Reach? Realistic? Ballpark?

What Are My College Admission Chances?

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MAY 24, 2004 - Each year as anxious parents and students navigate the complex college-admission maze, many wish they had a crystal ball to help them make their plans and to warn them if the envelopes that arrive by April will bring good news or disappointment.

CollegeConfidential.com-one of the most-visited online sources of free admissions information-offers applicants a sneak peek at what the future may hold. It's called a "Stats Evaluation," and, for $89, professional college counselors predict admission outcomes at up to 10 college or universities.

Students begin by answering questions on an online form that takes about 20 minutes to complete. The questions are not merely multiple choice nor simply statistical.  Sure, the usual suspects (class rank, SAT scores, GPA) are on the roster, but the Stats Eval also asks respondents to describe their most meaningful extracurricular activities and significant leadership posts, to include a writing sample, and to address other non-quantitative queries.

College Confidential then prepares a personal analysis for each student, assessing his or her admission chances at the colleges and universities named on the Eval form. These predictions are made by people -not computers-and the College Confidential counselors caveat their replies with reminders that admission officers will be privy to a lot of particulars that they are not.  College Confidential counselors also recommend other colleges that might be appropriate choices (or more appropriate choices) than the schools the student listed. These recommendations are based on the student's answers to preference questions on the Eval form.

"The Stats Evaluation is not just another way to prey on the fears or insecurities of the college-bound," insists College Confidential co-founder and Director of Counseling, Dave Berry (co-author of America's Elite Colleges ). " For starters," Berry notes, "the vast majority of our supplicants are kids who have ostensibly done everything 'right' (good grades, tests, lots of extracurriculars) and seem to feel that an Ivy-League acceptance is the reward they deserve for their efforts. We can tell at a glance that, for many, the Ivies (and their equivalents) will be long-shots at best and most likely out of reach altogether. Often we startle these students with the bad news, and-although we never instruct them not to apply to a favored institution-we do suggest other options while it's still early enough to explore them. We've had thank-you letters from many who ended up happy at places they had never even heard of until we detoured them from their Ivy dreams. "

In addition, notes, Berry, "Unlike anything offered by a computerized service, our Stats Evaluation suggests to students which aspects of their overall profile might be especially attractive to admission committees. Some, for example, don't realize that an atypical job or hobby is worth discussing in an essay or elsewhere on an application, and they assume that their fate will ride only on their GPA, SATs, and presidency of the Key Club or Science Olympiad. We help them to recognize that it is often their more uncommon undertakings-the ones they may think are not admissions fodder at all-that could make them stand out in a crowd. Our clients are also invited to submit questions to us once they've received their analysis, and we reply promptly to those as well."

College Confidential Stats clients frequently hail from huge public high schools and claim their guidance counselors barely know them or tend to channel the entire upper half of the senior class to the local state university. "Conversely," notes Sally Rubenstone, College Confidential's senior counselor and co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions , "in some cases we team up with school counselors-albeit unwittingly-who have already told the student that he has no hope at Harvard nor a prayer at Princeton . The kid doesn't buy it from the counselor (where the advice is free) but when we echo the same sentiments for 89 bucks, it tends to sink in.  Similarly, we've sided with students whose parents are pushing them towards the Ivies, though the kids themselves know better and need an outsider's opinion to convince Mom and Dad to back off."

As the elite admissions fray becomes fiercer, a growing number of for-profit enterprises are endeavoring to cash in on the panic.  "But please don't lump all 'prediction' services together, especially as they proliferate," stresses Berry . "While only admission committees can decide for sure whether decision letters will be fat or thin, there is a big difference between advice generated by computer software and ours with a human perspective."

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