More Athletic Recruiting TIps

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on June 17, 2015.

Article writin by Kathy Smith Connor

September 1st or July 1st are big days for many student/athletes. For most sports, September 1 at the beginning of junior year is the first time that a coach can proactively contact them. For Swimming & Diving, Track & Field or Cross Country, the big day is July 1 after the junior year has been completed. Athletes can contact college coaches prior to these dates, of course, via email, by calling with the hope that they pick up the phone, and through unofficial campus visits, but after either date (sport dependent) coaches can officially and proactively show their interest in a student/athlete. It's an exciting time and depending on how strongly an athlete is being recruited, the phone should be ringing during this first week, as well as subsequent months. One of the biggest goals during this time is to get your official recruiting trips lined up for the fall. How well this first week goes depends on several things.

The first, of course, is how "in demand" you are as an athlete –the faster your swim or track times, the more years on an ODP (Olympic Development Program), the farther you throw—the more you will be pursued by coaches.

Just how much the phone will be ringing will depend on how aggressively you have promoted yourself and how strongly you have established relationships with coaches. Writing, emailing and calling coaches is the best way to get on a coach’s radar. Having done your homework prior to this is very important as it shows a coach there are legitimate reasons you want to attend that school. This is the biggest and best way for an athlete to get ahead in the recruiting game and it's never too early to start.  Many schools have small recruiting budgets and it's not always easy for coaches to be aware of prospective athletes. Proactive contact in your freshman through junior years is the key to getting on a coach's radar.  Registering for the NCAA Eligibility Center during sophomore year is also helpful.

I was initially surprised to find that most coaches feel short video clips are helpful in the recruiting process. Sure it’s clear that these clips are useful for the more subjective sports (soccer, basketball, etc) as these sports are harder to "measure" and the videos are one way to show technical and creative moves. I was very interested to find that “timed sports” coaches, such as swimming and track & field, also find video clips very useful. For example, if a coach sees on your video that you currently only take three dolphin kicks off a wall, she may believe you have great room for improvement if she can train you to take six dolphins off the wall instead or make other technical adjustments to improve your stroke.

I am constantly amazed at how late in the recruiting process athletes get started.  If you are serious about pursuing your sport in college, I strongly suggest you start your recruiting campaign in freshman and sophomore years. Here’s what you can do: 

• Research colleges based on academic, social and financial fit—for example, do you know your estimated EFC?
• Research the athletic fit. Can you realistically compete at a DI level or should you be looking at DII or DIII? Do you understand the difference in level of competition as well as level of commitment?
• Research what collegiate conference they could potentially score in. Coaches in timed sports in particular are largely looking for athletes that can score for them in their conference, as well as go on to compete at the NCAA national level.

As you can see, there’s lots of research to be done to maximize your chances for a great fit college, as well as maximize chances for merit and athletic aid.

Coaches are looking for top students who can earn merit aid to supplement the athletic aid they have to carefully manage due to their limited budgets. Beginning freshman year, you need to carefully choose classes to make sure they are NCAA compliant, as well as take rigorous courses while still maintaining a solid GPA. Careful course planning, as well as strategically taking standardized tests, and applying to colleges where your test scores are in the top 25% of the pool can maximize your financial aid packages.

I am often asked if I recommend student/athletes sign up for a recruiting service such as BeRecruited, NCSA, orCaptainU. These services have a role in recruiting and some are better suited for certain sports than others.  They cannot hurt and if you want to spend the time and effort to create a profile and continue to keep it updated, then it is fine to utilize them. I have learned by talking to many, many coaches, however, that most of them prefer direct contact from the student/athlete vs. working with a service as an intermediary. They often do not have the time to research such databases and most prefer to recruit those athletes that contact them directly. So again, the best way to get on a coach’s radar and make them aware of you is direct contact!

Bottom Line: Start early, do your research, focus on your grades and the rigor of courses you take, compete at the highest level possible in your sport, and then assertively promote yourself. These actions will maximize your chances to compete and secure athletic funding at a right-fit college.  

Key Steps to the Athletic Recruiting Process

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on June 10, 2015.

Article by Kathy Smith Connor

Athletic talent can provide wonderful opportunities and open many doors for student/athletes in the college search process. While it can present unique advantages, it also poses its own set of challenges. 

The athletic recruiting process must be approached in a realistic and systematic manner. A good understanding of the NCAA recruiting rules and how to conduct a proactive and healthy recruitment campaign are key to an athlete’s success, not only in making a well-suited team roster but in obtaining the best scholarship possible.

Your first step is to find the right college fit for your academic and social needs. You are a student first and must develop the foresight and vision to understand that while playing your sport in college is an important highlight of your college years, your education is a lifetime tool. Student/athletes who do both their academic and athletic homework, followed by a proactive approach to recruiting, have the most success in getting college coaches to consider them for admission, as well as making a team roster with athletic funding. 

Here are a few guidelines to a successful approach to the athletic recruiting process. 

Be Realistic About Your Level of Play

If you are an athlete that wants to play your sport at the collegiate level, you must talk with your coaches about your ability. Ask them for an honest and realistic assessment of your prospects in collegiate athletics. At which level (Division I, II, III, or NAIA) does he or she believe you can compete?

If you participate in a timed sport, there are various websites and other tools you can look at to determine in which conference you would be most competitive, which is generally what coaches want in order to provide you with athletic scholarship funding.

Use this information as a guideline for targeting schools at which you can realistically compete in your sport.

Create a Realistic College List

Create a balanced preliminary list of schools that incorporates academic interests and abilities, social needs and athletic ability. This list should be driven from answers to questions including:

• Could I realistically get accepted and thrive at this school based on my academic record?” 
• “Do I like the campus, its students, its location, etc?”
• Can I play/compete at this level in both its Conference and Division?”
• Is the college affordable taking into account any potential academic and athletic funding I receive?”

Assertively Work to be Recruited

Often, athletes expect coaches to come knocking on their door. This is unlikely unless you are competing at a national level - which most athletes are not. 

It is important to understand the “rules of the recruiting game” in order to maximize your chances of playing – and receiving athletic money –at your preferred colleges. This takes time, effort and good communication to make sure coaches know you and want to recruit you. Many universities have very limited recruiting budgets and therefore, if you can proactively get noticed and make it onto a coach’s “list” (the earlier, the better), it makes it easier for everyone. And it increases your likelihood of being brought onto the team and receiving athletic funding. 

Key Steps to the Athletic Recruiting Process

1. Proactive Contact: Assertive communication is the key to success

The majority of athletes who want to participate in collegiate athletics need to be very proactive in searching out and pursuing all possible opportunities. There is no magic formula that can guarantee selection to a college sports program. 

Fill out the school’s recruiting questionnaire to get on their mailing list; write to the coaches and introduce yourself with a letter and athletic resume (filled with GPA and SAT/ACT scores and sports accomplishments) and explain why you think their school is for you; let them know any tournaments, showcases or meets you will competing in and ask them to come watch you; follow up with any new best times, achievements and stay in touch.

2. Get Seen: It’s all about exposure!

Especially for subjective (non-timed) sports, a very important aspect of recruiting is being seen and getting exposure on a fairly regular basis. 

For sports such as soccer, you will need to be on a club or high school team that gives you maximum exposure to college showcases, tournaments and camp opportunities. This is where college coaches will have the best chance of seeing your athlete in action. A note of caution – very rarely is an athlete first noticed from a college showcase. Coaches attend college showcases to watch and evaluate athletes that are already on their list. It is very important to have communicated with coaches prior to showcases so they know you are interested in being evaluated.

3. Understand all NCAA rules and regulations

NCAA policies govern how coaches can recruit college-bound student/athletes. The rules specify when and how coaches can contact prospects, what materials can be sent and when student-athletes can visit campus. The rules differ slightly from sport to sport and Division to Division. It is critical that student/athletes understand these rules so as not to jeopardize their eligibility.

The student/athlete must register with the NCAA Eligibility Center for compliance approval. The Center also administers the National Letter of Intent program as well as the Amateurism Eligibility and Certification. Details can be found in The Guide for the College-Bound Student/Athlete which contains detailed information about academic and amateurism eligibility.

Being involved in athletics can be a tremendous benefit to students regardless of whether a student receives a scholarship. The life-skills and lessons learned along the way are priceless and will aid the student/athlete in any future endeavor. A young person contemplating college attendance should use high school for legitimate academic preparation then do their college “best-fit” homework and athletic homework to find just the right place.

Can You Play Your Sport in College?

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on June 3, 2015.

Article written by Kathy Smith Connor

Sometimes my job involves being a “dream crusher”. It’s not a part of the job I like. 

I often have parents come into my office with the expectation that their son or daughter will be able to play his or her sport in college.  For some, this is a realistic option.  For others, not so much. 

To start off, here are some facts about collegiate sports and athletic scholarships:

1. A lot of athletes contend for limited opportunities.  There are 7,400,000 high school student athletes and 460,000 NCAA student athletes.  Statistically, about 6% of student athletes will end up being able to compete in college.

2. The odds of winning an NCAA sports scholarship are long. Only about 2% of high school athletes win sports scholarships every year at NCAA colleges and universities. For those who do snag one, the average scholarship is less than $11,000.

3. Full-ride sports scholarships are in short supply. There are only six sports where all the scholarships are full ride. These so-called head-count sports are football, men and women's basketball, and women's gymnastics, volleyball, and tennis. In these Division I sports, athletes receive a full ride or no ride.

4. Scholarship amounts can be modest. Beyond the head-count sports, all other sports are considered "equivalency" sports. NCAA rules dictate how much money a program, such as lacrosse or track, can spend on scholarships. Coaches can slice and dice these awards as they choose, which can lead to smaller scholarships than you might expect.

5. Take flattery with a grain of salt. Coaches may tell teenagers that they have lots of scholarship money to divvy out, but prospective student athletes shouldn't assume that they will be the recipients. A coach might not know whether he really wants a certain player until he finds out what other prospective players want to sign on to the team, and then he may drop the player with whom he had been in discussion.

6. A verbal commitment is meaningless. There is no guarantee that an athlete who verbally commits to a team will end up on it. A coach can change her mind about a prospect.

7. Playing high-level college sports will be a full-time job. Division I athletes may as well be called full-time employees of their schools because of the long hours they “work” to fulfill their sport commitment.  According to an NCAA survey last year, playing football required 43.3 hours per week; college baseball, 42.1 hours; men's basketball, 39.2 hours; and women's basketball, 37.6 hours. Because of the huge time commitment, as well as time away from campus, Division I athletes will often find it extremely difficult to major in rigorous disciplines, such as the sciences and engineering. If this is the case, having the ability to play a Division I sport does not always mean that one should.  Division III schools should be under consideration in certain scenarios.  

With all of this in mind, here are some ways to determine if your student/athlete can compete in college.  Keep in mind that you are working to determine if he can compete collegiately as well as which NCAA Division (NCAA Division I, II, or III or NAIA) is the best fit for his abilities.   

Timed/measured sports are easier to discern.  For swimming or track & field, one can look at a “time” (distance, etc.) and know whether the student will be able to compete collegiately by comparing their times against how fast the student/athletes are swimming, running, etc. in college.  Generally, coaches want to see that a student/athlete can “score” for them in their Athletic Conference to determine if they will make the roster and/or receive some sort of athletic scholarship funding.  Obviously, the faster they are, the more money they may receive.  We can look at CollegeSwimming.com, for example, and see if a swimmer’s current times could score in any particular conference as well as where her times would place her on a given college roster.  In this way, we can tell if the student has a realistic chance of competing for that college, or any college.

For “subjective” sports (soccer, softball, basketball, etc.) it’s a bit harder to determine whether an athlete could compete collegiately, as well as which NCAA Division she is best suited for.  This is done through a series of steps such as communicating to coaches, followed by sending video of her play, and participating in ID Camps and college showcases to get “exposure”.  As the student starts writing to coaches, she notes which college coaches are writing back with possible interest, which helps direct the search towards the best athletic fit (Division I, Division II or Division III or NAIA).  If no coaches write back, this is an answer as well.  For certain sports, it’s also telling if an athlete made their Varsity high school team freshman or sophomore year rather than in later years. 

While I don’t want to discourage student/athletes from pursuing their dream of playing collegiate athletics, it’s important to be realistic about their chances of competing at this extremely competitive next level. 

Six College-Related Tasks Juniors Should Complete Now

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on May 27, 2015.

Juniors, in a very short time you will be seniors! Before this school year ends there are a few tasks you should do so that make it easier for you to work on your college applications over the summer should you opt to do so.

1. Request an end-of-year transcript. You will need this over the summer to fill out your applications. Most schools send a report card rather than a transcript. Do whatever the steps are at your school to ensure you get a transcript. Most commonly they are available a week or two after school ends and you can get them from the school admin if your counselor will be off for the summer. You may need to fill out a request form. Please get a printed copy and then scan it and save it in case you misplace the printed version.

2. If you might play an NCAA sport in college (I’m not referring to intramurals) be sure to register with theNCAA Eligibility Center. In order for coaches to speak with you this summer (after July 1), you have to be registered and they must receive your end-of-junior-year transcript. Once you register, your school will get the transcript request and upload the transcript for you. This is not a step you have to do, but it is polite to ask your counselor or school admin to be on the lookout for the NCAA Eligibility request.

3. Be sure to fill out any paperwork your high school requests. Every high school is different. Some require you to complete forms for teacher recommendations now, and other schools do that process in the fall. Some schools want you to provide a resume of your activities, or want a rec letter from your parent or best friend. These personal letters will not be sent to colleges but your school counselor might use them to make the letter he/she writes more personal. Even if you are working with an independent counselor, you still must follow all the steps requested by your high school counselor.

4. If your school uses Naviance, it is really important for you to know how to login to your Naviance account. Be sure to find out and write it in a safe place (or email it to your parents) so that you have the info if you want to work on your applications this summer.

5. If you took the ACT or SAT through your school and the school registered you for the test (rather than registering yourself online) be sure to get your ACT or SAT login information. You will need it to check and send your scores. Once again, write it down and also send it to someone (like a parent) who won’t lose it, so that you can access the account if you need to this summer.

6. If your school does not have a formalized process for requesting teacher recommendation letters, decide which two junior teachers you want to ask, and make a verbal request before school gets out. Teachers tend to be swamped at the beginning of the school year. Some teachers much prefer to write recommendation letters over the summer when they have more free time and don’t have the day-to-day teaching and grading duties. Other teachers like to take a total break over the summer and are willing to spend evenings and weekend in the fall writing rec letters. By asking now, you give the teacher the option to do what he or she prefers. (Remember that a teacher may say “no “ to your request, and asking early gives you time to decide whom else you would like to ask instead.) For detailed info about teacher rec letter requests, see my prior column.

Sample College Update Communication

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on May 20, 2015.

In last week’s column I talked about sending thank you notes to the people who helped you throughout high school. I also suggested that college-bound seniors send an update to people at the end of each semester of college.  Melissa M., a student who is completing her freshman year at Pacific Lutheran University, graciously gave me permission to share the update I received from her this spring.

Hello!

Where do I start?

How about with the New Year? Happy 2015 everyone (we're 25% through the year already...whoa)! Spending time at home for Christmas and New Year’s was absolutely amazing. I got to see all of my best friends and celebrate with family. I spent one day at home/with family and then one day with friends. Then I came back to school.

PLU has something called J-Term, which is between Fall and Spring Semester, and is just the month of January. During J-Term students take 1 four credit course. I took “Business Financial Accounting” and it was really interesting. I learned a lot from my professor who is from Italy, and earned both his C.P.A and his J.D. Finding mentors this year has been one of favorite things. Not only have I connected with a lot of my professors, but I have also found advisors, staff, and older students who have helped make my first year of college eye opening.

Spring Semester started at the beginning of February. First I'll talk about my classes and then all of the awesome things I'm involved in!

I'm taking 17 credits this semester:

Microeconomics (4): I enjoy economics a lot and am trying to see if I can minor in it. My teacher is trying to convince me to be an econ major (I don't think that will happen), and nominated me for a 1st year economics scholarship that I was pleasantly surprised to receive! My professor also connected me to one of her former students who is now in law school and I have learned a lot by talking to her. 

Statistics (4): I have the same professor for stats as I do for econ and I love her. She has a very dry sense of humor and she makes me laugh almost every class. Also enjoying stats. It's a lot of equations and information but fun to manipulate data and figure out what it all means!

Intro to Business (4): As an intro level course we're just skimming the surface of many topics ranging from marketing to finance. I have really connected to my business professor. We both have curly hair and she’s given me hair tips and tricks (professors are good for more than solely academic questions)! And she has a super cute micro labradoodle that I sometimes take out and play with.

International Honors (4): Straight from my professor’s site: "This course examines innovative ideas and institutions from the Enlightenment to today that have shaped the contemporary world. Themes include scientific, political, artistic, and commercial revolutions; emerging concepts of justice and natural rights; capitalism and imperialism; the experience of war; narratives of progress and their critics; and globalization, sustainability, and the environment". We've read a variety of pieces ranging from Pride and Prejudice to passages from the Communist Manifesto. We talk a lot about modernity and how the idea of the individual has changed.

Personalized fitness and health (1): This was just the first half of the semester and was a required class. Had information about health and physical fitness. We mainly just worked out.

Now to what I've been involved in outside of class:

Lute Ambassadors: I am currently working for the Office of Admissions as a Lute Ambassador. I went through a rigorous selection process, but I think they saw my passion and excitement for the opportunity. After completing 30+ hours of training and passing 2 evaluations and a final presentation I finally got my second gold name badge and my t-shirts. I get to give tours, host students and have lunches with prospective students and their families. It's a wonderful job that plays right into my skill set.

ASPLU: I am still a senator for our student government. I am currently working on getting a program going to give students the opportunity to get coffee with their professors for free to give them a more social atmosphere to talk to their professors rather than having to go to their office hours. The idea is to increase communication (which is already pretty good) and allow more opportunities for students to get to know their professors. ASPLU is going through a lot of changes right now and I am putting in a lot of hours to help the organization reach its full potential.

Habitat for Humanity: I am on the council for Habitat for Humanity. I asked about potentially doing a little bit more with our campus chapter and the next thing I knew I was in the council meeting. We talk a lot about advocacy, fundraising, and expanding our chapter and of course still have build days. 

ELL: English Language Learners! Every Monday and Thursday night from 6:45-9:15 I teach English to adult Spanish speakers (and we recently acquired a Russian woman.--it's hard communicating with her sometimes). I really enjoy this, even though it is a big commitment. Our class is wonderful and I can't wait to do it again next year!

With it written down it doesn't look like much, but I can assure you I'm putting a lot of time into all of these wonderful programs and classes, and still having fun along the way! You might be able to tell how busy I am as I write this email at 3am...

I got to go home this past weekend and Pa visited! It was really fun being home and seeing Lilly flower, the cats and my mom and dad. I also got to see some of my best friends and have a Passover Seder dinner with my best friend Margot and her family. Then my roommate (and one of my closest friends, Shannon) came up on Easter and my dad made a wonderful breakfast and Pa, Uncle Bill and the two of us ventured up to PLU and they went on to visit Seattle.

Ok, finally, plans for the future:

Right now I'm pretty set on majoring in business and minoring in non-profit leadership (with the hopes of doubling minoring in econ as well). Here at PLU we talk a lot about vocation,--where your greatest passion meets the greatest needs of the world. This year I dove right in o volunteer work and I kept asking myself how that work would play into my future - in my career or just in my life in general. I started to think about how a passion in my life has always been to help as many people as possible. Combine that with my passion for law, connecting and working with other people, and my major and minor and you have a non-profit consultant/lawyer on your hands.

Now I'm looking for an internship for the summer. Just interviewed with a non-profit organization today (that would pay me). But I'm still looking into some law firms.

Hope to hear all of your news and what you've been up to!

Best,

Melissa 

I often tell students, that it is not where you go to college, but what you do when you get there, that will matter most in life. Melissa turned down several more “prestigious” colleges because she felt that PLU would be the best place for her. She has certainly taken advantage of opportunities to explore academics, build relationships and invest herself in the school and local community. I am confident that all of the people with whom she is communicating are thrilled to be “in the know”, feel invested in her success and will go out of their way to help her in the future!

Follow her example and make a commitment to communicate throughout your college years.

Thanks and Stay in Touch

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on May 13, 2015.

Hooray graduating seniors! In just a few more weeks you will be tossing that graduation cap in the air and moving on to the next phase of life. If you are headed to college in the fall, you didn’t get there on your own. A lot of people helped, and now is the time to say thanks.

Who should you thank? Here are some suggestions:

• All your high school teachers, with a special recognition to the ones that wrote you college recommendation letters 
• Your high school counselor
• Your athletic coach, choir director, robotics mentor—anyone who supported you in discovering your talents and interests throughout your high school years
• Your school administrators, including the secretaries who sent out your transcripts
• Your school support staff including the cafeteria workers and custodians
• Your boss at work or supervisor at a place where you did volunteer work
• Any tutors or test prep folks who helped you be academically successful
• Any organization that gave you a scholarship
• Your independent college counselor (if you used one)
• The friends who supported you throughout this crazy year and through all of your high school ups and downs
• Any adult mentor who has not been mentioned
• Your parents

Emails and verbal thanks are normally okay, but for this big moment I actually want you buy a pack of printed thank-you cards and hand write notes to people. In case you don’t have much practice at this, here is some advice, andhere are some phrases that are nice for teachers.

All of these people care about you. They were invested in your success and your heartfelt expression of gratitude will be deeply appreciated. Don’t be surprised if you visit years later and still see your card pinned on a teacher’s bulletin board.

Thank you notes are a short term assignment, and I am also going to suggest a long-term task. Make the effort to stay in touch with some of these people throughout your time in college (and perhaps beyond that.) For this purpose email is an excellent tool. Here’s the easiest way to update multiple people about your journey through college. Create a group contact list. Name it something easy to remember like “College Update List”.  At the end of each semester write a message that lets folks know what you have been up to. (Come back for next week’s column if you want to see a sample update from a student.)

In addition to being polite, staying in touch can have tangible benefits. One of my students included the local chapter of the Elks Club (which had given her a small scholarship) in her updates. Because the members were older and many did not have computers, she printed her update each semester and mailed it to the lodge, where it was promptly posted on the bulletin board by the entry. Last I heard, all eight of her updates were still posted (four years’ worth!) and donations to their scholarship fund increased during the years she was communicating. Another example is that when my daughter decided to apply for prestigious international fellowships for the years after her college graduation, she got a recommendation letter from a Spanish literature professor who had been her instructor while she was in high school and taking an enrichment class at Lewis & Clark College. He was able to write with confidence and provide specific examples of her achievement, because she had been regularly in touch with him during the intervening six years.

If you get in the habit of thanking people and being a good communicator, you will feel comfortable using this skill set in your career and throughout life.

Yield Rate and Demonstrated Interest

This article first appeared on GoLocalPDX.com on May 6, 2015.

When I worked in the advertising industry I hired many college graduates for their first full-time job. I always had multiple qualified applicants for each open job. What I discovered through experience was that the best workers were ultimately the people who wanted the job the most—they had a passion for advertising and were willing to do entry-level tasks to learn a lot and work their way up. I judged who wanted the job most based on the follow-up I received after the interview phase.

As a contracted application reader for a small, selective college I find myself in a similar situation. There are way more fantastically qualified applicants than spots in our freshman class. I want to offer admission to all of them, but I can’t, and therefore spend a lot of time trying to determine which applicants want to be there the most. Who really understands our mission, our hands-on curriculum and would prefer what we offer over any other college option? Many students profess that the school is their first choice, but they could be saying that on every application. 

The percentage of accepted students who actually enroll at a given college is known as the “yield rate”. May 1 was the date by which current seniors needed to notify the colleges that accepted them whether or not they will attend. Since an individual student can only attend one school, if that student was offered admission at six places, he or she will help increase one school’s yield rate, but be bad for the yield rate of the other five schools. This week every school is scrambling to deal with the numbers. Schools that did not hit their enrollment targets are contacting students on the wait list to offer a spot. Schools that over-enrolled are scrambling to figure out how they will accommodate the extra students in the dorms and classrooms.

Colleges used to be able to predict their yield rate with a narrow margin of error. Since the rise of online applications and vehicles like the Common Application which make it simpler for a student to apply to more schools, yield rates have become far less predictable. April is the highest stress month for admissions teams as they wait to see how the deposits come in.

Why do colleges care so much about their yield rate? A big part of the answer is financial. The cost of maintaining the facilities and paying salaries does not fluctuate much based on enrollment. Colleges need a targeted number of students in order to be financially viable. We are in a moderate downturn in terms of the number of high school graduates, so those demographics mean fewer college students overall. Over the past few years many excellent colleges have not met their enrollment goals, which puts strain on the budget. In addition, yield rate is one factor that is counted in the US News &World Report rankings. Schools can move up in the rankings by having a higher yield rate and a lower acceptance rate. Since rankings have a correlation with both the number of future applicants and with alumni donations, colleges care a lot about them.

One way that colleges try to predict a student’s likelihood to attend is by tracking “demonstrated interest”. Although not all colleges do this, it is a growing trend in admissions. According to the NACAC 2011 “Factors in the Admissions Decision” report and the Chronicle of Higher Education report on “The Dynamics of Demonstrated Interest” a total of 50.2% of all colleges consider demonstrated interest to be of “Considerable Importance” or “Moderate Importance” when making admissions decisions.

Demonstrated interest refers to the interactions initiated by college applicants with colleges they apply to. These might interactions include:

• Requesting information 
• Responding to recruitment materials
• Interacting with the school on social media (follow or friend)
• Contacting the admissions office or local admissions representative
• Contacting a professor or athletic coach at the school
• Attending college fairs and visiting that school’s booth (scan your bar code)
• Registering and attending informational presentations when school reps travel to your city or visit your high school
• Visiting the school and taking a campus tour and attending an info session
• Requesting an overnight visit 
• Participating in an on-campus, virtual or alumni interview 
• Writing thoughtful and well-researched  supplemental essays (especially the “Why this college?” essay) 
• Applying before any deadline dates
• Applying early action, restrictive early action or early decision
• Applying for anything like Honors College or special scholarships that require extra effort
• Sending (handwritten) thank you notes

Here’s one way to look up whether or not a college considers demonstrated interest. Go to collegedata.com. Type the name of the school in the search bar. Click on the school name in the results. Click on the “Admission” tab. Scroll down to the heading “Selection of Students”. Look at the line “Level of Applicant’s Interest” in order to understand whether or not demonstrated interest is a factor at that school.