In - Your Guide to College Admissions from The Princeton Review

College Speak: Alumni

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s term is . . .

Alumni: The graduates of a particular college or university.

Most alumni maintain a lifelong interest in their school. Many institutions send their alumni a quarterly magazine with recent developments on campus. These magazines typically contain a “notes” section where alumni can write in and tell other alumni what they’ve been up to.

Colleges and universities will frequently ask alumni to donate money to the school for its various efforts, such as providing scholarships to students and renovating buildings on campus.

Note that the grads of an all-women’s school are its alumnae. The terms alumnus and alumna refer to an individual male grad and an individual female grad, respectively.

Click here to see the previous entry in the College Speak series.

College Speak: Campus, Dorms, RAs, and Greek Life

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are . . .

Campus: The actual physical presence of a college or university. It’s the buildings, the land, and, in a larger sense, the people.

A campus might have clearly defined boundaries, or it might be integrated into a city or town. Either way, you’re “on campus” whenever you visit a college or university.

Dorms: The on-campus buildings where students live.

If a college or university has dorms, they’re usually a popular living option for freshmen, sophomores, and possibly juniors. (Upperclassmen tend to live off-campus.) They’re often a big part of the social scene at a school.

Some dorm buildings are like large houses and have shared bathrooms, living rooms, and kitchens. Other dorms are more like apartment buildings. In either case, you’ll probably have at least one roommate your freshman year if you live in a dorm.

Residential Advisors (RAs): A student, usually a sophomore, who oversees a group of new freshman and advises them on non-academic issues. College RAs live in the same dorm building as the freshmen whom they oversee.

Different schools use RAs differently. At some schools, RAs are basically the “fun police”—they shut down unauthorized parties and look for contraband. At others, RAs are more like friends.

Most colleges have some type of RA system, though the role takes different names at different schools.

Fraternities, Sororities, and Greek Life: Fraternities and sororities are single-sex social clubs with paid membership. Each club is identified by a combination of two or three Greek letters—for example, Tau Kappa Epsilon or Alpha Phi. Taken together, fraternities and sororities are referred to as the Greek life at a school.

So what do these groups do? Many of them do community service or fundraising for local causes. Many also throw big parties.

At some colleges, 50 percent or more of the students are Greek and the on-campus social scene is dominated by Greek parties. Other colleges don’t allow these groups on campus. (These schools believe that Greek organizations create a social environment that excludes non-Greeks.)

Click here to see the previous entry in the College Speak series.

College Speak: Arts, Humanities, and Sciences

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are:

• liberal arts;
• fine arts;
• humanities;
• behavioral and social sciences;
• natural sciences;
• physical sciences;
• mathematical and formal sciences; and
• engineering and applied sciences.

Liberal Arts: Meaning “areas of learning (‘arts’) suitable for a free man (‘liberal’),” this term refers to a wide variety of disciplines in the arts, humanities, and sciences. While the liberal arts give their name to a certain type of undergraduate school—the liberal arts college—in one form or another, they are studied at most post-secondary institutions. Notable exceptions are professional and vocational schools, which tend to focus more on specialized skills.

Fine arts: This term covers the visual arts as well as many performing arts. Fine arts disciplines include painting, sculpture, architecture, film, theater, dance, and conceptual art. Along with music, many fine arts are viewed as part of "the humanities" (see below). Fine arts are studied at many post-secondary schools, including specialized schools of art.

Humanities: A collection of disciplines that study some aspect of humanity or “the human condition.” The humanities include languages and literature, history, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts. The humanities are studied at a wide variety of post-secondary schools. Many schools require classes in the humanities classes as part of a core curriculum.

College Speak: Syllabus

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s term is . . .

Syllabus: Depending on your high school and the teachers you’ve had so far, you may have received something like a syllabus in the past. On the first day of school, a high school teacher might hand out a list of the topics that he or she plans to cover in class. Such a handout might also include expectations for student behavior as well as a description of class projects and grading policies. Some teachers or high schools might even require you—and possibly one of your parents—to sign this handout.

College professors will provide a similar handout at the start of a course, but this document—called a syllabus—will be different in several important ways.

The most important feature of a syllabus is that it identifies a basic topic for every single meeting of the course. This is possible because most college courses last for only a semester and meet just a few times a week. High school classes, on the other hand, may meet every school day for an entire academic year. For this reason, high school teachers usually don’t have every class planned out.

In addition to providing a class calendar, a syllabus will provide specific dates for every exam and major assignment in a college course. While a professor may discuss the syllabus on the first day of the course, it will be your responsibility after that to refer to it for the dates of exams and assignments. High school teachers, in contrast, usually give new assignments throughout the year and talk regularly about important dates on the horizon.

A syllabus will also include recommended texts for the course as well as contact information and office hours for the professor. Office hours are times when you will be encouraged to seek out the professor and speak with him or her about any concerns you may have about the course. A college professor won’t pull you aside if you are doing poorly in the class, but he or she will be happy to hear from you.

Click here to read the previous entry in the College Speak series.

College Speak: Selectivity, Reach, Match, and Safety

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are:

• selectivity,
• reach school,
• match school, and
• safety school.

Selectivity: How difficult it is to gain admission to any particular school.

A school may be very selective, not selective at all, or anywhere in-between. The least selective colleges have open admission policies that, by definition, are un-selective—these schools admit every student who applies.

High selectivity, on the other hand, can be expressed in a couple of different ways. It may be seen in an admission process where only a small percentage of applicants are admitted. It may also be seen in a pool of applicants with very high qualifications. Such applicants have impressive transcripts, extracurricular activities, standardized test, essays, teacher recommendations, etc. Admission to the most selective schools is competitive in terms of both the number and the quality of the applicants.

Most schools are in-between very selective and open admissions—these schools are moderately selective. About 90 percent of the schools in The Princeton Review’s The Best 373 Colleges book fall into this category.

For these schools, you can get a sense of your chances of admission by looking at the average GPA and standardized test scores for the current freshman class. Doing so, you should be able to sort most of these schools into three categories: reach, match, and safety (see below).

Note that these categories don’t work for the most selective schools. Admission to these schools is so competitive that it is difficult to guarantee yourself a spot even if you have perfect grades and test scores. At the most selective schools, admissions officers rely heavily on subjective impressions of an applicant when making their decisions.

Many students add an unhealthy amount of stress to their lives in an effort to gain any perceived edge in applying to the most selective schools. For this reason, it’s not a good idea to make admission to a very selective school the only acceptable outcome of your application process. It might be nice to gain admission to a very selective school, but it certainly isn’t the only ticket to a successful future.

College Speak: Waitlisted and Deferred

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are:

• waitlisted;
• deferred.

Waitlisted: Acceptance letters and rejection letters are equally clear: a school definitely wants you, or it definitely doesn’t want you.

What’s less clear is an offer to be on a college or university’s waitlist.

To be honest, the school is sending you a mixed message. It’s saying that it wouldn’t mind having you in its freshman class, but there are a number of students whom it’d rather have. Unfortunately, you won’t know exactly how many students are ahead of you in line.

On the surface, a waitlist spot doesn’t look too bleak. It may seem as if there’s a decent chance of a spot opening up—some of the admitted students will decide to go elsewhere, right? Unfortunately, the school has already counted on that happening. Schools will send unambiguous acceptance letters to far more students than they have room for—they count on many of those students choosing to attend another school.

Then why do schools bother with wait lists? Well, it’s a kind of insurance. If more than the expected number of admitted students decides to go elsewhere, then a school will start admitting students off of the waitlist if it still has room.

While that’s not a great reason (at least from a student’s perspective), it’s better than the other reason a school might maintain an unrealistically long waitlist—quick cash. All schools require a fee, which is usually several hundred dollars, for the privilege of maintaining a spot on the waitlist.

Getting waitlisted isn’t all bad. I’ve always felt it was a school’s way of letting an applicant know that he or she was close—sort of like the college admissions version of an honorable mention. But I wouldn’t pin my hopes on being admitted off of a waitlist. If you have the money to pay the waitlist fee, you can do so and see what happens. But I would act as if nothing will come of it. If you’ve applied to a good selection of schools, you will have other options.

College Speak: Early Decision, Early Action, Rolling Admissions, and Open Admissions

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are:

• early decision,
• early action,
• rolling admissions, and
• open admissions.

Early Decision: A lot of colleges and universities accept applications in multiple groups, or “rounds.” The first round at many schools is an early decision round.

To apply in this round, you will need to submit your application by an early date (usually in October or November) and indicate "early decision" on it.

You can only apply early decision to one school. Why? Because if you are accepted, you are pretty much required to go. (The only opt-out is if the school’s financial aid package truly does not meet your need. Unfortunately, you’ve already committed to the school, so you won’t have much negotiating power in this process. And you may miss deadlines at other schools while it unfolds.)

So why does anyone apply early decision? It is the strongest message you can send to a school that it is your ultimate dream school, or “the one.” You’re willing to give up the opportunity to apply to any other schools if it will accept you. Colleges and universities love to be loved, so they tend to admit early decision applicants at a significantly higher rate than they admit students who submit regular applications.

If you’re thinking about applying early decision, check out this helpful article on PrincetonReview.com.

College Speak: Essay, Interview, and Additional Information

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are:

• essay or personal essay/statement,
• interview, and
• additional information.

Essay or Personal Essay/Statement: An essay will be part of your application to many colleges and universities.

Schools will require an essay (or two or three) to get to know you better. An essay will also show the school how you think and write.

Understandably, the essay makes a lot of students—especially those who don’t like to write—sort of nervous.

The first piece of good news is that you will have a lot of time to write each essay. You can craft it, show it to others, revise it, and repeat this process as many times as you want.

The second piece of good news is that most schools recycle a limited number of essay prompts on their applications each year. (You can check out the Common Application’s essay prompts for 2011 here.) With these prompts in mind, you can start to think about possible essays right now.

Make no mistake—this part of the application gives a real advantage to those who are willing to spend time on it. No other application requirement can be improved so much with just a few days of work. (In contrast, your high school grades or standardized test scores probably won’t improve much with just a few days of studying or practice.)

For more information on how to approach your essays, check out this article on PrincetonReview.com.

College Speak: Teacher Recommendations, Extracurricular Activities, and Work Experience

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s terms are:

• teacher recommendations/evaluations,
• extracurricular activities, and
• work experience.

Teacher Recommendations/Evaluations: Many colleges and universities will ask you to send teacher recommendations as part of your application. Schools that require recommendations will typically ask for between one and three of them.

Schools that request them will provide a recommendation form. You will give this form to a teacher—or teachers—whom you think would say nice things about you. Teachers will send the completed form directly to the school.

So what does a teacher recommendation include? The recommendation form will ask the teacher to rate you on various attributes, such as intellectual promise, motivation, and concern for others. It will also ask the teacher to provide open-ended comments that might help the school to differentiate you from other applicants.

Teacher recommendations are just one way a school can get to know you better. They are particularly popular among private schools as well as very selective schools.

You should start thinking early about the teachers whom you might like to ask for a recommendation.  Even among your favorite teachers, some might provide better recommendations than others.

You should also keep in mind that that no teacher is required to give you a recommendation—you should always be courteous and give plenty of advance notice when you ask a teacher to do this. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable making such a request today, PrincetonReview.com offers advice on how to build teacher relationships.

College Speak: Standardized Test

You may be surprised by the number of unfamiliar terms associated with college and college life. Undergraduate, TA, accreditation, Greek life, the FAFSA—high school counselors and college admissions officers use these terms every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always stop to explain what each term means.

The “College Speak” series explains the college-oriented vocab that you need to be in the know and focus on the more important questions, such as “which school would be the best fit for me?”

Today’s term is . . .

Standardized Test: A test that is administered and scored in a consistent way whenever and wherever it is given.

There are many different types of standardized tests. Many are given to primary school students, so chances are that you’ve already taken a few of them in your life.

The purpose of any standardized test is to allow the direct comparison of the scores of two or more test-takers. This is true even if these individuals took the test at different times and in different places. The tests—and the conditions in which they were given—are assumed to be equivalent.

Standardized tests that are part of the college application process—the ACT, SAT, SAT Subject Tests, AP tests, etc.—make life easy for admissions officers. Scores from these tests allow them to make a distinction between you and another applicant who lives 2,000 miles away.

Given the stakes, it is understandable that these tests produce more anxiety than any other part of college admissions. You have months to fill out your college applications—and years to get good grades—but only hours to complete a standardized test.

Fortunately, most schools don’t put as much weight on standardized tests as they do on your high school grades. Also, the “standardized” nature of these tests allows you to know what types of questions you will get on each one and to prepare with test-prep courses or books. Additionally, you can take many standardized tests several different times—only your best score(s) will be judged by schools.

Your college application(s) may include up to three different types of standardized tests: