SENIORS - COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ADVICE FROM THE COLLEGE OFFICE

Mr. Jeffrey Makris shares that by early April, students will receive responses from the majority of the colleges and universities to which they have applied.  PLEASE enter ALL application results in Naviance –use the edit (pencil icon) for each college on the “colleges I’m applying to” page.  This information is essential; it helps us to identify students who may not yet have been admitted to a college or university, and the historical data helps us to guide future classes.

• Carefully review financial aid packages as a family. Compare the total costs of attendance (tuition, room, board, fees and other expenses like books, travel, etc.) with what has been offered in grants and scholarships, work study, student loans, and out of pocket contributions.  Assess how much may be needed to borrow and/or pay out of pocket over not just freshman year, but what that will look like over the course of four years. If an application has been filed for financial aid and did not receive an offer with or soon after an acceptance notification, contact the college or university’s financial aid office ASAP!
• Know that unless an offer was extended ad accepted by an institution via Early Decision,students have until May 1 to submit an enrollment deposit to the college in they will enroll.  There are no other exceptions to this deadline; if a college requires that a deposit by any deadline prior to May 1, they are committing an admissions practices violation.  Please notify the College Office if an institution appears to be using a deposit deadline earlier than May 1.
• A deposit may only be submitted to one institution.  Sending multiple deposits is a major ethical violation that can lead to your acceptances being rescinded by those institutions. 
• Once a decision is made for enrollment next fall, inform other colleges to which you were admitted that you have chosen to enroll elsewhere.  This can be done via a short email to the admissions offices.  This small but important step helps not only the colleges and universities, but other applicants.

If, after May 1^st, a student is admitted to an institution that they were waitisted for, they are free to change your plans regarding enrollment for the fall.  A deposit may be submitted to the institution that admitted you from the wait list. Inform the college originally intended to enroll at that plans have changed.  Unfortunately, any original deposit will be lost; deposits are not refundable after May 1^st.

Advice for Wait-Listed Students

It is important to remember that selective colleges and universities use wait -lists primarily to control for enrollment needs that arise after May 1^st, when they know which of their admitted students will actually enroll.  If the institution needs more boys, or students from the south or the mid-west, or soccer players, or clarinet players, or students who can pay the full costs of attendance, they pull such students from the wait- list.  These are institutional needs over which individual applicants have absolutely no control.  

Students cannot assume they will be admitted from a waitlist.  While it can happen, the reality is that highly selective institutions admit very few students from the waitlist from year to year.  Some will admit none at all. Make sure to deposit at one of the colleges that admitted you, the one that you believe to be the best fit, and plan on enrolling there in the fall. So, what to do if waitlisted?

• Commit to staying on the waitlist(send back their reply card, use their portal, etc.)  
• Reaffirm interestin attending said institution via a concise but informative email or letter to the admissions office.  Let them know that the institution remains a top choice, and why.  If you would DEFINITELY enroll if admitted from the waitlist, let them know that. Notify the admissions office of any new and noteworthy accomplishments about which they are currently unaware, whether they be inside or outside of the classroom.  If the institution allows for the submission of new materials, feel free to do so…so long as you are sending something significant that is not already within their file.
• Don’t pester the admissions office. Frequent communication, superfluous documents, etc., can actually be counterproductive. 

Please remember that the College Office cannot call a college to which you've been waitlisted to advocate for your admission.   There are several reasons why they can't do this. First, there are over 800 seniors... and many of you are waitlisted at the same schools.  Advocating for some students, but not others, is unfair.  Also, this kind of advocacy is ineffective, particularly at highly selective colleges and universities; they aren't going to pull students from waitlists just because our College Counselors ask them to.  Their institutional enrollment needs will dictate who, if anyone, will be admitted from the waitlist, and any attempts by our office to convince or pressure them to admit specific students are not only pointless, but potentially seen as both unprofessional and bothersome.

The College Office wishes all seniors the best of luck as they make final decisions…remember, this process is about finding the right fit.  Choose the institution that suits the best given all of the factors that may be important to you and your family.   Please come to the College Office for  assistance!