The College Admissions Scoop: The Complexity of College Admissions

By Marilyn G.S. Emerson, M.S.W., CEP

Every morning on my business facebook page I post links to articles related to college and graduate school admissions.  This week one of the posts linked to a report from the College Board Advocacy and Policy Center on Parent and Research Perceptions of Complexity in College Admission.  The first phase of their research shows that while students, parents and guidance counselors may complain that the decision process is not transparent, most found the college application process to be fairly easy to understand and only moderately stressful if a student applied to four colleges or less.  The research also showed that the more schools a student applied to the more complex the application process became.  This was particularly true if the schools were private rather than public.

Given the small number of surveys used for the study, what I take away from the research is the need for accurate information that gives parents and students a better understanding of the college admission and college decision process.