College admissions are honestly so hard to understand. Students are given lots of advice in order to be given higher chances to get into the schools they applied to. Students are told since the 10th grade to join clubs, do community service, and even take AP classes. Many students take this advice and overload themselves with so many responsibilities that some colleges don’t even take a glance at. Majority of the colleges say they look for these overachieving students but don’t end up accepting these kinds of students into these schools.
Colleges must look at over 1,000 applications a day. They cannot look at every single detail in a student’s application. It was even said by an admission counselor that they skim through everything in an application then move onto the next one. Doing a simple skim over an application does not really show the students full potential. The admissions counselors can miss a key detail in someone’s application or not even remember the detail at all when it is time to make a decision on the student.
Students can be chosen by the school for various reasons. Grades are well known to be a major part of a student’s application. Grades show how well a student is on a subject and overall how proficient they can be in college. Some colleges do not wish to take that financial risk towards someone who may not fit their academic standards. There are times where a student may not fit the academic standard but may fit other qualities they might look for in a student such as leadership skills. Counselors have said that if your grades are not the best make sure your essay and extracurriculars make up for it which can also work vice versa. While this does sound like a great advantage for some students, sometimes it is still not enough.
Grades and extracurriculars are not the only things that must be accounted for by the colleges. They must take into consideration the diversity in the school. Making sure everyone has somewhat of an equal chance to get in the school and also showing equality on campus. A few examples of how they try to maintain an equal image is by making sure they have a good amount of people of color and/or women accepted into the institution.
Income is another thing that must be considered not only by the student but also by the college. As time goes on getting a higher education becomes more and more expensive. Unfortunately, some students can not cover all their schooling. This is where most colleges step in and offer grants and scholarships to accepted students in order to help them out or in a way convince them to accept the school. These colleges must also determine if this student is of value to be spending thousands of dollars on. Some students are rejected just because they do not have the income to fund their education and the college is unable to provide financial aid for that student even if they may meet the institution’s expectations for their students. This makes it difficult for all students to gain a form of higher education.
