When students think about the college preparation and application process, they know that their grades, the courses they take and their standardized test scores will be very important when their applications are reviewed for admission to a college. I explain to juniors, when I meet with them and their parents, that these three factors (the “big” three) do make up the majority of a college admissions counselor’s decision. At certain schools (Private, less students, more competitive) these three factors could make up 50-60% of their decision, while at larger, public, state universities it may make up 80-90% of their decision because they don’t have the time to review other supplemental material. What would make up the other 50-60% of a college’s decision to admit a student? It varies at each school but typically it’s essays, letters of recommendation and extra-curricular activities. More and more, however, “demonstrated interest” is becoming a factor for admission at certain colleges.
What is “Demonstrated Interest”? It refers to the degree in which an applicant has made clear that he or she is truly eager to attend a college. Demonstrated interest has been around for a while now and certain colleges track it more than others. Nevertheless, more colleges are paying attention to and tracking demonstrated interest today because it’s becoming more difficult for some to reach their “yield”. Yield is the percent of students who choose to enroll in a particular college or university after being offered admission. Colleges want to get this “yield” correct because if they don’t, they are either going to over enroll and not have enough housing for students, or what’s even more common, under enroll and be out thousands of dollars that they budgeted on because they don’t have the tuition money from students they expected to enroll. How can they control this “yield”? Through tracking demonstrated interest and doing their best to accept students they know want to come to their school.
How do colleges track demonstrated interest? This is a good question and one that is tough to answer because there are many different ways they can track it and some that I may not be aware of. A lot of colleges who track it today even outsource it to other companies to track. Below are a list of ways colleges track demonstrated interest that are more widely known and understood.
- Applying Early Decision (ED)
- Visit the college
- Well-written “Why Us”? essay
- Attending admission information sessions in your area
- Attending college fairs and meeting with admissions counselors
- Meeting with admissions counselors when they visit your high school
Below are a list of ways colleges track demonstrated interest that are less known or understood.
- Student emailing or calling the college admission’s counselor who will read their application to ask questions and express their desire to attend.
- Opening emails that the college admissions office sends you.
- Writing and submitting optional essays
- Having an optional interview
- Logging in to a specific college’s portal account to review status of application and whether you received a decision
In knowing all of these ways to express “demonstrated interest”, what then should seniors be doing and paying attention to when they apply to colleges?
- You do not need to do all of these things to express proper demonstrated interest. You need to determine which ways to show demonstrated interest are best for your circumstances and for each school you are applying to. For example, Not many students apply ED to colleges because they don’t have a slam dunk #1 choice school and they would like to see their options (especially financial) before they make a decision on where to attend. Another is that some students do not have the means to visit every school they apply to until maybe they know they have been accepted and then they will decide to visit. Colleges understand each of these reasons.
- You should complete as many ways to express demonstrated interest that are within your control. Writing a well-written “Why Us”? essay, attending an information session in your area or when a counselor from that college comes to your school, should be automatic things you should do for any college that you are applying to. These shouldn’t take much of your time but can go a long way in showing interest. Colleges DO NOT want “stealth” applications. These are applications that are submitted by seniors but they haven’t had that student communicate with them any other way.
- The communication they receive by the student is very important. Parents, it’s great that you are involved and supportive in your child’s college application process, but your child needs to be the “driver” in the process and any communication that is made over the phone or through email by them is considered demonstrated interested. Communication made by the parent is not. Even if they are uncomfortable or resistant to contact a college admissions counselor please encourage them to make the contact. I tell seniors all the time that I am willing to help and assist them with this communication. Sometimes seniors send me emails that they want to send to an admissions counselor for me to look over and proofread before they send it. This is great! I love to do this and help them make sure their communication is appropriate well written.
- Express demonstrated interest even for safety schools. This is one of the tougher things to do in the college admissions process because when seniors consider a college to be a safety school, they automatically think that “I’m going to get accepted because my grades and scores are above the mid-50% range that the college posts on their website so why should I tell them that I want to go there?” The important thing to keep in mind is that more and more schools in future years, who are paying more attention to their yield, will defer or deny more students whose grades and scores are above their posted ranges because they haven’t shown demonstrated interest in order to accept students who they know have a greater chance of attending their college. So it’s becoming more and more important that seniors treat their safety schools the same way they treat their top choice schools when it comes to showing interest.
