As juniors and seniors in high school you are probably well on your way to planning your college career. Getting ready for college can be extremely stressful on top of everything else you have to worry about, but luckily most high schools have resources to make the search and apply process a lot easier.

Many high schools host college information nights for juniors and seniors, and their families. Information nights give students and parents a broad overview of the college application process. Guidance counselors are on hand to provide direction and answer questions. Sometimes a school will even bring in a college admissions counselor to lend advice from their perspective. These events are particularly helpful to families who are sending their first child to college, but everyone should consider attending since things change so frequently.

The following is a list of topics that are usually covered at college information nights:

SATs and ACTs: All of your questions about when and where to take the SATs or ACTs will be answered. You will find out what the test dates are, where they are being offered, where to send your scores, what scores you should aim for and how many times you should take a particular test.

Visiting Colleges: You will learn how to schedule college visits and when the best times to visit are. You will find out what questions you should ask when you take a tour and how many schools you should visit to make the right decisions.

The Application Process: College applications are more than just pieces of paper. Someone from the guidance department will outline everything you need to include with your applications from the essay to the application fee.

The College Essay: Someone will go over the basics of writing a college essay. They will cover how to choose a topic, how long the essay should be and who should see your essay before you send it off.

Letters of Recommendation: Most colleges require that you submit letters of recommendation with your application. A guidance counselor will explain who these recommendations should come from, how many you should submit, and what they should say about you and your achievements .

FAFSA and Financial Aid: Financial aid can be the most confusing part of applying to college. Someone from the guidance department will go over when and how to fill out your FAFSA, what kinds of federal student loans and alternative student loans exist, and how to search for scholarships.

Join hundreds of college admission counselors to network and discuss current events in our LinkedIn networking group:br /br /a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1771062″http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1771062/abr /br /Once you join, you can participate in discussions, read headline news related to your business, post into our forums and network with professionals from around the country. The group is free and open to all – including college admissions networking, college conselors, college advisors, college consultants and advisors.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19028385-2204732111465410222?l=college-search-and-colleges.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

New York Timesbr /March 30, 2009br /The recession appears to have had little impact on the number of applications received by many of the nation’s most competitive colleges, or on an applicant’s overall chances of being admitted to them.br /Representatives of Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown, among other highly selective institutions, said in telephone and e-mail exchanges in recent days that applications for the Class of 2013 had jumped sharply when compared to the previous year’s class. As a result, the percentage of applicants who will receive good news from the eight colleges of the Ivy League (and a few other top schools that send out decision letters this week) is expected to hover at – or near – record lows. br /Bill Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard since 1986, said that the 29,112 applications Harvard received this year represented an all-time high, and a 6-percentage point increase from last year. He said the percentage of applicants admitted would be 7 percent, down from 8 percent a year ago. Dartmouth said that the 18,130 applications it received was the most in its history, too, and that the 12 percent admitted would be its lowest. br /Stanford said that the 30,350 applications it received represented a 20 percent increase, and that while it estimated a 7.5-percent admission rate, which would be its lowest, it declined to specify a final figure until later in the week.br /Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Princeton declined to release their final admission rates in advance of sending out most of their decision letters via e-mail at 5 p.m. eastern time on Tuesday. But Brown said it had received 21 percent more applications, overall, compared to a year ago; Yale was up 14 percent; Columbia was up 13 percent and Cornell was up 3 percent. Princeton said that, as of January, it had tallied a 2 percent increase in applications, but anticipated the pool had gotten even larger since then. At the University of Pennsylvania, the number of applications increased by 4 — to 22,939, from 22,935.br /However, applications to highly selective colleges were not up universally. Many of the best-known liberal arts colleges had fewer applications this year.br /Williams College in western Massachusetts said that applications were down 20 percent this year, with 6,024 having applied to the Class of 2013, as compared to 7,552 a year ago. Williams’s acceptance rate, in turn, is expected to be about 20 percent, which is higher than in recent years. The reason for the change was not immediately clear, though applicants outside New England who are concerned about their finances would have to take into account that Williams is not close to a major city or airport – and thus could be expensive to get in and out of.br /Similarly, Middlebury College in Vermont, which is also relatively remote, had a nearly 12 percent drop in applications. Amherst, another Massachusetts college and Williams rival, said that applications were down about 1 percent – and that its admissions rate would increase slightly, to 16 percent, in part because Amherst is aiming to increase its first-year class by about 25 students. (Wesleyan University in Connecticut, which sometimes competes for students with Amherst and Williams, has drawn substantially more interest this year: its applicant pool was 22 percent larger than last year’s; its admission rate fell to 22 percent, from 27 percent.)br /Amherst had a nearly 10-percent increase in early-decision applications. It enrolls about 30 percent of its first-year class through that program, and – like most schools surveyed – it said it had not lost a single one to due any change in family finances since the fall, when such applications are made.br /“Given the economy, it’s very surprising to me,’’ said Tom Parker, dean of admission and financial aid, “and when I told the board, they found it hard to believe, too.’’br /In a sign of how hard it is to draw broad conclusions about an admissions season that has been set against a stark economic backdrop, just over half of the nearly 350 institutions that accept the Common Application, a shared online admission form, received more applications this year than last; just under half received fewer. Bryn Mawr and Wellesley were among those that were up slightly, while overall applications to Grinnell and Pomona were down (as compared to their early applications, which were up quite a bit.)br /Among the best-known public universities, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville all recorded gains in applications – a sign, surely, of some applicants’ desire to stay closer to home, and pay less than they might at an elite private college. Applications to the University of Wisconsin in Madison fell nearly 3 percent.br /Of course, applying to college is one thing; being able to afford to go is another.br /Harvard, which like many colleges raised its financial aid budget this year, said that between this week and May 1, when applicants’ decisions are due, it was bracing for many to make impassioned appeals of their financial aid offers, whether by phone or e-mail or in person. In response, Mr. Fitzsimmons said that the Harvard financial aid office would be open every day in April, with expanded hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.br /“We’re going to listen,’’ he said. “We don’t have a policy of matching other schools’ awards. But we’re going to listen to what a family thinks its unusual circumstances might be. We learn a lot about our families in April.’’br /By:Jacques Steinberg Tamar Lewindiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19028385-7058219656148622276?l=college-search-and-colleges.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Now comes the bad news: the number of regular applications is way down, about 30 percent fewer than at this time last year. br /“To be quite honest, I don’t know how we’ll end up,” said Derek Gueldenzoph, dean of admissions at the college, in Northfield, Minn. “By this time last year, we had three-quarters of all our applications. The deadline’s Jan. 15. If what we’ve got now is three-quarters of what we’re going to get, we’re in big trouble. But if this turns out to be only half, we’ll be fine.” br /Not all private colleges are reporting fewer applications this year. Even in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, where most colleges seem to have dwindling numbers, some are getting more applications than ever. Still, in a survey of 371 private institutions released last week by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, two-thirds said they were greatly concerned about preventing a decline in enrollment.br /Getting exactly the right enrollment — always a tricky proposition — is especially crucial for small colleges with tuition-driven budgets. One case in point came last month, when Beloit College in Wisconsin announced it would eliminate about 40 positions because 36 fewer students than expected had enrolled. The college has about 1,300 students and gets three-quarters of its $55 million budget from tuition.br /Admissions officers nationwide point to several possible reasons for the drop in applications. Some students have pared their college lists this year. Many more are looking at less-expensive state universities. Many institutions accepted more students under binding early-decision programs, and each such acceptance drains off an average of 8 to 10 regular-decision applications. And some experts suspect that students are delaying their college plans. br /The deadline at most colleges is still a few weeks off, so a last-minute flood of applications could raise the numbers to last year’s level. But admissions officers say they are not counting on that. br /“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I don’t remember a year when applications started out behind and didn’t end up behind,” said Steve Thomas, director of admissions at Colby College in Waterville, Me., where early-decision applications were higher than usual but regular applications are running about 14 percent behind.br /At Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, where early-decision applications were up, regular applications are down about 15 percent, said Gail Sweezey, the director of admissions. br /“One thing that’s happened this year is that there’s all this talk, and one-sided media stories, about how private colleges are unaffordable,” Ms. Sweezey said. “It’s become almost viral that there’s no loans, that schools are having problems. The truth is that a lot of private colleges have more financial aid available this year, but there’s lots of misinformation out there. And my guidance counselor friends tell me students may be applying to fewer places and turning to their state university, which will be at capacity.” br /If some private colleges are grappling with the specter of too few applications, public universities and community colleges are having the opposite problem — more students at a time when their state financing is being slashed. br /In California and Florida, some public institutions have been forced to cap enrollment. And even in states like Pennsylvania, where the number of high school graduates is declining, applications to public universities are growing. br /“We have 47,971 applications as of now, compared to 45,760 at this time last year,” said Anne Rohrbach, executive director of undergraduate admissions at Pennsylvania State University. “We’ve been making offers since October, and we’ve already had 1,638 students say yes, compared to 1,096 at this time last year.” br /Generally, Ivy League universities with generous aid packages to low- and middle-income families have as many applicants as ever — and even more applying for financial aid. br /“We had 27,462 applications last year, and we’ve been running almost exactly on last year’s pace,” said William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard College, which has eliminated early decision. “More students are applying for financial aid. It’s a significant increase, four full percentage points ahead of last year.” br /Yale received 5,556 applications this year, 14 percent more than last year, for its nonbinding single-choice early action program, said Jeffrey Brenzel, the dean of admissions, who added that regular applications were running higher, too. br /Dartmouth has more applications than ever, early and regular, as do Duke University, the University of Denver and the University of Rochester. br /Jonathan Burdick, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Rochester, said the school’s reputation for generous merit aid helped draw applicants. br /“This is a time when families may be looking at options that are less costly,” Mr. Burdick said. “There are a lot of families who may make $180,000 to $200,000 but can’t afford $50,000 a year and might apply to a Rochester, where merit aid this year can be as much as $14,000.” br /Many selective private colleges say fewer applications are no problem. br /“We’re down about 16 percent now, and I think we’ll be down 10 to 15 percent at the end, Jan. 1,” said Monica Inzer, the dean of admission and financial aid at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. “If our acceptance rate goes up a little, that’s O.K.”br /Mark Hatch, vice president for enrollment management at Colorado College, said he expected to have about 5 percent fewer applicants this year and took a similar view. br /“We admitted 26 percent last year, and if it’s 31 percent this year, we’ll make more people happy,” Mr. Hatch said. “I think the economic uncertainty has families, even families of means, telling their children to round out their college lists with state universities. This year, families want two safety nets, one for the first hurdle, admission, and one for affordability. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed a lot of parents this year listing their occupation as unemployed.” br /At many colleges, financial aid requests are up significantly. At Connecticut College, for example, 42 percent of the accepted early-decision students applied for financial said, compared with 34 percent last year — and 36 percent qualified for aid, compared with 24 percent last year. br /This has been a particularly difficult year for small private colleges that accept a majority of their applicants.br /Stephen MacDonald, the president of Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa., where applications are down about 15 percent, is taking steps to lure more students, including adding lacrosse for men and women and hiring a prominent coach, which he thinks will attract 20 to 25 students. br /“We’ve also increased our scholarship award to children of alums, from $500, which is a nice gesture, to $2,500 a year, which is more than a gesture,” Mr. MacDonald said.br /“We could still end up down 3 percent, which could sting,” he said. “This is a time when schools like ours, private liberal arts colleges that don’t have a big name, are in a potentially dangerous realm.”br /By TAMAR LEWINbr /NY Timesbr /December 21, 2008div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19028385-3646330839331370164?l=college-search-and-colleges.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

May and June is graduation time. Congratulations to all of you who have made it through. Now – time to start looking for a job – if you haven’t already.

One new resource for college graduates:

http://www.GraduateCenter.com

For those of you looking for work, check out their career center:

http://www.graduatecenter.com/careers/

and download their free eBook on How to Write a Great Cover Letter!

New York Times

April 1, 2008

The already crazed competition for admission to the nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges became even more intense this year, with many logging record low acceptance rates.

Harvard College, for example, offered admission to only 7.1 percent of the 27,462 high school seniors who applied — or, put another way, it rejected 93 of every 100 applicants, many with extraordinary achievements, like a perfect score on one of the SAT exams. Yale College accepted 8.3 percent of its 22,813 applicants. Both rates were records.

Columbia College admitted 8.7 percent of its applicants, Brown University and Dartmouth College 13 percent, and Bowdoin College and Georgetown University 18 percent — also records.

“We love the people we admitted, but we also love a very large number of the people who we were not able to admit,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College.

Some colleges said they placed more students on their waiting lists than in recent years, in part because of uncertainty over how many admitted students would decide to enroll. Harvard and Princeton stopped accepting students through early admission this academic year; that meant that more than 1,500 students who would have been admitted in December were likely to have applied to many elite schools in the regular round.

Many factors contributed to the tightening of the competition at the most selective colleges, admissions deans and high school counselors said, among them demographics. The number of high school graduates in the nation has grown each year over the last decade and a half, though demographers project that the figure will peak this year or next, which might reduce the competition a little.

Other factors were the ease of online applications, expanded financial aid packages, aggressive recruiting of a broader range of young people, and ambitious students’ applying to ever more colleges.

The eight Ivy League colleges mailed acceptance and rejection letters on Monday to tens of thousands of applicants. Students could learn the fate of their applications online beginning at 5 p.m. on Monday, so three of the colleges said they were not ready to make public their admissions data. But the expectation was that they would also turn out to have been more competitive than ever.

“For the schools that are perceived to have the most competitive admissions processes, there has been this persistent rise in applications,” said Jeffrey Brenzel, dean of undergraduate admissions at Yale.

Ten years ago, slightly fewer than 12,000 students applied to Yale, compared with the 22,813 who applied this year, Mr. Brenzel said. Yale’s admittance rate — the proportion of applicants offered admission — was nearly 18 percent in 1998, more than double the rate this year.

“We’re really happy with the class,” Mr. Brenzel said of the students offered admission. “On a day like today it’s also easy to be aware of the incredible number of fantastic students who you have to turn away, because you know they would be successful here.”

At Harvard, as at Yale, the applicant pool included an extraordinary number of academically gifted students. More than 2,500 of Harvard’s 27,462 applicants scored a perfect 800 on the SAT critical reading test, and 3,300 had 800 scores on the SAT math exam. More than 3,300 were ranked first in their high school class.

Admissions deans and high school guidance counselors said they spent hours at this time of year reminding students who had been put on waiting lists or rejected entirely that there were other excellent colleges on their lists — and that rejection was often about the overwhelming numbers, rather than their merits as individuals.

“I know why it matters so much, and I also don’t understand why it matters so much,” said William M. Shain, dean of admissions and financial aid at Bowdoin. “Where we went to college does not set us up for success or keep us away from it.”

By ALAN FINDER

A recent article in the New York Times tells the story of a young man from Pennsylvania who had no help and yet got into George Washington University. The focus of the article is on how wonderful it was that this young man was able to get into a college without help. I will be the first to admit that many students are able to find a good college without using professional help. However, the real question is whether the college is a good college for that student.

In reading through this story several items jump out at me. First is the list of schools to which this young man applied. He applied to Columbia, Delaware, Skidmore, Boston University and George Washington. All fine schools but all very different colleges. We have colleges in the middle of New York City to rural colleges. Large universities and small colleges. Extremely competitive to much less competitive. And the feel of each of these colleges is going to be very different from each other. These are colleges that do not normally compete for students with the other colleges on the list. Maybe there was some factor that made each of these colleges make sense for this young man but it appears to be a random list of colleges whose only similarity is that they are all on the East coast.

The second thing that struck me was the apparent lack of understanding of how financial aid works. The colleges this young man applied to range from one that provides 100% of need to one which only provides 79% of need. And many of these colleges have limited merit awards. With a middle income parent he did not have a financial safety college and may be paying more to attend college than he would otherwise need to if he had investigated the financial aspects of attending college.

Was this a good list of colleges for this young man? Possibly. But I suspect that this is really a story about a typical student who had inadequate guidance and ended up applying to various colleges without investigating who he has and what he wanted from a college. Without doing such self reflection a student ends up at a college that may be adequate for their wants and desires but won’t be the best fit.

I don’t see this story as a triumph of the little guy against those who had professional help. Rather, I think this story further illustrates the failure of most students to understand what it takes to find an appropriate college for each student. Do all students need professional help? No. But if they don’t have such help they must take the time to understand the process of finding the right college and the basics of financial aid. Otherwise, they face the very real possibility of finding the wrong college for their needs and paying too much for college.

Original post by College Admissions Partners

Trying to evaluated a financial aid award letter? Maybe compare one colleges award with another? A web site called FinancialAidLetter recently launched that posts actual financial aid award letters and evaluates them on the information provided in the letter.

The web site currently has 5 letters written to actual financial aid recipients which are given a grade depending on the information provided in the letter. It may be helpful for students and their parents to see some actual financial aid award letters to see what they look like and to see some of the possible information included. The site indicates that they will be including more financial aid award letters which would provide even more help for students.

The web site also offers a glossary of financial aid terms as well as some financial aid tips. This portion of the web site is less helpful as the financial aid definitions include so many terms and often in such detail that people not familiar with the financial aid process may get confused. Also the tips are not as well organized as they could be to help people understand the financial aid process.

Original post by College Admissions Partners