The 75 Biggest Myths about College Admissions: Stand Out from the Pack, Avoid Mistakes, and Get into the College of Your Dreams

By Jerry Israel

ADMISSIONS SECRETS COLLEGES DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT ... and incredibly confusing. You have probably heard countless "facts" as to what works, what colleges want to see, and how to get into competitive colleges. Don't believe the hype! Following the wrong college application myths can cost you time, money, and most important, the chance to get accepted into the school of your dreams.

MYTH:

— Colleges are very choosy about who gets in.

— You can find all kinds of students on any campus.

— Colleges need to charge an application fee.

— Colleges have a well-thought-out financial assistance strategy.

— Colleges only know what you tell them about you.

The 75 Biggest Myths about College Admissions gives you all the answers you need to approach this important journey correctly—busting all the myths that students hear and colleges want you to believe.

By exposing the truth and setting you on the right path, The 75 Biggest Myths about College Admissions gives you the edge you need to avoid wrong turns and wasted time and get a few steps ahead in the application process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Jun 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781402232114

Jerry Israel

Dr. Jerry Israel is a Senior Strategy Consultant specializing in higher education initiatives for Simpson Scarborough Communications. Dr. Israel served as the University of Indianapolis's seventh president, from 1998 until his retirement in July 2005. Israel, who is a graduate of the Harvard University Institute for Educational Management, lives in Florida.

Book preview

THE 75

BIGGEST MYTHS

ABOUT

COLLEGE

ADMISSIONS

Stand Out from the Pack, Avoid Mistakes,

and Get into the College of Your Dreams

DR. JERRY ISRAEL

FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS

Copyright © 2008 by Jerry Israel

Cover and internal design © 2008 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover photo © Veer

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.—From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Israel, Jerry.

The 75 biggest myths about college admissions : stand out from the pack, avoid mistakes and get into the college of your dreams / Jerry Israel.

p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-1932-0

1. Universities and colleges—United States—Admission. 2. College applications—United States. I. Title. II. Title: Seventy-five biggest myths about college admissions.

LB2351.2.I85 2008

378.1'610973—dc22

2007045870

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For all those students throughout the years

from whom I learned so much. . .

CONTENTS

About This Book: A Reader’s Guide

If You Have Time for Just

Two Myths, Here They Are

Myths about High School

Performance and Standardized Testing

Myths about How Colleges Build the

Applicant Pool

Myths about the Campus Visit

Myths about Retention

(How Many Students Graduate)

Myths about the Application Process

Myths about Financial Aid

Myths about Other Financial College Issues

Myths about Making the Decision and

Preparing for School

Myths about Last-Minute Preparations

before Starting

Myths about Moving In

Final Thoughts

About the Author

ABOUT THIS BOOK:

A READER’S GUIDE

What follows is a handbook—a guide, a tool—for high school students in search of a college where they can be admitted and succeed. Parents and others interested in the college search will also find this volume informative.

You will be reviewing 75 common myths about the college application and admission process, as well as the truth behind the myth. I want to share with you what I have learned in my nearly fifty years as student, teacher, dean, and college president to help you make informed decisions in your college search.

The book is organized in a roughly chronological order, from college shopping through the first day of class. However, you are not required to read this book from cover to cover, although you may find it useful to read through the whole book once first and then dip in and out to find relevant information at the right time in the search process.

The 75 myths and the reality for each are summarized in boldface at the beginning of each subsection. They are also organized and connected in chapters based on their relevance to a larger issue of the college search process.

One way to attack the material included might be to thumb through the pages, reading only the introductory statements one after another. If a particular myth seems relevant, timely, or for that matter disturbing, you can then choose to review the explanation that follows. These details become, if you will, almost like footnotes to the myths and realities they explain.

There is little information in this volume that higher education leaders don’t know. For whatever reason, however, they have been somewhat reluctant to share much of it with their consumers in the general public. Colleges have a good record to share. Their mission is to help students find their stories to tell. There is no reason not to pull back the curtain and let others in. Enjoy and learn from what follows.

IF YOU HAVE TIME

FOR JUST TWO MYTHS,

HERE THEY ARE

Myth 1: It is a seller’s market in which colleges have all the control.

Reality: It is a buyer’s market where you have many good choices.

A few brand-name schools can call all their own shots. They get more unsolicited applications than they can even read and basically pick the class they want regardless of the price they charge (which is usually extraordinarily high and far more than needed to educate you). These schools have effectively created the expectation that it is a seller’s market. Not true.

There are more than three thousand colleges and universities in the United States. Almost all of them must recruit a substantial number of new students every year. Students come in all shapes and sizes: adult, transfer, part-time, non-credit, and so on. By far the largest subset, and the most desired one, is the eighteen-year-old high school graduate.

Most colleges, whatever else they do, offer undergraduate degree programs. Most colleges have designed their programs for this group. Enrolling a full-time, first-time freshman means having a student who can fit comfortably into the school’s model of living and learning, a student for whom few exceptions have to be made, someone who will rent a room and eat the food, who will play on the team or in the band, who will become a successful graduate and lifelong supporter, and from whom, frankly, the most cumulative tuition and fees will be collected.

Graduate students bring prestige to the faculty, but they require close supervision and expensive instruction, research, and library costs. They are often paid modestly to help teach undergrads. They do not produce substantial revenue for an institution. Part-time and adult students almost always pay greatly reduced tuition and fees in order to make it affordable for them to attend. With families and jobs that take up most of their energy, they add very little to the out-of-class life of the campus.

In summary, eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds pay (or someone pays for them) most of the bills that allow a college to operate and provide most of the vitality that animates and defines the college’s culture. Without students, colleges would close. Yet colleges too often act as if they don’t understand this simple reality, focusing more attention on the needs of others (e.g., faculty, alumni, and donors). The myth that you as students need colleges more than they need you allows colleges to continue to give you too little attention. If you believe the myth, you are inhibited from acting like a valued customer with questions and expectations.

Remember above all else throughout the college decision-making process that you are a valuable commodity and that it is OK to make schools work to recruit you. When you find a college that acts like it cares, it probably does! Your college experience and the rest of your life will be the better for choosing such a place.

Myth 2: Success in life depends on which college you choose.

Reality: Success in life depends not on which college you go to, but whether you graduate from college!

University officials proudly report that college graduates earn much more money than high school graduates do, and that college graduates have received the tools needed to live a more enriched life. But colleges are less talkative about the fact that half of students who enroll in college don’t finish. For students who don’t graduate, going to college can be a waste of time and money, maybe even worse than not going at all.

The notion that you must attend one of the brand-name schools to be successful is a function of those schools’ excellent reputations and very well-oiled public relations departments. It is more important to choose a college you can enjoy and graduate from successfully than to pick one that, although it has a great reputation, might be a place where you could struggle, be unhappy, run up a large debt, and worst of all, leave without a degree.

You will hear little discussion of the fact that so many entering students never graduate. It is a sad commentary that many colleges have little concern for ensuring that students learn and achieve their goals. Colleges will place blame on high schools for weak preparation or point fingers at students’ lack of motivation rather than working to see what they can do to help their students be more successful. A prepared, motivated student will be successful anywhere. Colleges take credit for the achievements of those students even though they probably had little to do with that success. However, many colleges are reluctant to share the blame for students’ failures.

The key to good decision making in selecting a college is to search for one that consistently works to make your success its priority. That approach will lead to a true win-win situation for the school and the student. Yet, the college experience is about more than just preparing for life after graduation. The college years are a vital, important part of life itself. To that end, it is important to choose a location and an atmosphere that you enjoy, because where you are happy, you will most likely be more successful in and out of class.

The quality of your fellow classmates and the campus culture they help to create are also vital determinants of likely success. Good students can be role models and mentors as well as lifelong friends and colleagues. This is one area where the high-reputation schools may have a legitimate claim to distinction. Their ability to attract many extraordinarily capable students provides a dynamic academic environment. Inevitably, there is also considerable competition on these campuses for grades and leadership opportunities. In choosing a campus, be sure you have identified at least a critical mass of able students who set a quality tone but without so many as to block your path to getting involved and leading on campus. Involved leaders tend to be successful—and graduate.

MYTHS ABOUT

HIGH SCHOOL

PERFORMANCE AND

STANDARDIZED TESTING

A mother once asked a college admissions director why her son wasn’t admitted. Well, I am sorry to say, the director replied, your son was in the bottom half of his high school class and that is an absolute standard for being rejected here as decided upon by our faculty committee. Oh, responded the mother in surprise. I knew he was not in the top half but I had no idea he was in the bottom half.

Most of us are surely a bit better at interpreting statistics than the mother in question here, but there is still quite a bit of data juggling that colleges do in reviewing your high school record and test scores, as myths 3 through 8 reveal.

Myth 3: Your permanent record of your whole school history impacts a college’s admission decision.

Reality: Colleges pay almost no attention to those records, but they do care about your readiness for success and how you are evaluated by your high school counselor.

Parents get sick of, and educational advisors make money at, the notion that decisions made when a child is very young will determine or doom the college selection process. To be sure, support and stimulation for a youngster shape much of that person’s future. But if a student makes reasonable progress and doesn’t become a felon, then his or her records, academic and extracurricular, before the eleventh grade will be required and examined but not scrutinized.

Having A’s and B’s as a high school freshman and sophomore is surely better than having C’s and D’s. Taking rigorous academic classes is to your advantage, as are leadership and service experiences. But records for kindergarten through eighth grade are never a factor. Grades in the junior year and the seventh semester of high school are far more important than those that came before. In fact, an argument can be made that improvement in the latter stages of secondary school makes a stronger case for college readiness than a consistent record of achievement. Schools will be looking for motivation and seriousness. With that being said, doing better as college looms closer is a powerful point in a student’s favor, although it’s not a good tactic to clearly do worse at first just to show improvement later.

Letters of reference generally don’t carry much weight in an admission decision either. Admissions offices assume that almost everyone can get a neighbor, clergy person, physician, or employer to say something nice about them. What does matter is your high school guidance or college counselor’s opinion. In most high schools,