NACAC releases FREE 80-page ‘Guide to the College Admission Process’

Students navigating the college admissions process now have a fantastic new resource to help them search for, evaluate and select a school that’s “right” for them.

An updated version of the National Association for College Admission (NACAC) “Guide to the College Admission Process” is now available for FREE download on the NACAC website.  And for anyone familiar with the older version, the 80-page guide has been expanded to include new chapters targeted to the special needs of transfer and international students.

“Students today are inundated with information about the college application process, but we know many families still struggle to access the right information at the right time,” explained NACAC CEO Joyce E. Smith. “Our updated guide takes the guesswork out of the process, with easy-to-understand steps for students as they research colleges, submit applications, and choose an institution to attend.”

In addition to providing a broad overview of the college admission process, the revised edition includes advice on how to sort through various financial aid options as well as questions to ask when evaluating the merits of online courses, for-profit institutions, independent counselors, and various college search tools. The guide also provides a very valuable glossary of terms applicants and their families need to know as they begin the process of evaluating colleges, programs, and admissions processes, as well as a four-year plan of action for any college-bound high school student (Prep for College, Appendix B).

Although all of this information may be found on the NACAC website, it’s nice to have it compiled into a single, easy-to-digest guide.  And there’s no better source for inside information on colleges and the admissions process than NACAC, which is a membership association of more than 15,000 primary and secondary school counselors, independent counselors, college admission and financial aid officers, enrollment managers, and other organizations that work with students making the transition from high school to postsecondary education.

Based on the original guide by Steven C. Munger, former dean and college counselor at Bridgton Academy (ME), the updated “Guided to the College Admission Process” may either be downloaded at no cost or purchased through NACAC’s Marketplace.

Parents are becoming more diligent about saving for college

According to a recent survey by Fidelity Investments, parents are becoming increasingly more diligent about saving for college.

Results showed that, on average, 69 percent of families are currently saving for college—up from 64 percent in 2014.  Parents also intend to assume a larger portion of anticipated college costs for their children—66 percent of total, which continues an upward trend from 57 percent in 2012.

And millennial parents (born between 1981 and 1997) are most aggressively seeking to ensure adequate funds are available to their children once they reach college age.  Young parents, many of whom are saddled with huge student loan debt, plan to cover, on average, 74 percent of their children’s college costs.  This compares with 64 percent for Generation X parents and 60 percent for baby boomer parents.  

In fact, 46 percent of millennials plan to pay the full cost of their children’s college educations, as compared to only 32 percent of Gen X and 27 percent of boomers.  This is a huge upward trend from as recently as 2007, when only 16 percent of parents in the same 30 to 34 age group planned to foot the entire college bill.

"Millennials have weathered challenging economic conditions for much of their adulthood. Many have channeled that experience into setting college savings goals early, and taking steps to make savings a regular habit," said Keith Bernhardt, vice president of retirement and college products at Fidelity.

Despite all the optimism, however, Fidelity reports that parents are on track to pay only 27 percent of their college funding goal, down one percentage point from last year.  

Boston Research Technologies, an independent research firm, conducted the online study on behalf of Fidelity, among a national sample of 2,470 families with children 18 years old and younger.  The families contacted all had annual household incomes of at least $30,000.

In the same survey, parents report that saving for college is their number two savings priority, behind saving for retirement but ahead of paying off their own student loans. On average, parents report that their child was 7.2 years old when they started saving for their college, and 39 percent of parents report opening a 529 plan—up from 32 percent last year.

While millennials lead the way in saving for college, they aren’t particularly optimistic about the future.  Eighty-two percent of millennial families believe the cost of college is becoming prohibitive, and 75 percent agree that student loan debt will hinder their child’s ability to be financially independent post-graduation.

More information on the College Savings Indicator Study may be found on the Fidelity Investments website.

NACAC members barred from asking for college lists next year

Rice University asks applicants where else they've applied.

Effective next year, colleges will no longer be able to ask prospective students where else they are applying on admissions applications, thanks to new ethical guidelines approved by the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s (NACAC) General Assembly.

During its annual conference in San Diego, NACAC revised its Statement of Principles of Good Practice (SPGP) to forbid member colleges from including the question in written communications with students.

The new policy says college must “not ask candidates, their schools, their counselors, or others to list or rank their college or university preferences on applications or other documents.”

This change in language follows a similar policy change on the part of the Department of Education to discontinue the practice of sharing college lists provided on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), planned for implementation on January 1, 2016.

And the issue is not a trivial one. Asking applicants to reveal and/or rank their college preferences causes what most counselors believe is unnecessary anxiety.  It begs the question of what it is the colleges are looking for—a demonstration of interest or an opportunity to jump-start recruitment activities.  Colleges contend that knowing the applicant’s other preferences help them in their counseling roles, but students and their advisers find it difficult to believe such a benign motivation, especially in the era of “big data” and other intrusions on applicant privacy throughout the admissions process.

And it’s a particularly good case study for colleges wishing to establish policies promoting “public interest” as opposed to narrower institutional interests—a question also considered during the NACAC conference.

The issue became a hot topic last spring as the Common Application and NACAC engaged in a squabble over who was in charge of the question.  Paul Mott, interim CEO of the Common App, declined to take responsibility and threw the ball back into NACAC’s court to act upon.

As a result, over 125 Common App members as well as colleges using the Universal College Application (UCA) and others felt free to continue the practice for this year. Included on this list are Davidson College, DePaul University, Drexel University, Goucher College, Hampshire College, Hofstra University, RPI, Rice University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the University of Cincinnati, and WPI.

But Todd Rinehart, associate chancellor for enrollment and director of admission at the University of Denver and chair of NACAC’s Admission Practices Committee, wanted to press the issue further and proposed language to amend the SPGP, effective for the 2016-17 application cycle. Not everyone was pleased by this outcome, and much institutional angst was expressed privately.  But the fact that the amendment passed was a clear indication of how powerful the counselor lobby has become within NACAC—a welcome outcome for many.

And so it remains to be seen how the new policy will be enforced.  Will there be a NACAC-initiated campaign warning colleges of possible consequences for violations? And will NACAC take the time to audit or review member applications?  Or will NACAC passively wait for complaints?  As a loyal partner with NACAC, will the Common Application remove the question from among those allowable? Or will the Common App and other application providers insist that NACAC take responsibility for enforcement?

Also, there is the question of how the change in SPGP language affects other interactions. It’s no secret that interviewers—alumni and staff—occasionally ask applicants where else they are applying. Although the language seems to imply that these questions would be off limits, there is no specific prohibition against asking or including the response as part of the applicant’s file.

It’s a little early to know how aggressively the new language will be enforced next year. If the past is any indicator, however, NACAC has not always been too hard on institutional violations of the SPGP.   And this one could be hugely difficult to enforce without support from the Common Application and other application providers.

In the meantime, this year’s applicants continue to be faced with the strategic question of what to tell colleges that insist on knowing where else they are applying.  But happily it’s an unnecessary stressor that will soon be eliminated.

15 uncommon questions from Common Application members

Harvard takes a strong stand against application cheats.

One of the more interesting features of the current version of the Common Application is the extent to which member colleges and universities are encouraged to individualize their applications by tailoring questions on their member pages and creating unique prompts in writing supplements. 

It’s almost as if a handful of the 611 Common App members went to a candy store and emptied the shelves in a quest to fashion uniquely probing packages for applicants to complete.

Although some creativity is evidently at work, colleges are also provided with a fairly comprehensive bank of questions from which to select more routine inquiries. 

And these questions are supposed to result in greater standardization among applications and a general simplification of the process of defining interest in academics, living arrangements, residency, honors or majors.

At times the questions are repetitive to the point of tedium, and more than one Common Application user has been heard to moan, “Why do colleges keep asking me the same questions over and over again?”

But directly beside that which might seem repetitive, there exists a variety of curiously uncommon requests from Common Application member colleges.  

In fact, some colleges looking for evidence of non-cognitive personality traits and skills like persistence, grit, empathy, creativity and critical thinking. And then, there are those that are simply looking to be entertained—reading applications can get awfully tedious.

A sample of some more uncommon requests from Common App members may be found here.

The ‘Coalition’ retreats—a little

In an email circulated yesterday to college counselors, the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success retreated a little by shifting a key start date of one element of their new college admissions platform from January to April.

According to the email, “Our initial announcement was made before the details were fully resolved because we wanted an opportunity to get feedback from you and to incorporate that feedback into the design of our system.”

The planned January release of the coalition’s virtual “portfolio” feature, which would allow prospective college applicants to upload pictures, videos and written work, caused enough controversy to be recast as "The Locker” before introductions were even made. Now, in response to loud complaints from the counseling community voiced online and at the NACAC conference in San Diego, implementation of the feature is being delayed by about four months.

“I feel like these folks at the Coalition made a gigantic error and have had the courage to acknowledge their error—at least in timing the release of the Locker,” said one New England based counselor. “I am still a skeptic but now have made room for the possibility that they are well-intended, although definitely still in the dog house for not engaging counselors earlier and more transparently.”

In the email, the coalition’s Board of Directors acknowledged their failure in communication, which was especially evident at the NACAC session dedicated to introducing the new application platform:  “In retrospect, we could have improved our communication by offering detailed examples of how institutions are thinking of using the new platform.” 

While not addressing the status of the new application, which may be available for completion as early as July 1, the email suggests that the delay in implementation for the Locker will “allow for more time to engage and answer questions and for counselors to be closer to finishing their work with the current senior class.”

And once again, promises were made that counselors—presumably those already invited to be part of a review committee—will have the opportunity to review the system and provide feedback once CollegeNET is a little farther along in development and prior to launch. A broader group of interested counselors and community based organizations (CBOs) will be invited for demonstrations throughout November.

The balance of the email was a word-for-word repeat of the script presented at NACAC, only with a little more clarification about the “Locker.”  According to the email, the Locker is

• A completely optional free tool to help students, especially under-resourced students who do not have access to college counseling or costly college planning tools, prepare and organize for the college admissions process
• A site for students to securely and privately store classwork, awards, journals, and notes—admissions offices will not have access to a student’s Virtual College Locker unless the student asks for help and advice with specific elements
• A platform (like Naviance) for students who use the system to share drafts of application materials and receive feedback from counselors and teachers

And the Locker is NOT:

• A college application
• Required for admission to any Coalition school
• A platform for colleges and universities to gauge demonstrated interest in a college—admissions offices cannot view the activities of students using the Locker
• A source for Coalition schools to buy student contact information

The Board welcomes questions, feedback and ideas and directs attention to the FAQ page on its website.