Response to Elena: there are few early birds

Posted by Dee 

Glad you sent in your question, Elena! (on the AdmitSpit post titled, “Just got a comment…“)

“What’s the point of sending SAT/ACT scores to colleges before senior year? I was trying to guess-timate the costs of applying to college, and I was guessing it’d be about $100 per college with all the tests and whatnot needed to be sent in addition to the actual app. I’ve heard that large colleges like the UCs don’t bother looking at students’ scores because they receive so many, and I’m guessing many privates hold the same policy? Do you know if colleges keep these files on record, or do you have to re-send the scores when you apply there?”

You are partially correct.

The University of California campuses (and probably also most other large public institutions) DO NOT keep your scores on record if you send them before you

Response to Kathleen: Common App and stickers?

Posted by Dee

Kathleen left a very sweet comment on our latest AdmitSpit post titled, “Just got a comment…” saying:

“… I recently visited a college, and they gave me a sample of the 2006-2007 common application. On this application was a sticker saying “application fee waived”. The problem is, the application is for the 2006-2007 season, and I won’t be applying until this fall. Should I remove the sticker from the common application papers? Also, does the common application require fees to send online?”

I think Kathleen that the whole point was indeed to give you a “sample” of the Common App so you could get the gist of the types of questions they give in essays and short answers, etc. I don’t think that they necessarily actually wanted you to use that 2006-2007 form to apply for the 2007-2008 year. So no, you shouldn’t remove the sticker from the common application papers because you shouldn’t actually use those papers at all (and if you’re thinking of reattaching the sticker to the correct version of the Common App papers, I say that’s just a bad idea!)

The Common App does require fees — but those are simply the fees that the

Just got a comment…

Posted by Dee 

So, we just enabled a comment from Theron on the AdmitSpit post titled “Response to Theron: A-levels, SATs, and decisions, oh my!“

And, first I wanted to say, glad to be of help!

And second, I wanted to say that I’m sorry we haven’t posted for some time now — I must admit I’m sort of stuck for content ideas. Please send comments our way with any issues you have in general about the college admissions process so we can write again!

Thank you, thank you!!

As BB said, we are helpful… so add us!

Posted by Dee 

BB left the comment on the post we wrote for him/her titled “Response to BB: how many years of language is enough?” saying:

“Thank you very much! By the way, I am a junior. I’ve finally decided to not take the 4th year of Spanish. I am EXTREMELY involved in Band and Journalism, and while AcDec isn’t considered AP/Honors, it will probably be one the the most rewarding classes I will ever take in high school. In addition, I hate Spanish – though i do have an A. Again, thank you. This site has been so helpful!!”

BB — I’m so glad you found AdmitSpit helpful because that’s our whole point of existing! As you can tell, we definitely don’t post daily (we’re students too ya know!) so, to get updated without checking the site everyday and getting annoyed that we haven’t posted, there’s an easy solution… add us!

On Yahoo!:

The best way to go about adding AdmitSpit to Yahoo! is to go to http://alerts.yahoo.com and sign into Yahoo!. You’ll see that right now you’re on the “Create an Alert” tab, so click on “Feed / Blog” (which right now has a yellow NEW! icon by it) which will take you to a new page. In “A. Enter the URL for a web site’s RSS feed, if you know it” type http://admitspit.wordpress.com/feed, and when it says to choose how often you want Alerts delivered, I’d recommended keeping it on “As they happen” so that you get changes immediately, but changing “Major changes” to “Just new items” (the third option in the menu) so that you only get, well, new items. Then select how you want your Alerts delivered, whether just to your email or if you also want it sent to your Y! Messenger or Mobile, if you have it. Then click the orange “Save Alert” button, and on the next page hit the orange “Done” button, and you’re all set!

Another way on Yahoo! to add AdmitSpit content is, if you use My Yahoo!, to add the AdmitSpit feed. Go to your My Yahoo! page, click the blue “Add Content” button, which takes you to a new page. From here, click the “Add RSS by URL” blue text in the blue “Find Content” box (the first box that is). On the next page that takes you to, type http://admitspit.wordpress.com/feed, and click the grey “ADD” button. On the next page that takes you to, click the yellow “Add to My Yahoo!” button, and you’re all set!

On Google:

Google Alerts are also a pretty good way of getting updated on AdmitSpit content, even though the Google Reader is probably better (because with Alerts on Google you may also get results about what other people are saying about AdmitSpit rather than just our content exclusively).

To get Google Alerts for AdmitSpit, go to http://blogsearch.google.com, and type AdmitSpit. You’ll get a page with a list of results, look in the left bar under the grey “Subscribe:” box, and you’ll see a link to “Blog Alerts” with a little envelope icon next to it. Click on this, and it will take you to a new page. I suggest keeping all the settings on the right as the have them; the “Search terms:” should be “admitspit” with “Type:” as “Blogs” and “How often:” as “once a day” and now, just enter your

Response to BB: how many years of language is enough?

Posted by Dee

BB commented:

“I was recently reading a Princeton Review college book and it said that many of the Ivies – notably harvard along with a few companions – highly recommended four years of a foreign language. When they say “recommend”, what does that really mean? Does it mean “mandatory”? Thank you. I would fit Span IV into my schedule, but i simply cannot legally take 8 classes. I’m taking the four AP core classes along with journalism, Symphonic Band (highest band), and Academic Decathlon. Is that good enough?”

This is a fantastic question, BB. I remember struggling with this question myself… I attended a private middle school where we were a year ahead in language from our public school counterparts, so when I moved to my public high school I was in French 3 in freshman year and completed French 4AP in sophomore year.

What was I to do?! All the colleges were recommending four years of foreign language and I was already done two years early! Should I take French 5AP? Then what about senior year? We didn’t have a French 6. Plus, I didn’t even like French all that much, so dealing with two more years would just be a bane to my schedule when there were other courses I preferred taking. Would completing 4AP be good

College rankings boosting college presidents’ bonuses

Posted by Dee 

Bob Werber from Inside Higher Ed commented on the AdmitSpit post titled, “Ranking run-ins” today to let us know about an article they wrote related to the U.S. News and World Report rankings.

The article, “Should U.S. News Make Presidents Rich?” details Arizona State University’s move to link tens of thousands of dollars in bonus pay for the university’s president, Michael Crow, to improved U.S. News rankings.

Initially upon reading Bob’s comment and the first part of the article, I was quite annoyed, and agreed with the sentiment and words that Lloyd Thacker, a “leading critic of the role of magazine rankings,” shared saying that boosting Crow’s salary based on rankings was “rotten, educationally irresponsible, wimpy, short-sighted, and wrong.”

But before running with that view, I realized that perhaps Arizona State’s decision

An exclusive Q&A with Zinch.com’s Mick Hagen

Posted by Doreen

A new site, Zinch.com, founded by Princeton student Mick Hagen, is live and, might I say, pretty cool! Here’s an exclusive Q&A with Mick. If you have questions for him, leave a comment. He’s a really nice guy (see photo) and I’m sure he’s up for answering any queries you may have!

Doreen: So, Mick, Zinch.com was launched just this week. How does it feel?

Mick: Doreen, my oh my. It feels so good. No. I take that back. It feels great! After months and months of brainstorming, research, broken pencils, programming, headaches, late nights, sack lunches, and prayers… we’re finally live. Now we just gotta preach the good news of Zinch, and let the students know about it.

Doreen: So, what is Zinch? Tell us about what it does for students, and how it works on the admission officer’s side as well.

Mick: Zinch.com is a tool to level the playing field in college admissions by giving every high school student in America the opportunity to showcase themselves, communicating those talents and accomplishments that make them unique. This information is then sent to the specified college or university the student wishes

They’re out to make college admissions a zinch

Posted by Dee 

Not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s a new college admissions site on the World Wide Web that we here at AdmitSpit think any soon-to-be college applicants may want to check out.

It’s called Zinch, and we’ll post a Q&A with Zinch’s President Mick Hagen (who by the way is taking a year off from Princeton University to test the Internet business waters!) in the next few days.

So look forward to that before the weekend, and in the meantime, check them out – the video that’s on their homepage when you click on the “What’s Zinch?” button is particularly helpful; they’ve got some pretty cool features and scholarship money up for grabs too.

When to know if you’re accepted: season 2007

Posted by Dee

It’s almost March, which means that results from regular admissions will start trickling in soon enough.

Since there seems to be no comprehensive list anywhere on the Internet that compiles the dates when each of the top schools report their decisions for regular admissions, we at AdmitSpit created one. The name of each school, along with the date you should expect a response and any special notes are provided. This data was taken from each college’s admissions Web site. This post will likely be updated with more detailed dates and times as deadlines approach and colleges release more precise information about when notifications will be sent out.

Brown: Decisions will be mailed “end of March” 2007, and definitely they will be mailed no later than in the first week of April.

CIT: Decisions mailed “late March/early April.”

Columbia University: Regular Decision application decisions are mailed out in the first week of April, along with invitations for on-campus and regional programs for accepted students.

Cornell: Regular Decision application decisions for Agriculture and Life Sciences, Hotel Administration, and Industrial and Labor Relations are rolling starting in the

Either, or… not both?

Posted by Dee

Robin left us a comment on AdmitSpit’s About page:

“I just heard through the grapevine that students who apply to both UCLA and UC Berkeley are only admitted to one or the other but not both. I really want to go to UCLA but also applied to Berkeley even though it is not one of my top schools. Does anyone know if this is true and if I can withdraw my Berkeley app?”

Basically, I can say quite firmly that this myth is entirely untrue! I too heard this idea “through the grapevine” when I was applying last year, but alas, I was accepted to both schools, and plenty of other students I know were accepted to both too.

Keep in mind that Berkeley is slightly more competitive than UCLA, so even if you didn’t get into one of them, chances are it’d be Berkeley you would not be getting