"I’m doing a guest post on my friend’s blog to mix things up for both of us. The theme of my blog is communication. Feel free to check it out if it interests you.
Right now seniors in high school are finishing and juniors in high school are starting what may be the most important, but competitive, competition they will ever take part in: applying to college. When our parents and grandparents were applying to college thirty or more years ago, fewer people sought out higher education and for many a high school diploma was sufficient for a quality lifestyle. However, more people than ever before are vying for the same number of spots at collegiate institutions. When my mom was applying to college people only applied to two or three schools and they had to mail in the application. Now, three schools are considered to be miniscule in comparison to the eight or nine applications that most people completed at my school. There was also the occasional extreme of fifteen or even higher.
I blame this increase in sheer volume of applications that colleges have to sift through mostly a result of the common application. For those of you who don’t know, the common application is collection of forms that can be completed online and is sent to multiple schools. Some schools require supplemental forms to completed as well, but they are much shorter in length. With 463 colleges currently using the common application, people can easily apply to more schools than they should. In 2010 Harvard accepted only 6.9% of the more than 30,000 that applied, and other schools experience similar trends. Another cause of the increase in applications is that colleges have been actively advertising themselves in an attempt to fill their incoming freshman class with qualified students. This marketing informs and encourages students to apply to schools that may be a great distance from where they live.
It is also not surprising that as a result of the competition, people are planning their activities in order to construct a well-rounded activity resume. Sometimes I'll even hear from my mom, who teaches fast-paced reading and language arts at an elementary school, an occasional story of a parent that called her asking what their child had to do in order to be in honors English in junior high so that they would be in honors English in high school so that they would get into a good college. I have even had people ask me what clubs they should join so that it looks good to colleges. The competition, for many, has begun even before the applications are filled out and sent.
The reality of the situation is that there are always more qualified applicants that could succeed at the school than there are available spots. You could have incredible standardized testing scores and a glowing resume of activities that demonstrate your varied interests and abilities, but the odds will never be in your favor. There are things you can do to increase them ever so slightly like demonstrating interest or applying early decision or early action, but in the end it all comes down to luck. And no matter the game or competition, Lady Luck is a fickle and cold-hearted bitch."
Perhaps we'll hear more from our friend Bill in the future. Farewell good people, and tune in again next time.
