College Applications: The Inside Story

Article by Jerry Larson

The competition to get into the highest ranked colleges &amp universities in America has become increasingly fierce in recent years. Sometimes it starts as early as nursery school when parents will call Ivy league admissions offices asking for advice about the greatest nursery schools to prepare for admission. As high school graduation nears more and much more parents are paying college admission consultants thousands of dollars for their help in helping their child fill out college applications and write college admission essays. Whether or not or not this genuinely assists is debatable but it certainly happens.

Do not be discouraged. Even though there are a few dozen elite schools flooded with applications from highly qualified high school seniors, the truth of the matter is that most of the 2,200 four year colleges and universities in America are still in competition with each and every other to attract qualified applicants. The majority of schools in fact accept much more than two-thirds of the applicant pool and hundreds of other colleges and universities grant mission to virtually any student with the high school diploma. Some of these institutions are “diamonds in the rough” with superb academic programs and outstanding track records based on the accomplishments of past graduates.

Now you know the “dirty small secret” most colleges and universities hope you by no means discover. They’ll send you letters in the mail putting up a front about how selective they are in the admissions method but when you take a step back and look at the actual statistics you’ll see that only a couple of dozen institutions are actually so selective that much less than 25% of the annual applicant pool is granted admission.

So the very good news is it is not almost as difficult to gain admission to extremely-ranked institution offerings high quality educations. But on the flip side if you’re intent is to attend one of the couple of dozen institutions that is extremely selective your chances are really decreasing. In the past decade applications to schools such as Duke, Notre Dame, Stanford, Northwestern and any of the Ivy league schools have risen dramatically producing an very competitive admissions procedure even more challenging. For example Harvard University’s admissions office received over 9,400 applications from high school seniors with SAT scores higher than 1400 &amp fewer than 2,000 of these extremely qualified applicants received acceptance letters in their mailboxes

There’s no want to lower your expectations concerning which college or university to attend the Ivy schools have not stopped admitting freshman classes, it has only turn into much more difficult to be accepted. A excellent strategy could be to make an honest assessment of your qualifications and if they genuinely warrant powerful consideration you should totally total your application and send it in prior to the deadline. But do not put all your eggs in one basket or you may possibly be setting yourself up for a significant disappointment. Just in case things do not work out at one of the elite schools you need to apply to one or more other schools where your admission is far more specific to be accepted. There are plenty of excellent colleges and universities from which to decide on.

About the Author

Jerry Larson is a former college admissions officer who knows the ropes and is now helping college applicants get an “insiders perspective” on the college admission method. Are you creating these frequent errors that kill your chances of admission into the college or university of your selection? For much more data, please pay a visit to http://www.105essaytopics.com