Preparing Your Application - 2

Thinking in Categories

While not all colleges and universities make decisions in the same way, many will see your application as falling into one or more of the following categories:

• The Scholar category is self explanatory. These students have a 4.0 grade point average, high SAT scores, may have won a National Merit Scholarship or other academic awards. Every college wants to have a large number of these students. Even though they may not have had many outside activities in high school, they will contribute to the vitality of the intellectual life of the college, and may go on to graduate work and do valuable research that will help society.

  If you believe you fall into this category, don't hide it from the colleges! In your essay and in your statement of your interests, let your academic inclinations show.

• The Special Talent category describes students who have a particular ability in sports, music, the arts, or leadership in an extracurricular activity. The admissions office of every college or university needs to recruit students with special skills, otherwise the college would lack students who could edit their newspapers, play tight end, or sing the Bach B minor Mass.

  If you have a special talent, make sure your counselor knows about it. Make sure, too, that you contact the coaches or instructors at the college, so that they know of your ability and your interest in their school. In the case of athletes, prepare a sheet listing your records in the events in which have performed. Musicians should think about preparing a tape; artists, a portfolio; and activity leaders, a sample notebook of their work.

  However, special talent students may not want to devote their entire application to their particular talent. If you are in this category, you may want to put your talent into the perspective of your other interests, aspirations and experiences.

  College Center can help you present your special talents effectively. We have sample athletic data sheets, portfolios, and cover letters. Contact us for additional information.

• The Family category describes what some students and counselors may know as a legacy. Students in this category have a parent or parents who went to the school they are applying to, or they may have an influential relative who is an alumnus/a. Or an applicant may come from a family that is very influential, culturally, economically or politically.

  If you have some special connection to the college you are applying to, your goal should be to not let your connection to the college overwhelm your application and suppress your own individuality. Do not rely on your legacy or leverage. Prepare your application as any other candidate would, using one of the categories on this list for guidance. Make sure you do a careful job in all phases of your application. At the same time, make sure that the college or university knows of your special connection. This notification is best carried out by one of your parents or your guidance counselor.

  College Center can give you and your parents advice on how to handle these sometimes delicate relationships with colleges and universities.

• Most students applying to college will fall into the All Round Candidate category. These students are not notably different from one another - not scholars, not concert flutists, or ten second 100 yard dashers. Nonetheless these all round candidates are serious about academics; they want to challenge themselves academically. They also have a number of talents and interests they want to explore and expand in college. These students will bring a lot of energy and excitement to the college community, and they will probably become loyal alumni when they graduate. Colleges and universities therefore want to enroll as many of these students as they can.

  If you fall into this category, the list you made of your interests, high school activities, and college courses and programs will be especially helpful in filling out your application and writing your essay. The key to your application will be to present yourself fully, and at the same time to describe your own unique qualities as a student, a school citizen, and as person. This is called developing your edge.

• Since the 1960s colleges and universities in the United States have responded to the social and economic disadvantages of certain Special Groups of Americans by actively recruiting qualified candidates from those groups. Responding to the globalization of our society, colleges and universities have also developed extensive recruitment networks abroad. They are striving to make their undergraduate populations mirror the broader global society.

  As a special group candidate applying to college, it is important not to exploit your advantage, nor to obscure it either. Present yourself as a person who wants to use your college experience, to understand not only your cultural past, but how that past relates to your integrated future, as a member of a global society.

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