Different Universities Evaluate Differently

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来自 University of Pennsylvania 的课程

如何申请美国大学

个评分

University of Pennsylvania

如何申请美国大学

个评分

“It depends.” That is what you’ll hear when asking about the U.S. university admission process. With over 4,000 universities in the United States and no standard application system, the U.S. admission process can be confusing for everyone, but especially for students applying from other countries. This course will help international students (non-U.S. citizens) and non-native English speakers navigate the U.S. university admission process by offering practical information about the documents and pieces that make up a U.S. university application. More importantly, admission officers will discuss how they use those pieces to decide who is accepted and who is denied, so that you can understand the process beyond the pieces. By the end of this course, you will understand application basics that include researching schools, creating a school list, and establishing an application plan. This course will not answer all of your application questions, but it will teach you to ask the right questions of yourself and the universities. Ultimately, you will have all the information you need to start your process the right way, putting you on the path to acceptance. * Please note, while the English Language Programs are part of the University of Pennsylvania, this is not a course about applying to Penn. Furthermore, this course is intended for international students educated in the national curriculum of their country. While other students are welcome to enroll, the course is not intended for American students or students studying in an American, International Baccalaureate, or Advanced Placement curriculum. The course is also intended for students who do not have access to university counseling – if you attend a school that offers university counseling, your counselor is the best source of information on applying to university. Finally, this course is for undergraduate (Bachelors degree) freshmen (students who have not attended any university) applicants. Undergraduate transfer applicants, students who have attended a university, will find some of the information helpful, but graduate (Masters and Doctoral) applicants will not.

从本节课中

The U.S. Admissions Process

The first step to studying in the USA is to understand the application and admissions process in the U.S. How to apply to colleges and universities in the U.S. is probably very different than the university admissions process in your home country. One big difference is the importance of “fit,” and how fit plays a different role among the 4,000+ U.S. colleges and universities. In this module, you will begin to learn about the U.S. admissions process, including how schools evaluate international applications, U.S. college admission requirements, and how schools decide who to accept (it is not all about SAT or ACT scores like many students think). You will also begin to explore yourself so that you can look beyond the "top" colleges and universities to identify schools based on “fit,” a big step toward being accepted into U.S. colleges and universities.

The Realities of Admission: Understanding Options7:52

The Realities of Admission: Understanding Timing9:54

The Admissions Process and the Course5:36

Eight Pieces & Two Questions5:19

Being the "Best"4:12

The Second Question5:10

Different Universities Evaluate Differently9:51

与讲师见面

Erick Hyde
University Connection Counseling Specialist
English Language Programs

Now that you know the two main questions a

university is trying to answer when evaluating your application.

And the eight pieces, they're using to get those answers.

You need to understand how the evaluation is done.

Let's start with how universities use the two questions.

All universities use them, but not in the same way.

At one end,

you have highly selective universities.

Universities that do not accept many of their applicants.

Highly selective, at a highly selective university, the quantitative, the

things that we looked at in question one, those are expected.

When you look at GPA and test score ranges for those universities, you'll see that

GPA's are high, that test scores are high. Highly selective universities will

put the emphasis on the qualitative asp, elements found in question number two.

Things like, who you are, fit, unique qualifications that you might have.

This is also true for some smaller universities.

At a smaller university, you're a member of a small community.

Being a big part of a small community is important.

So who you are is more important.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have less selective universities.

Schools where they accept many of their applicants.

Those less selective universities often focus

more on question number one.

If you meet the stated academic requirements for

admission, then you have a good chance for admission.

The qualitative is important, but it's not

as important as a highly selective university.

The reason is that less selective schools

accept more students to fill their classes.

In the admission's world, this is something known as yield.

The percentage of the students who are admitted

or accepted, that actually enroll or attend the school.

At a less selective school, they have to accept more students

to fill their classes. So they cannot emphasize the quantitative

as much. This is also true for some larger schools.

At some larger schools, they have a lot of seats they need to fill.

So, they need to accept a lot of students.

It's also a larger community. And in a large community, almost everyone

will be represented and comfortable. So how

do we know this?

Well, we know this because universities tell us.

We also know this because research supports what they say.

NACAC, the National Association of College Admission Counseling

conducts a research and publishes a report called the State of College Admissions.

Now, who is NACAC?

They're the people who make the rules of admission and yes, admission has rules.

So let's take a quick look at this report. In the table

that you'll see, the table that you're looking at, you'll see

different factors of the application.

And how important a university considers that

particular factor.

I want you to take a look at the top four factors.

You'll notice that the top four factors all refer back to question number one.

They're all academic, quantitative factors.

Now, take a look at the fifth piece. Essay

or writing sample. That is the first piece that we

look at in answering question number two, in understanding the

qualitative factors. Now, in

the column for Considerable Importance, look at the difference

between grades in all courses and essay or writing sample.

The number drops from 51.9% all the way down to 24.9%.

You can see, there is a big difference

when you move from question one to question two.

Let's look at another piece from this report.

In this table, you're going to see the

same factors that you saw in the previous slide.

But now, you're going to see a difference in the university types.

I want to draw your attention to the second section for enrollment.

You'll notice that smaller schools, schools

that have fewer than 3,000 students.

In some areas, are highly different than the

larger schools, the schools with 10,000 or more.

As an example, in the column for Essay/writing sample, you can

see that smaller schools placed a, a considerable importance

on the essay over 28% of the time.

Where the school with 10,000 or more, that number drops down to 17% of the time.

Also, let's take a look at selectivity.

At schools that accept fewer than 50% of their applicants.

You can see how important some of those qualitative factors are.

Especially when you compare that to schools

that accept over 85% of their students.

By looking

at these tables you can really get a feeling for

how different universities evaluate applications differently.

Now I know you're asking a big question. So what do universities want?

It's a great question. The criteria is not a mystery.

Let's take a look at a website

from MIT.

On MIT's website, they tell you exactly what they're looking for in a student.

You'll notice on this website, when you go

through each section, that you're going to get amazing information.

When you look at the selection process, you'll notice one thing that it says.

At least a dozen people will

significantly discuss and debate an application before

it is placed in the admissions pile.

When you go to the next tab the match between you and MIT.

You're going to see eight different criteria for who is a good match.

The tab on admissions statistics and the tab on

the freshman class profile are going to give you the

facts and figures about applying to MIT.

Which will give you an understanding of the quantitative side of acceptance.

But after reviewing this website, you should have a really firm understanding

of your likelihood of being accepted at MIT.

Now, MIT is not the only one with a fantastic website.

Let's look at a much bigger school.

The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.

On Michigan's website, they have many similar tabs.

We're not going to go through them, but I

want to draw your attention to the last tab.

How we evaluate your application. Michigan publishes the actual

evaluation sheet used by their reviewers. Take a look at that admission

sheet, at the evaluation sheet, and evaluate your own application.

To get an understanding of how you will fare at University

of Michigan. Now, these are two examples of really

great websites and not all schools are as thorough as

MIT or Michigan. But now that you understand the questions.

Now that you understand the pieces.

You should be able to figure out what is important to each university.

And start to figure out are you a good fit?

Are you a good match?

Now to help you do this, the next part of the lectures.

Will be our interviews with admission representatives.

Where they will address some of these questions.

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