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May 2008
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A Message from the College Advisor
It has been a bizarre year in the college admission process for Key School. This was the year touted as the most competitive, the acme of the baby boom that has been one of the driving forces behind the ever-shrinking admit rate in the most selective colleges and universities. In light of this, we all fastened our seatbelts and prepared for a turbulent ride. Indeed, the first news that we received was that early applications at Georgetown University and The University of Chicago were up 30%. Instead of gloom and doom, though, we have had one of our best years in memory, albeit from a highly talented Class. Who would have thought, for example, that Washington University in St. Louis would have accepted five of our applicants? Or that the University of Vermont would have taken ten? We also were honored by the fact that one of our seniors was awarded a Jefferson Scholarship at the University of Virginia (a “free ride” for all four years), one of only thirty five such awards each year. This year also saw a steady growth in the number of institutions offering January admission (lots of empty beds due to study abroad programs) and at least two members of the Class have opted to work or do an internship next fall prior to beginning their undergraduate experience in the second semester. Of course, some Key School traditions endure. We continue to see our young women enroll in some of the country’s finest women’s colleges. Our seniors also continue to exhibit little fear about casting their geographical nets broadly, in the case of this year, from California to Scotland.
Like most graduating seniors nationwide, most of the Class will have checked off on their applications the most popular major, undecided. There is, though, a group each year that wants engineering or related fields and this shapes its college search. Probably six or eight members of the Class of 2008 are in this category, including one headed for biomedical engineering. Another is considering a Physics/Philosophy double major option. Yet another student actually conducted her college search on the strengths of each institution’s biology and fine arts departments, also with a view to doing a double major. Last year, five students opted for engineering. This reminds me of a student a few years ago who, during his undergraduate years as a chemical engineer at Cornell, proudly informed me that he had a summer internship with Kraft Foods, something that I did not want to contemplate for very long! When last heard from he was in the oil business in Siberia. Back to the present. Many of the Class of 2008, like its predecessors, will end up with humanities, social science or foreign language majors. Perhaps they will follow in the footsteps of two members of the alumni from the 1990s, each a recently-minted PhD, each in academe as a tenure-track professor, one in sociology, the other in Chinese. First things first, though. The national notification date (the day when students must tell colleges if they are matriculating) is May 1st and we will publish a matriculation list shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, for those of you for whom the college process awaits, take succor from the fact that the feeding frenzy that currently seems to define the admission process in the most selective institutions should gradually ease (relatively!) in the coming years.
Paul Stoneham
Click here to view list of college acceptances for the Class of 2008.
