Making Ideas Visible

Students have demonstrated to me many times that they understand and accept they can't fully control any college outcome. But they still want to know – where is the risk in their application plan?

In answering this, I ask them to consider the “college list” as a matrix.

The beginning idea is that there are four broad factors to be considered in developing a list. Further, there are multiple dimensions for each of those factors. [Here, the dimensions are scored 1-4, with 1 indicating lowest risk/greatest fit. I'll unravel this aspect in another post.]

Each of these four factors are necessary but not sufficient for understanding the "risk" of including a given institution on the student's list. Instead, all four factors should be considered simultaneously against each institution and the collective set of institutions.

Then, if we put everything together in one space, the result could be something like this: a warm-to-cool heatmap, with orange indicating more “risk” and blue indicating more health (less risk)...both for a given institution AND for the overall set of institutions. In short, we can visualize and assess the overall health + risk of a student’s proposed application strategy.

--------

Back to the opening question – where is the risk?

Does the risk lie with student fit (or family fit)? The timing of decisions? Admissibility? Does the type of risk differ depending on the institution? And might that risk change over time? (Yes, yes, and yes)

I love watching students interact with this framework. They quickly learn where they have decision and action control, and where they don’t. They understand what information they need to gather and assess to act in an informed and values-aligned way. Students also realize how dynamic this process is, that a change in family circumstances or their own preferences (or college policies!) can alter the overall risk present in their initial options.

Great conversations emerge, such as –

…when a student’s stated preferences don’t seem to match how they’re rating colleges

…when student and family ratings for a given institution are not in alignment

…when, for example, institutions change their EA response timelines from December to January (!!)

…whether student and family choices match their personal tolerance for risk

…whether “balanced” and "list" are still the best terms to be using [again, this will be another post, but I'm advocating for "application strategy" and "healthy" (or less so)].

Crucially, students get that there does not have to be a (false) tradeoff between “finding fit” and making choices with strategic awareness of the admissions landscape – there is a role for both.

In my experience, once students have that understanding, they face the process with less fear and more intention.

And that I see as very joyful.

Stay tuned –

Beth

Rosecliff College Consulting, LLC