Improve your chances of getting into college,

The best two tips I give to all of my families when they head out to visit campuses are the following:

(1) Make time while you're there to talk to students who don't work for the admission office. Head over to the dining hall, the student union, or even the library and strike up a conversation with students you meet there. They are far more likely to give you a REAL take on their college experience - and if it's a positive one, you can be that much more excited about the school!

(2) Never leave campus without the contact information for at least ONE person whom you can call or email later with the questions that will inevitably come up. It might be your admission counselor or a faculty member or a program director you spoke with - just make sure that you have a way to get back in touch at a later date or when you set up a return visit. (And don't hesitate to send that person - or people! - a thank you note when you get home. They'll no doubt remember you later if you go that extra mile!)

I have visited some of the top women's colleges in the country and always had a tremendous experience. As a woman myself, I normally come away from the visit with a real sense of empowerment - which is the sort of environment that all of these campuses seek to foster. And clearly it works!

Women's colleges are not, however, cloisters or regimented institutions where men are bashed and suffrage is taught as a part of each course. In fact, there seems to be more self-awareness and confidence in the young women I've met during my campus tours and none of them complain about a lack of a social life or restrictions on dating. In fact, they seem to have more active social lives than some other students I've encountered! In fact, I often find myself forgetting that I'm on a women's college campus until halfway through the tour when either a guide mentions something pertaining to that fact or I scan a room and suddenly realize that there aren't any male students around.

For students who are skeptical about women's colleges or feel that they might be too restrictive, I encourage them to sign up and take a tour at one just to see how they feel once they're on campus. While you're there, you'll also learn that most women's colleges have relationships with nearby co-ed schools as a general rule - and many have exchange programs where male students can take some classes there and the female students can travel from the women's college to the other school to take classes there. Mount Holyoke and Smith, notably, are part of the Five Colleges Consortium that allows their female students to take co-ed classes at nearby Hampshire, U Mass Amherst, or Amherst and allows male students to attend classes on their campuses if they choose.

The most common myth about the admission process is that admission officers are looking for reasons to DENY students. That is categorically NOT true.

Yes, students are denied from colleges and universities each year, but applicants need to realize that the decision is never a personal one. Admission counselors take their jobs very seriously and spend long hours poring over files, essays, and transcripts in an effort to admit those students who are the very best fit for their school or for a particular program. After they spend that amount of time getting to know students' hopes, dreams, and histories, it's often a gutwrenching moment when they discover that they have to deny one in order to admit a different student who will be a better fit.

At the end of the day, colleges and the staff in the admission office must juggle a lot of issues when they build their freshman class each year - maybe the biology department needs a lot of students to fill their classes but the music department only has a few select seats remaining in their conservatory program. Meanwhile, the football team needs defensive lineman but the women's soccer team has three goalies and can't carry any more on the roster. Admission officers must take all of this into account when they open those application files each fall and, unfortunately, admitting every qualified student just isn't practical.

I feel like if I answer this question, I'm giving away trade secrets - but here goes!

Admission offices differ from school to school (obviously), but for the most part, because admission counselors tend to be young and often recently graduated from college themselves, there's a real air of lightness and fun to be found inside. This light atmosphere is also necessary to keep stress levels low, as most admission counselors spend the months of September, October, and November traveling to college fairs and high school visits in their respective territories (essentially living out of suitcases and very rarely seeing family and friends), then end up spending long hours in their offices during application reading season and then in the spring when financial aid is being awarded. I never worked harder than when I was an admission counselor - but I never laughed harder with my coworkers either!

For great teacher recommendations, students need to engage in two types of planning: the first is planning AHEAD. The most popular teachers are normally bombarded with requests for letters from college-bound seniors on the first day of school each fall and, while they'll probably say yes to as many students as they can, when they're writing so many letters in such a short period of time, the quality of the writing and the specific information that they're able to recall and share (the very same information that will give admission officers a great picture of how students will fit into their university!) will be limited.

The second type of planning is planning WHO will be asked. I always tell students to be aware of what, specifically, a teacher is most likely to say about them, e.g. that you had a remarkable breakthrough in their math class as a sophomore and it changed your outlook on the subject or that you are always the first to raise your hand and ask a really in-depth question in your history class. You never want to ask a teacher to write about you when there's even the most remote possiblity that he or she would have anything negative to say because you won't get a chance for rebuttal with the admission office - and, in fact, you probably won't ever get to see the letter to know what was said in the first place!

I'm going to be honest here: I didn't read every essay that came across my desk when I was an admission counselor. (And I would now like to apologize to those students I skipped over.)

But here's the deal:

Great essays get read. Admission counselors can't help themselves. Great essays pull them in like great novels and when a student is really showcasing their talent as a writer and their character as a potential part of the college/university community, that's always worth a few extra moments of reading time. (I once had a student explain how she single-handedly saved a summer camp. Seriously!)

Good essays get read too - though sometimes they get skimmed a bit for content. It isn't that these essays aren't valuable - they are and they give admission counselors the same useful insight that great essays do (especially in terms of the student who shows a lot of raw talent but who also needs some polishing - like, for example, at that admission officer's college), but they just aren't as entrancing as great essays.

Weak essays get skimmed. If a student's essay isn't great OR good, the admission officer will probably just skim past the essay and move right on to your transcript and your test scores to evaluate your candidacy for admission.

Bad essays don't get read. Period. A bad essay will prompt an admission officer to assume one of two things: 1) either you don't care enough about your future at their school to take the time to write a good essay or 2) you aren't academically up to attending their college or university. Neither of those assumptions will help you get admitted.

Every admission office is different - and most times, your essay will have the opportunity to be read by at least two - and sometimes three or four! - people. And in the majority of cases, those people will be using your writing to determine the strength of your candidacy for admission to their institution, so that's why it's crucial to take the time to do it right. Trust me, at a time of year when admission officers are faced with piles and piles (and PILES!) of application files (digital or otherwise) and students are clamoring for admission, the best gift they can receive is that of a tremendous essay - so give them a great reason to tune in and read it all the way through!

It is certainly okay for parents to help edit their child's essay - with the key word in that sentence being EDIT. They can help catch spelling or punctuation mistakes or help a student better clarify an idea that isn't fully fleshed out in the early draft.

It is NOT okay for parents to WRITE their child's essay or influence it unduly, however. (PS - This is probably where I should mention that nearly every admission officer I know can spot a parent-written essay a mile away - and that it isn't looked upon favorably in the admission process.)

The main thing that parents need to remember is that their student is 17 or 18 years old. He or she isn't a full-fledged literary genius (in most cases) and the admission officers who read the essays are well aware of this. They are okay with thoughts and phrasing that sounds like it's come from a teenager; they understand that not all of the ideas will be fully formed. But the main idea behind any essay is that it should reveal something of the writer's (in this case, the student's) character and parents can easily hinder that process if they edit too much.

Authenticity! Your essay has to be a true revelation of some facet of YOU - whether it's your character, how you will contribute to the college/university community, or what your future goals and aspirations are and how a particular school can help you achieve them. (In rare cases, a truly great essay can accomplish all three!)

The main trap that most students fall into is responding to the essay prompt in a way that doesn't make the essay applicable to themselves. (For example, an essay about a student's hero might elicit a response that names his or her grandfather as that hero - and then the essay ends up telling more about Grandpa than about the student him/herself.). I always tell my students that there's no time to be humble or shy in an essay - instead, be more self-centered and make it all about you, just this once!

The majority of college-bound athletes are truly passionate about their sport - they've put the time in during their high school careers and they are definite about wanting to move that experience to the college level. Luckily for them, that's EXACTLY the type of enthusiasm, dedication, leadership, and outside of the classroom information that admission officers are hoping to learn from their applications!

Bottom line: Sports are said to be character-building and colleges and universities don't want to admit only students who study and get good grades; instead, they want students who have skills that have been acquired outside of the classroom. The lessons learned on the playing field are invaluable and students who can demonstrate in their application how they have been shaped by those experiences are going to be more admissable than their less active counterparts.

No matter what sport you play or what type of intercollegiate athletic program you become a part of (NCAA Division I, II, or III or the NAIA, etc.), you need to know that the level of intensity and the level of commitment required increases significantly when you reach the college level. Whereas many students are able to be two and even three sport athletes in high school, college often requires you to commit to just one because that program (and that coach) will have certain requirements for your fitness, your training and focus, and also (very importantly!) on your academics as well. (Without scaring anyone away, the simplest terms I can put it into is to say that, as an intercollegiate athlete, your program owns you.)

For the majority of college athletes, however, this is exactly what you're hoping to find when you graduate to the collegiate level, so it's exciting to become a part of it. That's where the focus on your academics has to factor in as a major component, because you won't get to play if you're failing in the classroom. So remember that you are first a STUDENT, then an ATHLETE - and have fun out there!

For equestrian athletes, the recruitment process can really vary widely depending on the school and the program. The best thing prospective collegiate equestrians can do is to investigate their potential schools for their academic program FIRST (because you'll need to go to classes too while you're there!) and then, once you've identified several that look like they'll be a good fit, investigate their equestrian program/teams.

For equestrian teams that are student-run as a campus club or organization, the easiest way to track down the information (if it isn't readily available on the school web site) is to do a quick Google search for "Specific Universty Equestrian," which will either lead you to a club web or Facebook page or the riding facility where the team trains. From there, you can contact either the student team captain or the coach directly and ask him or her about the recruitment process, team tryouts, etc.

Most homeschooled students have a wide variety of outside activities that they participate in, whether it be volunteer work, recreational sports, or extensive travel - and those are the exact things that admission officers need to know about! Students enrolled in traditional schools have activities available at their fingertips, but students with a homeschool background have to work a little harder to seek activities and opportunities that will fit their interests. The fact that homeschoolers must - and usually DO! - go the extra mile to participate in things that interest them shows the exact kind of dedication and commitment level that looks great on a college application. As long as they're able to communicate this to the admission committee, they'll stand out just fine!

The short answer on this one (unfortunately) is, "It depends."

There are a lot of great colleges out there that don't have great web sites. They aren't intuitive or navigable, they lack a lot of interactivity for you as a user, and/or they don't give a very warm, open feel to the entire school. (Alternatively, they're just bare and boring.)

This is where the importance of the campus visit comes in - and I can't stress that enough! Actually GOING to a campus, actually walking around and meeting people and experiencing those activities that you will participate in every day as a college student if you decide to attend that institution are going to be FAR more valuable than dry facts and figures (and even tons of great photos!) on a web site.

That said, however, if you aren't able to get to campus for one reason or another (maybe you're a California student with a strong interest in the University of Michigan but it's just too far to fly there and the cost is prohibitive), a good web site is the only thing that will help you gain that sense of what a college is truly all about. Most colleges are VERY mindful of this, but others seem to have missed the boat. It's up to you as the prospective student to do your homework and get to know the school using a variety of methods - and the web site is only one component of that.

The bottom line is that you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover - even if it's the only thing you have to go by.