to competitive colleges. Like the peacock pluming its feathers, high school students are taking more and more AP courses, volunteering more, and finding more internships to attract the eye of the hottie colleges.
Although this works temporarily, over time, it only raises the standard of admissions that higher. Once upon a time, only the most ambitious students would take AP courses, and maybe one or two at the most. Now schools are offering as many as five AP’s a semester, and students are taking them. The result? Anything less than at least two AP’s makes you look like a slacker.
What’s our high school student-next door type supposed to do? Sure, you have good grades, competitive scores, and a rigorous class schedule. But so does everybody else. Are the latest trends of private admissions counsellors, expensive SAT tutors, and even ghost essay writers the plastic surgery of the college admissions market? Perhaps, but not all augmentation is bad. The competitiveness of the college admissions field pushes students to take classes they never would have, volunteer, and in general, think outside the box in order to make themselves more attractive.
And remember, the college-dating game is a two-way street. It’s not just you who need to woo a college. Focus on finding your own best match, that college or university with that special something that sparks your eye. If you go after the schools that are the best fit for you, it’s way more likely that they’ll feel the same way. Try comparing schools to see which ones really fits your college style. For in college admissions, as in dating, it’s all about compatibility.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 11:58 am and is filed under Admissions Process, Applications, College admissions essays, In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
