The Impact of Online Shopping on Higher Education
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Application season is a stressful time for all prospective students. Many students, both traditional and non-traditional, try to be strategic in their admissions, finding institutions that their grades qualify them for and putting as much focus on reputation as fit. But is this the best way to go about kicking off a postsecondary experience? In this interview, Philip Ballinger shares his thoughts on what institutions are really looking for from their applications and reflects on a few of the most common mistakes prospective students tend to make during the application process.
The EvoLLLution (Evo): What are a few of the most significant challenges to managing applications and enrollments every year?
Philip Ballinger (PB): From where I sit at a large public institution, a few of the challenges are very practical, namely matching up our internal resources with the steady increase in application as students apply to more schools. This is especially challenging at an institution like ours that uses a holistic review. Itâs an issue of resource management.
Another issue, which is always present at a public institution like ours, is managing the continuing increase in the number of applications from international students. Projecting outcomes for these students becomes a little bit more challenging because weâre lacking a history of application, admissions and enrollment data.
Finally, a constant challenge for us is finding ways to do the very best we can to build a broad diversity in our student body, within the constraints of the law and good practice. That remains a challenge and my guess is itâs going to be a growing challenge as we move forward.
Evo: When it comes to attracting international students, how important is to offer them language education pathways and non-credit opportunities to gain college-ready English skills?
PB: Thatâs not an issue we have to deal with at this institution because we would expect all applicants to already have a level of English mastery where they can directly enter into a degree pathway.
That said, I know that many other institutions have those kinds of programs in place as part of a pathway into an institution and I can imagine that those pathways are very important for those schools. However, for many flagship public universities itâs just not that important. We certainly offer a whole variety of these opportunity and extension programs but they are not targeted at matriculated, degree-seeking students.
Evo: What are a few of the most common mistakes you see students make in their applications?
PB: Thereâs one mistake that I would even put prior to the application process for students, and thatâs a self-selection process. Students often select themselves out of the applicant pool for elite institutions because they have a perception that they wonât be able to get in because of their academic record. It might be an ok or even a strong record, but they hear the averages for previous cohorts and just assume they wonât get in, so they donât even apply. But an institution that use holistic review goes beyond academics. Of course academic markers are important but there are many other things that are very important as well and I think students self-select without adequate knowledge about what those factors are. Students approach the application process without adequate or sufficient understanding of what a holistic review process might be at a particular university. That can be remedied by simply visiting university websites and taking a look at their admission process.
The second issue, also at the pre-application stage, is whether or not a student has been sufficiently thoughtful and sufficiently honest with themselves about what they are hoping to get out of their postsecondary experience. Itâs more important for students to be specific about their aims than to take a âwilly nilly,â shotgun approach to applying to colleges. Some of the bigger issues arenât actually filling out the applications; itâs the decision process involved in deciding to fill out applications for a particular school or a group of schools.
The third issue students run into, and this is during the application phase, is providing answers they think we want to see rather than truly introspective responses. We ask students to do a considerable amount of writing in the application process that is meant to be self-reviewing. By that I mean when we ask these questions there isnât a right answer, at least not at my institution. What weâre asking students to do is share with us information about, on one hand, information about their education and their family experience with reference to education but also what is important to them and what they value. The reason we ask for these insights is because students arenât simply widgets that come to a university, absorb things and then leave somehow more complete. Theyâre people that are adding to a community of education. So when we ask students to talk to us about things that are important to them thereâs no right answer there. What weâre really interested in is whatâs important to you because whatâs important to them is what theyâre going to bring and add to the education community. That is a very individual, personal answer and so we ask students to tell it like it is with references to themselves. A big mistake that some students make is they attempt to come to some conclusion about the ideal that we seek and they attempt to express it and honestly probably more often than not when a student does that they just donât come across well because there not expressing anything that is of value or importance to them personally.
Evo: For non-traditional students especially, what can they do to stand out when applying to selective colleges and universities?
PB: In our holistic review process, weâre attuned to student histories and stories that demonstrate development, the acquisition of wisdom or achievement in the face of adversity. The kinds of experiences that a student has hadâand therefore will bring with them to the educational communityâat the university are of great interest to us. Non-traditional students have often had a considerable life experience or have probably faced some form of adversity in getting to where they are, whether thatâs family adversity, economical or financial adversity, or even adversity in obtaining their education. Whatâs more, non-traditional students often have a relative richness in experience compared to students that are your âtypicalâ student coming out of high school.
In a holistic review process that looks for those kinds of things, non-traditional student often do stand out.
Evo: How important is it for prospective students to ensure the college or university they are applying to is a good fit for them?
PB: Ensuring colleges will be a good fit is extremely important. The first step a student needs to take is to ask themselves, âWhy college or university?â We know it behooves everybody to get further education but that doesnât necessarily mean they have to go to a university. Every student should be aware of this and have a sense of why theyâre doing it and what theyâre hoping to achieve. Iâm always concerned when I hear a student has applied to ten or more colleges and I look at the list and theyâre all over the place in terms of institution type and in terms of location. It shows that they donât have a clue as to whether those colleges are good fits are not. Theyâre just applying based on factors that have nothing to do with themselves or theyâre doing it because of what theyâve read or about a ranking or reputation or even because of something that someone else has told them.
Students have to do the internal work before they start worrying about the external stuff like applying to college. Thatâs why this pre-application work is so important for students.
Evo: In your ideal world, how would the college and university admissions process work?
PB: In an ideal world I could think of a lot of things that would exist so that the application process would be more aligned with students rather than the institutions. For example, in an ideal world the financial aspect of college would be a non-issue. In an ideal world, colleges and universities would be very explicit about what they intend to do, why they exist, what their mission is, what their purpose is, and what they seek to do in admitting students. Iâm not saying that college and universities arenât explicit now, but I think what doesnât happen is a matchup between that and the students that are admitted. There are complicating factors that impact this alignment, for example, the reality or at least the perception of real financial limits.
In an ideal world, all students would have similar academic opportunities prior to college. That doesnât exist right now. Currently, one high school compared to another high school and the opportunities that exist in all high schools can be the difference between living on Earth and living on Mars.
Evo: Is there anything you would like to add about how students can really take advantage of the holistic approach to university admissions?
PB: I would go back to the work that a student has to do themselves that has really very little to do with applying to a particular college. Students need to be as thoughtful and imaginative as possible when it comes to determining where they want to apply. Other people can be helpful by just asking questions about what students are envisioning college to be or what are they are hoping to experience.
When it comes to applications themselves, students need to trust themselves. Thatâs to say, they need to feel free to express themselves and share the things that are important to them, the things they value, the things they disagree with or the things that they hope for. Students also need to trust that institutions are doing holistic review and are really after that kind of self-expressiveness. Colleges arenât just looking at what students can achieve at a college, but what they can bring to a college.
This article has been edited for length.
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Author Perspective: Administrator
This is some good advice and I hope itâs truly born out in admissions practices. Students have this almost stereotypical ideal in their head about what a college essay should look like, and in the end trying to recreate some idea of the perfect college essay it more likely to hurt their chances. Seeing this played out more often in admissions will hopefully inspire a little more faith in themselves.
Thatâs also where the prep work of finding a good fit comes in. If a college is really a good fit for the student, thereâs no reason for the student to be anything but honest in their applications about what they value and what theyâre looking to get out of their education.
Itâs also gotten to the point where admissions officers have seen those grades over and over again. Lots of people can get good grades, lots of people have inflated (or in rare cases, deflated) grades. What we really want to see is how a prospective student is different from all the other students out there vying for a spot. That college essay is a chance to stand out. Thereâs no point in trying to write âthe ideaâ college essay.