The college prep puzzle

In the class of 2018, 331 of 350 Mountain Brook High School seniors were college-bound graduates. Others may have opted to take a gap year, enter the military, attend a college prep school or pursue career education.

Of those going to college, 324 were headed to four-year colleges and 210 were staying in the state of Alabama. Twenty-one received National Merit recognition; 12 were National Merit Finalists.

High schools typically have a record of this data, but often missing is an integral part that shows what goes into the acceptance rates and futures of their students: the time, effort and, for many, the stress of trying to be accepted to their ideal four-year institution.

Tenth grade is when Karen Svetlay, the college counselor for MBHS, introduces college to students by helping narrow down a list of hundreds of choices of universities.

For the generations before them, Svetlay said there weren’t as many options for college — many times, unless a specific and uncommon degree was in mind, people would attend nearby colleges or follow the family line to schools.

With the ever-growing list of acclaimed universities, though, students are facing a new level of decision-making, competition and college applications than ever before — which means more test prep classes, more after-school activities and more hours devoted to academics.

LOOKING AT THE NUMBERS

“It’s taken up a lot of my time,” said Caroline Lewis. 

Lewis is a junior who is hoping to go into a pre-med program or a strong biology program. Right now, she’s looking at Auburn, Vanderbilt, North Carolina, Wake Forest and Clemson, among others.

She and fellow junior Reid Freeman have realized, after researching schools, the test scores and grades needed for acceptance are more competitive than they previously thought. Since junior year is typically the year that colleges look at high school transcripts, they have focused more on class and preparing for standardized tests.

“I’ve always kind of thought of myself as a good student, and then I looked at the college’s average test scores,” she said. While it was a little disappointing, she resolved to try harder throughout the year and work to do well on the ACT.

“To get a good grade to go to college, you have to go to all the tutoring sessions and get the book and all the other stuff,” Lewis said. 

According to the website PrepScholar, the typical range of ACT scores at the University of Alabama, which has an acceptance rate of 53 percent, is between 23 and 32. In contrast, Harvard University has an acceptance rate of about 5 percent and sees a standard range of 32 to 35 for ACT scores. 

For the class of 2018, the middle 50 percent of MBHS graduates had an ACT score between 24 and 31.

Lewis said when she would talk with her parents about extra courses and what she was doing to bring her GPA and test scores up, “My parents were always like, ‘This is crazy.’” She said they explained the process wasn’t as competitive to get into college in their day.

Massey Jordan, a senior, said she found herself most stressed about her applications and college choices when she was preparing for and taking the ACT and her GPA was settling for her junior year. 

The students also acknowledged how important civic involvement is to universities today. For Freeman, that aspect has been the most daunting.

ROUNDING OUT THE RESUME

Freeman is looking to go into the military and hopes to attend the U.S. Naval Academy. He has spent extra time studying but also plays soccer and recently finished his Eagle Scout project. 

To make himself a more well-rounded individual and candidate, he said he has tried to become a better leader and now serves on the junior board of a Christian organization that works on bridging the language barrier between Spanish and English in Birmingham.

He isn’t the only one who has built up his resume.

Lewis picked up a summer job, has roles outside of school hours, volunteers with STAIR (Start The Adventure In Reading) and is part of Leadership Mountain Brook. She said friends have taken similar steps to become more well-rounded.

Jordan — who began preparing for college while in junior high — added on choir, art and theatre to her repertoire, and later took a variety of AP classes. 

“I realized quickly that even though I had good academics, a lot of the schools I was wanting to apply to didn’t just look at that,” Jordan said.

ADDING IT ALL UP

The extracurriculars weren’t necessarily a chore for Jordan because she has enjoyed all of them, but she said her schedule would sometimes create “short-term stress.” Some of her friends, she said, have also become overwhelmed and experienced greater stress once the process started.

That’s something Svetlay has seen in students, too.

“I think they feel the pressure of trying to do everything and be everything for colleges … because that’s what colleges, at least the highly selective schools, expect,” she said.

“You have to juggle school and community involvement and at the same time, also sports,” Freeman said. “And so it’s a little difficult, especially with everything involved.” He said it’s helped teach him better time management.

Students are aware their college choices can be competitive, and they want to be the best candidate possible, even if working to become that may create additional stress.

“You’re competing with students across the globe,” Svetlay said. “Colleges want diverse classes that bring different things to the table.”

And most of these extra commitments, which Lewis estimated can take up an extra 15 hours each week, come before the actual application process. 

That starts at the end of junior year and beginning of senior year, Svetlay said.

'GO TIME'

Jordan said she was looking forward to college and knew she wanted study archaeology, which typically isn’t offered in a lot of schools, so it was going to be naturally competitive. To prepare, she started practicing writing admissions essays in ninth grade and had her choices picked out early: NYU, Fordham, George Washington, Texas and Florida State, to name a few.

Colleges nowadays offer the Common Application, a universal form that takes down standard information such as name, address and demographics, and many universities accept it. The essays, however, are largely still specific. And time consuming.

“I would sit down after school, put my earbuds in and hunker down for five hours straight,” Jordan said. She started one of her applications in time for early action, which Svetlay said is relatively new compared to when parents may have gone through college applications. 

Those applications open over the summer, and the first deadlines fall in the first semester of senior year, what Svetlay called “go time.” The early decision timeline allows students to spend more time looking at their options and resources for financial aid before declaring a decision.

Jordan said she didn’t necessarily experience the overwhelming amount of stress that some of her friends did, but she understood where it comes from.

Some of her schools are competitive by nature, but really, she said, “The big competitive thing about them is they don’t have many merit scholarships.”

Because she was applying to eight schools Jordan said her experience was “very long and tedious.”

Since Freeman is hoping to attend the Naval Academy, he will have a different, although likely still trying, experience.

He wants to study engineering — “preferably nuclear engineering right now,” he said — and his preliminary applications, which are required for military academies, opened in January. 

He also will be aiming to get into the Naval Academy’s summer camp. The camp, he said, serves as a replacement for the preliminary applications. The full application then opens later in the year.

He will also have to earn a congressional nomination to be considered for the Naval Academy.

“It’s just another step in the process in getting into the college,” he said. He has contacted the coach for Navy, too, to inquire about playing soccer — another of many steps for those who want to be a part of their university’s athletics — but noted “it’s not a necessity” for his college experience. 

'ACCEPT WHATEVER HAPPENS'

Jordan said when her parents talked about their application experience, they told her nobody really helped them figure out the process. That’s where Svetlay comes in.

With so many additions and particulars with each college’s application, she works with students from the beginning through their decision and is available if they need anything. 

She has seen some students face their applications without problems, but she has also seen students become stressed with the amount of information they have to fit about themselves in just a few essays.

“I feel like they have so many parts of the application where they get to showcase themselves, to relate all of what they’ve done [in their writing],” she said. 

She described it all as a puzzle, and the students have to figure out what pieces of themselves they want to communicate.

Some colleges look for different ways to get to know their prospects, like a portfolio, interview or video.

“I think the intent is good because they [the universities] are trying to go beyond the numbers … but it does create more stress on the students,” Svetlay said. 

And even though a few steps might be optional, she said many students don’t necessarily see it as optional. “For others, it just adds stress.”

In the end, every student is looking and hoping for something similar: to get into their ideal program, to earn a scholarship, to be able to pursue their dreams. Lewis said the exciting part is that one day, the hard work will pay off.

They want to surpass the pressure and their own worries to succeed.

“I have some friends who would just be so freaked out,” Jordan said. “I understood it … But you’ve just got to do it, and then accept whatever happens.”