What’s going down for the college-bound? With winter break looming in February, many juniors and their families are planning their first college visits. Hopefully, those of you taking the tours know what you’re looking for!
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Now that PSAT scores are in, you can expect to be deluged with mail and email from colleges you’ve never even heard of. But according to Laura M. Colarusso of the Hechinger Report, this recruit-spam may be less innocuous than it appears:
As college-admissions season kicks into high gear, Kelley is a target of a little-known practice among colleges and universities called “recruit to deny,” under which they try to make their admissions process look more selective by boosting their number of applicants — then turning many of them down — through hard-sell marketing techniques.
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Curious about what admissions officers are writing about you? Apparently, you can request your detailed admissions files (only from schools that admitted you) through the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act:
Documents viewed by BuzzFeed News show that Stanford students were able to view the evaluative essays written about them by admissions officers and numerical valuations assigned to their personal qualities, as well as descriptions of interviews and recommendation letters. The documents are labeled “confidential.” But under FERPA, they legally belong to students. While most applicants waive their rights to view their recommendation letters, the same does not apply to what is written about them by their school’s admissions office.
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Have you heard that the percentage of Americans with four-year degrees is predicted to drop as soon as 2020? No wonder President Obama is eager to get more students to college, even if his focus is on community college:
In an increasingly competitive world economy, America’s economic strength depends upon the education and skills of its workers. In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as those requiring no college experience. To meet this need, President Obama set two national goals: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world, and community colleges will produce an additional 5 million graduates.
True, most of us focused on a four-year school might see a stint in community college as a significant step down, but the experience can help many students financially, academically, and emotionally. Community college apparently did wonders for Tom Hanks!
Mike Bergin