As a practitioner who has scored many admission essays, the author has noticed that numerous colleges and universities include questions that seek to expose and evaluate students' interactions with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Frequently, applicants are encouraged to disclose a difficult moment in their life and share how they overcame it.…

There is no doubt that 2020 has put a number of professions through their paces--college admission and recruitment included. The longer it takes to secure widespread COVID relief, the worse the economic situation becomes. These challenges are broad, sweeping, and beyond the scope of one institution's individual strategies. One framework has shown…

While grades and course load are the top factors in the college admission decision, highlighting special talents or skills can help students stand out in a crowded applicant pool. Counselors and students must put considerable thought into how an applicant will highlight their talents in a college application. Students should start by identifying…

Adam Sapp, assistant vice president of admissions at Pomona College (CA), grew up in a town with a population of 950 residents. He graduated with 47 other seniors and was one of only five in his class headed directly to a four-year college. Sapp's experience mirrors that of thousands of other students nationwide, clearly demonstrating the need to…

Parents and guardians often have more fear than their students about the journey off to college. They are unsure about fit, cost and value, distance, health and safety, an empty nest, and more. COVID-19 has added even more factors into the mix. The pandemic drastically changed the way many colleges deliver instruction, as well as the ways students…

There are a growing number of creative new ways that college admission professionals are reaching students and their families, but often, experts say, the biggest payoff can come from the simplest technique: building relationships. And those relationships may extend beyond the short-lived connections to the student who is inquiring or enrolling,…

The looming demographic crisis has been talked about for nearly a decade, has had higher education enrollment managers to strategically think ahead and urge their institutions' stakeholders that the model must change, that they must adapt, and that not all colleges and universities could be winners in the hypercompetitive environment they were…

Recent data published by the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) found that campus community impacts student success by 44 percent. Students are more likely to thrive when they have access to people who understand and relate to them and when they can gain support from programs that value their culture and ideology. Including…

Providing access to the underserved has long been a priority in college admission. A newer trend to increase access to underserved students are fly-in programs that enable students to visit campuses overnight, get deeper insight into a college, and consider schools that they might not have otherwise. The idea for fly-ins is to increase the number…

According to the Higher Education Research Institute, 35 percent of first-time freshmen applied to seven or more colleges during the Fall 2016 admission cycle. More than 80 percent of first-time freshmen apply to at least three colleges each year. But more applications mean more essays for students. And more colleges seem to be requiring unique…

Ten years ago, NACAC published a report showing that 61 percent of college admission offices were using social media to recruit prospective students. The authors--and many people in college admission--could see the writing on the wall: Social media was becoming indispensable. One of the study's authors, Nora Ganim Barnes, recently observed,…

Bias--both perceived and real--dictates how Asian-Americans view the college admission process. "The Harvard case" is a lawsuit brought by Students for Fair Admissions Inc. (SFFA). The group, led by conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, sued Harvard in 2014, claiming there was evidence proving bias against Asian-American students in…

The coronavirus pandemic has upended schooling and students' college admission journeys. Schools transitioned to remote learning, extracurricular activities vanished into thin air, and in-person visits to colleges were abandoned. The SAT and ACT calendars for the late spring were wiped out and subsequent plans for at-home testing were abandoned.…

College admission has always been a rewarding and at times, stressful, career path. For professionals new to the field, an increased competitiveness in college admission and advances in technology in the last decade or so have contributed to an even greater possibility of burnout early in the career. In this article, the author discusses important…

Experts say colleges and universities should do more of to give prospective students a more authentic experience as opposed to just presenting them with brochures filled with pictures of happy-looking students. Experts also say now--amid the spirited discussions and debates about race, privilege, and inequality on campus--is a good time for…