What Do Colleges Want?

By Rick Clark, Georgia Tech Admissions My wife has celiac disease. While many people do not know exactly what that is, they have at least heard of “gluten” and are familiar with the GF or grain symbol on food labels in the grocery store or at restaurants. 20 years ago, however, when she was first diagnosed, that was definitely not the case. In fact, going out to eat was an incredible hassle. “Can you tell me if this is gluten free?” inevitably resulted in a bemused and moderately annoyed manager emerging from the back. Most of the time, despite our best efforts to provide examples, there was more head scratching (disturbing around food) and eyebrow furrowing than recognition or appreciation of the issue. In many cases, to be safe, Amy would just order a salad- sometimes bringing her own dressing to be sure. One Saturday a month we went to a “Gluten-sensitive support group,” aka GSSG, which was 20 miles from our house in Atlanta. In a city of several million people, there was only one group- giving you an idea of how little known the issue was at that time. During those meetings, people shared advice on which doctors to see, where they had been able to find gluten free products in health food stores (never regular grocery stores), and also exchanged recipes. At the end of each meeting, people shared their latest baked good product or casserole. I looked forward to those meetings the way you look forward to taking an SAT- that is to say- not at all. At best the food tasted like salty cardboard and at worst… well, let’s just say twice in my recollection I had to quickly walk to the bathroom sink to spit out whatever half masticated delicacy I’d partially ingested. Bottom line is if you had celiac disease, or a significant gluten allergy at that time, there were extremely few choices and options. Even as a spouse, it felt limiting. Choice and Options Along with my staff, we have written extensively in the past about “what colleges are looking for.” We’ve covered GPA, rigor of curriculum, activities and involvement, essays, more about essays, plenty of ink spilled and callouses grown writing about writing, teacher recs, interviews, etc. And all of that is accurate, helpful, and worth checking out. But what do colleges really want? Regardless of their size, geographic location, or athletic conference, they want the same thing-- Choices and Options. They don’t want to have to “just have a salad” and bring their own dressing. They want a full menu. And their desire- or hunger as it were (really just wrote this entire blog to use that phrase)- for choices and options explains a lot about your college admission experience. College Search (mail, email, etc.) – If you are a sophomore or junior, you have started to receive more and more email, postcards, and other glossy, shiny solicitations from colleges. Maybe this sounds familiar: “Dear <<insert name here>>” check out our campus.” Notice all these kids of different ethnicities hanging out together snacking while studying on our super green grass. It just so happens when we took this picture that there were three benches in the background occupied by students engrossed in important discussions about today’s issues. They say they want you to visit, check out their website, fill out this card, or ultimately apply for admission. Does this mean you will get in? Absolutely not. Does it mean you are competitive for admission at their school? No. So why did they buy your name, spend money on bulk rate postage, or invest copious time debating whether to include a picture of the kid studying abroad in Spain or the one of the students looking closely at a colored liquid in a campus laboratory? Two words (ok, technically three): Choices and Options. Colleges cast a very wide net to encourage students to check out their school, but they have limited information about you when doing that. Perhaps they have your test score or a sense of what classes you have taken. Maybe they are trying to attract more students from your state or city, or they saw you (or your mom) indicated an interest in Chemistry on a survey or test registration form (hence the lab pic). Post- Covid (I’m just going to keep saying that ‘til it’s truly a thing) it is tougher to visit high schools during the school day. Traveling is also time intensive and expensive. Sending hundreds of thousands of emails and mailing broadly prospective students- what schools refer to as “student search”- is a big part of their enrollment strategy. Build a big funnel of students, see who is really interested, see who applies, admit those they want, and voila- a class. What does this mean for you? The good news is contact from a variety of schools helps you see a bigger picture. At times, we all have a tendency to be too narrowly focused. Receiving information from places you have never heard of challenges you to ask bigger questions about what you really want or need- not just default to what you recognize.  On the flipside, too many students believe that the number of times a college contacts them correlates to their odds of being admitted. Nope. Just because a school sends you pithy emails or a lovely fold out poster of their gothic campus nestled just south of the city does not mean the wind is ultimately going to blow you into the admit pool. Take these mailings with a big grain of salt (or a sodium laced circa 2003 gluten-free experiment). Admission Decisions- If you are a senior, unless you applied to a college who explicitly stated they are using a formula to make admission decisions, they are not using a formula to make admission decisions. Holistic admission means they draw circles more than lines. When you hear admission reps say, “We are looking for a well-rounded class…” they mean they want choices and options. It’s not just going to be about your test score or number of AP classes. This means a few things. First, it means you are likely to see a student with lower grades or fewer activities get into a school that denies you. Their decisions are based on goals and mission. They want choices and options. They are trying to “build a class” not just hit ENTER on an Excel sheet to figure out who gets in. Is this fair? NO. But they don’t call it Fair Admissions. They call it Holistic Admission- probably because “Choices and Options Admission” rolls off the tongue like Debbie’s gluten free casserole in the GSSG bathroom. Second, it means if you are deferred admission, they are not saying you are not smart, or they don’t like you, or that you should have joined the French Club back in sophomore year and that would have done the trick. Instead, they are saying we’d like to see our full set of choices and options. Send us your fall grades or maybe write another supplemental essay (good times!) about why you really want to come. Fun to wait? Absolutely not. I polled 100 humans recently about their five favorite things to do in life and surprisingly nobody listed “Waiting.” But understanding the WHY matters. Too many students take a deferral as an ego hit. Or they are mad, confused, and feel wronged. Deferrals- and ultimately waitlist decisions- are part of the process. What do colleges want? Choices and Options, people. Choices AND Options. Lastly, it means you may get into a school with a higher ranking or a lower admit rate than another school that denies or defers you. Each year after we release admission decisions, we get calls or notes starting, “With all due respect… (Note: This is the southern equivalent of “Bless your heart…” and basically should be interpreted as “I’m about to tell you why you are wrong or clueless.”) I think you have made a mistake. See, I was admitted to/ got a scholarship from (insert supposedly better college here), so I’d like you to re-review my application.” First, that’s not a valid appeal. Second, what led to the decision was that particular school's choices and options based fulfilling their distinct institutional priorities. As I said earlier, colleges often look the same on their websites or brochures. A picture is worth 1000 words, but when all the pictures are the same, it can seem like all colleges are too. Thankfully, they are not. At the end of the day, they all have different goals, different priorities, and different processes for enrolling our students. What they are “looking for” varies widely, but the one thing all colleges want is Choices and Options. The good news is you can learn a lot about how to approach your college search and selection experience from understanding how colleges approach building their class. And we’ll cover that next time. Until then, have a great Thanksgiving Break. Eat well, take a nap, read something that’s not been assigned, and as always- Hug your mama.

 

Auburn University Engineering Camps

Engineering Camps

  

Do you like math and science, interested in how things work, enjoy problem solving and like working with a team of people?

If so, you might be a future engineer. From defense and infrastructure to telecommunications and consumer electronics, engineers make the world a better place. An engineering degree can also open doors to careers in business, law and medicine. The options are limited by only your imagination!

The Samuel Ginn College of Engineering wants to expose high school students to the world of engineering through our summer camps.  The camps will be conducted by faculty, staff and students from the college who will ensure students receive a broad overview of the engineering profession by participating in a number of hands-on activities. 

We will be offering the following camps this summer:

• Computer Science and Arts for All (3rd - 5th graders)
• Senior Tigers Engineering Camp (rising 12th graders)
• Auburn Engineering Summer Expo (rising 9th-12th graders)
• The Future of Paper, Pulp and Paper Camp (rising 12th graders)
• Computing and Robotics for All (rising 7-8th graders)

Registration information for each camp can be found below:

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Computer Science and Arts for All

For 3^rd - 5^th graders

February 4th–March 4^th, 2023

Price: Free

CSA4ALL program is an on-campus project where students will learn about the basics of robotics, programming, and music composition. We have experts in Computer Science, Robotics and Music fields working on maximizing the efficiency and quality of the materials. The main steps of the curriculum are:

(1) Introducing students to CS concepts and skills using dash robots and xylophone attachment. 

(2) Introducing students to control and program dash robots to play and create music rhythm patterns.

(3) Teaching essential music vocabulary. 

(4) Teaching students how to compose music using the Xylo app and Dash’s xylophone attachment.

(5) Introducing programming concepts like sequencing, algorithm, events, and making loops by repeating measures of music.

(6) Teaching how to synchronize their Dash robots with their musical composition. 

(7) Providing an opportunity for students to turn the Dash robot into a marching band making the dash robot move and groove with its xylophone attachment and simple programming.

(8) Controlling small educational robots using ML/AI

Sessions will be led by Computer Science and Software Engineering, Computing Electrical Engineering departments faculty and graduate students.   If you have any questions, please email the camp director, Dr. Daniela Marghitu at marghda@auburn.edu. We hope to see you soon!

 Apply here: https://auburn.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eWI3Bq4YYgtbJJA

All applicants will be notified via the student's email address of their acceptance status on October 30^th, 2022.

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Senior Tigers Engineering Camp: July 16 - 21, 2022

For rising 12th graders 

Applications will open December 1, 2022

This is a residential camp. Throughout the week, students will explore the different engineering majors while participating in hands-on activities. Sessions will be led by engineering faculty members, Auburn Engineering students and engineering organizations. If you have any questions, please email Auburn Youth Programs at auyouth@auburn.edu. We hope to see you at camp!

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Auburn Engineering Summer Expo: June 23, 2022 from 8:00 AM - 5:00PM

For rising 9th - 12th graders

Registration will open in Spring 2023

This is a one-day program. During the day, students will explore the different engineering majors while participating in hands-on activities to tackle challenges for a particular theme. Sessions will be led by engineering organizations, faculty members, and current Auburn Engineering students.  If you have any questions, please email the Office of Recruitment, K-12 Outreach, and Scholarship at futureengineer@eng.auburn.edu. We hope to see you at camp!

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The Future of Paper (Pulp and Paper Camp)

For rising 12th graders

The Pulp & Paper Camp, conducted by faculty, staff, and students from Auburn’s Alabama Center of Paper & Bioresource Engineering, is open to science-loving rising 12th graders who are interested in learning more about the power of paper for everyday life and the growing pulp and paper industry. Students interested in pursuing a degree in engineering (specifically chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or biosystems engineering) are encouraged to participate in the pulp and paper summer camp to learn more about the Pulp, Paper, & Bioresource specialization at Auburn University and the Auburn Pulp & Paper Scholarship opportunities.

Campers will learn about paper and papermaking firsthand, as well as participate in hands-on papermaking and texting experiments, tour a local paper mill, and learn about engineering at Auburn University.

 

UGA Early Action Data

Early Action decisions will be released later this afternoon, so here are some details about the EA applicant and admitted groups. I will also add a comment to the top of this post when decisions go live (4 pm EST), and I will announce it on Twitter as well. When you log into your status page, you will see a “View Update” link under the Status Update, and that is where you will see your decision. About 20 minutes after we release decisions, an email will go out to students who have not already checked their status letting them know a decision is available on their status page. For students who were deferred, please understand that this is not a denial decision.  We want to be able to have a more in-depth review of you, including short essays, activities, recommendations, etc. in comparison with the overall applicant pool. Please be sure to read the deferred student FAQ page before commenting on here. I expect that there will also be an article in the UGA News next week which will give more broad details on the class as a whole, so I suggest you also review this information when it is available.

Quick Early Action Numbers (These numbers are mid-ranges, not minimums. The EA academic data is very similar for in-state and out-of-state students so we are giving out overall data.)

Applications Received: 26,001
–UGA received roughly 21% more EA applications than last year. Based on the data on applications started for RD for this year, we expect a larger group of total applicants overall.

Offers of Admission: Approximately 8,253
-This is somewhat less than last year’s admitted numbers, as our applicant pool has grown and we expect a larger RD applicant group as well.  With a larger applicant pool, we need to be slightly more cautious in EA as we do not know what the entire applicant pool (EA and RD) will look like.

Mid 50% Admitted Average GPA: 4.16-4.38 GPA
-Please remember this is not the GPA students see on their high school transcript, but rather the GPA that UGA recalculates for everyone based on the core academic courses taken in high school and looking at the actual grades posted on the transcripts. I have a previous blog post on how admissions calculates the UGA GPA for your reference. 

Mid 50% Admitted Average SAT (EBRW+M): 1370-1510
-This is data for students who were admitted with the SAT being the highest or only test score in their review. 

Mid 50% Admitted Average ACT (Composite): 32-34
-This is data for students who were admitted with the ACT being the highest or only test score in their review. Remember, UGA focuses on the ACT English and Math scores, but we report the Composite data as that is the official/accepted data for national publications. 

Mid 50% Admitted AP/IB/DE courses over 4 years of HS: 8-13 courses
-We determine academic rigor based on all core classes a student has taken (CP, Honors, Advanced, AP, IB, DE, etc.) over the four years of HS as compared to what is offered in the school/community, but this information is the most specific data we can give on it. This does not mean a student needed X number of AP/IB/DE courses to be admitted, as we do not base rigor on the number of these courses taken.

The rough breakdown of decisions are the following: 8,253 admits, 11,500+ deferred, roughly 4,300 denied and slightly over 1,800 with incomplete applications. If you have questions about your specific decision, I do not suggest you post them on this blog.  As well, do not give out or request personal academic information in your post, as we would then need to delete these posts. We are not able to answer questions about individual students here because we will generally not have your information in front of us and we cannot disclose individual student information in a comment.  I would recommend talking with both your family and high school counselor first, then reviewing this previous post on suggestions about how to react to an EA decision, and finally reading the FAQ’s available from your Status page. In addition, please do not post any comments disparaging another student or individual, as these comments will be deleted (see the rules in the upper right-hand corner under About the Blog).

As a reminder, UGA looks at in-state and out-of-state applicants using the same overall review process, but it is more challenging for an out-of-state student to be admitted due to the volume of applicants and UGA being the flagship university for the state of Georgia. We expect this difference will be seen more in final decisions than in EA. In addition, we do not have any limits on the number of students we can admit based on school, neighborhood, county or state, and we do not use major, gender, race, demonstrated interest or legacy status in our review process. We are looking at each individual applicant in the context of the overall applicant pool, and making decisions based on both the EA applicant group and what we expect the applicant pool (EA and RD) will be like overall. I suggest you look at the Admissions Tips, Hints & Myths page for more details about what we do and do not look at in our review.

Admitted Students: An initial wave of Honors College offers will also go out today, and these decisions can be seen in the acceptance letter and on the status page (if a student was admitted by Honors). The initial scholarship offers will go out in mid-December, so please be patient with us as we review files for UGA based scholarships. While our EA admission offers are available today, it will take a few days for our campus partners such as housing and financial aid to pull this information into their systems, so please be patient with these other offices. For instance, Housing will send out an email on Saturday to admitted students explaining their process and timelines and registration will not open until next week. Lastly, we do send out a gift to accepted students (the now famous UGA socks), but these do take time to get mailed out, so please be patient.

Please be patient, be nice and be courteous. Have a great weekend and go Dawgs!

 

Amazon Future Engineers Scholarship

Amazon Future Engineers Scholarship: Amazon will choose 400 high school seniors across the nation to receive $40,000 for college and a guaranteed engineering internship at Amazon following their freshman year. If you have students in mind for this opportunity, please see amazonfutureengineer.com/scholarships for more details. The application deadline is Jan. 20, 2023.