HIDE THAT FINSTA & More Admissions News You Should Know
Yelena Shuster
TIME TO SCRUB YOUR INSTA...."The majority of US admissions officers and prospective students think that it is “fair game” for universities to visit applicants’ social media profiles when deciding who to admit to their institution, according to two recent studies. Nearly one in 10 admissions officers (9 per cent) added that they had revoked an incoming student’s offer of admission because of what they had found on social media." Case in point: last year's Harvard example. [Times Higher Education]
IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S THE NATIONAL TREND. Lower and lower admissions rates are part of a national trend. Cornell accepted 10.3 percent out of 51,328 applicants for the incoming Class of 2022, breaking the all-time record for lowest admission rate and highest number of applicants. [Cornell Daily Sun]
BEING GOOD MATTERS. "Most admissions leaders (53%) also said community service was essentially a tie-breaker between equally qualified students when asked, 'Assuming all factors are equal (such as GPA, SAT/ACT scores, and rigor of curriculum), then community service details are an important decision-making factor.'" [Forbes]
YIKES. "A new national study says Washington is one of 46 states whose high-school graduation requirements don’t line up with admission requirements for public universities. Just four states — Louisiana, Michigan, South Dakota and Tennessee — matched high-school diploma requirements with public-college requirements." [News Tribune]
OY. "The Justice Department has launched a probe of information-sharing practices among colleges related to “early decision” admissions. Students who apply through early decision commit to attending a school if they are accepted. Admission rates tend to be significantly higher for such applicants than for those seeking entry through the standard admission cycle. Some prestigious schools pick as many as half of their students through early decision." [WashPo]