How to Deal with Deferral

Some of you who applied to college via early decision or action programs may currently be living in the purgatory known as “deferral.” When colleges can’t decide yet whether to accept or reject students, they defer them. What this basically means is that they’d like a little more information about them before making a final decision. Here’s how to help yourself on the journey to that decision:

1. Don’t freak out or slack off.

2. Contact admissions for information on how to boost your application.

3. Update your application with a recent grade report, as well as a cover letter stating your intention to attend if accepted.

4. Consider a campus visit.

5. Send another recommendation from someone who knows you well.

6. Try retaking the SAT or ACT if your scores may have been a barrier to your admission.

7. Work as hard as you can at academics.

8. Step up community or school involvement to show colleges that your commitment to service doesn’t end when your application is submitted.

9. Add any recent accomplishments to your mid-year report.

10. Get excited about the other schools you’ve applied to! Remain open-minded about the future.

How to Prepare for a College Admissions Interview

Lee Bierer at The Charlotte Observer offers these tips for a successful college interview:

Do your homework. Demonstrate how well you know the college. Research the website thoroughly, including possible majors of interest, study abroad programs, extracurricular activities, etc.

Be yourself, but don’t be shy. Allow your personality to shine, but if you are a natural introvert, use this as an exercise to try coming out of your shell.

Make it a conversation and not an interrogation. Change up the pace and rhythm of your responses. The more you can make it a two-way street discussion with questions for the interviewer, the better off you’ll be.

Share new information, but not too much information. Don’t restate your application, don’t blame teachers and don’t talk about boyfriends/girlfriends or conflicts with your parents.

Don’t sound rehearsed. You want your responses to be fresh and not sound as if you’re reading off a teleprompter.

Come prepared with questions. You can count on the interviewer leaving time for your questions. Make sure your questions are ones that can’t be answered on the college website.

Dress for success. Use your common sense. Boys don’t need to wear a suit, but everyone should look neat and professional.

Remember the basics. Arrive early, bring a copy of your resume, thank the interviewer and go it alone. Parents should not be seen or heard from in alumni interviews.

Be prepared for a variety of questions. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes alumni want to “test” applicants and will ask questions such as “If you were a color, which one would you be and why?” Practice thinking on your feet in a mock-interview with your parents.

Stay in touch. Be sure to send a thank you note. Handwritten and delivered via postal mail is the best, but email will suffice.

What You Don’t Learn in Law School: How to Be a Lawyer

The New York Times has an interesting article, to the effect that law school doesn’t prepare law students to be lawyers.

Law schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful, with classes that are often overstuffed with antiquated distinctions, like the variety of property law in post-feudal England … “The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says Jeffrey W. Carr, the general counsel of FMC Technologies, a Houston company that makes oil drilling equipment. “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”

Because law schools don’t teach the ins and outs of lawyering, law firms have to train new associates on the client’s time. Clients have begun to complain about seeing the names of first- and second-year associates on their bills.

So what’s the final analysis? Law school grads “will need to know less about Contracts and more about contracts.” Change to law school curriculum will be slow, but it is inevitable.

Five Advanced Degrees Still Worth the Debt

From Kiplinger, five graduate degrees that tend to pay off in the end:

1. M.D.    Physicians’ incomes range from about $188,000, on average, for family practitioners to more than $485,000 for orthopedic surgeons. As the population ages, job prospects for physicians will continue to be robust.
2. Master of Public Health.    Average income: $90,970. As the health care industry changes and expands, MPHs will be increasingly sought after.
3. Doctor of Pharmacy.    Average income (pharmacist): $106,630. We all still and will continue to need medication, as well as help navigating the changing health insurance landscape.
4. M.B.A.    Here’s a degree that’s necessary for hiring within certain firms. Some companies will even pay for their employees to get an MBA. Job growth for business management analysts should be strong over the rest of this decade.
5. Lawyer.    In particular, jobs at big private firms, where new lawyers earn a median annual salary of $160,000. In our supersaturated legal job market, these jobs are harder to come by than ever. 

Washington News: WSU loads up on freshmen

In a move opposite of trends on most other state school campuses, this year Washington State University will have 1,100 more in-state freshmen at its Pullman campus than last year, with an emphasis on bringing in Washington students.

Because of budget cuts, universities like UW have cut down on the number of in-state freshmen and increased tuition, but WSU is bucking the trend by actively recruiting within Washington high schools. There will be consequences, though–for the first time, some double dorm rooms will become triples, for example. The school is also hiring more tenure-track and part-time professors to accommodate the increased student population.

The GMAT’s Makeover

Next June, an integrated reasoning section will be introduced to the GMAT. The new section will replace one of the essays, and will be heavy on data interpretation. The test will still take three and a half hours, and the verbal and quantitative sections will remain the same.

Head over to the New York Times to try your hand at the four new question types: multi-source reasoning, graphics interpretation, two-part analysis, and sorting tables.

(And don’t forget that several b-schools are starting to accept the GRE!)

Is the Master’s the New Bachelor’s?

Yes, according to The New York Times. The master’s is currently the fastest-growing degree, and is on its way to becoming the entry degree to a wide variety of professions, especially now that degrees are specific and utilitarian (think supply chain management) and often with internships built in.

So why the trend? Some blame the devaluing of the college degree. As colleges turn out more grads than the market can hire, a master’s becomes almost essential if you don’t have a Bachelor’s from a highly elite undergrad institution.

It’s not exactly bad news for the universities, for whom master’s programs tend to be unfunded (unlike the PhD track) and therefore cash cows. For students, some of the programs provide direct access to potential employers, who draw from the programs they know to provide effective job training.

Some worry that the trend signals a shift in graduate work from an intellectual pursuit to job training. But in an age when grad-school-as-intellectual-pursuit is landing students hardly any jobs, this shift seems practical. In fact, it seems to yours truly that the only graduate degree worth pursuing at this point is one that has a reasonable chance of helping students obtain a job that will allow them to pay off the debt accrued in grad school.

Law School: What You Need to Know

Amidst the recent flurry of articles about the crushing debt and terrible job market associated with law school, prospective law school students may find themselves thinking: Should I even bother?

Well, yes–that is, if and only if you are passionate about the law, and think you will be able to gain admission to a relatively high-ranking law school.

Don’t go to law school just because you’ve graduated from college and don’t know what to do with yourself. Law school costs about 60k a year, or 180,000 total, and there’s no reason to accumulate that kind of debt unless you know there’s at least a decent chance you’ll be able to pay it off.

That leads to our second point: Do try to get into the best law school you can, especially in this legal job market. All law schools cost about the same (that 60k a year), and the better the law school, the higher the chance you have of obtaining a decent job after graduation, and therefore of paying off that fairly massive student debt. This is why it’s crucial  to achieve the highest LSAT score you can–because law school admissions is based almost entirely on GPA and LSAT scores.

One sidenote: There’s a current movement in the U.S. to reduce law school to two years rather than three, which would decrease the cost and the time spent in school before you can get a job. At the moment, the most prestigious of these accelerated J.D. programs is probably Northwestern’s.

Attn Juniors: Start Your Essays

You’ve got a few months off which means, yes, more work. But trust us, you want to do it now before the chaos of senior year takes over your life.

Here are six tips from the NYT’s Choice blog for working on your college essay over the summer:

1. Clear your head. Find some solitude and have a good think.

2. Ask yourself exploratory questions in order to find your essay topic. E.g. What has been the hardest thing I have ever had to face? What is the reason I wake up in the morning? etc.

3. Write it down. Wherever you go, carry a pen and paper in case inspiration strikes.

4. Learn how to tell a story. Your essay should be a story rather than a dry explanation–you want to keep those admissions counselors engaged.

5. Chill. This is summer, remember, so put down the laptop and go outside for a few hours.

6. Own your essay. Don’t let anyone else write it for you; colleges want to hear your voice. If you think of your essay as a means of self-expression, you might even have some fun.

And the best piece of college essay-related advice your faithful blogger has: Don’t start by trying to answer their question, whatever it is. Start by figuring out what you want to tell colleges about yourself–then, adapt it to the specific prompt. Good luck, and happy writing! (If you’re in the Seattle area and need help, check us out!)

How to Set Yourself Apart on College Apps

One answer is simpler than you might think: demonstrate your love of learning. Colleges are, after all, academic institutions, and want students who will engage intellectually with the resources at hand.

The key to this is the key to most things in life: passion. Colleges don’t want to see that you’ve joined every club and organization your high school offers; they want to see evidence of your passion for a couple of things. Colleges want to enrich you, but they also want you to enrich them, and people with passion are driven to include others in the pursuit of that passion.

In essence: Find something you love to do, and do it.