Public colleges where out-of-state students rule

The University of Delaware

It’s no secret that public colleges and universities are increasingly recruiting undergrads from out-of-state.  Not only are these schools hoping to make up for declining populations of in-state high school graduates, but the lure of nonresident tuition dollars is all but irresistible.

While some state legislatures actively discourage their flagship institutions from loading their classes with students crossing state lines, others are more than happy to have nonresidents make up for decreasing appropriations for higher education.  

In Virginia, there’s a gentleman’s agreement that UVa* and the College of William and Mary* will keep out-of-state undergrads to about one-third of the total undergraduate population.  And the admissions offices in both schools work hard to toe the line, often using transfers from local community colleges to keep the numbers in check.

This is because the last thing either school wants is a legislated cap like the 18 percent restriction on out-of-state students in the University of North Carolina system.  Even relatively benign caps, such as the 45 percent limit on all nonresident freshmen imposed on Colorado universities by the state, can be troublesome.

And so colleges and legislators engage in a curious kind of dance, where the first responsibility to in-state students is acknowledged but the big tuition dollars provided by out-of-state students are welcomed.

Thanks to an interactive tool devised by Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for enrollment management at DePaul University, it’s easy to see which public institutions reach out to out-of-state students in a big way and enroll more than 50 percent nonresident freshmen.  Some of these numbers are facilitated by generous reciprocation programs between neighboring states, but most simply reflect the eagerness of schools to bring in money from outside their borders.

• University of Vermont:  77.5%*
• University of North Dakota:  68.6%
• Kentucky State University:  64.8%
• North Dakota State University:  64.2%
• University of Delaware:  60.29
• West Virginia University:  57.9%
• Central State University (Ohio):  57.4%
• University of New Hampshire:  55.2%
• University of Alabama:  53.9%
• Coastal Carolina University:  53.4%
• University of Wisconsin River Falls:  52.2%
• University of Rhode Island:  51.7%
• University of Mississippi:  51.6%

Other public institutions where nonresidents make up a significant percentage of incoming freshmen include College of Charleston (49.5%), University of Oregon (45.6%), University of South Carolina (45.5%), University of Colorado Boulder (40.6%)*, and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (39.1%).*

*Also appears on the list of most expensive public institutions for out-of-state students

Penn announces 2014-15 essay prompt

University of Pennsylvania

In his admissions blog, Page 217 (a play on a recently-retired Penn essay prompt), University of Pennsylvania Dean of Admissions Eric Furda quietly announced Penn’s  prompt for the 2014-15 Common Application Writing Supplement.

And drumroll please…it’s exactly the same as last year with the very minor deletion of two unimportant words:

The Admissions Committee would like to learn why you are a good fit for your undergraduate school choice (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Nursing, The Wharton School, or Penn Engineering). Please tell us about specific academic, service, and/or research opportunities at the University of Pennsylvania that resonate with your background, interests, and goals. (400-650 words)

In his commentary, Dean Furda explains how the question builds on “the academic narratives that unfold in the information-rich Common Application” and allows admissions readers to understand the essence of each applicant’s “fit” for the University of Pennsylvania.

“With this question, we are enlisting applicants’ help in envisioning their academic journey through a specific undergraduate school and their possible paths forward,” added Furda.  “This essay will always drive conversation in the committee room.”

But with the Class of 2018, Penn dropped to an acceptance rate of 9.9 percent for an applicant pool that grew by 14.7 percent to 35,868 prospective students.  No matter how you approach the essay question or how carefully you craft the contents of your Common Application, the odds of being admitted to the University of Pennsylvania are definitely stacked against most applicants.

Nevertheless, for students determined to buck the odds, Furda offers sound advice, some of which has applicability beyond Penn admissions:

• Answer the question.  
• Discuss what the university values—in this case, interdisciplinary learning.
• If you’re interested in a specialized program, be sure to articulate your “fit” with that program.
• Make connections between your interests and opportunities offered by the university.
• If you are undecided about majors, don’t just leave it at that—think  about possible options.
• Use the essay to take academic risks by exploring majors, concentrations, and programs.

And although he doesn't specifically say it, do your homework.  Examine Penn's website for hints about what the university cares about, take notes during campus visits, ask questions, and carefully reflect on your personal fit with the culture, programs, and priorities of the University of Pennsylvania.  

Look for other colleges and universities to begin posting essay prompts in advance of the August 1 start date for the Common Application.

Disclosure:  Nancy Griesemer graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the last century and really doesn't think she'd be admitted today!

How to cancel SAT scores

Stanford University does not participate in Score Choice

A number of years ago, my son took the SAT in a room directly adjacent to the room where the German with Listening SAT Subject Test was being given in a school with notoriously thin walls.  As time when on, he found himself paying more attention to German phrases than to the SAT Reasoning Test he was taking.

Another student on another day was seated next to an open window while a riding mower noisily crisscrossed the lawn outside during one section of the SAT he was struggling through. While not as annoying as the sehr distracting German phrases, the test conditions were certainly less than optimal.

At the end of the day, both students had decisions to make about whether or not the distractions were serious enough to warrant cancellation of their tests.  

And the College Board makes provision for this to happen, if a student believes they didn’t do as well as they could have on either the SAT Reasoning or an SAT Subject Test—for whatever reason.

Although the process is easy enough, it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.  Students who choose to cancel their SAT’s will never have a way of knowing how well they actually did on the exam.  The scores will never see the light of day—never.  You can’t ask for a sneak peek or an off-the-record reading of how well you did.

For this reason, cancelling out of generalized frustration or a touch of paranoia probably isn’t a good idea.  Students routinely underestimate their performance on standardized exams.  In fact, it seems that those who are most confident sometimes are most disappointed.  

So simply thinking things didn’t go too well shouldn’t be reason enough to go through the cancellation process.

Also with the College Board’s Score Choice program, most—not all—colleges give you the right to report scores from test dates you select.  

If Georgetown, Penn, Yale, Stanford, or Carnegie Mellon (among others) are at the top of your list, you know Score Choice will not be an option—all scores will have to be reported.  And this could be a factor in your decision to cancel.

Otherwise, it’s probably pointless to waste all that preparation and the anxiety leading up to test day, to walk away by cancelling your SAT.

But if you ultimately decide to cancel SAT scores, here is how it works:

At the Test Center

If you realize immediately after you’ve taken the test that your SAT is not going to be optimal because you missed a bubble and threw your answers out of alignment on one section, or you experienced an equipment malfunction affecting your ability to do well on math or you fell asleep, you can cancel your scores before leaving the test center.

• First, ask the test supervisor for a “Request to Cancel Test Scores” form
• Next, complete the form and sign it on the spot
• Finally, give the form to the test supervisor before leaving the Test Center

Note that if equipment fails during a Language Test with Listening or during a Math Level  1 or 2 test, a student can request to cancel just the scores on the affected test, and still have the other Subject Tests scored by checking off “Single Subject Test Equipment Failure” on the cancellation form.

After Leaving the Test Center

If the desire to cancel the test hits after you’ve left the Test Center, there’s still time to act, but you must act very quickly.  The College Board must receive your score cancellation request in writing no later than 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time) on the Wednesday after you took the test.  You will need to download and print the “Request to Cancel SAT Scores” from the College Board website.  Then, you’ll need to complete, sign, and either FAX or overnight it as follows:

• FAX:  (610) 290-8978
• Overnight via U.S. Postal Service Express Mail (U.S. only) to SAT Score Cancellation, P.O. Box 6228, Princeton NJ 08541-6228
• Other overnight mail service or courier (U.S. or international) to SAT Score Cancellation, 1425 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing NJ 08618 USA

In absence of the form, students may write a separate request by providing test date, test center number, name of test(s) being cancelled—either SAT Subject Tests or SAT—as well as name, address, sex, birth date and registration number.  All requests must be signed or the cancellation will not be processed.

Note that the ACT has a somewhat different process.  If you chose to send your score report directly to colleges, but then have a totally terrible test-taking day, you have several days to cancel your score report.  To do this call ACT at (319) 337-1270 before noon Central Time, on the Thursday immediately following your test date to cancel your report.  If, later in the process, you would like the ACT to delete scores for a particular date from their records, you must make the request in writing.  Provide name and home address, and the ACT will mail a form to complete and return as instructed.

For the record, neither my son nor the other student elected to cancel their scores.  And both did just fine.

Breaking your bond: When students walk away from Early Decision agreements

Vanderbilt has ED I and II to give students a second chance.

Colleges just love binding Early Decision (ED) admission plans.  ED has proven to be an invaluable tool for predicting yield and making the lives of enrollment managers much simpler by taking some of the guesswork out of admissions.  Binding a student—at any point in the process—to attend an institution guarantees yield (the percent of students accepting an offer to attend) and enables an admissions office to easily craft the composition of a class.

Take Duke University, for example.  After receiving a record high number of ED applications, Duke admitted 47 percent of what will be the Class of 2018—three percent up from the previous year.  That’s almost half the class filled before some students even completed their applications.

"We'd prefer not to admit as much as half of the class [in early decision]," dean of undergraduate admissions Christoph Guttentag said in an interview with Duke Chronicle. "But if it turns out that there are more strong applicants who want to be at Duke more than any other school—why not take advantage of that?"

And Duke certainly is not alone.  The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) reports that for fall 2012, about 50 percent of colleges responding to their annual survey on admissions trends reported increases in the number of ED applications.  Nearly half of the colleges surveyed (47 percent) reported an increase in the number of students admitted through ED.

In fact, colleges like ED so much that several have implemented a series of early decision options—ED I and ED II, which gives applicants a second chance to make a binding commitment to their school.

But there are a few rules all parties agree to when they commit to Early Decision. First and foremost, the student agrees without question to attend the school.  

The student also agrees to withdraw all other applications.  The only “loophole” comes into play if the financial aid offered is not sufficient for the student to attend.

Of course, if a student didn’t indicate a need for financial aid on their application or if the household otherwise neglected to submit required financial aid forms, even this loophole might disappear.  

But not all students are playing the game by the rules.  After submitting fees and spending hours on essays demanded by various colleges and universities, students sometimes decide they want to see what their outcomes might have been.  Some want notches on the belt, but others are simply curious.  After all, they paid for a read.  Why not get it?

Unfortunately, neglecting to withdraw applications sometimes has negative consequences.  It can lead to “buyers’ regret” or a sudden change of heart about the college to which a student has already been admitted. What seemed like an advantage—an opportunity to be finished with applications early—becomes a prison.

And other factors can start to gnaw away at the resolve to attend.  Sometimes the student simply doesn’t bond with the ED school.  The application was pressured by what seemed like a requirement to apply early or forgo the opportunity, and the comfort level was never established. 

Other students might see an opportunity for more prestige or a better deal.  And on occasion, an applicant might have learned something new about themselves after the application and ED contract were submitted—a new passion or career path that the ED school can’t accommodate.

A student in this situation can certainly ask to be released from the ED agreement.  In fact, colleges have reported an uptick in such requests, along with student requests to invoke the financial aid loophole.

But if a college declines to release the student from their commitment—for whatever reason—the unhappy student is left with a moral choice:  go to the school or break their bond by walking away.

“ED should not be a whimsical act or a device used for acceptance,” said Ann Rossbach, a Certified Educational Planner with a consulting practice in New Jersey.  “It is a serious decision with consequences that affect many other people.”

These consequences involve not just the student and parent who signed the contract, but also the high school and the guidance counselor who also made a commitment.

“Any high school counselor who knows NACAC policy on this would refuse to send the final transcript to any college except the one with the ED admit,” explained Hannah Serota, who is both college counselor at the McLean School, in Potomac, Maryland, and an independent educational consultant in Loudoun County, Virginia. “[The student] can’t enroll at another school without confirmation of graduation in the form of the final transcript. He or she would need to request a release from the ED commitment before the school counselor can send the final transcript elsewhere.”

And colleges have institutional memories.

Carolyn Francis, an independent educational counselor in Denver tells a cautionary tale of one high school’s experience.  “…my daughter’s school used to send a lot of kids to [a top-tier institution] until a student broke their ED contract.  Not one student has gotten in to [that school] since; they have been blackballed because of the behavior of one student—bad karma, all the way around!”

But pulling back the curtain on the incentives behind the growth of ED plans at elite colleges reveals an equally unattractive picture.

“Now that everything has been said that needs to be said about breaking the ED agreement, let’s identify ED for what it really is—a contract that benefits enrollment officers over student applicants, wealthy applicants over non-wealthy applicants, college-savvy applicants over non-savvy applicants, the status quo over increased access, and a component part of the ratcheting up of admission frenzy,” said Jeff Levy, a California-based independent educational consultant.  “A saner and more humane admission system would scrap it, but we all know that’s not likely to happen.”

And look for the frenzy to intensify next year, as applicants take a close look at admission patterns at schools such as Duke and feel the squeeze to apply Early Decision, even when they are not absolutely certain.