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The Role of Counseling in College Admissions to Top Universities

By on June 16, 2016

Admission to the top US universities is one of the most misunderstood topics among both parents and students: it has been at times characterized as opaque, random, unfair, obscure, etc., but in reality there is a lot of logic behind this process.

Most families recognize both the tangible and intangible benefits of attending a highly ranked US college. Among the intangible benefits are high-value, life-long professional networks of high-achieving people that will always open doors in the most desirable places, and a self-selection process that will always provide a competitive advantage to the alumni of these schools.

The tangible benefits, summarized in a CNN Money study published in April 2015, produce for an Ivy Plus student a median Return on Investment between $900,000 and $1,120,000 over 20 years (the Ivy Plus League includes the 8 Ivy League schools plus MIT and Stanford and sometimes a few other schools like the University of Chicago). The ROI (in 2015 US dollars) has been calculated as: the 20-year total median pay of alumni minus the 24-year total median pay of high-school grads and minus the cost of attending school; it only includes the relatively small number of alumni that did not proceed to graduate studies (those who proceed to graduate studies tend to earn much more over time).

On the other hand, the admission process to the top ranked US universities is highly competitive.. The harsh reality is that these universities have relatively small undergraduate classes: in 2016, 7 out of the 10 Ivy Plus schools have admitted less than 2,200 students each. Together, these 10 schools have received over 335,000 applications for the entering class of 2016 and have admitted less than 27,000 applicants. This means an overall rate of admissions of less than 8%. Put it another way, 92 of every 100 applications do not receive admission to these universities. Just as an example, for the entering class of 2016, Stanford University received 43,997 applications and offered admission to 2,063 candidates; this makes for an admissions rate of less than 4.7%.

So what does this mean for students and their families? How can they prepare for a successful US college admissions process?

Unfortunately, the admission process to the highly ranked US universities is misunderstood by most people: the common misconception is that top grades and scores, a position at or close to the top of the high school class, and a long list of extracurricular activities form the key to a successful admission. The reality is that in the US alone there are over 37,000 high schools, each with one or more valedictorians (some have tens of valedictorians); GPAs are more and more inflated and hard to normalize across different high schools; and some standardized test preparation programs are so good that very large numbers of students achieve top scores at such tests (in 2014, almost 600 students received the top 2400 SAT score, and almost 9,000 students received 2300 and above). On the other hand, 25% of the applicants admitted to Columbia in 2015 scored less than 2160 on the SAT. So it turns out that many students with top SAT scores, valedictorians in their high schools, and with long lists of extracurricular activities do not receive admission to the top ranked US colleges. At the same time, these colleges admit many candidates with SAT scores less than 2200, who have not even been in the top 10% of their high school class, and who have shorter (but meaningful) lists of extracurricular activities.

When asked what they are looking for in a successful candidate, admissions officers always respond along the same lines: “a holistic review process”, “accomplished student”, “rounded individual”, “likely leader”, etc. What this means however is left unexplained, and the reality is that it is highly dependent on each school and on the individual personality of each student. Colleges attempt to create the most fertile environment for their students to flourish and develop their true potential during these key formative years. As such, they try to create a well-rounded class made up of well-rounded individuals that will both benefit from exposure to a wide range of backgrounds and experiences of their classmates and that will offer such exposure to the other classmates. In the process, they seek individuals with exceptional potential for life-long success, so the more a candidate can prove such potential, the better the chances for admission. There is no cookie-cutter approach to preparing a student for college admission at the highly ranked US universities. More importantly, schools are not looking for cookie-cutter applicants: they are looking for individuals that stand out among their peers and that can bring unique and valuable experiences to their colleagues. It is the job of a good college admission counselor to guide a student and her or his family through this process and to identify the best plan for each individual student to prepare for US college admissions.

One must distinguish between college admissions preparation services and college admissions counseling. The former provides the much needed academic preparation for general and subject tests and the general academic background. In some instances these services also provide parts of the non-academic background through organized after-school or vacation-time activities. These services are usually geared towards larger number of students and provide long-term programs with regular attendance and preparation.

On the other hand, college admissions counselling services provide specific, individualized guidance for each student on a long-term plan and course of action in order to identify and showcase that student’s particular personality strengths, and to prove the student’s potential for long-term career success to the admissions committee. Such services are performed through a few infrequent but periodic analyses of the student’s personality, strengths and weaknesses over the 5-6 years prior to the college admissions cycle. They identify an initial plan of action for the student at different stages of development and periodically adjust this plan according to the student’s progress over the years. This plan includes both academic preparation (which can be done through preparation services mentioned above) and identifying the extracurricular activities that are most likely to bring the highest benefit to this process, and culminates with guidance on which colleges to apply to, what kind of application (early vs. regular – this is of critical importance and mostly overlooked in the process), the interview process, and finally identifying the most appropriate college for the student to pursue..

In general, high-school guidance counselors do a great job of guiding their students towards college admissions, in the same manner as their counterpart teachers do a great job in preparing students with the basic knowledge in sciences, languages, and arts. However, most counselors are severely time restricted in trying to offer individual attention and customized preparation for admissions to top US universities. Students with high aspirations require additional guidance through private preparation services.

The college admissions cycle itself has a number of stages in which the balance of power shifts dramatically between the student and the admissions committee:
– before sending in the applications, the power resides with the student, and the admissions officers do their best to convince students to apply to their university; if there are no applications then the admissions committee has no one to select
– after the application is sent and until the admission decisions are published, the entire power shifts to the admissions committee; the student must do everything possible to convince them that he or she is “the one” to be selected (and besides a strong application, there are things that the student can do to strengthen his or her case during this time too
– once admission decisions have been sent, the power shifts back to the student: at this time, the strong applicants will likely have multiple admissions and must decide which of them to accept. This is a decision as important as any other because it will determine the set of opportunities that will open for the student in life, and it must ensure the best fit between the student and the university to be selected.

Given the disarming low admission rates to top US universities, the question is: what makes a student stand out among his equally qualified peers and determine a positive decision from the admission committee? The answer is always a unique combination of achievements and desires that together define each individual, and it is the college counselor who helps identify a candidate’s “self”. There is no “one-size-fits-all” recipe for successful college applications.

The purpose of the counselling process is to guide each individual student by tailoring a long-term plan of action to each student’s individuality, identifying and accentuating the student’s strength, and at the same time ensuring the breadth of experiences that constitute a well-rounded background. Preparing for a successful college admission parallels the process of building an accomplished individual, and the more support the student has, the higher the likelihood for success (as the African proverb says: “it takes a village to raise a child”). As such, the involvement of family members is of paramount importance. The college counselor is a trusted advisor to the student’s family, and brings an independent and experienced perspective to the effort of identifying the student’s unique personality, develop it as a powerful competitive advantage, and bring it to shine in front of the admissions committee. College counselling is a multi-stage, multi-year process, that encompasses choosing the most appropriate academic course for a particular individual, the extracurricular activities at every age and stage of development, the set of colleges to apply to, the type of application (early vs. regular), the interviews, and once the “big envelopes” have been received, the final choice of college.

About Tatiana and Vlad Dabija

Tatiana and Vlad Dabija (http://www.rise2ivy.com/) have counseled many families worldwide along the road of helping their students through the admissions process into the most selective universities in the United States. Most important is their personal history and involvement: they have guided their own daughter over the years through the process of finding her own self, while gaining admission to the most highly competitive colleges on her wish list – among them: Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Caltech, and UC Berkeley. Tatiana and Vlad are passionate about working personally with each student and the student’s family and becoming their trusted counselors along the multi-year journey towards successful college admission.