Dust off your white pants and boaters, everyone: the Roaring Twenties are back! Welcome to the college admissions process, Classes of 2020 and ’21.
(In case you're wondering, Leo as "Jay" is drinking sparkling cider.)
Our admissions reunion with the Gatsby era isn’t exactly a reunion. The college admissions landscape is profoundly different than it was when the ‘20s last made their way through the college admission process. Believe it or not, Tufts—like all colleges in the early 20th century—did not require essays, SAT scores, teacher recommendations, and interviews as elements of its application to the last Class of '20. The process was simpler, smaller, less open. Going to college was the exception, not the norm, for most high school seniors.
Flash forward. The complexity and competitiveness of today’s college admissions process prompts many questions as students and parents navigate the process, and my dean’s blog will answer as many of them as I can with as much transparency (and humor) as I can muster. (I hope you like puns.)
My periodic posts will offer thoughts and advice on a variety of topics related to your college search, the act of completing your application and on the big decision at the end of this yellow brick road: where will you enroll? I’ll assume I’m talking to high school seniors and juniors…but I know from previous admissions cycles that a few moms and dads will be reading over your shoulders!
This year, we’re launching a new feature on our blog site: ASK THE DEAN will be a forum for you to post questions for me to answer. Ideally, your questions will be more “macro” than “micro” in nature—universal information that helps many students rather than a specific question related to your own application or circumstance. (If the latter is the case, contact the admission officer who manages your home region and we’ll be happy to give you specific guidance.)
To get us started, here are a few questions posed to me by students at a recent workshop I attended:
Q: Do you look at my grades in a national context?
While our admission profile reports an overall set of statistics, every application is evaluated in a local context. And by “local” I mean it’s reviewed in the context of the high school you attend. Your high school profile—a document produced by your guidance/college counselor—describes the norms at your school and for your senior class, and we’ll evaluate your academic work through that lens. The school profile describes the demographics of your class and your community. It outlines the curriculum available (AP/IB options, honors or college prep levels, and in what subjects), grade distributions, means for standardized testing, the percentage of students who enroll at a four-year college, and a pile of other useful data. So, if you attend a school where it’s rare to get an A, we’ll know what that B+ in US history means. If the average SAT-Critical Reading score is 615 and you scored 690, we’ll see that you are almost 80-points higher than that norm in your local environment.
Q: Would it be better to get a lower grade in the higher rigor course?
This is one of the most common questions we are asked every year. And the flip answer would be it’s better to get a higher grade in a higher rigor class! But the gist of the student’s question is accurate: a lower grade (and “lower” is a relative term) in a more rigorous course option is noteworthy. At Tufts, like at most colleges, we track the level of rigor in your curriculum (see my last answer). So, a B in honors biology versus an A in college prep biology is something we evaluate as a positive thing as we review your transcript. You stretched. And this is where your SAT-II subject testing is useful: a B in honors biology paired with a 730 on the SAT-II Biology is instructive: your “B” translated into a very strong score.
Q: Should I send a CD of my rock band, even if it's not official?
You’re a rocker!? That’s interesting. Did you tell us about your rock band somewhere else in your application? You should. Are you the guitarist, the drummer or lead vocals? I digress. First, don't send an actual CD to us: we're paperless and there's no where to file it. Instead, submit the music via the Slide Room portal. And be sure to note which role you played if it’s an ensemble—if it’s a theatrical piece and we don’t know which part you played… Why is your rock band important to you? How would a sample of your music answer those questions and introduce you to the admissions committee in a way that is not present elsewhere in your application? Don’t worry about whether it’s “official” or not. We’re not evaluating its productive values.
So ask some questions! Use the comments below to post your questions and I'll do my best to be an Admissions Yoda.