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Hi everybody! Before I get into those final thoughts on the Early Action decision-making process, I do want to say thank you to all of you who are reading this blog, posting your comments, asking questions, and even discussing its content on other college admission websites! We started this blog with the hope that it would alleviate at least some of the mystery behind the admission review process here at PC and from the comments that we've received, it's been at least partially successful! Obviously this blog is geared toward our prospective students and their families, but I also want to say that I appreciate all of the other people who are faithful readers and have given me some positive feedback. They include PC administrators, current PC students, parents of some of our admission staff (who are getting the inside scoop about what their sons and daughters are doing at work!), and of course, the many PC alums who are keeping in touch with their alma mater (and I have to mention here a favorite of ours in the Office of Admission, Brady M. from the Class of 2005 who is living in Cambridge, MA right now and who was one of the best student tour guides and ambassadors we could have ever asked for in the office-- Brady, I know you've been very faithfully reading and I definitely appreciate it!). Now that that's been said...
We're less than a day away from decision letters being released (tomorrow morning), and here's your recap of the Early Action admission process... Nearly 3,200 applicants, which as I've mentioned before, is about a 45% increase in applications from where we were last year at Early Action. Clearly, it was extremely competitive, due to the increase in applications, yes, but also due to the strength of the students who applied! We definitely did not see a drop-off in quality with the increase in quantity!
So how many of the 3,200 could we invite? Well, remember, our freshman class has 960 spaces... and we still have our entire Regular Decision applicant pool to consider on top of the 3,200 who applied EA... so, we accepted about 1,425 students Early Action-- what we feel is a good balance that rewards the deserving students who applied EA while not penalizing the students who choose to apply at Regular (there will still be spaces available to those qualified applicants!). By the way, we do know going into this process that not every student who we accept is going to choose us (they will have lots of great schools to choose from!) -- that's why we invite considerably more than the 960 freshmen we have room for. But...
...were there other students in the Early Action pool (beyond the 1,425 we accepted) who could be successful in our classrooms at PC? The answer to that is yes-- all of the students we deferred have the academic ability to be successful. That is why students who receive a defer letter should not interpret it as a "soft deny" -- when we defer a student, we do believe that they have a legitimate chance to be accepted during the Regular Decision review. There will be nearly 1,000 students who will be deferred, meaning that their application will be carried over to the Regular Decision pool and they will receive a final decision in March. These deferred students are a very talented group, but in the context of our applicant pool Early Action, we were unable to offer them admission. Unfortunately, over 700 students will be denied Early Action as the Committee on Admission did not see them as an academic fit to PC. Denying these students EA is difficult to do but we feel that passing along this information now instead of waiting until March is beneficial to these students and their families and allows them to pursue other options.
There is your objective, numerical recap of the Early Action decision-making process. But we always stress looking beyond the numbers here in the PC Office of Admission, so as promised, here are my own unabridged (subjective!) thoughts on my third year of attending Committee on Admission meetings:
Academically, two of the important things in the eyes of the committee (as we've been saying all along) are the student's overall curriculum AND senior schedule. For you juniors out there, I can't stress enough how important it is to continue to take a challenging courseload senior year. A student who "takes senior year off" is not going to win points with any of the counselors on the staff-- it really is a surefire way for an application to end up with a deny decision. More than once this year we looked at a student with a borderline GPA or a compelling story, and considered deferring the student in order to see senior year performance... only to see that their senior schedule consisted of English, Trig, and a history elective-- and two study halls, phys ed, and Basket Weaving 101. And when an EA applicant has a weak senior schedule, the committee usually comes to two conclusions: (1) We are not going to accept the student because they have not earned an invite in the context of the overall applicant pool based on their less than challenging senior year and (2) there is not all that much to be gained from deferring the student to see senior year performance because... we only have 3 classes to see grades in! Which means there's only one decision left to make... So one last time, to all of the underclassmen out there-- continuing to take on challenging courses senior year is vital to be successful in the college admission process!!
Also on the academic side, we look closely at GPA during the committee meetings, but not just the overall number. More important than that number is how a student got to their GPA. Did the student really struggle freshman year but has shown us an upward trend throughout high school? Or did the student have an "A-" GPA freshman year followed by a "B" average sophomore year followed by a "C+" GPA as a junior? The student in the second example will not be receiving support from the committee. The moral of the story is we love to see progression (an upward trend) in GPA; we definitely do not like to see digression (or a downward trend) in GPA.
This Early Action committee was also the first that we have done while being a test-optional institution, and I have to say that being test-optional did not change our committee process one bit from the two years I experienced when SAT/ACT scores were required. Just like in the past, we spent our time talking about... the person... a student's extra-curricular involvement, essays, and their match and fit to our campus community. We have never quibbled over SAT scores in committee-- not once in my three years have we said, "Let's take this student because she has a 1250 SAT and that one only has an 1150." Officially becoming test-optional gives our applicants the choice to submit their scores but doesn't change what we do-- it is simply backing up the way we have always reviewed applications in the committee setting. The combination of the high school academic preparation and performance plus the personal characteristics that make a student the right fit to Providence College!
So there you have it... We've just about reached the end of the Early Action process and I'll mention one more time-- decision letters will be leaving our office tomorrow (Saturday, December 23).
Finally, I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy your school break! We will be closing the office for Christmas so I will talk to you again in 2007! Best wishes to you and your family over the holidays!
*Scott
Although decision letters have not been mailed out yet, I've seen a lot of questions about qualifications to be admitted into our Liberal Arts Honors Program and to receive a merit scholarship. First of all, PC's academic merit scholarships are tied exclusively to our Honors Program; in other words, a student who is invited into the Liberal Arts Honors Program will also receive a merit scholarship, and a student who is not invited into the Honors Program will (therefore) not receive a merit scholarship. Also, please keep in mind that the majority of financial aid resources go to need-based aid at PC (in keeping with our Catholic and Dominican mission) rather than merit-based scholarships.
As you've probably gathered from reading past entries, the admission review process this year was incredibly competitive. So, you won't be surprised to hear that selecting the students who will receive invitations into the Honors Program was, in turn, even MORE competitive. In our entire freshman class, we have about 960 spaces-- however, there are only 125 spots in the Honors Program, making these selections very challenging. Hopefully these next couple of paragraphs will give you an idea of the criteria we are looking at to make these Honors Program decisions.
First of all, the average GPA for an Early Action INVITE (not an Honors Program invitation-- an admission invite) was an "A-" in a very rigorous high school curriculum. So, if the admission invite GPA is an "A-," you would be correct to assume that the Honors Program GPAs are going to be higher-- very solid "A" averages from students who have had nearly a flawless high school career. But having the "A" average is not enough-- it must be achieved in the most demanding curriculum available at a student's high school, taking full advantage of advanced level, Honors, Advanced Placement, and/or International Baccalaureate courses (depending on what is offered at a specific high school) and achieving grades that place the student at the top of their class.
In order to show just how competitive the Liberal Arts Honors Program and merit scholarship process is, let me give you an example from last year: In our overall applicant pool for the Class of 2010 (both Early Action and Regular Decision), we had 131 valedictorians and salutatorians apply. However, we only have 30 St. Dominic (full tuition) Scholarships to award to each class, so as you can see, it was extremely competitive last year (and even more so this year). That last number is not to say that only valedictorians and salutatorians are considered for or receive scholarships-- certainly there are students who are not #1 or #2 and receive an invitation into the Honors Program-- but generally speaking, we are talking about students who are at the top of their class.
Back to this year's Early Action students... Students who will be receiving a Liberal Arts Honors Program invitation and merit scholarship will have (generally speaking) the following credentials: (1) The most demanding advanced-level courseload available-- meaning they have exhausted their high school curriculum... (2) An overall "A" average (GPA) in that demanding schedule... (3) A class rank within the top 3% of their high school graduating class (if the student's high school ranks)... (4) An "A" average in their English courses throughout high school (because we are a liberal arts school, English performance is a very important factor in the review process). The main criteria that we use to select students for the Honors Program is (as you can see from the above) academic performance in the high school classroom, but another popular question we've seen has been, "How do SAT/ACT scores factor into the Honors Program and merit scholarship review since PC is test-optional?"
Well, I can assure you that no student was penalized in this process for choosing not to submit their scores. There are plenty of (very strong) students without test scores on file who will be receiving an invitation into the Honors Program and a merit scholarship. For students who did choose to submit test scores, they have been looked at as part of the merit review-- however, please understand that they did not and will not outweigh the high school performance. They are an additional factor that we use if a student has made the scores available to us, but we want our Honors Program to consist of a group of students who earned their invitation into the program with four years of consistent classroom work rather than simply good standardized test-takers. The Honors Program review (like the admission review process) puts the majority of the weight on the high school academic performance (as explained above) rather than on standardized test scores.
I hope that this lengthy posting has given you some insight into how we make our selections for the Liberal Arts Honors Program (and not made the whole process more confusing! I hope I didn't scare anyone, but it's important for me to get across to you the amazing depth and strength of our applicant pool!). If you have any questions about the Honors Program that I didn't answer, please feel free to send them along!
As I mentioned on Monday, Honors Program invitation letters will be mailed on Friday, December 29, about a week after admission decision letters which will leave our office on Saturday, December 23. Later this week, I will talk a bit more about my final thoughts on the Early Action Committee on Admission meetings and the overall Early Action decision-making process. I'll talk to you again soon!
*Scott
With the completion of our main Committee on Admission meetings comes the big question: When will decision letters be sent out? Well, before we get to that exact date, please understand that although the main committee is over, the staff will convene again this week to finalize certain decisions. Understand, too, that there are still many other things we have to do before decision letters can be released. Approximately 3,200 students applied Early Action, meaning that 3,200 letters must be printed, signed, and proofread. We also must go through our EA roster and make sure that each student's actual letter matches up with the decision that we have made. It sounds like a relatively simple process, but understand that it takes time with 3,200 applicants!
Therefore, the decision letters will leave our office on Saturday, December 23 and will likely arrive in students' mailboxes during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. While we may have been ready to send the letters as early as Friday, December 22, we decided to hold off on mailing the letters until Saturday so that no students would receive their letters before Christmas. So again, look for Early Action decision letters to arrive sometime between December 26 and January 1.
We've also had some EA applicants asking if decisions will be available online at any point, and the answer to that question is no, they will not be. All decisions are released via letter in the mail and that is the only way we make them available (please do not call our office-- it is school policy not to give out decisions over the phone). I know this makes a little bit of an additional wait but we want to make sure that students are receiving their decisions at (relatively) the same time via the mail.
Another popular question has been, "When will I know if I've been invited into the Liberal Arts Honors Program or received a merit scholarship?" The answer is approximately 1-2 weeks after you have received your admission decision letter. We are currently conducting our Honors Program and scholarship review, and it is looking like letters accepting students into the Liberal Arts Honors Program (and also offering a merit scholarship) will be mailed on Friday, December 29. (By the way, there is no separate application required to be considered for the Honors Program-- all applicants are automatically considered based on their application materials. The Liberal Arts Honors Program spaces and merit scholarships are awarded to our highest academic achievers in the applicant pool).
Later this week, I will provide you with some observations (of my own along with some of my colleagues) about our Early Action Committee on Admission meetings and will also attempt to answer any questions you may have. Feel free to send your questions, comments, or thoughts my way!
We have completed our main Committee on Admission meetings for Early Action 2006! Therefore, we are in the final stages of the Early Action review leading up to decision letters being sent out. This week, we will be tying up loose ends, tracking down any missing items needed to complete applications, printing and proofreading decision letters, and getting set to mail them out to you. It is still looking like decision letters will be reaching mailboxes sometime next week... More info to follow!
Committee on Admission continues... Here's a visual! Well, without the counselors, of course... This is what the room looks like where we make the decisions!!! Very cozy... 
Welcome to Wednesday!
It's that time of year... we've heard that some colleges and universities have started releasing their decision letters for Early Action/Early Decision. Just a friendly reminder that if you have been accepted to a school Early Decision, you are required to withdraw your applications from all of the other schools you have applied to. This allows those schools to open up a handful of additional spaces for students who really want to attend... so those students thank you!!!
As I mentioned last night, we have an extra long day of committee today... During the afternoon session, we'll be considering students from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Colorado... Then tonight we'll be spending some time "in New York" ... reviewing applications from upstate and then spending much of the evening on Long Island.
Time for a quick lunch... Alumni Cafeteria over in our student center... My favorite lunch spot!!! (I guess that says something for on-campus food! It's good!!! Plus the people who work there are the nicest people you will ever meet!)
So here we are at the end of day #2 of Early Action committee 2006. We all came into committee knowing how strong the applicant pool is and knowing there would be some difficult decisions ahead of us, but I think today really showed us how much talent there is across the board in this Early Action pool. When referring to one of the applicants from her territory, one of our Associate Deans said, "Well, there were some minuses-- A-minuses." That about sums up the past couple of days!
While the counseling staff continues to marvel at the academic quality of the applications in committee, a lot of the discussion time is spent on the non-academic side of the applicants. In many (or most!) cases, an application that is being reviewed in the committee setting features a student who has performed very well academically, and due to the depth of the pool, it often comes down to the subjective factors when we are making these difficult decisions. As I've mentioned in previous postings, this is the time when involvement, leadership, recommendations, writing statements, and overall match and fit to PC play crucial roles in the process. Since these are the subjective (or "human") factors, the amount of time spent discussing an applicant can vary widely; with some, the entire staff quickly comes to the conclusion that a student would be a great fit to PC and the decision is made. With other applicants, however, we spend a much longer time coming to a consensus-- many times because the student has some type of story that needs to be told and considered. It's very interesting to note that especially with these candidates, I am sometimes surprised with the direction the committee chooses to go. Sometimes there is a "feel" in the room that counselors are leaning toward "invite" or "defer," and then we reach the opposite conclusion by the end of the discussion. Of course, it's a good thing that counselors aren't coming in with preconceived notions on applicants; rather, we use the information presented to us by the student in his or her application to come to our final decision. We weigh each student's application in the context of our applicant pool, and work to invite the students who we see as truly the best fit (inside and outside of the classroom) to PC.
General observations from the first two days:
-High school curriculum is enormously important in the eyes of the committee (I know that this is old news for many of you... I've said it countless times in this blog, we say it at every high school visit and on-campus information session that we do, but it certainly rings true in the committee setting). Students who take weak senior schedules are at an extreme disadvantage in the review (we really mean it when we say competitive candidates for admission have taken 4 years of the 5 core subject areas and taken an appropriate level of advanced/honors/AP/IB courses in the context of what their high school offers).
-Applicants who declare Biology as their major really need to have a strong math preparation along with their strong science prep (i.e. advancing well beyond Algebra 2 or Trigonometry).
-There is a healthy respect for students work at a part-time job during the school year. We understand the responsibility (and time commitment) that goes with this, and we are amazed at some students' abilities to balance a job, a strong academic performance, and still be meaningfully involved in extra-curricular activities.
-Fit to the Providence College community is a very important consideration as well. I know I've said it before (such as earlier in this posting!), but it bears repeating: we are looking for students who we feel are the right match to PC both in and outside of the classroom and will contribute positively to our campus community.
On to day #3 tomorrow... a longer day so that we are able to stay on track and make sure that our decision letters are sent out on schedule. Tomorrow's schedule consists of a morning session (9:00 AM to noon), an afternoon session (2:00 PM to 4:30 PM) and, for the first time this week, an evening session (6:00 PM to 9:00 PM). I will let you know how the sessions go! Hope you're having a great week!
*Scott
We've officially gotten started with Committee on Admission meetings... and actually just finished enjoying a luncheon for our student ambassadors on campus (if college students love free [and good!] food, admission counselors who are in committee REALLY love free [and good!] food!). A lot of very strong applicants so far which is great... but obviously makes it a little more difficult for us to choose who should be admitted to PC...
More details to come...
... They officially begin... The entire counseling staff gathers behind the door marked "Meeting In Progress" to review hundreds of applications during one full week of Committee on Admission meetings. This scene was always something that I wondered about when I was applying to colleges: who is behind that door and how are they making the decisions?
We've all seen movies and television shows that feature admission committees made up of ten older, stately, stern-looking gentlemen dressed in suits. There's misconception #1 - we don't wear suits to committee! (Especially when we have weekend sessions; outfits on Saturdays often include jeans, hoodies, baseball caps, and yes, even the occasional pair of pajama pants!). One of the great things about our staff is the variety of different perspectives present in the committee setting. Some counselors have over 20 years in the world of admissions, at different schools all over the country… Some have 2 years of experience, both at PC. Some are young… others are younger (I don't think anyone would classify themselves as old!)… One of our counselors is a Dominican priest… Many of us are PC grads, but not all of us��?and it's critical to have that outside perspective, that different collegiate experience present in the committee. We each bring with us our own unique college (and high school) experiences��?the classes we took, the activities we were involved in��?and we do our best to relate to YOU and your experiences. I have great respect for students who hold an after-school job because I worked at a supermarket during high school. One of my colleagues especially loves applicants who wrestle��?because of his own experience on the wrestling team during high school.
That's us… if we sound like a relatively interesting group of people, good! (I think we are!). You know what else I get from the above description? That the decision-making process is human… is subjective… is personal. I think the one thing our staff prides itself on the most is how personal, thorough, and holistic we make the review process; there are no magic formulas making the decisions on who will be accepted to PC. No computer programs, no GPA/SAT grids, no numerical cutoffs are employed. Sure, we talk about numbers in committee… we take a close look at your high school performance, your GPA, your class rank (to a much lesser extent) if it's available. But the great thing about committee is that we talk about the people behind the paper. We talk about how a Student Council President brings her class together after the tragic death of a classmate; we hear the glowing recommendation from a community service advisor about how a student truly does put others before himself; we read a fantastic essay that explains what one young lady learned about herself and a diverse group of her fellow human beings from the everyday activity of riding the city bus to school in Seattle.
I should probably explain how our Committee on Admission meetings are set up (maybe I should have done this at the top of this posting… oops!). As you know if you're a thorough reader of this blog, each admission counselor is responsible for a different geographic territory (that we travel to in the fall) and we each complete the first review of all of the applications that come in from our region. In the committee setting, each counselor is responsible for presenting the applicants from his or her territory that have gone through a multiple read process (at least two and often times three or four reads) and been designated as "committee students." After the counselor presents an applicant's information, the floor is opened for questions and discussion, as the committee spends as much time as is necessary to get to know the student well enough to make the appropriate admission decision. These decisions are made together, with each committee member given the chance to state their feelings on each applicant and then the group coming to a decision. Do we always agree? Of course not, but I think it's comforting for prospective students to know that no one person is ever making the decision on their application - it is always a group effort, and certainly nothing will be overlooked with 15 counselors examining a student's credentials.
So what do you think? Exciting? Sure it is. We have the opportunity to hear the stories of so many qualified candidates to PC… to learn about many different types of students and to give them the opportunity to continue their education at Providence. Again, we don't always agree on every decision, and occasionally we do get upset when one of “our�? students (from a counselor's territory) is unable to be accepted. But unfortunately, we don't have enough spaces in our freshman class to accommodate every student that applies, and of course we as counselors go into committee knowing that. And so, we don't have a continuous tension in the room because a student from our territory is not admitted. In fact, we run the emotional gamut during committee. We laugh at the jokes a clever student makes in his essay. Our hearts break when we hear a guidance counselor detail a student's difficult family situation. We are proud of the student who moves from college prep-level classes into honors courses and continues their strong academic performance. And there isn't really another feeling like the one we get when we're able to fulfill a first-generation college student's dream by deciding to accept her to PC.
That's a preview of what's to come in Harkins Hall this week. I am one of the counselors who will “get the ball rolling�? by presenting applicants tomorrow… which means we will be talking about some amazing students from Massachusetts, the mid-Atlantic, and Louisiana. I hope this (very long) posting has provided a little insight into what we do in PC's Committee on Admission meetings. If you are hungry for more info, don't worry… all of the above are memories from our committees of the past two years. It begins again tomorrow, which means a good night's sleep is a must for me! I'll let you know how it goes soon! Until then, have a great night!
*Scott
Yes, it's officially that time... Our Committee on Admission meetings (where final admission decisions are made) begin on Monday (we are moving along in the Early Action process!). For a true inside-look behind the scenes in the admission process, check back with me next week... I promise to keep you up to date on the committee happenings!
Have a great weekend!
*Scott
Hey everybody! Sorry to be MIA for so long... we are very busy in the office as we finish up our first, second, and third reads of applications and prepare to start our Committee on Admission meetings next week (where our final Early Action decisions will be made). I promise to post again soon!!!
P.S. PC Friars men's basketball team = 5 straight wins! (6-1)
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