As Rivermont students begin a new year, they will see small but significant changes in the college application process. Some are straight forward such as fine tunings of the Common Application (this month seniors will be offered a mini course workshop in the Common Application). Other changes are less easily grasped: the waxing and waning of college admission’s philosophical views of what constitutes an ideal curricular background for applicants. See what I mean? What philosophical views? Currently, two areas are under scrutiny: Advanced Placement courses and PreMedicine preparation.
Many believe that the best avenue to medical school acceptance lies in taking as many hard science courses as possible, to the detriment of humanities courses. Rivermont Collegiate, however, continues to believe students ought not to be lopsided; an education for any field is a well rounded education and a preparation for life. Colleges and universities may be poised to act on a long held debate over “whether pre-med courses and admission tests produce doctors who know their alkyl halides but lack the sense of mission and interpersonal skills to become well-rounded, caring, inquisitive healers.”
A recent study compared the “outcomes for 85 students in the Humanities and Medicine Program with those of 606 traditionally prepared classmates from the graduating classes of 2004 through 2009, and found that their academic performance in medical school was equivalent.”
This study was conducted by Humanities and Medicine Program at the Mount Sinai which since 1987 has guaranteed a small number of students a place in med school (skipping the MCAT) if they took a humanities based program. Will this new study result in colleges and universities following suit and making changes in admissions? I will keep you posted.
Getting Into Med School Without Hard Sciences
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
New York Times: July 29, 2010
The trend continues: Many highly competitive colleges are eliminating all student loans for family incomes of less than $60,000 and reduce loans by half for family income between $60,000 and $75,000 as well as offer increased reductions for family income up to $150,000. Students with demonstrated need and family income in these ranges will receive grants or scholarships instead of loans. Many schools are just coming online with these changes in financial assistance, so be sure to check the financial aid office of each college or university.
You may not have to worry about trying to figure out what all the early admission (early action, early decision, etc.) possibilities mean. There is a trend developing and that trend is to drop all of these programs. This fall, for instance, Harvard University has eliminated its early admission program and will have only one application deadline, January 1, for students applying for Fall 2008. Harvard “believing that the college admissions process has become too pressured and too complex” hopes that the single admission format will be fairer as well as simpler.
Early admission with its early application deadlines, does put students into a more competitive application pool and frequently a college will not review an application in their general application pool if it has been turned down in its early action or early decision pool. If your son or daughter is considering an early decision or early action application, be sure to talk with me.
Harvard further urges applicants to use the Common Application and submit by Dec 1 if possible; however; students “will not be penalized in any way” for submitting later in December. The Common Application is used by over 300 colleges and schools, and these schools accept the Common Application without prejudice over their own application. A few schools accept nothing but the Common Application, and this is a second trend that is developing. Using the Common Application makes the application process easier because only one application need be filled out to apply to any number of these colleges or universities.www.commonapp.com has a list of these schools as well as a listing of any supplements that the college requires.