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What do recent admissions policy changes really mean for students? Many U.S. universities have been announcing their new policy to be test optional for the next year or two to accommodate the students who have been unable to take the SAT or ACT tests this fall due to Covid-19 test cancellations.  Please keep in mind that test-optional does not mean test-blind and that taking the test, when possible, and sending in a good score is better than sending in no test results. In the latter case, the chance of being deferred from the early round to the regular round increases, especially given that schools have been online this spring and many final exams have been shortened or eliminated. Therefore, term 2 grades will not be carrying the same weight as in previous years. As well, when SAT and ACT results are not submitted, there will be more scrutiny on other factors such as the rigor of your coursework, your activities, leadership, recommendations, etc. – most of which have not gone unscathed by the Coronavirus situation we are all facing. Keep in mind that many of these now test-optional institutions still welcome and value strong scores in the admissions process, especially the more selective institutions. Plus, there will be those in your peer group who have already taken the tests and will be submitting strong scores which the universities will consider when making decisions regarding admission and awarding merit scholarships. In any case, selective universities are aware that they will be penalized in the rankings by US News & World Report if their number of admitted students not submitting test scores goes above 15% of those matriculating. Therefore, they tend to admit some non-submitters with strong credentials and reject the remainder to protect their rankings. In other words, the admit rate for SAT and ACT submitters is going to be much higher than it is for non-submitters.

Here is a very detailed, informative, and data-driven webinar on this topic by one of my colleagues which is absolutely worth watching. It reinforces the fact that non-submitters are admitted to universities at lower rates and receive fewer merit scholarships: https://youtu.be/25G93wC1MYc    

As we make every effort to adapt to the challenges of current events surrounding us, grade 11 and 12 students are dealing with a lot of uncertainty about their future. In the meantime, we must keep in mind that universities are also having to deal with these unknowns, rethinking their policies in order to adapt to all these changes – coming up with alternate solutions to be able to tackle multiple scenarios for next fall.

Testing Policy

Some universities are waiving their SAT and ACT testing requirements for next year. Some are implementing a 3-year test optional pilot project while others are making a permanent decision to go test optional. This is good news for many of our students but preparing for and taking the test, when possible, will allow you to keep more options open. The biggest piece of news this week has been that the NCAA has waived its testing requirement for athletes wishing to be recruited for their sport for the coming year.

Deadline Extensions

In order to better accommodate applicants during these trying times, some universities have extended their decision date from May 1 to June 1 or later. If you need more time due to extenuating circumstances, you can always call universities and see if an extension will be granted.

University Start Dates

Given the uncertainty of what the pandemic will look like by late summer, whether borders will be open or not, some universities will be considering virtual classes, at least for the fall term. Others, like Stanford, have been discussing the possibility of starting classes in January and running them all through the following summer. UPenn sent an email to admitted international students (Canadian passport holders not included) suggesting they consider taking a GAP year if need be – especially if U.S. consulates and visa offices remain closed in their part of the world.

My advice to you is to not stress about what is not in your control. Look at this period as a gift from the universe. It is a time when you can be flexible, you can be generous with the time you spend on yourself and your loved ones – hiking together, cooking/baking together, playing board games, or just chilling. You’re getting a small taste of what life at university is like and all the freedom you will have, realizing the fact that time management is essential. See this as a positive, an opportunity to create a routine for yourself. Set up a foundation for your time at university and for a successful future. Invest in your personal development by engaging in some self-reflection and one or more of the following:

Make Learning a Priority: Take online classes. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to a university program such as JHU online, find free online courses via EdX and Coursera and enjoy learning for the sake of learning. Take a course in psychology or one in coding. Read what interests you – a historical novel, a biography, or fantasy.

Be Proactive: Research universities. Choose 2 universities per day, research them, take a virtual tour, go to their websites, and take notes about special programs, courses, professors, and student organizations, which excite you. Use technology to establish contact with students who attend the university you will be matriculating at or the university you are targeting and get an insider’s view of what the school is like inside and outside of the classroom. Most universities, realizing that you will not be able to visit their campus this summer, are offering webinars and virtual meetings. Take advantage of these and demonstrate your interest to those universities that keep track of your interest.

Be Productive: Work on your resume, learn a new language, get ahead in mathematics or a subject you want to accelerate in.

Be Creative: Explore and try something new or adapt existing interests to managing them from home. If you love sports, write a blog on your sport of choice. Start a power-washing business – you could even donate the income to something related to COVID-19. Write a children’s book and collaborate with a friend who is an artist for illustrations. Write poetry. Try photography.

Do Some Good: Mow some lawns for your more elderly neighbors. Bake bread and do some cooking to feed the homeless. Sew some masks and distribute them or sell them and donate the profit.

There have been articles in the papers about a 14-year-old on Vancouver Island using a 3-D printer to create valves for ventilators to allow them to be used by two patients instead of one. Another teenager, a 12-year-old on the North Shore, used his 3-D printer to create ear-saver head straps for health care workers, preventing the chafing that occurs behind the ears from having to wear surgical masks all day. Even though there is a lot of sadness in our world, students must not allow themselves to feel stymied by it.  Instead, make an effort to make your community a better place by exercising patience, embracing the reality of life as it is, and making a positive difference in whatever way you can.

Don’t be surprised if there are questions about what you did during the COVID-19 probationary period on next year’s university applications!

The activities you engage in say a lot about who you are.  A science geek who is tinkering with the design of a bicycle to prevent the rider from falling head first in a collision, who is winning awards at local and national science fair contests and eventually making it to the Intel international competition and winning gold in physics, while also creating artistic ceramic pieces and some plain ones for a water irrigation project in Uganda, is a unique species. As well, the student who is the president of her school’s Human Rights Club, is the founder of a startup which makes beads and bracelets from upcycled plastics and donates the proceeds to the aquarium, creates an IOS app to help youth overcome addictions, and who starts a club which brings a Syrian refugee family of 4 and resettles them in Canada is a totally different species. So is the young musician who puts together concerts every single year to raise 20k+ for UNICEF during his high school career. You might also run into a young person who is a beekeeper, selling honey to raise funds for Hives for Humanity, who is also into rowing, biathlon, and environmental activism. Each of these youth is outstanding in his and her own way and each is valued by the university admissions officers who read these students’ applications.

Universities look for diversity in the students that they admit, and I don’t just mean racial or ethnic diversity. They want a diversity of interests and talents. What each student brings to the campus makes for an interesting and lively community – intellectually, artistically, athletically and otherwise. Whether you are that environmental crusader or defender of animal rights, there are universities that want you. Whether you are a fearsome debater or a democratic leader, you are valued. You can be an advocate for the underprivileged or handicapped, a pacifist, feminist, humanist, realist, or innovator and you will be welcome to the campus. You might be an artist at heart, a champion of children, a coding guru or an outdoor enthusiast and you will certainly be valued for who you are.

The value you bring to a campus community is presented in the application that you painstakingly put together, highlighting your interests, talents and accomplishments, and telling your life’s story. You, therefore, cannot be too humble. You are limited in the space you are given to showcase who you are so you have to choose your words carefully, telling anecdotes that demonstrate your target characteristics, enabling your reader to see the awesome young person that you truly are. It is certainly not an easy task but those of you who put the time and effort into brainstorming for the characteristics you want to highlight, coming up with creative ideas of how to unambiguously portray yourself, while presenting a cohesive and interesting application, are the ones who will ultimately make it into your target destinations. So, who you are and how you go about introducing yourself to the reader is a question well worth pondering about! Good writing skills are a must, of course!

Just as every college/university is different, so too are the criteria and priorities in each campus’ admission process. In fact, one of the great advantages of working with an independent educational consultant is their personal knowledge of these differences, helping students to navigate the process. Below are the criteria to pay attention to:

1. A rigorous high school curriculum that challenges the student and may include AP or IB classes.

2. High grade point average in major subjects. However, slightly lower grades in a rigorous program are preferred to all A’s in less challenging coursework.

3. High scores on standardized tests (ACT, SAT). These should be consistent with high school performance

4. Passionate involvement in a few activities that are meaningful, inside or outside of school.

5. A well-written essay that emphasizes insight into the student’s unique personality.

6. Leadership inside or outside of school. Depth, rather than breadth, of leadership is valued.

7. Demographic and personal characteristics that contribute to a diverse and interesting student body.

8. Strong counselor/teacher recommendations that provide personalized references.

9. Special talents that could contribute to campus life.

10. Intellectual curiosity exhibited through reading, research, and extracurricular pursuits.

11. Student’s character and values are seen as conducive to being a good community member.

12. Demonstrated interest and enthusiasm in attending (through campus visits, etc.)

This ranked list is based on a nationwide survey of IECA member independent educational consultants. Copyright IECA 2020- printed with permission

I get asked this question time and time again, especially as we near course selection time. My answer is that a students’ focus should not be on ‘more’ but, instead, on who they are. In helping students with their course selection, I ask what suits this particular student best in terms of their intended major or career interests. What is the most rigorous course load with which this student can be successful?

We want students to be taking a rigorous course load which challenges them but we also want them to be able to maintain their sanity. I tell students to pick a course load with which they know they can be successful personally while maintaining a balance in their life and managing their sanity. Naturally, every choice will have an impact and will make a difference. However, once the student takes 5-8 AP courses, anything beyond that doesn’t matter as much. In many instances, the benefits of more AP courses would be negligible according to studies.

Universities want students who can think and who can write. The rest is fluff. There are no set rules. Different institutions treat your profile differently. Academics matter, of course, but what also matters is how you will contribute to the campus community. Personal qualities matter. Leadership potential matters. Entrepreneurship matters. Applications to Honors Programs and to engineering programs are where more course rigor can make a difference.

Not every student has a passion; a student who has a passion for physics might have taken 3 or more advanced courses in that subject area, and several more in other areas of interest. However, everyone is different and there is a wonderful college or university where each and every student will thrive. What is important is the need to build up a strong foundation with solid building blocks to do well in certain areas of focus, for example in math and calculus for those targeting business or engineering programs. This can’t always be rushed. It’s not a race to collect as many AP’s as possible. Some students do it for the credit they can get when entering university but it is not always a good idea to use such credit to skip introductory classes because you’ve taken what you think is a similar course in high school. At some high schools, their AP program’s science courses don’t have electronic microscopes and universities are aware that not all AP programs were created equal. By leapfrogging Biology 101 at university, a premed student could be doing himself or herself a disservice as the university course will go more in-depth into the subject matter and by opting to take the course, you are building a strong foundation and if you find the course easy, you will gain an easy ‘A’ to buy yourself time to ease into university life and join more extracurricular activities and get to know more of your fellow peers.

When reviewing your transcript, universities will look at your overall profile and the ups and downs of your story, as told in various ways, including the story your transcript tells. Your recommendations also tell a story.

For those of you applying to UK universities, your grades are the first priority. Next are activities you have engaged in which demonstrate your interest or strength in your area of proposed concentration. These activities can include extra courses, summer programs, hobbies, clubs, internships and so on.

In selecting courses, students are advised to balance their activities and make sure they can balance their academic load with their extracurricular commitments in order to maintain their sanity to give themselves the opportunity to thrive and gain leadership in activities they engage in.

This is a true story of an encounter that led to very unexpected results for one of my students. Having attended a conference in Chicago one early May, I went on tour of a number of college and university campuses, some world-renowned and others relatively unknown – at least in my part of the world here in Canada. There was one particular liberal arts college at which I did not take copious notes as I usually do, thinking I would have a difficult time convincing my students to attend or even to apply to this university – given that too many of applicants are illogically brand-conscious, coming to me with a hit list of a dozen universities they are targeting, often taken from the US News and World Report top 20 rankings.

Within a week of my return, I met with a new family. The parents were divorced and the daughter, who had already finished high school, wanted to attend a US university, stipulating that it had to be in the Chicago area where her mom was living. In fact, she had two particular campuses in mind. With my focus being on fit, I knew right away that neither of her two choices were a good match for her needs – one was completely out of her reach and the other was just not right. We reviewed an SAT preparation timeline and discussed her extracurricular engagements. She assured me she was ready to spend the next 10 months working extra hard to reach her goal of gaining admission to a US college or university – a process that would entail months of test prep, applications, and essays for multiple campuses.

Within minutes of her leaving my office, I looked into her options. By instinct, I contacted the college I had visited in Chicago to see if they were willing to consider her application at that late date in May. They suggested she put in a quick application and agreed to waive any standardized testing requirements for her. Under my guidance, the student completed the application in ten days and we sat down for a mock interview prior to her visit to the college campus. Needless to say, the interview went well and she flew home with an acceptance in hand. A process that could have taken many months was accomplished in the course of a couple of weeks. The student has since graduated from the college she attended and I had a chance to revisit that same campus on my most recent visit to Chicago, knowing that every single campus I evaluate, has the potential to fulfill the needs of at least one of my students!

Having attended two professional conferences in the city of Chicago and in Providence (Rhode Island) this past May and June, I had the opportunity to tour a total of 8 university campuses, attend two university fairs, meet with admissions representatives from various colleges and universities as well as network and exchange ideas with independent educational consultants from across the U.S., Canada and overseas. Another aspect of these conferences are the Vendor Halls, where consultants like myself take time to chat with providers of services which help us support the needs of our students with resources such as DuoLingo and LanguageBird which deliver online world language courses via private tutoring and conversation lessons.

I attended a number of interesting educational sessions. The workshop on perfecting the art of essay-writing has enabled me to tweak my summer workshop presentation to make it more interactive. Breakout sessions on topics such new developments on standardized testing, gaming disorder in students, mental health issues and managing anxiety in the application process, how colleges count demonstrated interest, all have informed my knowledge of university planning and advising.

Finally, the keynote speakers, Dr. Robert Zimmer, President of the University of Chicago, spoke about Productive and Unproductive Change at Universities, and Patrick Schwarz spoke on the essential tenets for supporting learning differences. The most dynamic speech, however, was given by Dr. Michele Borba, who spoke on the importance of nurturing empathy in youth and mesmerized the audience. Her book, Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in our All-About Me World, is one I recommend to all parents of young kids.

Universities I visited during my two trips were: The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Lake Forest College, Loyola University Chicago, and DePaul University as well as Brown University (where I spent my four undergraduate years), Salve Regina University, Providence College, Sacred Heart University, and Yale. Despite the fact that for some of these universities, it was my second or third visit, campus visits are always an opportunity to learn about new programs and policies that will suit my students and are, therefore, a very valuable undertaking that I look forward to every year.

Beginning with September 2020, ACT will be allowing students to sit for individual sections of the exam instead of having to retake the entire exam when they are unable to achieve their target scores. Starting next fall, a student who has done well in the Math and Science section but would like to increase his/her score for the English section, may just retake that portion without redoing the whole test. Only students who have taken the full test at least once, will be eligible for section retesting.

Over the years, we have had students who retook the test to increase the English portion but then saw their Science or Math score drop in their retake of the test. Given that many universities did not allow superscoring (combining section results from one test date with the results of another test), this was a problem for students. Things will be changing as of next year but it is till up to the universities to decide whether or not they will accept combined results from multiple test dates. Globally, section testing will only be an option for students who take the computer-based tests. Computer-based or online testing has been the only option for testing here in Canada. Some students have preferred to travel to the US to take the test on paper. If you go across the border, you will not be able to test for section testing as this is going to only be available at online testing centers; section testing is not an option if the test is taken on paper. The advantage of online testing is that scores are available in 2-3 days instead of in 3 weeks.

According to ACT, they “will supply [universities] at least one full composite score with each superscore, plus all of the scores from the test events that are part of the superscore composite.” This will mean some savings for families because they will no longer have to send all the individual score reports to their colleges which want official reports; they can just send the superscore which will include one full composite.

This is good news for all of our students but especially for those who have testing anxiety. Students will clearly benefit from this new policy as now they won’t have to sit through two or more sections just to get to the one part of the test they want to improve. However, students taking the test for the first time should walk into a test center ready to do their best on all portions of the test and take advantage of this new policy for section retesting only if it is absolutely necessary to do so.

Fall is here and university representatives from many US and Canadian universities will be traveling to Vancouver and cities around the world to promote their universities and answer any questions you might have about their institutions. Some will be offering group information sessions* at a local hotel or at a school near you. These are usually open to students from any school. In addition to these, representatives from individual colleges and universities might be coming to your school for a short presentation after school or during the lunch break. Pay attention to your school newsletter or daily announcements not to miss a visit that is important to you. Be sure to take advantage of these opportunities in order to:

• Learn more about the universities which you are targeting
• Gain exposure to universities you are not familiar with
• Find out what these universities are looking for in the students they admit
• Find out if you are a good candidate for X university by asking questions such as “I am not taking higher level math; with my current profile am I admissible to the business program at your university?”
• Establish a relationship with the reps of the schools which interest you.

In addition to visits by individual reps or small groups of representatives, there will be a number of university fairs which you should consider attending. Some will be fairs for Canadian universities only and there will be many of these at various high school campuses in the Vancouver area. The VAIS fair is international will have universities from the US, Canada and other countries. Check their website in early October to see which universities will be present.

VAIS College Fair: Be sure to attend this year’s Vancouver Area Independent School Fair to meet representatives from 80+ US colleges & universities & to explore their programs & acceptance criteria. Details: Oct. 17, 2019, West Point Grey Academy’s Gymnasium, Vancouver, from 1:30 – 3:30 pm. This event is free for all parents & students http://www.wpga.ca/vaisfair

Fine Arts Enthusiasts: Be sure to attend this year’s Vancouver National Portfolio Day at The Wilson School of Design at KPU (Kwantlen Polytechnic Univ.) in Richmond. This event will be on Saturday November 16, 2019, from 11am to 3pm. There will also be a presentation by the representatives of the many art institutes attending this event at St. John’s School in Vancouver on Thursday November 14 from 6-8:30 pm. There will be an opportunity to show your portfolio pieces to a couple of the universities and get some feedback on how to improve your portfolio so this is a very worthwhile event to attend. As well, if there is sufficient demand from my students, I can arrange to have one of the representatives spend an afternoon at my home/office for some one-on-one time with my students who are artists so please let me know now if you are interested. In the past, my students have appreciated this opportunity.

*Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania will be making a group presentation at St. George’s school at 7 pm on September 16. They will be repeating this at Collingwood School in West Vancouver on September 17 at 7pm. Check with the schools or with your school counselor to see if online registration will be required. These representatives might be in town for a couple of days so if you are a serious contender for one of these schools, then you might want to take the initiative to email that rep and arrange to meet them for coffee at Starbucks if they have availability.

Regardless of whether you are a studio artist interested in the Brown-RISD dual-degree program or a musician looking to apply to a music conservatory …