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Vol. 20 No. 3
November 2005
News from NACAC 2005
The New Problems
with "Deadline Creep"
THIS FALL'S National Association
for College Admission Counseling annual meeting in Tampa, Florida,
had a full plate of pressing issues to confront. At the top of
the agenda were problems plauguing Southern colleges and students
in the wake of the devastating hurricanes.
Members also voted to adopt a revised code of ethics, known
as the Statement of Principles of Good Practice. This month,
CB takes a peek inside one of NACAC's more provocative breakout
sessions examining an emerging predicament facing students and
counselors.
CURRENT TRENDS IN ADMISSIONS
High school students "deserve a chance to be
educated as people who are developing. They should not be forced
to focus just on getting into college." That was the conclusion
of NACAC's Current Trends and Future Issues Committee which sponsored
a session, "Current Trends in College Admissions,"
moderated by Terese Buscher, college counselor at Hutchison School
in Memphis, Tennessee.
The session took up the increasing problem of "Deadline
Creep."
The NACAC committee has been discussing the issue of adolescent
development and Ms. Buscher noted that, "College admission
and financial aid deadlines seem to be creeping earlier and earlier
in students lives. Students sometimes begin testing earlier than
we want them to. They think they need to take SATs in the fall
of their junior year, which we know is not a good idea."
She also observed that more and more state universities "seem
to think students should start the admissions process in the
summer between their junior and senior years. Is this a good
idea? We don't think so. It could be something detrimental to
their development." She added, "Selective institutions
also seem to be encouraging students to begin the process earlier
so they can get a jump on getting top students. We are very concerned
about this trend of 'Deadline Creep.'"
INCREASED STUDENT PRESSURE
Participants in this session were in broad agreement
on this issue. Students are under too much pressure and the deadlines
are being subtly moved forward on them, counselors argued. Some
participants in the session complained that students are being
told by colleges that applications for some financial aid should
be done by July 15th, even though that is not the stated deadline.
Yet during the summer, most high schools cannot properly respond
to requests for transcripts and recommendations.
"There seems to be an incentive to do it earlier, earlier
than is actually feasible in many cases," one counselor
said. "And that makes it difficult for counselors to help
with the process."
Another counselor noted that high schools are starting school
in late August only to find that some students already have been
accepted to college. Some schools that start after Labor Day
are hearing from students who'd wanted their transcripts sent
in August.
"The amount of pressure some students feel from colleges
that are saying get your material in to us by August is amazingly
unfair," she said.
"I don't know if colleges are aware of the amount of
pressure they are putting on parents and schools to do things
that are almost impossible," pointed out another participant.
"There needs to be more of a dialog between high school
counselors and colleges on this topic to help alleviate this
pressure."
SPRING TOO EARLY
Yet another counselor argued that, "When you
start to bring the college deadlines not just into the summer,
but back into May, April, March of the junior year, we have a
problem. We've already talked about the death of senior year
in terms of early decision and so on. 'Deadline Creep' makes
things even more difficult for students to be students and teachers
to be teachers. Once one school does it, every other school is
forced to do it."
Another counselor charged that, "Too many colleges are
saying, 'Here is our stated deadline, but here is our priority
deadline and if you don't apply by the priority deadline, you
can forget it.' Who is that fair to? That is not something that
is printed. It is a kind of secret deadline. It wreaks havoc
not just with what counselors do, but with the kids themselves.
That's the real problem."
COLLEGES FEELING PRESSURE
TOO
"And, of course, this relates to the marketing
issue," a counselor said. "Colleges think, 'How can
we be first in line? How can we be top of mind? There is more
than just altruism involved on the college side. So we find a
trampling of the high school schedule because colleges feel they
have to do this to market themselves."
This marketing is driven, in part, the counselor noted, by
complex economic reasons that include the fact that bond ratings
for building new buildings and other expenses are linked to a
college's test scores and acceptance rates.
However, one college admissions director noted that he has
parents and students who want to find a competitive edge.
This year, New College in Florida, for example, received 25
requests from juniors in high school wanting to make applications.
The colleges responded that it wouldn't accept them on those
terms.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
One counselor received applause from the large crowd
when he said, "As we look at what is in the best interest
of students so that they can attain the educational, personal
and career goals they have, it would be best if we could all
just slow down a little bit. Allow kids to be kids. Allow teenagers
to do the exploration they have to do in the classroom. Then
worry about where they will go to college so they have the opportunity
to make the right fit for them, rather than feeling that they
are in an enormous rat race to get to the goal that they won't
get to if they aren't an early decision candidate or something.
Those students lose out in the long run because they are being
forced by the commercialization and the marketing of higher education.
"Parents are saying 'what can I do to get my kid into
this or that selective school' without allowing them to go through
the educational process that prepares them for such an education.
This cycle is feeding on itself and counselors have to try to
break it."
Another counselor added that this will take courage on the
part of counselors, parents and students to do what is right.
Still one counselor insisted that college counselors must
draw a line. "When parents start asking counselors for applications
in March and April, they should say 'No. This is not appropriate.'
Say that, 'Fall of Senior year is appropriate.'"
Yet another said, "We need a starting deadline of some
sort, like the May 1 reply deadline at the endpoint. Possibly,
we should set September 1 as a universal application date before
which no one can apply to college."
Terese Buscher, who chaired the session, concluded by saying
that NACAC's Admissions Standards Committee is beginning to address
this issue.
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New Admissions
Categories
NACAC's newly-revised Principles of Good Practice includes
clarification of admissions terminology used by colleges. The
revisions are effective for the 2007-08 enrollment cycle. Counselors,
admissions officers, students and parents thus need to be aware
of these terms and definitions to make sure they are all on the
same page. Included in the 15-page document:
Nonrestrictive Application Plans
(All of these admission options still allow students to wait
until May 1 to make their final decisions.)
- Regular Decision: A student submits an application
to an institution by a specified date and receives a decision
within a reasonable and clearly stated period of time. A student
may apply to other institutions without restriction.
- Rolling Admissions: An institution reviews applications
as they are completed and renders admission decisions to students
throughout the admission cycle. A student may apply to other
institutions without restriction.
- Early Action: Students apply to an institution and
receive a decision well in advance of the institution's regular
response date. Students who are admitted under Early Action are
not obligated to accept the institution's offer of admission
or to submit a deposit prior to May 1. Under Nonrestrictive Early
Action, a student may apply to other colleges.
Restrictive Application Plans
(These plans allow institutions to limit students from applying
to other early plans.)
- Early Decision: Students make a commitment to a first-choice
institution where, if admitted, they definitely will enroll.
While pursuing admission under an Early Decision plan, a student
may apply to other institutions, but may have only one Early
Decision application pending at any time. Should a student who
applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes
attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission
and be released from the Early Decision commitment. Usually,
a nonrefundable deposit must be made well in advance of May 1.
The institution will respond to an application for financial
aid at or near the time of an offer of admission.
- Restrictive Early Action: Students apply to an institution
and receive a decision well in advance of the institution's regular
response date. Institutions with Restrictive Early Action plans
place restrictions on student applications to other early plans.
Institutions will clearly articulate these restrictions in their
Early Action policies and agreements with students. Students
who are admitted under Restrictive Early Action are not obligated
to accept the institution's offer of admission or to submit a
deposit prior to May 1.
For more info, see www.nacacnet.org.
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THE COUNSELOR'S CORNER
THE GREENE REPORT
Seeing the Forest through the Trees
 THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR when applications
bog down; when calls come in from frantic parents and frustrated
students about font size, paper versus electronic, where (and
whether) to list AP scores, and what exactly is prohibited under
Restrictive Early Action programs. It is when the minutiae of
the admissions process threaten to overwhelm earnest students'
attempts to complete appointed tasks, when the Machiavellian
devils in the details do their best to destroy family bonds eternally.
What is a college counselor to do? Well, first of all, we
must acknowledge that often students and parents have legitimate
complaints about the hoops they must jump through. The college
admissions process is illogical. It is difficult. It is not normal.
Here are some of the most common complaints currently making
the rounds:
1. "Early"
is not Early by any Name. The variety of regular/rolling/early
plans causes ongoing confusion. There are reasonable explanations
of the various plans used by institutions, but little in common
among them. One has difficulty generalizing about what students
can and cannot do. In each and every case, students must read
the fine print of an individual college's application and then
run vectors between schools to discover what one allows or another
does not permit. And there always seem to be exceptions to the
rules.
A student may apply to Harvard under its Restrictive Early
Action plan, for example, but not to another college under an
Early Decision plan, or under an Early Action plan, unless it's
a public college (how many parents and students really know how
to differentiate between public and private?) using Rolling Admission,
or, it turns out, Early Action.
Yet Yale, with its Restrictive Early Action plan, does not
allow students to apply Early Action to a public university,
but does allow Rolling Admission applications to the same.
Georgetown University allows Early Action applications to
other colleges in addition to Georgetown Early Action, but not
an Early Decision application. As most counselors know, these
kinds of inconsistencies multiply regularly. Yes, families, and
counselors, should always read the fine print of their applications
for lots of reasons.
But should the system be so difficult to figure out? Such
options can't help but lead families into the morass of "strategizing"
in which they lose sight of what's really important: finding
the right college fit.
2. The Common Application
isn't so Common. We like the CA, and want to note in singling
it out, that this problem is inherent in many of the variety
of standardized application forms. The CA has gone a long way
toward making it easier for students to fill out multiple applications
without too much additional work in each case. Yet the number
and variety of supplements lead to confusion and unnecessary
extra work.
Is it possible to revise the CA to include one or even two
extra essays, and an expanded data and demographic section that
would cover more institutions? Could the common "why are
you applying to our college" question be included, so that
students could tailor this to each individual college on-line
when preparing the CA for that school? This would be easier than
jumping to various college supplements all asking for more or
less the same thing, and might lead more institutions (and students)
to join the CA community.
3. Paper, Rock, Scissors.
Paper and electronic applications vary not only from one college
to another, but for each college. Students have different options
in some cases when filling out a college's application on-line
versus hard copy. Some colleges allow students to send part of
an application on-line and the rest by mail, while others do
not. Some colleges have hard and fast length limits to the on-line
application (only so much text will fit in the box), but seem
to allow more space for longer essays on paper. Varying on-line
and paper instructions complicate the situation. This is a newly
developing area, but families are extremely confused by it.
4. Extra Extras.
Families are also concerned about sending in a résumé
to supplement the activities list, figuring out when and how
to file financial aid forms, taking and sending standardized
tests, following application and recommendation letter procedures
that often differ from college guidelines, and visiting and interviewing
on campuses.
Yet, there might be solutions to some of these issues that colleges,
high schools, NACAC, the Common Application, the College Board
or others can help find. For counselors, we find an important
strategy is helping students and parents to remember the forest
while they hew the trees. Lost among the details, students need
to be reminded that they are seeking to gain admission to colleges
that will work well for them. They must present themselves well
through good essay writing, interviewing and clear communications
and they need to personally talk with their teachers and guidance
counselors about their interests and goals. In fact, it is they
who must take control of the process. Good organization and follow-through
and reading the fine print will help them navigate the application
process. There is, in the end, a point to all this extra work.
The counselor, school-based or independent, is often the only
person able to offer such an objective view of the situation
and to help students get through the stress of the process in
order to reach their goal.
Matthew W. Greene, Ph.D. can
be reached at, Howard Greene and Associates, The Educational
Consulting Centers, Inc., 60 Post Road West Westport, CT 06880
matthew@howardgreeneassociates.com;or www.pbs.org/tenstepstocollege.
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List
Keepers
With fall comes a bevy of college rankings. Here are few
that came across CB's desk.
Top 10 Activist Campuses. Mother Jones, September/October,
issued its annual roundup of activist campuses: University of
Tehran ("where speaking out can lead to imprisonment");
followed by California Community Colleges, NYU, Howard, U. Michigan,
James Madison U., U. Chicago, St. Joseph's U., UC Berkeley and
Yale. For details and explanations see www.motherjones.com/.
Top British Universities. The Sunday Times October
25 ranked universities in England based on such criteria as "teaching
satisfaction," "heads' assessment," "research
quality," "student/staff ratio" and "drop-out
rate." Top 10: U. of Cambridge, U. of Oxford, Imperial College
London, London School of Economics, U. College London, and U's
of Warwick, York, Bristol, Durham and Bath. The special supplement
also names the "University of the Year" (Durham), "Best
in Scotland" (Edinburgh) and "Best in Wales" (Cardiff).
Top Women Athletics U's. A list CB's been keeping is
an evaluation of women's sports programs in terms of equity and
related issues conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education
in summer of 2004 which ranked the top 10 places for female athletes:
Stanford, U. Michigan Ann Arbor, UCLA, Ohio State U. at Columbus,
U. Georgia, U. Florida, U. North Carolina at Chapel Hill, U.
Washington, U. California at Berkley and U. Texas at Austin.
Top Alcohol Prevention U's. Three universities scored
the highest this fall for the prevention of alcohol abuse on
campus: They are: Bradley U. in Peoria, Illinois; U. of Missouri-Columbia;
and Regis U. in Colorado. The awards were given by the Inter-Association
Task Force on Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse Issues.
And "Hot Campuses?" Newsweek created
its own list of what is "hot" this fall. Among its
rankings, U. of California, San Diego was "hottest for science"
and Macalester was "hottest for Liberal Arts."
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NEWS YOU CAN USE
Canadian Record. Canadian colleges fielded record
numbers of college students from beyond its borders in 2003-2004,
pushing total postsecondary Canadian enrollment to all-time highs.
Foreign students accounted for 7 percent of total Canadian enrollment,
twice as many as a decade ago. Asian students made up 70 percent
of the increase from 2002-03. Some 14,500 students came from
China, a 45 percent increase in one year. Hong Kong, India, Japan
and South Korea also sent large numbers of students to study
in Canada. About 16 percent of the foreign students came from
the United States, Caribbean and Central America. Another 20
percent of foreign students came from Europe, half of them from
France. To view the entire report, go to: www.statcan.ca.
Pre-Tuition Plans in Trouble?
Tuition and fees soared nationally, about 14 percent in 2003-04
and another 10 percent in 2004-05, according to the College Board.
And that is putting pressure on the 21 states that now operate
pre-tuition plans and the 16 (some the same states) that offer
merit scholarship programs, according to a recent Chronicle
of Higher Education article. Enrollment in the pre-paid tuition
programs already has been closed to new participants in five
states, including Ohio, Texas and Wyoming. Others have had to
find new resources to keep their pre-paid tuition plans and merit
scholarship plans afloat. The Michigan Education Trust has been
forced to increase the cost for a new born child enrolled in
the program by 20 percent.
The same is true for the merit scholarship programs. In West
Virginia, for example, the cost of the "Promise Scholarship"
for high school grads with a 3.0 grade-point-average soared from
an originally projected $27 million to $39 million in 2005. While
most states seem to be emerging from recent budget deficits,
experts warn that if tuition keeps escalating, in the next cycle
of state budget problems both of these kinds of programs will
be vulnerable.
Heavy Burden. Low-income
U.S. college graduates with high debt use more of their income
to pay off debts than graduates in other nations, says a new
report from the Education Policy Institute. "There is considerable
variation between countries in debt-income ratios," the
report found, "from a low of 13.6 percent in Germany (where
loans are small in size and hard to obtain) to the high of over
70 percent in Sweden (where loans are large and carry no needs
test). Most counties have debt-to-income ratios of between 30-40
percent, while Canada is at 50 percent and the U.S. is at 57
percent. Find the full report at www.educationalpolicy.org.
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TUITION TABS
Tuition Still Outpacing Inflation. Tuition at public
universities continued to increase this year, but at a slower
pace than the last two years, according to a new report from
the College Board, "Trends in College Pricing 2005."
Tuition increases at private four-year institutions continued
at the same rate as in the past few years.
At four-year public institutions, tuition and fees average
$365 more than last year; $5,491 versus $5,126, a 7.1 percent
increase. Total charges average $12,127 ($751 more than last
year's $11,376, a 6.6 percent increase).
At two-year public institutions, tuition and fees average
$112 more than last year ($2,191 versus $2,079, a 5.4 percent
increase).
At four-year private nonprofit institutions, tuition and fees
average $1,190 more than last year ($21,235 versus $20,045, a
5.9 percent increase). Total charges average $29,026 ($1,561
more than last year's $27,465, a 5.7 percent increase).
"Trends in College Pricing 2005" also reported that
"only a fraction of undergraduates fit the traditional model
of students between the ages of 18 and 24 who are enrolled full-time
in college classrooms. Almost 40 percent of undergraduates are
over the age of 24. And about 40 percent of undergraduate students
are enrolled part-time."
$10 Billion More in Student
Aid. A second report from the College Board, "Trends
in Student Aid 2005," indicates that almost $129 billion
in student aid was distributed in the academic year 2004-05,
almost $10 billion more than the previous year. In addition,
students borrowed almost $14 billion dollars from nonfederal
sources to help finance their education.
Average aid per student increased by 3 percent between 2003-04
and 2004-05, after adjusting for inflation. Between 1996-97 and
2001-02, total grant aid for undergraduates grew twice as fast
as total borrowing, but since 2001-02, that pattern has reversed,
the College Board report said.
In 2004-05, the percentage of total undergraduate aid in the
form of grants declined for the third year in a row. Undergraduates
received 46 percent of their aid in the form of grants. Graduate
students received 22 percent of their aid in the form of grants.
For more info on these reports see: www.collegeboard.com.
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P.S.
People Are Also Talking About...
"College Admissions 2005," special section of
The Atlantic, November 2005, with articles including "Does
Meritocracy Work?" "The Best Class Money Can Buy,"
and "Is There Life After Rankings?" At your newsstand
or public library.
"University Guide 2005," The Sunday Times
(of London) with articles, tables and data on British universities;
(see "List Keepers" at left) and www.timesonline.co.uk/section/o,,8403,00.html.
"Getting In: The Social Logic of Ivy League Admissions"
by Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker, October 10. At your
local library or http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/051010crat_atlarge.
And recent publications.....
First in the Family: Advice About College from first-generation
students is a new publication by Kathleen Cushman from Next Generation
Press, P.O. Box 603252, Providence, RI 02906, 401-247-7665. Free
copies from www.whatkidscando.org/NGP/firstinthefamily.html.
Going to College: Expanding Oppor-tunities with People
with Disabilities by Elizabeth Evans Getzel and Paul Wehman
(Brookes Publishing Co, 2005, PO Box 10624, Baltimore, MD 21285-0624;
$34.95.
The Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College
Inc., and Museumworld by James B. Twitchell (Simon and Schuster);
ISBN 0743243471; $26.
The Governance Divide: A Report on a Four-State Study on
Improving College Readiness and Success from The Institute
for Educational Leadership, the National Center for Public Policy
and Higher Education and the Stanford Institute for Higher Education
Research. See http://www.highereducation.org/reports/governance_divide/index.shtml.
Remaking the American University explores the role
of market forces in higher education (Rutgers University Press);
ISBN 0813536243; $24.95.
The Latest Resource: Podcasts. CB readers can go to
the PBS web site and download to their very own iPods interviews
by John Merrow with higher education officials. His latest is
with Gary Ransdell, president, Western Kentucky U., on transforming
a university. See www.pbs.org/merrow.
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COLLEGE BOUND's Publisher/Editor: R. Craig
Sautter, DePaul University; Chief Operating Officer: Sally
Reed; Circulation: Irma Gonzalez-Hider; Illustration:
Louis Coronel; Board of Advisors: David Breeden,
Edina High School, Minnesota; Claire D. Friedlander, Bedford
(N.Y.) Central School District; Howard Greene, author,
The Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning Series; Frank
C. Leana, Ph.D., educational counselor; M. Fredric Volkmann,
Washington University in St. Louis; Mary Ann Willis, Bayside
Academy (Daphne, Ala.).
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