My favorite line about Brown students is from the former head of the Brown Alumni Association and he said, “You know what I love about Brown students?  If you’ve met one Brown student, you’ve met one Brown student.”  I think this is absolutely true.

One of the things Brown does remarkably well is that while we bring in an enormous variety of kids – they are all intellectually entrepreneurial, they are attracted to our curriculum, and they use our curriculum well in that they are risk-takers, creative, and willing to stub their toe and try new things.

At Brown, there is also a culture of kindness that is different.  It is not a culture of complacency.  Brown students are tough, smart, and opinionated, but they are also very respectful of each other.  Students at Brown teach each other and it’s really pretty cool to watch.  Brown students also love Brown and if you ask people who have graduated from Brown if they would do it over again, virtually all of them will say “yes.”

We want people to know that there are very few schools that do what Brown does academically and curricularly, and we really want applicants to understand the opportunities that are available within this unique structure.  We want people to think hard about why it is they want to come to a place like Brown given the uniqueness of our open curriculum and how they intend to use that opportunity.  Brown provides a very rare opportunity in American higher education to be this intellectually adventuresome.  We want applicants not only to take the time to understand the intellectual and academic environment at Brown, but to tell us, as well, why it is that Brown is such a good fit for them. 

It’s hard to describe a borderline profile because kids come out of very different circumstances with very different opportunities.  That said, it’s fair to say that virtually all of our students are near the top of their classes with very strong records in good programs in high school.  Testing can vary, but normally you’re going to need have good standardized testing, as well, to be in contention.  Of greatest importance is the performance in high school—94% of Brown students were in the top 10% of their class.  

Yes, but the later in your high school career that you get a “C” or two the harder it is to overcome.  We understand that people stumble early in their high school years.  We’re much more forgiving of students who stumble in their freshman year.  Stumbling a lot in the classroom during senior year can be costly in the admissions process.

About 10% of all applicants apply early decision.  The admit rate for early decision applicants is about 21% compared to 11% for regular decision applicants.  A lot of people will ask if they should apply early decision because they think their odds of being admitted are better.  On the surface, this seems true, but what people need to understand is that the early decision pool is heavily focused on athletic recruiting.  If you pull the athletes out of the early decision pool, the admit rate for early decision and regular decision are virtually identical.  When it comes to the athletes, there’s an enormous amount of filtering that goes on throughout the process by coaches and the admissions office so that only the most qualified athletes end up applying early decision.

First and foremost the Brown curriculum differentiates Brown.  That sense of independence and ownership of the academic experience that Brown offers is unique. 

The Brown community is also unique - Brown is really a community of communities.  We’re looking for kids who are excited to be a part of the Brown community and who will hopefully demonstrate respect and appreciation for their fellow students.  For the student who is willing to commit him or herself to the larger community, Brown offers students the unusual opportunities to participate in the governance of the school.  The students have a great deal of input on how we do things here as virtually every committee at Brown has student representation.  The amount of student representation here is very rare in higher education.  

At Brown, we are also spending increasingly more time thinking and worrying about joy.  High school students today are extremely accomplished and credentialed.  But we find that what is missing sometimes is joy, enjoying the process of learning and trying new things.   This is not Camp Brown, but we do look for kids who really want to come here, who want to get involved, who enjoy other people, and who are really excited and enthusiastic about the opportunities they will experience and take joy in that process.  It’s hard to discern, but when you read 25,000 applications you can see the kids who have gone through high school with enormous accomplishments, but it has been a death-march for them.

We ask the questions that we do on our application because we want answers to them, and some very accomplished students just don’t answer the questions.  Students hear a lot about gimmicks – in order to get in you need to do something eye-catching or unusual in your application. Gimmicks don’t work.  Students are always better off trusting themselves, playing it straight, and not second-guessing what an admissions committee may want.  Some students, for example, try to write in a different “voice”, or use words with which they are not familiar because that’s what they think we want to read or hear. You’ll be fine – trust yourself.

They talk about the college application in the first person plural.  When I hear parents say, “Our SAT’s went up” or, “We made the honor roll” I say, “No they didn’t” and, “No, you didn’t.”  I tell kids to get out of the room as soon as they hear their parents start talking about the college application in the first person plural.  The really hard line for parents to draw in this process is being invested in the process, but not vested.  Parents should be part of the process, but they shouldn’t own it. 

The quality of our applicants over the past 10 years has consistently improved in terms of the academic record, strength of curriculum, and standardized test results. In addition, we’re receiving many more applications from high school students that feel strongly about leaving their high school and community a better place than how they found it. More and more of our applicants seem to have a genuine interest in service and in assisting those that might be less fortunate in some way. I know the concern exists that sometimes a student will pad their resumes with activities that may not be truly indicative of what they really did in high school.  What leads me to believe that there really is a sincere interest on the part of students to help those less fortunate is that I’m not just reading about it from the student in the essay, but I’m also reading about it in the teacher and counselor recommendations.  

Colgate students are smart, fun, thoughtful, caring and irrepressible as they pursue their interests. I also believe a distinguishing feature of Colgate is the passion and compassion that our alumni have for Colgate and Colgate people.

80% of our students arrive at Colgate undecided on a major. Declaring a certain major does not give an applicant an advantage. More than anything, we want applicants to be truthful.

While we believe that all people are created equal, we do not believe that all transcripts and GPA’s are created equal. We look for a strong academic record in the context of what has been made available to them in their high school environment. We look at the strength of curriculum and the ways in which a student has embraced academic challenge in their high school. We are also looking for students that are going to be active and engaged in the learning process. The best way to determine this is when a teacher in their recommendation tells us that a student is consistently well-prepared for class, contributes to classroom discussion, and is so passionate about the learning process that they take the classroom discussion outside of the classroom with peers and faculty members and elevates it to the next level.

In terms of standardized tests, we look at the Critical Reading and Math SAT scores or the ACT composite score. We do not look at the Writing component of the SAT or ACT or the SAT II subject tests.

We then look at what the student has accomplished outside of the classroom and we read the essays. The essays and the contributions students have made to their school or community can really make a difference in our evaluation of the competitiveness of their application.

We have a very good understanding of how schools from around the country, and the world, grade students. There are clearly schools where it is far more difficult to get an “A” than in others. It’s disturbing, but our research indicates that in some schools one can almost get an “A” just for showing up to class.  In other schools we have been told that in order to get an “A” the student must demonstrate knowledge that is equal to the teacher. Yes, we have admitted students to Colgate who have a “C” on their transcript. At the same time, each year there are students that we do not admit to Colgate that have a 4.0 GPA because they have not taken challenging courses or their application was not competitive in some other way.

Yes. We offer the traditional binding ED 1 program where students must submit their completed application before November 15th and we will respond by December 15th. 

ED 2 at Colgate must be among the most flexible early decision programs in the country.  Students who select this option must meet our regular decision application deadline of January 15th, but they are allowed to convert their application to early decision until March 1st. This program allows students who didn’t know Colgate was their first choice by November 15th, and/or didn’t have the chance to visit our campus until sometime after November 15th but before March 1st, to still apply early decision.

We received 741 early decision applications (8%) in 2008 and we admitted 369 (50%). All athletes receiving coach support are required to apply early decision. 

* Not proofreading their application.
* Not being genuine in the application process and trying to over-think things by trying to imagine what it is that colleges and universities want and then painting a picture of themselves that is not accurate.
* Applying to a school because it received a certain ranking from a magazine or guidebook. Students shouldn’t chase rankings but instead should only apply to those schools that offer the programs in which they are interested, the educational environment they are seeking, has the culture in which he or she would thrive, and/or presents the best opportunities for intellectual growth and development.
* I often hear that students who need to work believe that colleges will view students who flip burgers at McDonalds or bag groceries at Albertsons less favorably than the students who are an intern in a Senator’s office, or go to El Salvador on a community service project. We certainly do not consider a job at McDonalds to be any less meaningful than jobs that might appear on the surface to be more glamorous. Nor do we view these applicants as being less competitive. We are not so presumptuous to determine for students what kind of work experience they need to have. There is value to be gained from any position which has legitimate work responsibilities, and where one always needs to show up on time for their shift, and work hard.

I’ll give you an example that happened just two days ago that illustrates what I think is the biggest mistake made my parents. I was in the lobby of our admissions office having a great conversation with a young woman who is a junior in high school when all of a sudden her mother hurried over and interrupted our conversation. I then patiently listened to the mother tell me about her business, her interpretation of why her daughter chose to take some courses instead of others, and why she had structured her daughter’s summer activities the way she did.  Meanwhile, her daughter, who had been asking terrific questions about the academic opportunities at Colgate, was completely cut-out of the process. It is so unfortunate to me that in this case, and in so many others, parents just take over the process. My advice to parents is to let their kids run the college search process, especially when they’re on a campus. 
 

It doesn’t concern us yet, but we are keeping our eye on this gender imbalance phenomenon. Slowly we are getting out of balance, but not as quickly as other institutions. We have a broad diversity of academic disciplines, some of which are more male dominated/oriented and some of which are more female dominated/oriented, which has tended to naturally correct whatever gender imbalance we might otherwise experience. We have not taken any steps yet to correct the imbalance. But even within these gender-oriented academic disciplines, we fair pretty well…for example, we have a much higher than average percentage of women in our engineering program which is something we’re proud of. That said, when it comes down to our merit scholarships, we might use them to attract more women to engineering, or more men to theatre and/or communications. 

USC students value diversity and pluralism. They are intellectual students who have a commitment to learning in a very active sense…a desire for lifelong learning. They value service learning and service to their community. They are students who have varied academic interests and believe in the renaissance ideal – one is not really educated until he or she knows a lot about a lot of things.  USC students want to break the traditional academic boundaries. They like to double-major. And, USC students are open to learning and have a very good sense of their place in the world and the role that they play. We value idealism and an optimistic outlook. 

We emphasize breadth and depth. We don’t believe that the bachelor’s degree for USC students is the final degree and we try to prepare our students for a lifetime of learning. A USC bachelor’s degree will prepare one equally well to be competitive immediately in the job market, or to go directly to graduate or professional school. We have designed our undergraduate curriculum to best support the idea of combining things…double majoring and majoring and minoring.  It’s also designed to allow one to pursue a course of study that won’t necessarily lead them straight into a profession, although we have those as well. 
We want students to understand that our curriculum is going to give them what they need to be successful in this century…one where the world is getting smaller. We believe in the importance of understanding different viewpoints and that today’s world problems are multi-disciplinary and will require multi-disciplinary solutions. There’s a lot of group work at USC because we feel it’s important to prepare our students to collaborate and work in teams.    
We have a common core of requirements that exist for all students. The core is taken primarily in the freshman year, but it is designed to be with the student throughout their four years. The core requires a year of English Composition that is not waived for anyone. One semester of the writing is taken in the freshman year and it is attached to a Social Issues course that the student can choose from. The other semester of writing is taken as a junior and is related to one’s major. In addition, we have a 3 semester Foreign Language requirement for most majors. We require 6 broadly-themed liberal arts courses – one western and one non-western cultures course; two science courses – a traditional basic science lab requirement and one thematic research-based approach to a technology or science field; a social issues course; And the last of the six is a traditional literature or art course. Lastly, we require a more contemporary Cultural Diversity course. By the time our undergraduates are juniors, they have completed most of the core requirements and are mostly focusing on satisfying the requirements of their major.

We are looking for the top students. The students that have been able to excel in competitive schools with strong college prep curricula. Most students coming to USC today could go to just about any school they want. The average SAT score is in the 95th percentile and 80%–90% of our students were in the top 10% of their high school class. But, we also look at the academic programs that a school offers and we don’t penalize a student for attending a school where AP courses weren’t offered. 

Overall, we’re looking for the students that stand out. We don’t have any minimums or cutoffs or formulas that we follow. It’s going to be difficult for the student that isn’t earning mostly A’s to be an especially competitive applicant. That said, it’s possible to overcome a C or two, as long as you have a good trend. We’re a lot less concerned about modest test scores than we are modest grades.  

Students try to play games with the process. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about choosing a certain major and having a better chance of getting in. We see students put down a major that they’re not really interested in, nor suited for, and it does not help them at all.
We also see students try to over-package themselves in this competitive process. Students shouldn’t try to be what they think the admissions committee wants to see. Students need to remember to be themselves because what we’re trying to do is see how well each person fits with our school.
There’s also a common problem with applicants not being thoughtful enough with their activities list or resume. I think there’s a myth out there about the well-roundedness of students and so applicants are stretching for ways to make their list look as lengthy as possible. I tell students, we’re not going to judge what you’ve chosen to do with your time, but we are going to judge how well you’ve pursued your passions and interests. We don’t want students who have trouble committing to something. We like to see long stretches of commitment. And we like to understand why students are doing what they’re doing and students don’t often tell us that. We’re very interested in knowing what motivated you to participate in the activities you’ve chosen and what you learned through your participation. Quality, not necessarily quantity, is the key here.

Sometimes students don’t give enough thought to what they’d like to do after high school until later and I tell students it’s never too early to start thinking about college. I say this in the sincerest way possible and not to put more pressure on them. It’s ok as a freshman and sophomore to begin thinking about what you hope to do after high school and to not be afraid to pursue a curriculum in high school that focuses on those interests. If you like science, take some extra science courses and do whatever you can to build a record that is both broad and deep. A lot of students are led to believe that the only thing that matters are those AP courses taken in your junior and senior year, and that just isn’t true. 

I would also advise students to get used to reading. If they’re not fans of reading, start becoming a fan of reading by first reading for pleasure. The importance of reading and strong reading skills cannot be overstated. 

My general advice for parents is to remind them that it is not their turn to go to college. Be a mirror…you know your children better than anyone, and probably better than your children know themselves. Focus their attention on their strengths and help them improve some areas where they have struggled. As much as possible, parents need to stay away from the prescriptive advice. 
College is the student’s choice to make, and a lifestyle choice. College isn’t just about what you’re going to major in and what goes on in the classroom. If the student may want to go to a selective college, the parent needs to challenge their child and not let them off so easy. Push them to take the challenging curriculum. Far too many parents are blasé about this and when it’s time for the college applications the parent is guilty that they weren’t more engaged in their child’s curricular choices until later in high school. It’s a fine line to walk in being challenging and encouraging and at the same time remember that this is their child’s time to shine and succeed. It’s unfortunate that so many parents seem to think that college admissions is a statement about their parenting skills.