Podcast 4: The Process- Insight into the College Admissions Process

(This audio is from The Process originally aired on SiriusXM 111)

Participants:

• Host: Eric Furda- Dean of Wharton School of Business
• Co-host: Eileen Cunningham Feikens- Director of College Counseling at the Dwight-Englewood School
• Bill Phelan- CEO of CollegeFactual
• David Charlow- Financial aid expert

• What do families gravitate towards?
  • Bill: People want to look for what’s behind the college name- what will this college offer you. In the United States, you have the opportunity to declare one major out of 400- a lot of options.
    • We are interested in helping students find what type of “pool” they belong in. Then it’s like a dating game- you go and visit and try to gauge which school is right for you.
  • Feikens: Also important to look for affordability- Find out what school fits your type and then see whether you can afford it

• What should students be thinking about as they go through all these college tours?
  • Feikens: Most people ask the question: Which school is better? That’s very subjective à Each student should have a list of things they want, then compare each school to that list to figure out what matches what you want
    • Don’t look at the name, but look at what you want
    • Some concern also comes out from aligning with their parent’s choices
  • Bill: What we find is that when we try to get the students and parents to come up with a hypothesis of what they thought was important, there will be “course corrections” along the way
    • CollegeFactual was designed to help ease this process- help students find their “pool” easier
  • Do you think people start at the top?
    • Bill: We definitely find that people do start at the top of the lists but we advise starting your own list. No such thing as the best school, but the best school for you

• Waitlists- Can you emotionally connect with a school if there’s another in the back of your head?
  • Feikens: Sometimes the emotions that come out of being waitlisted can range from defeat to motivation to see what else they can
    • Important to remember that the focus of admissions officers in April is not on waitlisted students but on admitted students/new student events
    • Don’t drag out accepting a waitlist if you are given the option but make sure you’re not accidentally accepting “I will come to this school if you accept me off the waitlist.”
  • If the student is given the opportunity to rationalize why they deserve a spot off the waitlist, what would resonate with admissions?
    • Feikens: The school already knows you’re interested in them but include- why you want this school? Really drill down on that.
      • Most colleges don’t want another recommendation/another quarter of your grades

• Gap year- What do we need to know about the non-linear path?
  • Bill: The hardest thing to get over is understanding that for parents, taking a gap year does not mean that you were negligent in your duties of raising a child
    • We have a certain culture in the US that doesn’t support that
  • Feikens: Do not look at a gap year as a year off but look at it as a year on. It could be an opportunity to make money for college
    • College is not 13^th

• The Process for Decoding Financial Aid letters- Charlow
  • An exercise in calculating net price or discounted price for families
  • Unfortunately, college financial aid letters do not provide you the basic information you need to calculate the net price you’ll be paying
    • Basic concept:
      • Net Price = Sticker Price – Discounts
    • Steps:
      • 1) Figure out what the college’s sticker price is- Tuition, Room & Board, Books, Transportation Expenses
      • 2) Start to look at the discounts- grants, scholarships
        • Many awards that appear on these award letters are not discounts. Only look at grants and scholarships as discounts, not loans that you will have to pay back or work study
        • Loans and work study are good things because they help you pay for college but they are not discounts because they do not reduce the price of college
      • Feikens: A grant is based on financial need and a scholarship is based on some sort of merit or talent
      • Charlow: Getting down to the net price is important because then you can compare schools properly

• Big data and the College Selection Process- Bill
  • Google is the Dewey Decimal system on steroids à Yet it has become a huge part of our daily life
  • But for colleges, what is the proper database to search on? That’s why we created CollegeFactual- to provide an easy to use method to search/narrow down colleges
  • We want to take large amounts of data and make them easy to read for students

• On picking colleges
  • Feikens: The meat of an institution is the curriculum. It may be nice to have a beautiful campus but that’s not as important.
  • Bill: Look at your natural strengths and look to what colleges cater to
    • After that, then look at brands. Don’t start with brands.
  • Sophomores and Juniors: What do they need to know?
    • All starts with being a reflective person and thinking about what you want
    • Then going on tours and being a savvy consumer
    • Start looking at colleges as a sophomore and junior- going around in April shows you what to expect from the college campus when they are in action

• Question to dean: What’s going to make a difference to you when looking at potential students to let off the waitlist considering you have space?
  • Furda: If you can show why you are really interested in the school, that’s what we want to see. The authenticity that sometimes may not come through in a college essay

• Question to dean: So many people have started to apply to many colleges at once now with the advent of technology like the Common App. What has been the focus of admissions on yield (converting admitted to enrolled)?
  • Furda: Penn, specifically does not look at yield but we look for that match between students and faculty

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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