Well, it has gotten longer – this year I’ve had to come up with 16 reasons – but one of the great things about working for the University of Richmond is that you’re never at a loss for things to brag about. Richmond offers so much amazing stuff that I don’t have to scrounge for material; it’s really an absurdly easy task to create the list (I had a little trouble with #9 under this year’s format, but I think I managed to pull through okay). When it comes to marketing Richmond, the school really sells itself, and, in the words of one of our tour guides, “Everything the website and admission office told me was true – except it’s even better than that!”

So, even though a blog entry can’t do them justice, here they are: 16 reasons to choose Richmond’s Class of ’16.

1 integrated experience. In all likelihood, your four years at Richmond will include a double major, an active residential life on campus, involvement in multiple clubs and organizations, probably one or two student leadership positions, a semester abroad, at least one internship experience, lots of civic engagement, and quite possibly original research mentored by a faculty member, all on top of a broad liberal arts education. (At least that’s what the statistics from our student body suggest.) That’s a lot going on – but what’s so amazing about Richmond is how seamless the entire experience is. You’ll be amazed how your classroom, residential, and real-world experiences meld together as you grow and learn through each of them; academics are not just theoretical but highly practical, while experiential opportunities offer some of the greatest intellectual insight you come across.

2 coordinate colleges, Richmond and Westhampton, bringing together deep history and tradition with the most current and personal in student development. The unique coordinate system gives all the benefits of a small women’s or men’s college to those who seek it out, and provides a more holistic and personalized experience for all students, helping integrate academic and residential aspects of college life.

3 undergraduate schools, covering the Liberal Arts & Sciences, Business, and Leadership Studies – a unique combination of schools found nowhere else. Combine studies across schools and academic disciplines to graduate with not just a major but an array of courses ideally suited and tailored to your career goals and to life in a complex world. Additionally, undergrads are guaranteed access to courses in our Law School and School of Professional and Continuing Studies.

4 classes your first semester, including a First-Year Seminar (have you taken a look at this coming fall’s topics?) Seminars are taught by faculty from all five schools (including the Law School) and, though topical, focus on building the analytic and expressive skills critical to a liberal arts education — and to life. Your other first-semester courses are selected from hundreds of options that introduce fields of study and fulfill gen ed requirements; introductory courses in business and leadership studies are also an option for those interested.

5 thousand dollars in the average summer research grant. More than 200 students conduct research on campus each summer, and over half of Richmond students will complete mentored research by the time they graduate. The School of Arts & Sciences alone awards more than $500,000 in undergraduate research funding each year; the annual Arts & Sciences Student Symposium is taking place today, with hundreds of students presenting their research.

6 out of 10 students study abroad, most of them for a full semester as an exchange student at one of more than 75 partner institutions in over 40 different countries. Richmond has been recognized as a leader in international education and ranks fifth among baccalaureate colleges nationwide for the number of students studying abroad.

7 out of 10 students complete an internship prior to graduating. Our top cities for internships are Richmond, Washington, D.C., and New York City, though plenty of other domestic and international partnerships are available.

8 legs on our mascot, and the only Spiders in the country. An appropriate mascot, considering we’re the 8th-smallest Division 1 school in the U.S. but, since 2001, our athletes have captured more than 40 Atlantic-10 conference titles, a national championship in football, and a Sweet 16 run in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

9th-ranked synchronized swimming team in the U.S. – and 29 other sport clubs, with more than 800 students participating each year. Club sports too big a commitment? Intramural sports are available in more than 15 areas, and the Weinstein Center for Recreation and Wellness has a plethora of fitness classes in addition to their top-notch workout facilities.

#10 college for best career services (Princeton Review). Our Career Development Center works individually with students throughout all four years on everything from career exploration to mock interviews, resume development, and job placement. Each year, they also sponsor 5 Industry Expos + 5 Spider Road Trips (=10 huge exploration/recruitment opportunities).

11 Sophomore Scholars in Residence communities this year, providing an integrated academic and residential experience for second-year students. Immerse yourself in a particular topic for an entire year, live and breathe it on hall with your classmates, and study it in and out of the classroom through a variety of activities (typically including a university-funded trip). Want to get started sooner? There are eight living-learning communities for first-year students available this fall…

12 courses, on average, to complete a major – and most Richmond students will complete two majors, or a combined major, or a major with two minors. You can study a major in the most traditional way, you can create your own major, or you can select an interdisciplinary major; our newest include Healthcare and Society, Film Studies, and PPEL (Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law).

13 academic buildings – 3 of which (the Carole Weinstein International Center, the business school’s Queally Hall, and the Gottwald Center for the Sciences) have opened their doors in the past six years. Our facilities are all top-of-the-line, and they’re a physical reflection of the University’s well-resourced commitment to providing a surpassing student experience.

14 residence halls, with 90% of students living on campus all four years for a strong community experience. Our #14 most beautiful campus and #14 best campus food rankings (Princeton Review) certainly don’t detract from residential life on campus, either.

15 minutes to downtown Richmond — home to Virginia’s State Capitol, 6 Fortune 500 companies, the Geico Caveman, America’s largest folk festival, and the only intra-city Class IV rapids in the U.S. Whether it’s through community engagement and service, internship opportunities, cultural and arts events, or outdoors adventure, Richmond students thrive on the balance between a beautiful, idyllic college campus and an exciting mid-sized city right next door.

16 students in the average classroom – along with one Ph.D. No classes are taught by grad students or teaching assistants, and courses start out small, with 98% under 30 students. The liberal arts experience – interactive, dynamic, and highly personalized – doesn’t get much better than that.

We had another record-breaking year, and the most competitive admission pool in the University’s history, with over 10,200 applications received. Needless to say, selecting from such a large and qualified applicant pool for a class of 765 proved to be a very difficult task. (See last week’s mythbusting post about selecting a class if you’re curious how that actually works — not just for Richmond, but for selective colleges in general.)

To all admitted students: many congratulations! Honestly, it blows me away each year just how much stronger and stronger our pool becomes, even as it grows in size. The talent and achievement we discovered this year is unparalleled in my five years with the Office of Admission. You ought to be extremely proud of your accomplishment.

Of course, we hope you’ll also choose us and decide to become a Spider! You can find everything admitted students need to know on our Admitted Student site; I’d highly encourage you to consider attending one of our upcoming admitted student events. If you can’t make one of the big events, we’d still welcome you to visit anytime in April! Even if you’ve been to campus before, your visit experience as an admitted student will be unique — I guarantee it.

For those offered a place on the wait list, I can’t emphasize enough that receiving a wait list offer from Richmond is a positive decision. This is true now more than ever. It means that the committee felt your application was competitive in a very tough pool, that you’re well qualified to be at Richmond, and that we would love for you to join our community, should space become available.

Be sure to read the wait list brochure carefully and thoroughly, and most importantly make sure you submit the Wait List Response Form in order to be considered further should the opportunity arise. One of the most commonly misunderstood things about the wait list is that you actually have to accept a place on it; only about a third of students to whom we extend offers will actually accept those offers. If you don’t accept, we’ll assume you’re not interested. (Even if you choose not to accept, we’d still appreciate it if you filled out the form and let us know where you’re planning to attend.)

To students who were not admitted, we really appreciate your interest in Richmond, but this year’s pool was extremely tough, as mentioned above. We have very limited space in the class and on the wait list. If your interest in Richmond remains high, we’d encourage you to consider the option of transferring after one full year of study at another accredited institution; if you have questions about how this would work, please feel free to contact us. We’re more than happy to help counsel, even in terms of college course selection to ensure that you’re taking transferable credits.

Questions? Post away!

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding this selection process, particularly for highly selective colleges. Having just gone through my fifth season reviewing applications and sitting on the admission committee, I find that this is a very fresh topic on my mind, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts. For senior applicants, I hope this gives you a good sense of what we’ve been doing for the past few months; for junior and sophomore prospects, this should give you a sense of what to expect next year or the following.

A note in advance on terminology: by “selective colleges,” I mean schools with low admission rates (i.e. with applicant pools significantly larger than their first-year class size); by “selective admission,” I mean the complex process by which those colleges go about creating a class from sizable and highly qualified applicant pools.

Myth #1: Holistic consideration means that numbers are not important.

I think that, sometimes, selective colleges overemphasize the holistic nature of their admission processes. We do this mainly to form a contrast with competitive admission processes (think large public universities) that run things almost exclusively by the numbers, but I fear that our overemphasis may cause some students and parents to begin equating “holistic” with “numbers don’t matter.” In fact, grades and test scores are often the most important criteria at selective colleges, too; they’re just more balanced by consideration of curricular rigor, personal qualities, accomplishments, and experiences. At Richmond, your high school transcript is the number one factor we consider in your application; even the strongest personal achievements rarely, if ever, make up for poor grades or a lackluster curriculum. When we say we’re holistic, it means we’re looking for “both and,” not “either or.”

Myth #2: Admission profiles are good predictors of admission at selective colleges.

In light of what I just said about Myth #1, I want to check myself and also emphasize that, though academic criteria are often among the top factors selective colleges consider, it’s a mistake to think you can take a selective college’s profile and predict admission based upon it. If you look at Richmond’s academic profile, you’ll get a good sense of the type of applications we’re admitting; but for every approved application falling in the profile, there are several more just like it which are not approved.

This is what we mean when we say “selective.” Selective admission does not mean selecting the tippy-top percentage of students based on certain criteria (that would just be competitive admission, the numbers-driven model, on steroids). Selective admission means selecting from among very many top students using a wide variety of criteria. It’s a nuanced distinction, but it’s an important one.

Myth #3: Okay, so holistic consideration means that admission is determined by students’ academic and personal accomplishments.

Well, yes… generally. Those are the main criteria we consider. But there are dozens of factors that go into admission decisions at selective colleges, and some of them are quite simply outside of your control.

Often times you’ll hear admission staff try to explain selective admission with an example along the lines of, “The orchestra needed a bassoonist this year, so maybe that’s the reason one student was admitted over another.” Granted, this example is a bit of an exaggeration; rarely, if ever, is there such a specific campus need that is addressed so directly by the admission process. But every college does have institutional priorities, which can vary from year to year, and which certainly have an impact on who’s being admitted.

Perhaps there’s a particular disciplinary area (like the arts or the natural sciences) that the college is seeking to grow. Maybe there’s a specific geographic region where the college wants to expand, so students from that area are a little more likely to get in (or, for public universities, there are in-state quotas to meet). All colleges pay some level of attention to their alumni and legacy applicants (some institutions more so than others). NCAA athletic programs have varying levels of influence on admission decisions at most schools. Many colleges consider your financial situation as one factor in the puzzle (Richmond, with our need-blind admission policy, is not one of these), while others look at the level of interest you’ve expressed in attending. And you better believe that colleges are going to pay attention to students whose last names are on campus buildings.

Note that most of these examples are things you just can’t control, even with the strongest academic and personal accomplishments. While they’re not the most important factors influencing admission decisions, they are often secondary or tertiary factors that do have an impact, especially for schools seeking to select from among many qualified applicants.

Myth #4: Students who have achieved to the maximum level possible within their setting should get into any college they want. After all, they’ve done everything they possibly can.

We wish this were true. Really, we do. We wish that we had space in our first-year class for every high-achieving, deserving applicant. We spend so much time reading so many wonderful applications, and we wish we could take all of them, because they’re all so amazing. But this just isn’t possible when we have 10,200 applications and 765 spaces in our first-year class.

I think we, as a society, need to move away from the very prevalent notion that college admission is a reward for good work, a prize to be won. If we admitted every deserving student, we would have a first-year class of thousands and there wouldn’t be space for everybody on campus (not to mention the small class sizes we advertise would become a thing of the past). Every selective college faces these sorts of tough decisions. College admission is a match to be made, a journey to be taken, but should not be construed as a reward.

The consolation and good news is that there are many different colleges out there with differing criteria and differing priorities. The vast majority of our applicants are admitted to several schools, whether or not they’re admitted at Richmond. So when all is said and done, we’re confident that every student will have a home next fall, whether at Richmond or elsewhere.

In recent years, I’ve posted a blog entry around this time that shares some fun (and random) information about the admission committee, the main idea being to break down stereotypes about college admission officers and to help applicants see that we’re a diverse and (relatively) normal group of people. (See previous years’ entries here and here.)

This year, I thought I’d do something a little different. Anyone who’s heard me give an admission presentation knows that I am a HUGE fan of our home city of Richmond. I know many of my colleagues share this love, so I thought this year I’d share some fun facts about the admission committee in the context of sharing some fun facts about Richmond, Virginia, where the 14 of us live and work.

Here we go…

Greater Richmond has a population of more than 1.2 million and is sometimes called a city of “from-heres” and “come-heres.”

3 members of the admission committee are from-heres, born and raised in Richmond. 11 of us are come-heres, hailing from 8 other states.

In 2010, Parenting.com named Richmond America’s healthiest city and one of the best cities for families.

10 of us are married. 5 of us have children. (1 of us is expecting and may be a new parent by the time you read this blog entry!) 1 of us has seen children through the college admission process.

In 2011, Forbes.com named Richmond one of the 20 Happiest Cities for Young Professionals in America, and in 2010 Businessweek.com ranked Richmond 25th among Best Cities for New College Grads.

6 of us graduated from college within the past 10 years. 3 of us are proud University of Richmond alumni.

Foodies love Richmond. According to various sources, Richmond ranks among the top 10-15 cities in the country by locally-owned restaurants per capita.

The average member of the admission committee eats at a local restaurant at least once a week; in the past month, we have frequented more than 40 different local restaurants in aggregate.

Some of our favorite Richmond restaurants include Millie’s, Kuba Kuba, Mekong, Acacia, Ginger Thai, Buz and Ned’s, and Edo’s Squid.

With around 40,000 runners, Richmond’s annual Monument Avenue 10k is one of the 10 largest road races in the United States.

5 of us have run in the Monument 10k before, but only 1 of us is registered to run in this year’s, coming up on March 31.

Richmond is the only city in the U.S. with Class IV rapids inside city limits. The James River also gives Richmond its nickname, “The River City.”

4 of us have been down those Class IV rapids on whitewater rafting trips through the heart of the city.

10 of us enjoy spending time on the James, whether sunning, hiking, biking, boating, or otherwise.

Richmond is a city of festivals, with over 40 taking place each year, including the largest Folk Festival and largest French Film Festival in the U.S.

11 of us have been to at least one festival in the past year. Our record-holder has been to 8 festivals this year; the average committee member has been to 3.5 festivals this year. Our favorites include the Greek Festival, the Carytown Watermelon Festival, the Folk Festival, Arts in the Park, Broad Appetit, and Riverrock.

Richmond has a vibrant arts community. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is considered one of the top comprehensive art museums in the U.S.; last year, the newly-renovated museum was chosen as one of 7 museums worldwide (and the only city on the East Coast) to exhibit 176 Picasso paintings on tour from the Musee Picasso in Paris.

12 of us have been to the renovated VMFA since its opening in 2010. 7 of us saw the Picasso exhibit while it was in town. One of us saw the Picasso exhibit 3 times!

6 of us have attended at least one First Fridays Art Walk in the city’s gallery district. 5 of us have attended other arts events in the past year, including the Richmond Symphony and Richmond Ballet; one of us has performed in more than 15 concerts in the past year. 6 of us have been to concerts at The National, Innsbruck After Hours, or as part of the Friday Cheers series on Brown’s Island.

The Washington Post recently named Richmond “Outdoors Adventure Capital of the East Coast,” while Trail Runner named Richmond one of the nation’s top 7 cities for trail runners and the ACSMAF ranked Richmond the 12th most fit city in the U.S. in 2011.

12 of us enjoy engaging in outdoors activities. The most popular are hiking, biking, and running, but we also have campers, kayakers, and climbers, and many of us take advantage of fitness classes in the Weinstein Center for Recreation and Wellness here on campus.

That said, only 5 of us have managed to work out regularly through the intensity of reading season over the last four months.

Richmond is home to three minor league sports franchises, including Double-A baseball team the Flying Squirrels, now going into their third season.

9 of us went to a Flying Squirrels game at least once during their first two seasons.

Richmond is home to The Martin Agency, one of the nation’s premier marketing groups.

We put it to a vote, and our favorite Martin Agency ad campaigns are the UPS Whiteboard commercials (4 votes), the FreeCreditReport.com song (3 votes), the Geico Cavemen (3 votes), Hanes’ Michael Jordan/Charlie Sheen/Cuba Gooding, Jr. commercials (2 votes); and Geico’s “Could switching to Geico really save you hundreds…?” commercials (1 vote). No one voted for WalMart’s “Save Money, Live Better” commercials, but we’re sure the Martin Agency is making lots of money off them anyway.

Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Tommy Lee Jones, was filmed principally in Richmond in the fall of 2011.

11 of us plan to see Lincoln when it comes out later this year.

Other movies filmed primarily in Richmond that we’ve seen include Hannibal (8 of us), Evan Almighty (6 of us), The Contender (3 of us), and Cry Wolf (a teen thriller featuring Jon Bon Jovi that was filmed primarily on the University of Richmond’s campus in 2005, seen by 3 of us).

Richmond has some of the oldest (and newest!) neighborhoods in the nation. In addition to strong neighborhood affiliations, Richmonders often identify by the quadrant of the metro area they hail from (the West End, the East End, the North Side, or the South Side).

3 members of the admission committee identify as South Siders; 4 identify as West Enders; 1 identifies as an East Ender; and 1 identifies as a North Sider.

8 of us live in the City of Richmond proper. 6 of us live in one of the surrounding counties (Henrico, Hanover, and Chesterfield are all represented on our staff).

We represent 10 different neighborhoods, including antebellum Church Hill, the Victoria-era Fan, and the turn-of-the-century Museum District.

Richmond is one of the oldest cities in the country, with a rich history dating to the pre-colonial period.

History is all around us in Richmond. Sites that admission committee members live near and drive past on a daily basis include St. John’s Church (“Give me liberty or give me death!”), Monument Avenue (the only street in the U.S. designated a National Historic Landmark), the Virginia State Capitol (designed by Thomas Jefferson and prototype for the White House), Hollywood Cemetery (burial place of either two or three Presidents, depending whom you ask) and The Byrd Movie Palace (a 1920s-era cinema and National Historic Site that still features a Wurlitzer Organ performance before Saturday evening showings).

Richmond is the 3rd most tattooed city in the United States.

Yes, you read that correctly. TODAY Style ranked cities based on tattoo parlors per capita, and Richmond came in third. TODAY called Richmond “most surprising on our list” and attributed it to a “big arts and college community.” In my mind, it encapsulates just how delightfully surprising Richmond can be as a city.

And for those who’re wondering, 2 members of the admission committee are inked.

The faculty committees are still in the process of making finalist decisions, and we’ll begin to send notifications soon. All semi-finalists – whether they advance or not – will hear from us by the end of February. Keep an eye on both e-mail and snail mail.

This year, more semi-finalists will advance to the finalist stage than in previous years; the faculty committees have determined, based on the quality of the semi-finalist pool, that they want to interview a larger group of candidates than in the past. As a result, most finalist interviews in March will take place remotely rather than on campus. As much as possible, the committees will interview candidates via Skype; if Skype is not a viable option, we’ll arrange a telephone interview. (Note that we’ve already been conducting a handful of remote interviews each year for students who could not make the campus interviews, so this is not new to the Richmond Scholars process.) The one exception here is for Artist Scholar finalists, who – for obvious reasons – need to visit campus in order to audition and showcase their talents. Artist Scholar finalists will receive separate information about visiting campus for an interview.

From this larger swath of interviews, the committees will then make their final decisions. Richmond Scholars recipients will receive an all-expense-paid, two-night visit to campus, which will take place in early April (excepting Artist Scholars, who will have already visited campus by that time).

If you’re curious as to why we’re interviewing a larger number of finalists, it’s something that’s been in the works for a while – primarily due to the rapid growth in our applicant pool in recent years. This has resulted in an increasingly larger number of candidates each year who demonstrate the scholarly qualities we’re looking for in Richmond Scholars, and thus an increasing number of students our faculty would like to interview. Ultimately, there’s no real change in the outcome: we will still award around 45 full-tuition scholarships to the most outstanding applicants in our pool, students whom we believe will be movers and shakers not only for four years on our campus, but across the nation and the globe for decades to come.