Vanderbilt University

Juniors, as you meet with your counselor to select your classes for next year, keep in mind that what colleges want to see are students whose course of study is characterized by appropriate challenge and rigor.

So what does that mean?

It means that colleges want to see evidence in your courses that you are willing to stretch intellectually and academically in the core areas of the curriculum -- science, math, English, social studies and foreign language -- and that your choice of classes demonstrates a pattern of increasing difficulty. For example, if a student wants to study science, she would take progressively more demanding courses in that core area. This is an important signal for college admission officers. In fact, one report found that taking progressively more difficult and higher- level courses increased an applicant’s chance of being accepted at a competitive college— more so than a higher grade point average.

Here's what Douglas Christiansen, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions at Vanderbilt University, has to say about what challenge and rigor mean:

In our continuing series on the new changes to the Common Application, Douglas L. Christiansen,  Vanderbilt University's vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions, joins us today to share his thoughts about the role of the essay in the admission decision as well as the impact of the new essay prompts and length limits.

What are your thoughts about the new Common Application prompts?

The Common Application’s new prompts were devised after months (indeed, years) of input from member institutions. To that end, I am confident that the prompts contain wisdom from colleagues who collectively have read hundreds of thousands of college essays. The array of topics is deliberately broad, in order to appeal to as wide a range of college-going seniors as possible. Each topic asks the student to hone in on one area of their experience and let the admissions officer get to know them through this particular experience. The new prompts are meant to elicit stories full of interesting details and experiences and  I am looking forward to reading these essays. I believe the prompts will help applicants write more personal stories, allowing my colleagues to get to know many applicants a little bit better than they might have been able to in the past.

OWL, the Purdue Online Writing Lab, is featuring excellent advice on the college essay from some of our good friends. Check out the post here -- for commentary on the essay and how colleges view this step in the application from Vanderbilt's Doug Christiansen, Caltech's Jarrid Whitney, and University of Chicago's Jim Nondorf, as well as undergraduate admission deans from University of Arizona, Rutgers, and University of Illinois.

More advice from current college juniors and seniors, as well as recent graduates, about creating a list of schools where you will apply. Take advantage of the 20/20 hindsight of these students and recent grads about what they learned after they arrived on campus.

Lauren Buchanan, from Los Altos Hills, California, now attending Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA, addresses the basics and notes that the "culture" of a school includes things like the laundry facilities!

The best thing you can do in creating a list of colleges is to diversify: small or big, stretch school or safety, etc. It is important to have a wide range to choose from so that you can be absolutely certain you choose the right place.