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Calculate your Academic Index
The Academic Index is a formula the Ivies use predominately for recruited athletes (not to be confused with applicants who happen to have played sports in high school; if you’re being recruited, you know who you are!). It combines SAT scores, SAT Subject Tests and a student’s class rank. Even for non-recruits, it can be a helpful guideline to show students how they stack up among Ivy applicants.
Athletic Recruiting
We’ve had so many questions about college recruiting lately we thought we’d bring you an interview we recently had with John Wolff. John was recruited to play baseball at Harvard and went on to play professional baseball with the Chicago White Sox and the New York Mets!
First, I would like to thank Mimi and Michele for asking me to share my thoughts on college athletics and the recruiting game. Having gone through this process myself and knowing what a major influence it had on my life, I certainly wish I had more access to detailed first-hand information when I was still in high school. To that end, I hope the readers of this blog find value in my experiences and learn from my successes and failures.
More on Score Choice
The Harvard Crimson noted today that Harvard will honor the new SAT Score Choice policy:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526072.
Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said that Harvard admissions will embrace the Score Choice policy and he believes that it will reduce stress among applicants.
This is turning out to be a heated issue among admissions folks with Stanford, USC, UPenn, and Pomona rejecting Score Choice and demanding that students report ALL their SAT scores.
The University of Chicago has joined Harvard in supporting Score Choice.
Stay tuned! We here at Application Boot Camp spoke directly with the College Board individual heading the Score Choice issue who asked to remain nameless. At that point, early on in their announcement of Score Choice, we were told that schools could not go against their new policy. Hmmmm…we’ll see about that.
Happy New Year – Now Think About Summer!
It’s hard to think about summer as you celebrate a bright new year, but we want you to shift your focus as the best summers take planning. But, we want you to shift your focus as the best summers take planning.
As you probably know by now, the Common Application has added a new category called WORK EXPERIENCE with five or so lines of description. Getting a job is as important today to admissions officers as community service was ten years ago. Likewise, many students are more career-oriented than ever before.
Admissions Blogs
Many colleges are beginning to create blogs written by admissions officers. These blogs are helpful resources no matter what grade you are in because often some interesting insight is shared. Take some time to check websites of colleges that interest you and read their admissions blog, if they have one, if not, read the school newspaper online.
Get Some Testing Done Early
Unfortunately, many students only start their standardized testing in junior year and as a result have no SAT Subject tests. The last thing you ever want to do is wait until spring of junior year and then take all three Subject Tests (most top colleges require three Subject Test scores) on the same test date!
Early Application Stats
By: Mimi Doe and Michele Hernandez
Since last summer, and all fall, we’ve been asked by the press, parents, and anxious students if we felt early applications would drop due to the financial crisis. Over and over, we’ve said NO, applications will RISE because students still don’t want the pressure of having to apply to 20 schools for regular. Plus, it’s the top colleges that give the most generous financial aid in the first place, and applying early NEVER decreases your financial aid package at comparable schools. In other words, you’ll get the same aid package in early as regular even if you don’t have several offers to compare to. Plus, it’s EASIER to get in early decision. In 2008, for instance, Yale had an overall acceptance rate of 8.29%. If, however, you had applied early, the acceptance rate was 18.11% and the regular round was a brutal 5.62%.
We were spot on…. Here’s the current early stats for the schools posting their numbers:
Plan Ahead for Summer!
It’s hard to turn our thoughts to summer when winter is just kicking into gear.
But, we encourage students to take some time before the Christmas break to begin researching their summer plans. Many of the top summer programs at colleges and private schools fill up well ahead of the spring deadlines.
8th Grade Standardized Test
By: Michele Hernandez
In October, the College Board launched a new standardized test for eighth graders. “ReadiStep” is a shorter and easier version of the PSAT designed to measure students’ readiness for rigorous high school courses and later, college. You can think of it as “pre-pre-pre SAT” as the College Board does – the test results will be seen only by teachers, parents, students and the current school. This is nothing revolutionary – the ACT has offered “Explore,” pretty much a pre pre ACT, since the early 1990′s – just like score choice, it seems the College Board is trying to keep up with and compete with the ACT.
Get a job
Many students think that doing hours of community service will get them into top colleges, but that’s no longer the case. The truth is that many high schools REQUIRE community service, so it’s hard to tell who put their heart into it and who did it because it was required. Admissions officers are tired of the long list of community service projects on applications and students who emphasis how many hours they worked.
Ivy League Admissions Statistics
Our exclusive data on the Class of 2014 Ivy League Admissions statistics, now updated for Early Action and Early Admissions for the class entering 2010. See exactly how many students applied and how many were accepted to different schools.
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Academic Index Calculator
Since the 1950's, Ivy League schools have used the Academic Index, a ranking formula, to evaluate students. Find out how you rank according to the Academic Index.
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