College Application Mistakes You Should Avoid

College Application Mistakes You Should Avoid I met with Jeremy Spencer, former Director of Admissions at Alfred University, and asked him what he sees as the most common blunders made by college applicants. Below are six mistakes he encounters frequently. 1. Missing Deadlines The college admissions process is filled with deadlines, and missing a deadline can mean a rejection letter or lost financial aid. A typical college applicant has dozens of dates to remember: Application deadlines which vary from school to schoolEarly action and early decision deadlines, if applicableInstitutional financial aid deadlinesFederal financial aid deadlinesState financial aid deadlinesScholarship deadlines Realize that some colleges will accept applications after the deadline if they have not yet filled their new class. However, financial aid may be much harder to obtain late in the application process. (Learn more about senior year deadlines.) 2. Applying for Early Decision When It’s Not the Right Choice Students who apply to a college through Early Decision typically must sign a contract stating that they are applying to just the one college early. Early Decision is a restricted admissions process, so it is not a good choice for students who aren’t really sure that the Early Decision school is their first choice. Some students apply through Early Decision because they think it will improve their chance of admission, but in the process they end up restricting their options. Also, if students violate their contract and apply to more than one college through Early Decision, they run the risk of being removed from the applicant pool for misleading the institution. While this is not the policy at Alfred University, some colleges share their Early Decision applicant lists to make sure students haven’t applied to multiple schools through Early Decision. (Learn about the difference between early decision and early action.) 3. Using the Wrong College Name in an Application Essay Understandably, many college applicants write a single admissions essay and then change the name of the college for different applications. Applicants need to make sure the college name is correct everywhere it appears. The admissions officers will not be impressed if an applicant begins by discussing how much she really wants to go to Alfred University, but the last sentence says, â€Å"R.I.T. is the best choice for me.† Mail merge and global replace can’t be relied on 100% applicants need to reread each application carefully, and they should have someone else proofread as well. (Learn more tips for the application essay.) 4. Applying to a College Online Without Telling School Counselors The Common Application and other online options make it easier than ever to apply to colleges. Many students, however, make the mistake of submitting applications online without notifying their high school guidance counselors. Counselors play an important role in the application process, so leaving them out of the loop can lead to several problems: High school transcripts are delayed or never get mailedLetters of recommendation from teachers are delayed or never get sentThe college admissions decision process becomes inefficient and delayedApplications end up being incomplete because the counselor can’t follow up with the colleges 5. Waiting too Long to Ask for Letters of Recommendation Applicants who wait until the last minute to ask for letters of recommendation run the risk that the letters will be late, or they will not be thorough and thoughtful. To get good letters of recommendation, applicants should identify teachers early, talk with them, and give them as much information as possible about each program to which they are applying. This allows teachers to craft letters that match an applicant’s particular strengths with specific college programs. Letters written at the last minute rarely contain this type of useful specificity. (Learn more about getting good letters of recommendation.) 6. Failing to Limit Parents’ Involvement Students need to self-advocate during the admissions process. The college is admitting the student, not the student’s mom or dad. It’s the student who needs to build a relationship with the college, not the parents. Helicopter parentsthose who constantly hoverend up doing a disservice to their children. Students need to manage their own affairs once they get to college, so the admissions staff wants to see evidence of this self-sufficiency during the application process. While parents should certainly be involved in the college admissions process, the student needs to make the connections with the school and complete the application. Jeremy Spencer’s Bio: Jeremy Spencer served as the Director of Admissions at Alfred University from 2005 to 2010. Prior to AU, Jeremy served as the Director of Admissions at Saint Joseph’s College (IN) and various admissions level positions at Lycoming College (PA) and Miami University (OH). At Alfred, Jeremy was responsible for both the undergraduate and graduate admissions process and supervised 14 professional admissions staff. Jeremy earned his BA degree (Biology and Psychology) at Lycoming College and his MS degree (College Student Personnel) at Miami University.

Definition of Sharecropping

Definition of Sharecropping Sharecropping was a system of agriculture instituted in the American South during the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. It essentially replaced the plantation system which had relied on slave labor and effectively created a new system of bondage. Under the system of sharecropping, a poor farmer who did not own land would work a plot belonging to a landowner. The farmer would receive a share of the harvest as payment. So while the former slave was technically free, he would still find himself bound to the land, which was often the very same land he had farmed while enslaved. And in practice, the newly freed slave faced a life of extremely limited economic opportunity. Generally speaking, sharecropping doomed freed slaves to a life of poverty. And the system of sharecropping, in actual practice, doomed generations of American in the South to an impoverished existence in an economically stunted region. Beginning of the Sharecropping System Following the elimination of slavery, the plantation system in the South could no longer exist. Landowners, such as cotton planters who had owned vast plantations, had to face a new economic reality. They may have owned vast amounts of land, but they did not have the labor to work it, and they did not have the money to hire farm workers. The millions of freed slaves also had to face a new way of life. Though freed from bondage, they had to cope with numerous problems in the post-slavery economy. Many freed slaves were illiterate, and all they knew was farm work. And they were unfamiliar with the concept of working for wages. Indeed, with freedom, many former slaves aspired to become independent farmers owning land. And such aspirations were fueled by rumors that the U.S. government would help them get a start as farmers with a promise of forty acres and a mule. In reality, former slaves were seldom able to establish themselves as independent farmers. And as plantation owners broke up their estates into smaller farms, many former slaves became sharecroppers on the land of their former masters. How Sharecropping Worked In a typical situation, a landowner would supply a farmer and his family with a house, which may have been a shack previously used as a slave cabin. The landowner would also supply seeds, farming tools, and other necessary materials. The cost of such items would later be deducted from anything the farmer earned. Much of the farming done as sharecropping was essentially the same type of labor-intensive cotton farming which had been done under slavery. At harvest time, the crop was taken by the landowner to market and sold. From the money received, the landowner would first deduct the cost of seeds and any other supplies. The proceeds of what was left would be split between the landowner and the farmer. In a typical scenario, the farmer would receive half, though sometimes the share given to the farmer would be less. In such a situation, the farmer, or sharecropper, was essentially powerless. And if the harvest was bad, the sharecropper could actually wind up in debt to the landowner. Such debts were virtually impossible to overcome, so sharecropping often created situations where farmers were locked into a life of poverty. Sharecropping is thus often known as slavery by another name, or debt slavery. Some sharecroppers, if they had successful harvests and managed to accumulate enough cash, could become tenant farmers, which was considered a higher status. A tenant farmer rented land from a landowner and had more control over how the management of his farming. However, tenant farmers also tended to be mired in poverty. Economic Effects of Sharecropping While the sharecropping system arose from the devastation following the Civil War and was a response to an urgent situation, it became a permanent situation in the South. And over the span of decades, it was not beneficial for southern agriculture. One negative effect of sharecropping was that it tended to create a one-crop economy. Landowners tended to want sharecroppers to plant and harvest cotton, as that was the crop with the most value, and the lack of crop rotation tended to exhaust the soil. There were also severe economic problems as the price of cotton fluctuated. Very good profits could be made in cotton if the conditions and weather were favorable. But it tended to be speculative. By the end of the 19th century, the price of cotton had dropped considerably. In 1866 cotton prices were in the range of 43 cents a pound, and by the 1880s and 1890s, it never went above 10 cents a pound. At the same time that the price of cotton was dropping, farms in the South were being carved up into smaller and smaller plots. All these conditions contributed to widespread poverty. And for most freed slaves, the system of sharecropping and the resulting poverty meant their dream of operating their own farm could never be achieved. The system of sharecropping endured beyond the late 1800s. For the early decades of the 20th century it was still in effect in parts of the American South. The cycle of economic misery created by sharecropping did not fully fade away the era of the Great Depression. Sources: Sharecropping.  Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, edited by Thomas Carson and Mary Bonk, vol. 2, Gale, 2000, pp. 912-913.  Gale Virtual Reference Library. Hyde, Samuel C., Jr. Sharecropping and Tenant Farming.  Americans at War, edited by John P. Resch, vol. 2: 1816-1900, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 156-157.  Gale Virtual Reference Library.