College Admissions Help Blog

By JONATHAN D. GLATER
New York Times
Published: October 23, 2007

Tuition and fees at public and private universities have risen this year at more than double the rate of inflation, with prices increasing faster at public institutions, the College Board said in reports released yesterday.
These increases in the cost of higher education continue to drive up the amount that students and families borrow, with the fastest growth in private loans, the reports found.
Tuition and other costs, not including room and board, rose on average to $6,185 at public four-year colleges this year, up 6.6 percent from last year, while tuition at private colleges hit $23,712, an increase of 6.3 percent. At public two-year institutions, average tuition and fees rose 4.2 percent to $2,361.
Last year, tuition and fees at public institutions rose 5.7 percent; at private ones, 6.3 percent and at public two-year institutions, 3.8 percent.
“The average price of college is continuing to rise more rapidly than the consumer price index, more rapidly than prices in the economy,” Sandy Baum, a co-author of the report who is a senior policy analyst for the College Board and a professor at Skidmore College, told reporters at a news conference yesterday.
Ms. Baum added that the prices “are probably higher than most of us want.”
Those price increases reflect increases in the sticker price that colleges advertise, though, Ms. Baum said, the average student does not pay that full amount. At public universities, the average student gets about $3,600 in grants and tax benefits, lowering the actual cost to around $2,600. At private institutions, aid totals about $9,300, bringing the cost to $14,400.
But even the net price, after taking into account grants and other forms of aid, is rising more quickly than prices of other goods and than family incomes. In recent years, consumer prices have risen less than 3 percent a year, while net tuition at public colleges has risen by 8.8 percent and at private ones, 6.7 percent.
The changes in tuition at public institutions closely track changes in financing they receive from state governments and other public sources, the report found. When state and local support for public colleges declined over the last seven years, tuition and fees rose more quickly, and as state support has grown of late, the pace of increases fell, it said.
“We hope that state governments — which really set tuition prices at most public colleges and universities — will do their part to reinvest in higher education,” David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, said in a statement released by the College Board.
Private loans, those not guaranteed by the federal government, continued to be the fastest-growing form of borrowing, totaling more than $17 billion in the 2006-7 academic year. In the same period, students and their families borrowed $59.6 billion in federally guaranteed loans.
The report also included data on loans by full-time students at for-profit institutions, finding that in 2003-4, they took out an average of $6,750 in loans, approaching the $7,320 borrowed by students at private colleges and exceeding the $5,390 borrowed by those at public four-year institutions and $3,180 at public two-year ones.
“College officials tell us not to worry because there’s plenty of financial aid,” said Robert Shireman, executive director of the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit organization financed largely by the Pew Charitable Trusts. “But that aid is clearly not going where it’s needed, because student debt is up by an even greater margin than tuition — an 8 percent increase from 2005 to 2006, by our accounting.”
The report prompted Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, to pledge to try to “rein in” tuition increases. Mr. Miller added, “Making college more affordable and accessible for all qualified students is a top priority.”
Last year the average Pell grant, the federal government’s grant to the neediest students, declined for the second year in a row, after taking into account the effects of inflation. Ms. Baum, the economist, said she expected that decline to stop because Congress recently enacted increases in the maximum amount of the grant, which held constant at $4,050 for four years but will rise to $5,400 over the next five years.
The College Board’s study drew on responses from 2,976 institutions to questionnaires sent out last October, as well as government agencies and organizations like the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
According to the study, the cost of room and board has also continued to rise and at many public colleges dwarfs actual tuition. At four-year public institutions, tuition, room and board on average now total $13,589; at private colleges, $32,307.
Ms. Baum emphasized that while the College Board reports provided information on the general cost of higher education, costs varied around the country as well as at different kinds of colleges.
“The average numbers don’t tell the story for any individual student,” Ms. Baum said.

The College Board today announced two new reports related to the cost of college and how families pay for college. They are the Trends in College Pricing 2007 and the Trends in Student Aid 2007. Although the complete reports may be more information than the typical family wants to know the reports do have some important information for those attending or soon to attend college. If you do not qualify for financial aid you will be interested to know that the cost of both private and public colleges have been increasing faster than the rate of inflation although the public colleges are increasing at a faster rate than the private colleges. If you do qualify for financial aid, the information on what types of loans students are taking provides some interesting information. The fastest growing area of loans are the private loans, those not backed by the federal or state governments.

For those less interested in reading the complete reports, a summary can be found at the New York Times.

A new study out from the Community College Research Center, and reported on by Inside Higher Ed, finds that students taking dual enrollment courses during high school benefit by having a higher high school graduation rate, higher college enrollment and higher college GPA’s. With more states going to dual enrollment programs this approach can have some advantages over traditional high school curriculum’s.

However, there is another side to this story where dual enrollment programs are not necessarily the advantage suggested by the community colleges. I live in Minnesota where the concept of dual enrollment began many years ago. The original idea was to allow students who had exhausted their high school curriculum in some particular area to take advanced courses at a local college. This program worked very well particularly for those students in weaker school districts that did not offer advance courses such as AP or IB. What has developed, however, is that students now are skipping high school courses to take college courses even if they haven’t exhausted the high school curriculum because in some cases, the college courses are easier than the high school course in AP. Moreover, there is much more freedom in college courses than can be wonderful for the right student. But we see students that are failing the college courses, not because they can’t handle the work, but because they are not able to handle the freedom. Since the college courses are necessary for the student to have the credits needed to pass high school, some students are not graduating from high school on time because of insufficient credits.

One of the advantages pushed by the proponents of dual enrollment is the ability to get college credit while in high school thus allowing the student to enter college with some credits completed. Again, while some colleges will accept community college credits toward the ultimate degree, it is difficult for other colleges, particularly selective ones, to determine what has been learned in the community college course and what a grade from that school means. AP courses and tests on the other hand are standardized so a 4 on the AP American History test from a student in Minnesota is the same as from a student in Alabama. Even with standardization, many selective colleges are going away from granting credit for AP scores. Trying to use college credits from an unknown community college will be even more difficult for a selective college to accept for credit.

Dual enrollment programs have their place but they are not necessarily the best solution for students looking at attending selective colleges who have AP or IB courses available to them.

by Jack Scheidell
Lower Hudson Online
September 29, 2007

Early Decision Does Work
A college wants to see that it’s your No. 1 choice, and this is the best way of showing that. But there’s an advantage for you, too: Applying early decision (considered binding; early action is considered non-binding) can give you a leg up at your most favored school. How big of an advantage? Consider that at Rye High School last year, 66 percent of the seniors applied early decision or early action, according to Director of Guidance Patricia Taylor. Of those, 74 percent were admitted.At Duke University in Durham, N.C., one of the most competitive schools in the country, only 18 percent of students who applied regular decision were accepted. However, 40 percent of the early decision applicants got in.Harvard recently did away with its early decision program altogether, saying it favors wealthier applicants, and Jeremy Hyman, co-author of “The Professor’s Guide to Getting Good Grades in College,” says more schools may soon follow its lead.Melissa Dzenis was devastated when she found out she hadn’t been accepted early action to Yale, where she applied last year. The Pelham High School honor student cried for two nights straight, says her mother, Estrellita Dzenis. “It was a very stressful time for the whole family.”Granted, Yale has a long history of breaking the hearts of bright Lower Hudson Valley teens, but even by its own standards, Melissa would appear to be a worthy candidate.There’s the five AP courses she took, her stellar test scores (she was a National Merit Honors-commended student), the three sports she played, the hours she spent tutoring her peers after school, the slew of other honors she received and the weekends spent coaching Girls CYO basketball teams (”I didn’t sleep very much,” she jokes).There’s also the summer job at her grandfather’s woodworking factory in Latvia, in Eastern Europe, her Model UN experience, and the fact that she’s played the flute and piano since grade school.Beyond all that, when she speaks, Melissa comes across as intellectually curious and genuinely passionate about learning. And, after all, isn’t that what colleges are looking for?The problem is that there are thousands of Melissa Dzenises and not enough freshman spots at top universities like Yale. In the past few years, seniors from around the region have come face to face with a troubling reality: The college admissions process is stacked against them.Historic numbers of applicants have flooded the nation’s most competitive schools (an elite group of a couple dozen colleges that, rightly or wrongly, has come to dominate the focus of many of our communities’ brightest students).Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., for example, saw an increase of 1,000 applicants in the last year, while the applicant pool at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., grew by 19 percent (largely due to its decision to accept the Common Application). Meanwhile, Harvard had 23,000 students vying for 1,662 spots.Making matters worse, schools that were once considered “safeties” by top students – like Tufts University in Medford, Mass., and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., – are “basically Ivy League now” in terms of the competition to get in, says Chappaqua’s Lisa Jacobson, founder of Inspirica, a tutoring and SAT prep program.”I went to Yale in the early ’80s, but there is no way I would have gotten in if I was applying now,” says Bruce Hammond, co-author of “The Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College.” The reason, he says: supply and demand.Factors include a larger pool of international students, an easier application process (thanks to the Internet and the one-size-fits-all Common Application, which allows you to fill out one application for multiple schools), more students willing to travel farther, more information about colleges (hundreds of books and Web sites) and simple demographics. The baby boomers are seeing their own offspring – another generational boom – ready to leave the nest, a phenomenon that experts predict will peak sometime in the next two to five years. Until then, what we have is the perfect storm for an admissions logjam.That means students who choose to pursue admissions at the most elite colleges face a daunting application process. Melissa Dzenis says she began looking at schools during her sophomore year. “It’s such a competitive enterprise,” she says. “Nowadays, kids are aiming their entire lives to get into these schools. I don’t even know how many revisions to the essay I went through. It’s a horrible experience. There were so many late nights. You worked hard and [then] to hear someone telling you you’re not good enough is hard.”What’s in a name?Many young people face their first taste of rejection when it comes to the college admissions process, a rite of passage current high school seniors are now going through. But especially in this region, where students tend to apply to the same 30 to 40 schools.”What’s happened in our society, especially in these kinds of suburban communities, is that the highly selective schools have become kind of a status symbol for families,” says Paul Martin, a former coordinator of counseling at Mamaroneck High School. “You get the feeling there’s a competition about which bumper sticker you have on your car.”It may be a moot point for students intent on whichever school has captured their interest, but colleges are businesses. And they rely on building and maintaining their brands. At the moment, the admissions process favors the schools in what may be the most massively unfair supply-and-demand equation on the market today.”The market is broken,” says Hammond. “These colleges are just relying on their brands to charge any price. What other product are people going to fall over themselves to pay $50,000 for? Is that the kind of climate that fosters academic success?”Hammond says there are certain benefits to going the Ivy route, but not as many as people think. Which is why, he says, when you measure the cost-benefit ratio just based on education, the elite schools are ridiculously overpriced.And yet, try as they might, many guidance counselors in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam have a hard time convincing their students that this is the case.”I tell them – I’m not sure they listen, but I honestly believe this – you’re going to end up where you’re supposed to be,” says Dr. Rose Guberman, who recently retired as the director of counseling services at Pelham High School. “And I tell them you’re going to come back and tell me you love it. I’ve been doing this for 31 years.”What do schools want?As the glut of applications hits admissions offices, the people who do the sorting are more and more in the position of seeking reasons to reject students, rather than accept them.”When they look at a transcript and see there are four B’s, in previous years that might have been OK, but not any longer,” says Patricia Taylor, Rye High School’s director of guidance. “It’s a difficult situation because we encourage students to take the most rigorous courses and to stretch themselves academically. But we also have to tell them now that they should make sure they can perform in these courses.”According to Marlyn McGrath-Lewis, Harvard’s dean of admissions, combing through the applicants to her school can be “a daunting task. It’s not a science. There is a large committee that listens to every single case,” she says. “Most students who apply here are very well-qualified.”In fact, she says, it would almost be possible to dump a stack of applicants onto a table and randomly choose a qualified student body … which is probably not a comforting thought for potential applicants and their parents.”It’s a humbling experience,” says Janine Heitner, a guidance counselor at John Jay High School in Cross River. “Years ago, if you called admissions people about this or that student, they could have given you a reason why they were or weren’t accepted. Most of the time now, they really can’t tell you.”So what is Harvard looking for? “Students who already have a record of developing whatever talents they have, and students who will do something great with their lives,” says McGrath-Lewis.Find a hookAssuming your child still wants to enter the elite college sweepstakes what does he or she need to do to stand a better chance of winning acceptance? Steve Roy Goodman, an educational consultant, likens it – only half jokingly – to a first date. You have to make a good impression, you have to make it fast, and you have to make sure you don’t have any spinach in your teeth.”This is big business for universities,” Goodman says. “A lot of students apply and they forget the admissions process is designed to benefit the colleges. Their job is to satisfy what the colleges want.”So how do you become a desirable candidate in the eyes of admissions officers? In general, the goal is to stand out from the other applicants and offer something the college may need that other equally talented students can’t give, such as playing an obscure instrument for the school’s orchestra or being one of the best athletes in a sport.In a similar vein, schools respond to passion and focus. The notion that a student who joins every extracurricular activity has an advantage is false. Admissions officers say they prefer a student who has devoted considerable time pursuing one or two genuine interests.Keith Todd, the director of admissions at Northwestern, says he’s looking for students who show passion and dedication to certain things, especially things that resonate with that individual. In other words, don’t just volunteer because you think it will help you get into college.”It has greater resonance for us when we can tell it’s part of a greater sense of engagement in some arena,” says Christof Guttentag, the head of admissions at Duke University in Durham, N.C. “When colleges admit students, it’s not that they are also rewarding academic accomplishment, but they are building a community,” he says. “We want our graduates to be active participants in the communities they’re involved in as alums.”Of course, identifying the achievements someone makes as a 17-year-old as indicators of future greatness is a heady task. But admissions officers consider it their responsibility to find the signs of raw talent. And those signs often go beyond the classroom.Jacobson, of Inspirica, says, “It’s a myth that good grades and good SATs are enough. It gets you into the ‘maybe pile.’ Once you’re there, it’s all about who you are and what you bring.”What a student offers is sometimes referred to as a “hook.” According to Hammond, there are certain hooks, which – sorry to say – are a dime a dozen: The student with a great GPA and great test scores who edited the yearbook falls into this category. Compare this student to one with more unusual achievements (a national equestrian champion, for example, or someone who began a Big Brothers/Big Sisters chapter or demonstrated entrepreneurial skills), and the former will not leap out at admissions officers. The least-crowded category (and therefore the applicants who tend to go to the front of the line) is the star athlete who also happens to be a superb student.Still, Hammond cautions, it’s not productive to try to sell yourself into a category in which you don’t fit. Schools can tell when an applicant isn’t being genuine. It’s just a reality that when you go the route of applying to the most selective schools in the country, there’s only so much you can do.For example, Goodman says, “Schools are trying to fill their classes with the largest number of students possible that satisfy diversity criteria and max out the number of students who can afford to pay.” That’s right, according to Goodman, need-blind admissions is a myth. “It’s the same as on the first date when you say, ‘It doesn’t matter what you look like.’ A person who’s paying full fare at the University of Pennsylvania versus someone who’s not means a $400,000 difference. That’s a lot of money for a university to ignore.”With all that working against you, perhaps the best advice can be summed up by Inspirica’s Jacobson: “Figure out what you love to do. If you like fashion and old movies, pursue those things. It’s OK to be the fashion kid who likes old movies.”Senior-year bluesMaybe then the most important lesson about the college admissions process is learning to put rejection behind you. “If you don’t get in,” Jacobson says, “it has nothing to do with intelligence.”Emily Chen certainly proves that. The Tuckahoe High School grad admits she probably didn’t start thinking about college early enough. In her senior year she decided Columbia University in New York City was her first-choice school, but applied regular admissions.She had plenty going for her. She took five AP courses, was a member of the Science Olympiad team, the National Honor Society, the school’s drama club, and the chorus. And in her spare time, she happened to earn high enough grades to be her school’s valedictorian.And yet, last April, when she went online to check whether Columbia had admitted her, she learned she was placed on the wait list. The blow was slightly softened by the fact that her best friend, who also applied to Columbia (and who happened to be the salutatorian), was also waitlisted.Chen, however, was accepted at the other five schools to which she applied, and this fall she matriculated at New York University, also in New York City, a choice she says she’s happy with.Melissa Dzenis, the Pelham senior deferred from Yale, also got into her second-choice school – Brown University in Providence, R.I. She plans on studying International Relations. “I’m ecstatic,” she says. Still, Melissa says, “When you think about all the time and energy you put into looking perfect for someone else, you can’t help but think, was it worth it?”
posted by Jeannie Borin, M.Ed, college-connections.com

By JUSTIN POPEAP Education WriterAugust 22, 2007

If there’s a sign of the times in college admissions, it may be this: Steven Roy Goodman, an independent college counselor, tells clients to make a small mistake somewhere in their application – on purpose.”Sometimes it’s a typo,” he says. “I don’t want my students to sound like robots. It’s pretty easy to fall into that trap of trying to do everything perfectly and there’s no spark left.”What Goodman is going for is “authenticity” – an increasingly hot selling point in college admissions as a new year rolls around.In an age when applicants all seem to have volunteered, played sports and traveled abroad, colleges are wary of slick packaging. They’re drawn to high grades and test scores, of course, but also to humility and to students who really got something out of their experiences, not just those trying to impress colleges with their resume.The trend seemingly should make life easier for students – by reducing the pressure to puff up their credentials. But that’s not always the case.For some students, the challenge of presenting themselves as full, flawed people cuts against everything else they’ve been told about applying to college – to show off as much as possible.At the other extreme, when a college signals what it’s looking for, students inevitably try to provide it. So you get some students trying to fake authenticity, to package themselves as unpackaged.”There’s a little bit of an arms race going on,” says Goodman, who is based in Washington. “If I’m being more authentic than you are, you have to be more authentic next month to keep up with the Joneses.”Colleges say what they want is honest, reflective students. As Jess Lord, dean of admission and financial aid at Haverford College in Pennsylvania puts it, “everybody’s imperfect.”"Since that’s true for all (students), those that portray that aspect of themselves are that much more authentic.”How do colleges find authenticity? They look for evidence of interests and passions across the application – in essays, interviews, recommendations and extracurricular activities.”What we see are the connections,” said Christopher Gruber, dean of admission and financial aid at Davidson College in North Carolina. If a student claims working in student government has been a meaningful experience, it’s a more credible claim if recommenders have picked on that as well.”That, in my mind, gives authenticity to an application, when you’re reading things more than once,” Gruber said.But in the age of the hyper-achieving student, authenticity doesn’t always come easy. Some schools, such as MIT, now specifically ask students to write about disappointment or failure. Many can only come up with a predictable and transparent answer: perfectionism.Will Dix, a counselor at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School, who also spent eight years in the Amherst College admissions office, struggles to persuade students that essays about doubt and uncertainty can be at least as interesting to admissions officers as those with a conclusion that’s sweeping but implausibly confident for a 17-year-old.”No one expects you to solve the mystery of life,” Dix says. “I sometimes get in trouble with parents for advising that. They’ll say, ‘(colleges) will think he doesn’t know anything.’”Dix counters by paraphrasing Socrates via Donald Rumsfeld: “The first thing is to know what you don’t know.”Susan Weingartner, another former admissions officer and now college counseling director at Chicago’s Francis W. Parker School, surveys her juniors about shortcomings and weaknesses. The next year, those now-seniors often are unsure what to write about. She digs up their junior-year responses, where they often find their topic – like one student last year who ultimately wrote a moving essay about his experience being overweight.Weingartner has noticed more students writing about being gay. Some pull it off, coming across as honest, humble and reflective about the challenges they’ve faced. But others raise alarm bells by appearing to be traumatized or just looking for sympathy.The challenge for students is a tough one to get your mind around: If you’re authentic, you feel pressure to rise above the fakers. But try too hard to do that, then you just appear to be, well, inauthentic.Dix summarizes the logical muddle the student is in: “As soon as you ask someone to be authentic it’s impossible to be authentic.”Goodman, the independent counselor who advises making a small mistake to look authentic, unapologetically tries to hit the right note of authenticity: be true enough to make the full application consistent and credible, but also give colleges what they want to hear. He compares it to a politician who has learned to give a stump speech that makes every audience feel like it’s new.And he defends the tactic with a point that several admissions deans frankly acknowledge: Colleges are guilty of playing games with authenticity, too.”They soften their image with pictures of kids under trees, smiling in front of the library, engaging with a professor in a small group discussion,” Goodman says. What’s the difference between a college trying to look good to students and the reverse?David Lesesne, dean of admission at Sewanee, a small Tennessee liberal arts college, admits Goodman has a point.”Students perhaps have become less authentic to themselves, trying to be what colleges want,” Lesesne said. But colleges have done the same. Schools “are looking to draw more applicants and students are looking to gain acceptance,” he said. “As those numbers grow I think that has caused both sides of the equation to lose a little focus on what should be most important: the match.”
posted by Jeannie Borin, M.Ed, college-connections.com

The college interview has little or no effect on admissions decisions today, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

According to the “State of College Admission,” a report by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, an applicant’s interview had limited or no importance at two-thirds of 386 four-year institutions surveyed last year. The portion of schools that gave the interview “considerable importance” was 10 percent, down from a high of 15 percent in 1995.

For at least 15 years, the top admissions factors have been curriculum and test scores, the report states. The interview ranked 10th among 15 criteria that schools consider.

As the number of applications rise, colleges are struggling to keep up with interview requests. In addition, the input from alumni, who often conduct the interviews, isn’t always useful. Also, admissions officials realize the potential unfairness. Less affluent students, for example, may not be able to afford to travel for an interview.

Many colleges favor group information sessions. After a surge in campus visits over the last three years, Bucknell decided last spring to eliminate all interviews. Students now have the opportunity to spend a day attending classes and talking with faculty, current students and admissions officers. Input from those sessions goes into the students’ files.

Generally, smaller, more selective schools value interview. In the NACAC survey, no institution with a student body of 10,000 or more gave “considerable importance” to the interview. But about 13 percent of colleges with fewer than 3,000 students placed high value on the interview. “An interview isn’t going to make or break any application,” said Matt Gray, spokesman for Bryn Mawr College. “But if there’s two equally strong candidates, it’s much easier to deny a piece of paper than a person.”

At highly selective schools, optional interviews are offered. Ninety-five percent of applicants to the class of 2011 at Princeton University accepted the opportunity to interview. More than 6,000 alumni conducted 17,900 interview sessions worldwide.

The University of Pennsylvania offers an optional interview after a student’s application has been received.

Beginning October 19th, students will again be able to copy their Common Applications and make changes to it before sending it to additional schools. This functionality has not been available during this admissions cycle, but has been available in previous years.

So if you’ve already submitted your Common App to a few schools and would like to make some changes to your application before you send it out to a few more, hang in there for this change.

Student loan giant Sallie Mae tries to grab college student information using the Freedom of Information Act for direct marketing. Will they succeed? What can you do to stop college students from getting deluged with a new marketing spam tactic?

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Call it a testament to how carefully students court college admissions offices these days: Thank-you notes have become the new frontier.

Take the one that came with M & Ms to match Lehigh University’s school colors of brown and white, and with the applicant’s name inscribed on the candy. She thanked officials for her interview, adding, “Keep me on the tip of your tongue when reviewing applications.”

Some students buy college stationery for their notes as if to signal they already belong on campus. The flying pigs that adorned a thank-you to Guilford College in North Carolina were certainly eye-catching, as was the smiley face at the end of the note.

There are even thank-you notes that are less than thankful, like the one from a young man who announced he had visited Lehigh under parental duress and begged to be rejected. “He said, ‘My parents don’t know I’m sending this letter,’” said J. Leon Washington, the dean of admissions and financial aid.

Mr. Washington said that he was seeing more thank-you notes than ever, and that Lehigh received 50 or 60 in just one day last week. The notes are directed not just to admissions officers, but also to college tour guides and alumni who are often the ones most likely to be conducting college interviews these days.

Woody O’Cain, the admissions director at Furman University in South Carolina, said he received thousands each year.

“I laugh and tell people that’s the kind of stuff that replaces the zeros on my paycheck”, Mr. O’Cain said. “I realize a lot of them are strategic. A guidance counselor says be sure to write a thank-you note because they want it to be added to the file. But there are plenty that are very heartfelt.”

Still, Mary Fitzgerald Hull, a college adviser at a public high school in Maryland, seemed to strike a nerve among college admissions officers longing for authenticity when she asked recently for sample thank-you notes on a Web site for admissions professionals. Ms. Hull said one of her students disagreed with her mother on what was appropriate.

“Can you imagine your daughter going to her counselor and saying, ‘My mom and I can’t agree on what should go into a thank-you note?’” Dan Rosenfield, an admissions official at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said in an interview.

“To be concerned about, ‘Am I going to say the wrong thing?’” Mr. Rosenfield continued, “Or ‘Am I going to write a thank-you note that hurts me?’ It just gets crazy.”

Miss Manners, Judith Martin, who writes a syndicated etiquette column that runs in more than 200 newspapers, says she, for one, does not think thanks are needed for a campus visit: “I would never, ever say, ‘Don’t write a thank-you note under any circumstances.’ I don’t want to discourage them. But it is not really a situation that is mandatory.”

Still, some admissions advisers leap to Ms. Hull’s defense. Read More>>

The US Department of Education has revised their IPEDS/COOL website to include a better college search feature. The new site is called College Navigator. The information about colleges available at this website is the same information provided by the colleges to the US Department of Education. You can find facts about admissions, retention, graduation rates and financial aid among other topics. The only caution in using this website, or any other college information site for that matter, is that the information is generally at least one year out of date.