In - Your Guide to College Admissions from The Princeton Review

Who’s to Blame for the SAT Cheating Scandal?

A recent opinion piece on CNN.com argues that colleges are driving students to cheat on standardized tests.

The piece’s author, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, says that schools “bear a huge responsibility for the degree to which a high score on a standardized test has become disproportionately important for college admission.”

The author also singles out U.S. News: as long as ACT and SAT scores heavily influence its rankings, colleges will be motivated to admit the applicants with the highest scores.

Click here to read more on CNN.com.

Might Less Choice Be More Effective in Higher Ed?

Many college students—particularly part-time and transfer students—struggle to earn a degree.

Given the rising cost of a college education, colleges are striving to find better ways to help their students graduate.

A recent segment on NPR highlights a family of vocational schools in Tennessee that has been using an unusual strategy to get high completion rates: give students less choice in their courses; give them rigid schedules.

Students at the Tennessee Technological Centers “decide on the program and they decide if they want to be full time or part time and that's pretty much it,” says Carol Puryear, director of the Murfreesboro Center. Students keep the same schedule from semester to semester (e.g., 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday).

It’s tough to argue with the results: around 80 percent of students graduate and find a job related to their education.

Click here to learn more from NPR.

How to Compare Financial Aid Offers

Financial aid offers are typically stuffed with a lot of jargon (e.g., SEOG, TAP, Stafford), and it’s often difficult to tell which of two offers is really the better deal.

Fortunately, Keith Maderer, a financial advisor and author of the book, How to Get Your College Education For Less, recently posted an article to help students make sense of this jargon. It’ll help you to distinguish the EFC from the COA and the PELL from the PLUS. Check it out here.

The Benefits of Undergraduate Research

A recent article on the University of Texas website explores the benefits of getting involved with research as an undergraduate student.

Beyond providing exciting opportunities to generate new knowledge, research offers many benefits. It connects students with mentors, and it builds marketable skills in writing and critical thinking. It also has been linked with higher student GPAs.

Click here to read more on the UT website.

College Planning over the Holidays

If you're behind in your school search or applications, you can use your free time over the Holidays to catch up.

To focus your efforts, check out the helpful “pie” charts below from Zinch.com. They identify the most important activities for both juniors and seniors this Holiday season. You can click here to read more about each one.

Learn About the FAFSA for Free

To say the FAFSA is an application for financial aid is to greatly understate its importance.

Almost every U.S. college requires its applicants to complete the FAFSA before it will consider them for any type of aid. And, at many schools, the FAFSA is the only financial aid application used.

Given its prominence in the financial aid process, it’s important to understand how the FAFSA works and how to complete it.

To this end, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) will offer a free FAFSA webinar for students and families on December 7. Click here to learn more.

Second Wave of Arrests in SAT Cheating Scandal

As expected, numerous students turned themselves in to the authorities this morning in connection with the testing scandal on New York’s Long Island.

Ten students in total were arrested. Seven allegedly paid others to take the SAT for them; three allegedly took the test for other students.

According to on the New York Times, the test-takers accepted payments from $500 to at least $3,500.

Click here to read more on the Times.

Are “Reach” Schools Dangerous?

The typical college counselor advises students to apply to safety, match, and reach schools.

While the benefits of safety and match schools are clear, the benefits of reach schools are more obscure. It simply could be that they give students the opportunity to “dream big.”

Reach schools might result in relatively few offers of admission, but at least they’re fairly harmless, right? It would seem they do little harm other than rack up application fees (though these fees are not insignificant).

However, the College Solution blog recently pointed out a more serious potential consequence of reach schools. Specifically, they’re much less likely than safety and match schools to offer generous financial aid packages.

It’s unfortunate, but most schools save their best aid offers for their most competitive applicants (only a handful can afford to meet 100 percent of the financial need of every applicant). As you’ll be a less-competitive candidate at reach schools, you could end up in the unenviable position of being admitted but unable to attend without sizable loans.

However, the news here isn’t all bad: safety schools are likely to offer you generous aid packages. Click here to learn more about trimming the cost of college.

Interview with the Director of Admission at Wellesley

There’s no better source of info for college applicants.

Directors of admission set the rules that govern their institution’s admission processes. They also carry quite a bit of sway when it comes to individual admit decisions.

Earlier today, NPR interviewed Joy St. John, director of admission at Wellesley College, to address some common admission and financial aid questions. You can check out the interview here.

Wellesley is a selective women's college in Massachusetts. It is also one of The Princeton Review’s “Best Value Colleges” and the number-one school on our “Professors Get High Marks” ranking list.

A Student’s View: Admissions Randomness

Jennifer Angelo is a high school senior and a contributor to The Princeton Review’s IN blog.

"We usually get over 20,000 applicants for 3,000 spots. The tough thing is, though, that at least 80% of our applicants are qualified to attend our school."

This is the scary truth that many admissions officers convey in info sessions. As a college applicant, I’ve come to realize that a lot goes into admitting prospective students. Good grades and test scores don't always cut it—the most selective schools now require applicants to be more than a collection of numbers. At these schools, how you spend your time outside of the classroom is a major consideration. But what exactly will get you in?