We’re in the process of shifting gears here. My colleagues and I are coming in off the road, settling back into the office, and preparing to move from focusing on recruitment (our task for the past few months) to focusing on selection (our task for the next few months).

In the spirit of application season, I wanted to share a video with you. We interviewed several of my colleagues a few months ago to discuss what exactly it is we’re doing in our admission process — and what we’re looking for in the applications you seniors are working on right now.

Application season is creeping up on us very quickly. Most of you seniors have probably already started your applications, and hopefully your essays are well on their way toward fully-crafted. Early deadlines will begin popping up in November, and December and January will round out the bulk of your application deadlines.

But in the midst of your final decision-making about where to apply, and your submitting of applications, you also need to be forward-thinking about the cost of college. Now is also the time to begin applying for scholarships. If you wait to research scholarship money until after you’re admitted — and I’ve encountered a few students every year who do — you’ll be way behind the ball, and you’ll have missed most colleges’ and other organizations’ deadlines.

I hope this is obvious to most of you, but I want to be clear in case you haven’t thought about it too much. The college process is not just a matter of applying, getting accepted, and then thinking about money; you need to think about money even as you’re deciding where to apply, investigating schools’ need- and merit-based aid programs well ahead of time.

Many colleges (Richmond is one of them) have separate deadlines for their scholarship programs, and many (Richmond is not one of these) require additional applications for these scholarships. At Richmond, all you need to do to apply for our Richmond Scholars Program is submit your application by December 15; nothing additional is required, unless you want to apply for the Artist or Science Scholar designation. Last year, we had an applicant pool of almost 8000; yet, of these, only about 5000 applied by December 15 (forcing me to muse on why anyone wouldn’t do so). And I spoke with students (and parents), when April rolled around, who were admitted but were wondering how to apply for scholarships. When told about the scholarship deadline they had not met, most asked whether they could be considered retroactively (truly impossible, since the consideration process is a months-long affair involving several rounds and faculty committees). Sorry, kids — you missed the boat.

Now is the time to check on colleges’ requirements for scholarship consideration, and it’s also the time to be checking out other scholarship sources as well. Many scholarships from outside sources and local organizations also require applications that are due throughout the fall, so be sure to keep these on your radar screen. FastWeb.com is the best resource I know among internet scholarship databases, and your high school guidance office can probably point you toward a variety of local scholarship sponsors.

The only area where you really can’t do much until after the new year is in the need-based aid category, where the FAFSA does not become available until January and most schools’ submission deadlines are in February. Just make sure your parents are organized and prepared to file their taxes as early as possible in the year, since tax returns are an important part of this process.

So start now. Start early. There’s a lot of money out there, and despite the rising costs of higher education, even a top-notch college education can still be very affordable if you’re willing to invest the time, effort, and thought into seeking out scholarships and aid sources.

For many students, the college search does not end with the discovery of one top-choice school (this was the case for me; see my post from last year on “the perfect college”). But for some the search does end this way. Some students visit a particular campus, meet a tour guide or current student, or sit in on a class, and things just click – and they know they’ve found their top-choice school.

If that describes your experience with Richmond, then our Early Decision application option is definitely something you want to consider.

Early Decision is a great way to streamline the application process if you know you’re willing to commit to attending Richmond. Here’s how it works:  You apply by November 15 (for fall early decision) and submit a contract saying that you will enroll at Richmond if accepted; we review your application; and you receive your decision on or around December 15. Not only is the turnaround time much faster, but you learn much earlier of your acceptance, and you know where you’ll be next fall – at your top-choice school – before the winter holidays.

There are a lot of common questions we get from students who are considering Early Decision. Here are some important facts that will hopefully help answer those questions:

Early Decision is a binding agreement. This means that you agree to enroll at Richmond if admitted, and to withdraw your applications from other colleges without being able to compare options. We do this in fairness to other applicants, both at Richmond and elsewhere; if you break your commitment at Richmond, you’ve basically denied three or four regular-decision applicants an opportunity to be admitted, and if you’re committed to Richmond but you’re admitted elsewhere because you’ve kept your applications in “just to see,” you’ve basically denied other applicants at those institutions the opportunity to be admitted.

Our Early Decision acceptance rate is higher than our regular decision acceptance rate. It can vary quite a bit from year to year, given changes in the size of the pool and what we’re looking for, but in recent history the early decision acceptance rate has been quite a bit higher than our regular rate of 32-38%. We love to see students who are so excited about Richmond that they’re willing to commit early, and this is the #1 way we take your interest into account in our process. We also don’t know what the context of our regular applicant pool will look like, so we are more inclined to lock in as many academically competitive students as possible while we have the chance.

Applying Early Decision will not negatively affect your financial aid package. This is something to be careful about with many colleges. There are schools that will give ED applicants a smaller aid package because they already have the students “locked in.” At Richmond, our need-blind admission policy and commitment to meet 100% of demonstrated need extend to Early Decision applicants. So you are guaranteed the exact same need-based aid package you would receive if you applied Regular Decision. No strings attached.

Early Decision applicants can submit an estimated financial aid form with their application. Upon notification of acceptance, you’ll also receive an estimated financial aid package. Final numbers are, of course, dependent upon submission of the FAFSA and tax returns in February, but our financial aid office can usually predict fairly accurately what things will look like based on estimated figures. (“What about before I apply?” you ask. Remember, we guarantee to meet whatever your demonstrated need is after your Expected Family Contribution. There are some good EFC calculators out there – see our financial aid site for links – and if you get a good sense of what your EFC looks like, you’ll have a good idea of what we would offer to make up the rest. If you have particular or situation-specific questions, contact our finanical aid office.)

Early Decision applicants are eligible for all merit scholarships. While we do not offer merit scholarships specifically for ED students, all students who apply early are given full consideration for both the Richmond Scholars program (where the faculty committees don’t really know whether a student is already committed or not) and for the Presidential Scholars program. As with need-based aid, it won’t count negatively against you that you’re already committed to enroll. However, merit scholarships are not awarded until March or early April, so if your enrollment is dependent upon comparing merit offers from different universities, Early Decision may not be the best choice.

If you decide later in the process that you want to commit Early Decision, you have a second chance. Our winter Early Decision option means that you can still apply early on January 15. We’ll consider the winter ED pool in light of the fall ED pool, before we look at the regular decision pool, so you get the same benefits listed above – and you receive your decision on or around February 15.

Everything you need to know about applying Early Decision can be found on our Admission Timeline. Click the fall or winter box for a list of deadlines and requirements. The only additional application pieces we require of early decision applicants are the Early Decision Contract – signed by you, your parents, and your school counselor/official – as well as First Quarter/Trimester grades for fall ED applicants (we will be looking at your senior year progress!)

If you have any questions, please be in touch with our office or post your questions here on the blog. We’re happy to help counsel students and families that are considering Early Decision – we know it’s a commitment, and we want to help you make sure it’s the right decision and help you through the process.

We look forward to seeing your applications!

By Tom

Well, we had another highly competitive year for admission and, as is always the case, we had many more qualified applicants than we have space for in our class. Those of you who have been offered a spot on the wait list are students whom we believe are fully qualified and would contribute greatly to our campus but for whom we don’t, given our size limitations, have space at present. Selective admission is a difficult process for us, as we try to select a class from among many strong, similarly-qualified applicants.

There are quite a few myths and rumors out there about how wait lists work, so I want to spend a few moments busting up some of the myths and perhaps confirming some others. Here goes.

We have no idea whether or not we’re going to go to the wait list this year (or any year for that matter) – that’s why we have a wait list. If we knew we’d need to admit more students, we’d have done so already. Typically, we won’t have a strong sense of whether or not we’ll go to the wait list until the very end of April/beginning of May. We have been able to go to the wait list three out of the last five years.

We won’t know how many students are on the wait list until after April 15 when all students have decided. Typically about half of the students offered a place on the wait list will accept that offer. We offer spots to hundreds of students, but we don’t release the final number.

The wait list is not an actual ranked list, so you don’t get a number after you accept a place on it. Should we go to the wait list, we will go back into the admission committee and reevaluate all applicants on the wait list using the same holistic process we use in regular admission, which as you know places greatest emphasis on academic achievement. The one additional, secondary factor that may be added into that holistic process in wait list review is your level of interest. If Richmond is your first choice, please be sure to let us know of that. Feel free to check in with us once May rolls around to see how things are shaping up and let us know if you’re still interested at that point. Again, your academic and personal merits will always be the primary basis of the decisions that the committee makes – interest is secondary to that.

Some things you should do:

• Confirm your spot on the wait list online
• Read the Wait List 2009 brochure thoroughly
• Make your deposit at another university to secure your place in their class by May 1
• Send us additional academic information (e.g. third-quarter grades) that becomes available
• Check in with us periodically to let us know you’re still interested (periodically=every few weeks or so)
• Visit campus IF AND ONLY IF you need to learn more about Richmond or decide whether Richmond is right for you

Some things you shouldn’t do:

• Call us every day
• Call us every week
• Try to bribe us
• Send us more letters of recommendation
• Send us crazy, ridiculous items to try to get our attention
• Send us anything other than additional academic information
• Visit campus to try to convince us of your interest or make a case in person (a phone call or e-mail is just as effective and will be looked upon equally)

We do our very best to keep you posted on what’s going on. We will contact you by mid-June at the latest to let you know about the status of the wait list. Watch your e-mail once mid-June rolls around for news and further instructions.

We understand how difficult this process can be, and we try to be as forthright as possible, but when it comes to the wait list there are simply a lot of unknown factors. I am confident that all of you have many wonderful options from which to choose, and that you will find yourselves excited and content next autumn, whether you are at Richmond or elsewhere.

By Sabena Moretz (Associate Director of Admission) and Tom

Our average GPA is a 22.96.

Seriously.

We’re asked that question so frequently – “What’s your average GPA?” – that we thought we’d actually go ahead and calculate it. So we took all of the enrolled students in our current first-year class and averaged together all of the GPAs that their high schools reported to us last year. And the golden number came out to be 22.96.

We’ll come back to that crazy (and accurate) number in just a minute. We find that, for many students in the college search and application process, GPA tends to get a whole lot of attention, often being used as the measuring stick for likelihood of admission. But when an admission office looks at your transcript, there is much more that directs us toward a particular decision than just a GPA. Admission offices all over use very different practices in this regard, so there is not a singular approach, but we think it’s important for you to have a deeper understanding of this statistic and its use in admission decisions from the point of view of UR.

The most important academic factor in our process is rigor of curriculum. Not just the number of honors or AP or IB or Dual Enrollment or whatever your school calls their best classes, but how deeply you’ve continued your studies into each of the five academic core disciplines of English, mathematics, lab science, history, and foreign language. The student who stops taking math after Algebra II/Trig is differently prepared for college than the student who goes on with higher level math, especially if they’ve gone on to calculus. Two students with the same GPA can have made enormously different choices in regard to curriculum, so when students start asking about average GPA, a smart admission person would be very cautious about commenting.

Grades are weighted in a myriad of ways, so we never really know what kind of performance a student has until we actually look at their transcript. We’ve seen straight-B students with 4.0 GPAs. (And the families really are convinced that their students are “4.0s”!) Highly selective colleges would be looking for students with grades of A in weighted courses, not grades of B that are inflated in the GPA calculations. (Though most of us would much rather admit a student with an A/B mix in a weighted curriculum than one with straight As in a basic college prep curriculum.) We find this to be a source of great frustration to parents and students. Not all GPAs mean the same thing.

This is not even to mention the many different grading scales out there. We do look at what the scale is, and we expect a little higher GPA in more generous grading scales to try to offset that difference. Most students I (Sabena) have met in my years in this business think that their school’s scale is the toughest in the world and puts them at a disadvantage. Trust us – most colleges and universities are smart enough to put measures into place to try to minimize the influence of different scales, although no system is flawless in this regard.

A strong GPA can mask some serious individual grades that demonstrate weakness in a particular curricular area. If it’s a curricular area that is required for graduation at UR, we can be reasonably concerned about a student’s likelihood of success in required courses. Senior semester or trimester grades can also change a decision if they show dramatic decline from the previous performance.

So when a college publishes an “average GPA” for its enrolling students, the smart prospective student would ask the source of that number. Is it a straight average of all the GPAs as calculated by the high schools? Or is it a recalculated GPA based on the way that college might recalculate? We regularly see high schools using 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 40, and 100-point scales – some weighted, some unweighted. (That’s where our average GPA of 22.96 comes from!) Some high schools don’t even calculate a GPA. At a school on a 6.0 scale, a “4.0” student is usually a straight-C student.

We hope you’re beginning to see how GPA is much more complicated than it might appear, and why the individual grades on your transcript are much more important to us than that one number. We also hope this is making clearer why, when you ask about GPA, we say that the typical student admitted to Richmond has average grades of A- in highly rigorous courses, not that our average GPA is 22.96.