Common App Questions?? Here are the answers.

Collegewise is a college advising company founded by Kevin McMullin, and the company has offered a free guide to the Common Application that is well worth reading!  It can be used before beginning the application, as a tool for line-by-line review, or just to strengthen a section or two.  This guide will surely help students get it right the first time!   Click here for access to the helpful guide, How to Make Your 2016-17 Common Application a Lot Less Common.

DKJA Visits UF and FSU

This week a group of juniors and seniors will hit the road and head north for our first college visits of the year!  We are sure to have a wonderful and educational experience, not to mention fun.

Our group will board a charter bus on Wednesday, September 7, 2016 and make our way to Gainesville - home of the University of Florida Gators!  We will spend the afternoon and early evening on the campus of UF, which will include the following:

• Meeting with Undergraduate Admissions Officer (including the representative for Rosenblatt High School)
• Campus tour
• Bookstore visit
• Visit to Hillel and then Chabad for tours, discussions with current UF students, and a BBQ dinner buffet 

·    After a restful night and breakfast in Gainesville, we'll depart for Tallahassee where we will spend much of September 8th on the FSU campus, including the following:

• Meeting with Undergraduate Admissions Officer (including the representative for Rosenblatt High School)
• Campus tour
• Bookstore visit
• Visit to Hillel for lunch, tour and discussion with current FSU students

Of course we'll have time to connect with our DKJA graduates attending both of these outstanding universities.

It's an exciting time for our students - remember that a college visit is the single best way to determine if a school may be the right one for you!

Advice and Tips from Admission Experts

Every year high school counselors and college admission officers try to guide students to put their best foot forward to colleges and universities — even when students think they know better. Here is some advice from the experts, college admissions counselors and deans, who have learned these tips the hard way. The advice was compiled by Brennan Barnard.

For Students….

“Stop worrying about what your friends think! This is your college search and your education. You need to discover for yourself whether a school is a match.”

“Just because you haven’t heard of a college, doesn’t mean it isn’t ‘good.’ College is what you make of the experience, not the experience that is handed to you. You are going to be fine wherever you end up, as long as you put some effort into it.”

“Deadlines are real.”

“Be open minded – there are SO MANY excellent schools out there!”

“It’s OK to admit you don’t know what you want.  In fact, you probably shouldn’t know what you want.  Everyone around you who says they wished they had been more directed and goal-oriented when they applied to college has forgotten what it was like to be a senior in high school.”

“The U.S. News and World Report is a list of schools. It has no bearing on the type of experience you will have nor the type of person you will become by the time you graduate.”

“Relax!! It will all be okay!  Believe in yourself and your abilities and things will work out.”

“Failure is the bedrock of learning. Embrace your failures as opportunities.”

“Trust your gut. Get out of your comfort zone. Don’t put artificial boundaries on yourself.  VISIT SCHOOLS! Finally, there are lots of schools that are ‘the one.’”

“If you focus exclusively on your reach schools, you’re likely to be disappointed, and if you can’t find more likely options that you’re truly excited about, among the over 3,000 options, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Let us know what you are feeling. This can be a stressful time; let us help you.”

“When I recommend you apply to a school with more than a 30 percent acceptance rate, I am not saying that you are not ‘good enough.’”

“No matter what you believe right now, I am not encouraging you to ‘lower your expectations’ because I don’t believe in your intelligence, drive, compassion, and overall greatness.  I am encouraging you to think more broadly because I have enough experience in this field to know where a student with your record of academic and extracurricular accomplishments and your particular interests will and will not be a competitive applicant and a happy student.  I believe it is more important to experience and enjoy all the benefits that your high school education offers you than it is to spend four years thinking only about what it can get you.”

“College admissions is not fair, and there is nothing you can do to change this.  Some of the decisions being made about your application have little/nothing to do with you — it has to do with institutional priorities, who else is in the applicant pool, and what the board of that particular college is telling the admission office it wants/needs.   College admission is also not an indication of your self-worth as a human being.  You are more than the bumper sticker your parent will put on his/her car.  Challenge yourself to learn about at least one or two new colleges every month of your search.”

“You can only attend one college.  You only need to be admitted to one college.  If every college on your list is one you can afford and where you will be successful, you have accomplished what you set out to do when the first one admits you.”

“After 21 years at this, I can no longer count the number of students who were devastated when they didn’t get into their ‘first choice’ college, then ended up thriving at the school they attended instead.  Year after year, we hear from those alums who say that they can’t imagine themselves at any other college.  Everything happens for a reason, even if the reasons aren’t clear at first.”

“Just because you attended an elite independent school, that doesn’t mean that you deserve a spot at an Ivy. “

“’You just never know,’ and ‘It’s worth a shot,’ are not good strategies.”

“Be grateful…grateful that you are even having the conversation about where to attend college. Most in this world do not get that opportunity. Thank your parents.”

“It doesn’t matter what school you go to; what matters is what you do once you’re there.  Pick a place where you’d be happy to wake up every day, where you’ll enjoy yourself, and where you’ll be confident instead of stressed out.”

“You will always lose if you live your life by comparisons to others, and the college process is no different in that regard. Compare yourself to your best self–not to other applicants.”

“The college admission process isn’t fair and neither is life.”

“Be your authentic self!  Don’t bend to the will of your parents or the pressures of packaging yourself for the colleges. “

“I encourage you to have a top group of colleges – not a ‘top choice.’ When someone asks where you want to go to college, tell them ‘I don’t know, but if I’m admitted to any of these five I know I’ll be happy.’ Announcing to the world your one dream school before you’ve been admitted raises the stakes to an unhealthy height. If it’s a reach school, the chances of you being admitted might be slim, and you risk characterizing the school you do end up attending – one you’ll probably love – as a disappointment.”

“If you’re beginning your sentence with, “Would colleges rather see…”, then STOP! You’re asking the wrong question!”

“Essay writing: Who are you? Sit down and write an essay answering that question. Don’t ask 35 people to edit it for you.”

“You’re only 17 once. Don’t forget to have fun. ”

“Your parents mean well, but please learn to do for yourself.”

“If the admissions rate is 5 percent, what makes you think that you will be one of the students who is admitted?”

“Just because a school wait-listed you, doesn’t mean that it is better than the ones that accepted you.”

“This is one of the best adventures you will embark on.  Enjoy it!”

“A smaller, thoughtfully assembled and BALANCED list of colleges (one that includes probable, possible and reach schools) will serve you best.”

“Even in the Olympics, not every national champion wins the gold.”

“Life is not fair. So do everything you can to learn to deal with the ups and downs of life.”

“This is not the most important decision you will make in your life.”

“The ideal college fit is like a jigsaw puzzle.  The four pieces – academic, social, co-curricular, and financial – all need to match up for the college to be a ‘good fit.’  The wonderful and difficult news is that most students will find multiple ‘good fit’ colleges where you will be happy and successful.”

“Be your own self-advocate, don’t expect your parents or guidance counselor to remember things and do everything for you.”

“Please don’t let the college application process dictate every decision you make.”

“Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

“The college admission process is not instantaneous. Applying to colleges will be a lesson in patience.”

“It is your responsibility to make certain that you are giving the best representation of yourself to colleges and universities where you are applying, and nobody else’s.”

“When a school admits fewer than 30 percent of its applicants, a lot of GREAT students are not admitted. It doesn’t mean you did something wrong or that we’re horrible people. There just aren’t enough seats for all we like in our classrooms.”

“Step up and be an adult. You’re about to go to college, so you need to start to speak for yourself, to advocate for yourself. Don’t let your parents do your work. You don’t deserve a merit award if you can’t even ask admissions about it, or don’t even write your own appeal.”

“You should view admission counselors as partners in this process rather than adversaries. Believe it or not, we constantly look for reasons to say yes to applicants.”

RHS Seniors Start the Year Right

Rosenblatt High School seniors will start their college application year off right with our College Application Boot Camp on Sunday, August 21st! There we will work with any and all application materials (essays, resume, log-in information).  

1.   The Common Application is live!  Seniors can roll over their account from last year and get started with the process.  Some of our more popular Common App schools are NYU, Boston University, University of Miami, Brandeis University and University of Michigan.  In addition, the University of Central Florida is now a common application school!

2.   The University of Florida application is now available!  UF has joined the new Coalition application and is one of the first colleges to go live. Seniors should get started now with the application and essay.

3.    It is not too early to begin applying for scholarships. Students who have not already done so should create an account on a few scholarship websites and start reviewing. Some of the best sites to begin include www.meritaid.com, fastweb.com and www.unigo.com.

4.    Naviance has it all!  Seniors will keep track of all application elements and details in their personal Naviance account.

5.    Stay organized!  Planning ahead and staying on top of all assignments and applications will lead you through a successful college process.

ACT Press Release: ACT Will Move to 2-to-12 Score Range for ACT Writing Test Results

IOWA CITY, Iowa-Beginning this fall with the September national test date, ACT will no longer report ACT writing test scores on a 1-to-36 scale. To reduce confusion among users, the writing score will instead be reported on a range of 2-to-12, with 12 being the highest possible score. The new reported score will be the average of the four 2-to-12 domain scores on the essay.

The writing test itself, which was revised last year, will remain unchanged. The essays will still be scored using the same rubric, on four domains (ideas and analysis, development and support, organization, and language use and conventions) by two independent readers. Scores on the four individual domains on the ACT writing test will continue to be reported on a 2-to-12 range as they are now.

Last year, ACT revised the optional writing test and began converting results to a 1-to-36 score scale to be consistent with the multiple-choice ACT test scores. This change, however, caused confusion among students who attempted to interpret their writing score in comparison to their multiple choice test scores. Each ACT subject test measures different skills, and many students earn higher scores on some tests than on others.

"Our customers have spoken, and we have listened," said ACT Chief Commercial Officer Suzana Delanghe. "Converting the writing results to a 1-to-36 scale made sense conceptually, but in practice it created confusion among some students. We clearly understand that now, and we are making this change to eliminate the confusion."

"Our research indicates that scores on the revised ACT writing test are performing no differently in comparison with scores on the other four ACT subject tests than they did on the previous writing test," said Wayne Camara, ACT senior vice president of research. "Converting the writing scores to the 1-to-36 scale may have made the differences in scores seem larger or more obvious. This is really a perceptual problem that we are addressing."

ACT advises that students can best interpret how well they scored on an individual subject test by looking at the percentile rank, rather than comparing the score on one subject test to the score on another.

Congratulations Class of 2016!

Our 46 wonderful graduates of the Class of 2016 were offered admission to the following colleges and universities. Names in bold indicate where these graduates have enrolled.

American University

Babson College

Binghamton University

Boston University

Brandeis University

Clark University

Emory University

Florida Atlantic University

Florida College of Natural Health

Florida Gulf Coast University

Florida State University

Fordham University

Furman University

Hood College

Indiana University at Bloomington

Indiana University at Bloomington (Kelley School of Business)

Marymount Manhattan College

New College of Florida

New York University

Northeastern University

Palm Beach State College

Parsons School of Design – The New School

Pennsylvania State University

Pratt Institute

Savannah College of Art and Design

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Syracuse University

Tallahassee Community College

Tel Aviv University

The George Washington University

The Ohio State University

Tulane University

Union College

University of Alabama

University of Arizona

University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Santa Barbara

University of Central Florida

University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Florida

University of Florida (Honors College)

University of Iowa

University of Maine

University of Maryland, College Park

University of Maryland, College Park (Honors Program)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

University of Miami

University of Michigan

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Wilmington

University of North Florida

University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

University of South Florida, St. Pete

University of Texas, Austin

University of Texas, Austin (Honors Business)

University of Virginia

University of Washington

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Washington University in St. Louis

Yeshiva University

Yeshiva University (Honors)

Life Lessons From the College Admission Process

The college application process calls on our children to do something that they will need to do repeatedly: add value.  When selecting an incoming class, admission officers look for the applications who will add the most value to their college. Who adds the most value? In a sea of stellar applicants, the answer is athletes for sports teams, musicians for orchestras, researchers for labs, and leaders for student organizations.

Rather than doing as much as possible just to check off imaginary boxes for the college application process, our children should excel in areas that matter to them. Applicants that demonstrate a knack for creative writing, a keen interest in robotics, or a mean backhand on the Squash court earn admission. Your child’s passion, skills, and excitement enable her to stand out in the application process by demonstrating what she will bring to that college. Encourage your child to follow her passions and excel in them.

This leads us to the next lesson: specialization leads to further success. There are close to 375,000 women playing high school soccer this year. That is a lot of competition for the 38,000 women’s soccer spots at US colleges. For an applicant hoping to get recruited, soccer does not offer the best odds. On the other hand, there are just 4,200 high school women rowers and 7,800 college women crew spots. With such an unmet need for women rowers, applicants specializing in this niche sport offer more potential value to an admissions officer whose job is to ensure that her college’s crew team has enough athletes.

Instead of fighting the college admissions process, let’s embrace what it teaches us about succeeding in the face of fierce competition and position our children for success in applying to college and beyond.

Adapted from Greg Kaplan’s Post on HS Counselor Week