The mad scramble for college

By Terri Akman

When I applied to college in 1977, I took the SAT once, without a prep class, and I applied to four colleges, none of which I visited first. I ended up at the University of Maryland alongside the lion's share of my high school classmates in Baltimore.

While I'm sure the applications were daunting, I can't remember what the essays were. Of course, there were no personal computers back then, no spell check, and no cut and paste. I did have a thesaurus and a dictionary, but using them involved getting up, pulling them off the shelf, and flipping through their pages. That was an exercise in itself.

My, how times have changed.

My daughter, Rachel, is a high school senior, enduring the college-admissions process. We have visited no fewer than 10 campuses. She has taken the SAT three times, and took a summer class to help her improve her scores. She is applying to roughly a half-dozen schools because in today's competitive environment, kids must include not only "reach" schools, but also must incorporate some "safety" schools in their thinking.

Due to the baby boom "echo" and families immigrating to the United States with children, the number of 17- and 18-year-olds is at its peak, and this year is the most competitive year in history for college applicants. According to CollegeAdmissionInfo.com, many schools expect record-setting application pools, caused by a growing population of college-age students, increased interest in attending a top college or university, and an increase in the average number of applications per student.

Each college is quite proud of its own creative questions or topics that applicants must write about. Most schools give the students choices; here are a couple that Rachel had to choose from on the University of Virginia application: "What is your favorite word, and why?" and " 'We might say that we were looking for global schemas, symmetries, universal and unchanging laws - and what we have discovered is the mutable, the ephemeral, the complex.' Support or challenge Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine's assertion." I'm positive neither of those questions appeared on any of the applications I filled out way back when!

Not only do the kids have to pour their hearts out with these thought-provoking questions, but they also have to manage various deadlines when all the components of the application must reach the school. There are options today for early action, early decision, rolling admission and regular admission, and each mandates its own timeline.

Rachel's high school, Eastern Regional in Voorhees, has about 600 seniors. While not all will apply to college, I have heard stories of some applying to more than a dozen schools. Those poor guidance counselors must gather records, write recommendations, and mail application upon application in just a few short months.

I was luckier with my son two years ago because he had his heart set on one school, applied under the early-decision option, and got in. I should only be so lucky for my third kid!

I am sure that Rachel will be accepted somewhere great, and that her experience there will make this difficult process worthwhile. In the meantime, I must serve as cheerleader, proofreader, finder of large envelopes and postage stamps, and a shoulder to cry on when her nerves are frayed from the stress. I don't recall taking a course in any of this when I went to college.