PSAT 2016

Yesterday, 11th grade students that took the PSAT in October got back a copy of their score along with their test booklet. This was the first year in recent memory where the PSAT was not paid for by the DOE and offered on a school day, so it was a little bit unique in that students had to actively sign up and come in on a Saturday to sit for the exam.

This PSAT is a redesigned PSAT (the second year of this new format) and it was out of 1520 points. As I shared with the students yesterday, no one at ElRo got a 1520 this year so everyone has room for improvement.

The mean score at ElRo this year for the PSAT was a 1220. For context, the mean score for all NYCDOE schools was a 986 and the mean score in New York State was a 1022. The College Board has not published a national mean at this time, but in general the 50th percentile looks to be about a 1030.

The exam has two sections - Evidence Based Reading and Writing and Math. Each section is out of 760 points.

No college can see the PSAT scores and they play no role in college admission. The only thing the score officially counts for is the National Merit Scholarship - a program we usually see 1 ElRo student per year qualify for.

The real use of the PSAT score is to help determine if the student is better in the SAT or the ACT. We are holding a mock ACT here at ElRo this weekend, but there are also online tests and alternative in person practice exams offered throughout the city. Use this concordance table to compare PSAT scores to ACT scores. 

The point is to take a snapshot of the student's raw ability and see if there is an advantage to using one test over the other. Many students are even on both, and for them you just pick the test you like better.

I recommend taking the 'real' SAT or ACT two times total. At least one of those times needs to be during junior year. But, some students like to study over the summer and take their second administration the first offering of senior year. Every student is unique and should follow the testing plan that works best for them.

Note: This year the DOE is paying for all students to take a real SAT in school on April 5th. This exam will not include the optional writing section. If you are an 'ACT Kid' don't worry, this exam is not sent to colleges unless you specifically want it to be-- your score will not impact your college applications unless you want it to be seen.

If you are a junior looking to take a Kaplan group class at ElRo in the spring in preparation for the March/April SAT or April ACT, use this link to register. Classes are dependent on meeting minimum enrollment, so sign up now if you are interested.

If you have additional questions about standardized testing, be sure to save the date for the 'Demystifying Standardized Testing' evening event on January 19 at 6:00 pm here at ElRo.

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When you say 2 weeks, does that mean . . . .

The very first assemblies of the school year this year, I shared with seniors that our school policy is that you need to meet with me prior to submitting applications and that you should build in about two weeks of processing time for your school documents after you submit a transcript request form.

I gave this advanced notice and I include these instructions, in writing, on the transcript request form because I want to be crystal clear about what I'm able to guarantee to you as your college counselor.

Let's break it down:

Why do you want to meet first before I press submit?

• I want to meet with you before you press submit for a few reasons. The most important one is I want to make sure that if there are any tips that I can share that will improve your application, you have time to make those changes prior to sending in the app. I also talk with you about things like if you are getting an Advanced Regents Diploma, if you press submit without touching base with me you might miss out in remembering to include things that will strengthen your application. 
• I also want you to use your time and resources to maximize your college outcomes. I want you to be able to reflect on the advice I give during your meeting so that if you need to cut a school or add a different one you can without having paid for applications you end up not wanting. 

Why can't I give you a transcript request form before I have applied?

• There are 146 of you and 1 of me. I encourage 10 apps or less, but some of you don't take that advice. Long story short, the amount of time I have does not correlate super well to the amount of tasks I need to do. In an average week in the fall, I'm working about 20 additional hours on top of the 40 that I get paid for, in order to make the college office run smoothly. This is not a complaint. I love my job. I share this so you can understand the context. It is because of this that I need to work efficiently. That means I need to know that if I send in a transcript for you, it is going to a real app that already exists. Teens have a habit of changing their minds, I don't have the ability to do work for apps that don't already have active files at the college. 
• I also ask you to attach proof that you've applied because I'm trying to protect you. Even with this system, we once had a student who forgot to submit a supplement and didn't realize it until March. That meant that student's app was incomplete and they were not longer able to be considered for admission at that school. There are a lot of things to organize in this process, I want to force you to verify that you've applied so you can prevent silly mistakes (like forgetting to actually apply) from happening.  
• The final reason I ask for the application to be submitted before requesting the transcript to be sent is that I'm trying to look out for you and your application file. I've worked at a college before. The number of documents looking to be matched with files is mind boggling. When you send a document for a student who doesn't have an application it has no where to go once it arrives at the college. It just floats around in the admissions office ether. However, when I send a transcript to a college for a student who has already applied, their computer system can automatically recognize the student's name and info and the document can be put directly into the appropriate file. 

Why do you need 2 weeks to process the request?

• Let's first start by making sure you understand that I would NEVER intentionally hold on to documents for 2 weeks in order to start processing them. This 2 week window is not a minimum processing time, it is a maximum processing time. I put that on the form because I need you to understand that there are many many days where even when I put in a full school day and an additional 3 hours after school, I still can't always get to everything on my 'to do' list. 
• But, I can confidently say that if you give me a transcript request form and then you contact that college 14 days later, your transcript will be there and be fully processed.
• Believe it or not, this college application process is also about your becoming an adult and your building habits that you'll continue to use into adulthood. I'm trying to urge you to complete things in advance of deadlines because that is a good habit to be in for your life in general. Completing your taxes the day they are due is a bad idea. Waiting to renew your passport until right before an international trip is a bad idea. You see where I'm going with this . . .

Is it ok if I give you a transcript request form less than 2 weeks before a deadline?

• The answer here depends on your personal comfort level. A lot of ElRo students do not like the idea of calling a college on the day of the deadline and hearing that their application is incomplete. If this is you, you need to give me 2 weeks processing time.
• The good news though is that for 99% of colleges, deadlines are for the student portion of the application. They will happily accept (and actually expect to see) lots of supporting documents roll in after deadlines have passed. 
•  Exceptions here are: University of Michigan, University of Maryland, and University of Texas at Austin. These three places are more strict about deadlines and really do want files completed by the deadline. 
• The moral here is the longer you wait to submit and the closer to the deadline you request documents, the lower the chance of me being able to guarantee that your items will be processed by the college by the deadline date. 

A few additional requests:

• Please don't invent additional document information on the transcript request form. You don't need to tell me on the form about final reports. Final reports are automatic for every student for the place they enroll. I don't ask about it on the form because I don't need to know about it right now. Just follow the instructions and respond to the prompts on the form. 
• Please don't staple multiple colleges' forms together. The form is a coversheet and should be separate for every individual colleges. No binder clips. No envelopes. Every time you do this you slow down my processing because I need to manually remove each form and search for the proof and attach it.  
• Please don't print proof of multiple schools on the same page. I love being green and I totally understand why you'd be motivated to do this, but I really need the proof attached individually and the coversheets to be individual. The only exception to this is CUNY and that is stated on the form. Because that is one app for 6 schools, you can do just one coversheet and one page of proof for CUNY schools. 
• Please complete the forms with care. Every time you phone it in and don't actually read what you are filling out you slow down my processing. When you check the box for senior grades to Maryland, I know you are not taking care. Maryland doesn't allow senior grades. When you write two teachers instead of one for Indiana University, I know you aren't taking care. Indiana only allows a max of one teacher letter. It is your responsibility to know what each of your schools requires. If you don't know what is required, look it up on their website (or the Common App).

We are two members of the same team and that team is trying to get you admitted to college. If we work together on this we will get the best results.

If you don't see any hard copy blank transcript request forms in the guidance office, you can always print them from the College Office website. 

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Columbus NACAC Day 3!

For the closing day of NACAC I decided to go to two sessions: one about the national job outlook and one about the teenage brain.

The job outlook session was presented by the Department of Labor. While it was, admittedly, not the most lively of sessions, I did get to learn a lot about the careers that are projected to be growing rapidly in the coming years (along with those that are on the decline). Healthcare is the fastest growing sector and jobs in this field are the ones that are expanding at the fastest rates. This doesn't mean doctors though, it mostly means nurses (including nurse practitioners), home health aides, and other health support occupations. There are anticipated to be many job openings for people without formal education, but those jobs are expected to pay very very low wages. The earnings for a person with a bachelor's degree outpaces those without by more than double in terms of annual income. It is also projected that the sector of jobs with the most hiring will actually be careers that require a Master's degree - something to keep in mind for anyone concerned about the cost of college. One of the most useful things shared at the session was the website that will give state by state job predictions for different career paths. This can help show the landscape of how many openings there might be in New York in the next eight years.

http://www.projectionscentral.com/Projections/LongTerm

For a national look at job trends, you can also look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics job outlook

http://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/

The most interesting trivia is that the job with the fastest job growth in the nation is wind turbine technicians. It only represents about 4800 jobs nationally, but no other job is expanding more quickly.

The next session I went to was a talk by author and physician Dr. Frances Jensen. She presented a session called 'The Teenage (and Young Adult) Brain: Neuroscience You Can Use.' She shared that some of the behaviors that we marginalize (like risk taking and poor decision making) are actually neurologically appropriate behavior for teens. That isn't to say that unhealthy choices should be encouraged, but she encourages instead looking at it through a lens of normal human development. It turns out the brain is the last organ in the human body to fully develop. Research indicates that the brain is not fully connected and functioning until the mid to late twenties - far after college is complete. The parts to mature last are those connected with things like empathy, decision making, executive functioning, and impulse control (all located in the frontal lobe). The brain has connections within it called synapses and those synapses are insulated by a fatty substance called myelin. It takes years the the myelin to fully wrap around the connections and this it the reason teenagers can have a somewhat 'uneven' behavior and decision making. If this prognosis is feeling bleak though, it isn't. While these 'unfinished' teen brains might sometimes be thrill seeking or highly emotional, they are also at their peak in terms of learning new things, building new and strong connections faster, and being plastic. This means that the teenage years are actually a wonderful window within which one can build new (and very strong) habits. If teens can work on practicing positive behaviors, those behaviors can become second nature. 

In this same way, teens are also much more highly susceptible to addiction. Bad habits can become addiction in teens much faster and with much less exposure than adults. This is why exposure to drugs and alcohol during the teen years, while the brain is not yet fully mature, can lead to much more serious lingering issues (including not just addiction but also some mental illness.) Her comments on marijuana and alcohol were very interesting, but the one I found most enlightening is that marijuana has lingering results on synapses (aka brain connections) for about four days. So for a teen that is choosing to 'let loose' on the weekend can absolutely see lingering cognitive effects well into the school week. Her advice to help the teenage brain operate at peak function is to maximize quality sleep and minimize distraction (particularly from screens). 

Overall, I had a wonderful experience at NACAC. I got to visit three great (and very different) campuses, connect (and reconnect) with colleagues, and get essential updates on some of the things changing the most quickly within college admissions. I want to take this opportunity to thank the PTA for their generous support of my attending this conference (and the college office in general). Next year, Boston!

Columbus NACAC Day 2!

Today started bright and early with my first in-person meeting of the Coalition Counselor Committee. I shouldn't really call it a meeting, since it was more of a breakfast meet and greet, but it was the start of my day all the same. It was nice to finally put a face to the names on the emails that have come through my inbox during the past year. If nothing else, there certainly seemed to be less anxious buzz about the Coalition compared to last year. At ElRo, I've encouraged only students applying to the University of Florida to use the app this go around, but time will tell how the platform performs during this its first cycle.

My first session of the morning was the overview of Naviance. While they spent a little too much time talking about Naviance for elementary school (yes, that is apparently a thing), it was exciting to get a sneak peek at what is in store for the site. There look to be some pretty overdue cosmetic changes, along with other nice improvements like embedding net price estimates based on income band and letting students know about college open houses and local fairs. They are also working on some pretty powerful data analysis that will allow counselors to predict the relative 'risk' of a student's list (and thus know which students to reach out to first when it comes to troubleshooting).

Next Thursday evening, September 29, I will be sharing with students and families information about the 2017-2018 FAFSA. As such, I wanted to make sure to attend the Department of Educations FAFSA session at NACAC this year. I left the session feeling like the Dept of Ed actually has a pretty decent handle on this rollout and I hope, hope, hope I'm right! We got some nice resources to be able to share with students and I also got the impression that the new FAFSA will be far less complicated than it has ever been in the past. The key for any senior reading this post right now is that you should go ahead and get your FSA ID if you haven't already. Your FSA ID (one parent from the FAFSA will need one too) is your electronic signature and you'll need the ID before you can fully submit the FAFSA. Imagine how crowded that site is going to be on October 1 when the FAFSA goes live? Can you picture it? Ok, now go get your FSA ID right now. Here is the site: www.fsaid.ed.gov

My final session of the day was about working with students with learning disabilities. As we have more and more diverse learners at ElRo, I want to do my best to be prepared to work with them and serve their needs. The session covered a lot of ground but I'll leave a few of the more useful tips here:

• Students who have been previously evaluated with a WISC probably should request a new evaluation once they are 18 because the C in WISC stand for 'children' that tool is not going to serve a student in adulthood. 
• There is a big difference between a "support program" and a "students with disabilities tutoring center". Most colleges offer the latter, often in the form of peer tutors, but the ideal setting for a student with a learning difference is to have a professional special education in a formal support program. About 75 programs have been identified by the presenter and he directed us to the NACAC textbook to see that list. (*I had no idea there was something called a NACAC textbook!)
• A great way to help students focus (especially if they have ADHD) is to have them stand in a 'power pose' for two minutes (recommended pose: hands in fists overhead). This helps release testosterone and combat cortisol - an ideal combination prior to giving a presentation or taking a test. 

The final portion of the day is the annual Counselor College Fair. This is about as overwhelming as you might imagine, with every college present and every high school counselor going from table to table picking up material. It is certainly a nice time to reconnect (and see who has moved schools!) but it is exhausting.

Tomorrow is the final day of the conference and I look forward to a few more sessions before leaving Ohio!

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Columbus NACAC - Day 1

The NACAC conference is officially in session!

I spent the morning at a lecture sponsored by SMU where we got to hear from a wonderful SMU faculty member, Dr. Maria Dixon Hall. She spoke to us about a new initiative at SMU to try and shift the culture around race and culture on campus. The plan is to not just implement orientation trainings or hire faculty of color but to instead try to help all students increase their cultural intelligence. Her recommendations for how to do that in your every day life is to try and not just talk to a person from a different culture but to instead try and understand their culture through exposure. Perhaps her most interesting suggestion is to visit a grocery story -- a place to observe very nuanced cultural behaviors. It was a wonderful talk and a great way to start the day.

His head is a Buckeye! (Ohio State mascot, tree byproduct, and delicious peanut butter and chocolate treat)

For the afternoon, I checked off one more college visit by going to see The Ohio State University. As the third most affordable school in the Big 10 for out of state students, Ohio State should probably see more traffic from ElRo students than it does. In and out of state students are evaluated on the same 10 factors and preference is not given based on residency the way it might be at public land grant universities in other states. Letters of Recommendation are optional and OSU is on the Common App. Best of all, there is merit money available to students to the tune of full tuition. In order to qualify for merit aid, students must apply by no later than November 1. There are also some additional essays to complete in order to compete for some of these merit dollars. To learn more, look up the National Buckeye program and Morrill Scholarship on their website. Like other Big 10 schools, the benefits here include endless academic options, massive amounts of research, and serious school spirit.

The Oval

I also want to point out that when I try to explain to families that the cost of living in the Midwest will help pay back the cost of the plane ticket, here is what I mean:

This cost me $6.80. That salad had Kale and quinoa in it. KALE. Plus a drink and banana.

In an interesting stroke of luck, the Geology museum on campus has this gorgeous quartz found in the 1800s in Ellenville, NY -- home of the ElRo senior trip!

I finished out the day by attending the annual NYSACAC meeting and connecting with fellow New Yorkers here at the conference.

Tomorrow is always the hardest day with an early start and late finish, so I'm signing off for now.

OH-- IO!

Thanks Oberlin!

Today I had the opportunity to visit Oberlin College and I can now understand why we have had five ElRo students in the past four years enroll at this school.

Oberlin is a small liberal arts college with two divisions: the college and the music conservatory. It is known as a place that is progressive, open-minded, expressive, and creative. I think the thing I was most struck by was the people. The students seemed genuinely happy to be there and the environment was accepting and warm.

Unique elements of Oberlin include the fact that they have 3 required January Terms (J-Term for short) for all students where they undertake a project or internship. These can range from doing science research to writing a screenplay to exploring their career interest. Many peer institutions might feel isolated or exclusionary (with literal gates around campus), but not Oberlin. They pride themselves on being well integrated into the town of Oberlin. The conservatory at Oberlin is unique for its focus on undergraduate students (many conservatory programs allot huge portions of the resources to graduate students, but Oberlin hardly has any graduate students in music). About one third of conservatory students earn a double degree in the Liberal Arts. I should also add that it is very unique to see an Admissions staff with so many veteran members. Almost everyone in the office has been there more than 5 years, with many people there over 15 years. That is not the status quo and is a sign that people really believe in the mission and are treated well by the administration.

Oberlin was the first college to graduate a person of color and the first to award a degree to a woman in a co-ed setting. This is a place that wants to break barriers, tackle difficult questions, and honor their own moral and ethical code. I don't get the impression that this is a campus where students spend energy on surface things like clothing, hairstyles, and makeup. The 'come as you are' vibe is palpable. It is the kind of place that cares about the environment, LGBTQ+ rights, and equal pay. If those are not the kind of conversations you want to hear in the dining hall, this school should not be on your list.

ElRo takes Oberlin!

A highlight of the visit was getting to connect with Caley W. - ElRo Class of 2013. She is a student athlete (soccer) and said that she has loved her experience at Oberlin. She is a fourth year majoring in Economics and told me that she feels like Oberlin helped her grow more than she ever expected. I am so proud of her!

I'm now in Columbus, eager to reconnect with colleagues and attend sessions at NACAC!

Thanks Case Western Reserve University!

I'm in lovely Ohio this week to visit schools and attend that National NACAC Conference.

Today I got to visit Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, an exciting opportunity! As anyone can tell from Naviance, we have had a tough time at ElRo cracking the code of what students would fit best at this school. After spending the day there, I think I have a little bit of a better sense of who would be happiest there and what direction the college is moving in.

Frank Gehry designed the School of Management (aka Business)

CWRU evolved from two different schools (Case and Western Reserve) and has the reputation of being rather 'STEM-y.' But, they actually have four undergraduate colleges within the college: Engineering, Business, Nursing, and Arts and Science. I would categorize the school as pretty research-centric and the physical location being near four hospitals (including the world renowned Cleveland Clinic) only adds to the reasons it is a good fit for a student interested in science, pre-health, or both. What sets it apart? For one thing, the students were described as very focused. This is not an exploratory place for the liberal artist. This is for the student who already has a general direction. (It is ok if that direction is the humanities -- they have easy access to art museums, concert halls, and historical sites). 

think[box]

Materials at think[box]

A highlight of today was getting to see the think [box] a maker space on campus that is designed to be an incubation place for innovation. Students (and community members) can use the tools and materials there to create anything they can imagine. This includes things on 3-D printers, embroidery machines, woodwork, electrical circuits, and really anything you could think up.  This kind of creativity is encouraged and it was nice to see such a fully formed and well run place for people to try out their ideas and build truly anything they can think of.

Perhaps the most confusing aspect of Case Western is the notion that there is a single door entry point -- meaning that any student admitted to Case Western can major in anything Case Western offers. That means that students do not need to meet individual criteria in order to change majors once they are here. It means that if you get into Case Western, you have your choice of any of the programs offered (one exception being Music--an audition is required). This policy though isn't to be confused with the idea that Case Western doesn't pay attention to what academic course of study you list on your application. They are still a functioning school, after all, and they need their school to have balance. As one might expect, Engineering is the most popular area of interest and it is also one of the programs with the highest standards. Two thirds of students are majoring in a STEM field.

This school has seen a tremendous amount of growth in the past ten years. As in going from under 8,000 apps per year to over 23,000 apps per year. The acceptance rate last year was about 35%, so more people are getting denial letters than any other sort. They also used to be a school that pulled students mainly from the state of Ohio. Now only 22% of students come from the Buckeye state.

So why would CWRU be attractive to ElRo students? For one thing, they offer merit aid. And starting this year they plan to be need aware but meet 100% of demonstrated need for all admitted students. (Being need aware will most likely impact those on the margins --admissions wise-- the most). That means middle income students should be given a much more fair shake when it comes to financial aid packaging. Loans will be reasonable and students won't be gapped. Then when it comes to merit scholarships, even higher income homes can potentially see discounts in tuition. The location is also very very attractive. Coming from NYC, the Midwest can be a hard pill to swallow for some. But the flight here was under an hour and fifteen minutes! It sometimes takes me that long to commute to ElRo! With a little over 5,000 students in an urban area, Case Western offers the best of a lot of worlds. There is Greek life, but this isn't a party school. I think our students who find themselves looking at places like University of Rochester, University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon would also benefit from looking at Case Western.

I hope we can start hitting our stride with this school. Cleveland is a wonderful city and one that I think many ElRo students would be very happy with for their college experience. 

On to Oberlin tomorrow!

Dear Malcolm,

You might have listened to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast called 'Food Fight', an examination of what he considers to be the moral aberration of colleges daring to serve high qualify food to their students. In his opinion, he feels that a school should not be spending dollars on amenities and should instead be spending dollars on financial aid. And if his message was that general message, I'm with him. Absolutely-- if the decision is between lowering student debt for low income students or adding a rock climbing wall to the gym, I'm on board with scrapping the rock wall. 

But for some reason, he didn't decide to do research about those types of amenities. Instead, in my opinion, he offered a grossly simplistic comparison of two schools, Vassar and Bowdoin, where he felt compelled to go so far as to tell listeners not to go to Bowdoin because their evil dining hall is the root of America's education problem.

My initial problem with his comparison of these two schools is: if you want to criticize schools that are being unfair to low income students or have their priorities in the wrong place, maybe don't start with a school with need-blind admissions that pledges to meet 100% of demonstrated need for all admitted students. (Bowdoin is need blind and meets 100% of demonstrated need). You can make the argument that their version of demonstrated need isn't fair or should be revised. But that wasn't the topic of this podcast. In fact, there didn't seem to be an ounce of research about admissions policies or recruitment practices. The only staff interviewed at Bowdoin were from dining services.

My next problem with this comparison is that while yes, both Bowdoin and Vassar private liberal arts colleges I would hardly call them identical. Vassar has been successful in recruiting and enrolling Pell Grant recipients (which is, by the way, to be applauded and I'm certainly a huge fan of the progress they have made). But, Vassar is also located in Poughkeepsie, which conveniently happens to be the last stop the Metro North train from New York City. Vassar is 200 miles from Boston. 85 miles from Albany. 170 miles from Philly. 75 miles from New Haven. Bowdoin's only major urban center within 200 miles is Boston, compared with Vassar's significantly more centrally located geographic location. Saying that a college in Maine has the same pool of low income applicants as a college in upstate New York just feels lazy.

If we want to talk about morals, what about the morality of food? When a huge corporation provides low quality cheap food to students with outsourced ingredients, chemicals, hormones, and low paid staff, where is the moral outrage there about the local, national, and global impact of what we eat? I'm curious to know exactly how expensive the Bowdoin dining services program is? What impact does it have on their local economy, helping to keep local farms in business and respecting the environment by using higher quality healthier ingredients? Yet this podcast never delves into that. It never shares exactly what the dollars and cents are of the Bowdoin dining program. It just says that there is a correlation between good food and lower financial aid budgets. I'm not convinced.

Had Malcolm Gladwell interviewed any person from the part of Bowdoin's administration that deals with institutional goals. I suspect they would have learned that Bowdoin, like virtually every small liberal arts college with a large endowment and need blind admissions, is hungry to enroll as many bright low income students as they can find. Because income is not considered in admission decisions, if Bowdoin suddenly had a 30% increase in high ability low income applications, they would accept 30% more students from these income brackets. To say that having cheaper food would suddenly increase their Pell Grant recipients is a fundamental misunderstanding of how admissions works.

The condescending tone he uses when suggesting the students have better things to say about the food than they do about their classes is a low blow. Instead of mocking them, why wouldn't he go ahead and ask them about their classes instead of making an assumption? 

If Malcolm wanted to make this argument, he could have selected a Need-Aware school. Why he didn't is beyond me, as there are tons to pick from. If we want to argue the morals of college admission, crucifying Bowdoin feels like the wrong place to start.

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Admission Results for the Class of 2016

All members of our community have access to Naviance (be it as a guest, or through individual accounts starting the spring semester of Junior year). However, I am often asked for a macro view of the list of colleges where students have been accepted during each application cycle.

Below, you will see a list of schools that admitted at least one ElRo student this year. When you see a school's name listed in bold, that means at least one student intends to enroll this year.

Remember to interpret these kind of lists with caution. You never know the background circumstances that resulted in a student passing up on a offer at a school you deem to be amazing. You can't tell by looking at this list how much financial aid was offered. Statistics can't tell you who applied Early Decision or if the person had legacy at the school.

With that said, I know people are curious to see where our students were admitted and decided to go - so without further ado - the outcomes for the Class of 2016. What I hope will be apparent is the huge range of options that ElRo students have and the diversity of interests and strengths that our graduates possess.

Acceptances and Enrollment for the Class of 2016

Adelphi University Adirondack Community College Albany College of Pharmacy Alfred University Allegheny College Amherst College Auburn University Babson College Bard College Barnard College Baruch College of the CUNY Bates College Bentley University Berklee College of Music Binghamton University Boston College Boston University Bowdoin College Brandeis University Brooklyn College of the CUNY Bryn Mawr College Bucknell University Buffalo State College of SUNY Carleton College Carnegie Mellon University Case Western Reserve University Champlain College Chapman University City College of New York CUNY Clark University Colby College Colgate University College of Mount Saint Vincent College of New Rochelle College of Staten Island Colorado State University Columbia College Chicago Columbia University Cornell University CUNY - New York City Technical College CUNY-Macaulay Honors College Denison University DePauw University Dickinson College Drew University Drexel University Duke University East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania Eckerd College Elon University Emerson College Emory University Emory University - Oxford College Fairfield University Farmingdale State College Fashion Institute of Technology Florida Atlantic University Florida Polytechnic University Florida State University Fordham University Franklin and Marshall College George Mason University Georgetown University Georgia Institute of Technology Gettysburg College Gordon College Goucher College Grinnell College Hampshire College Hartwick College Harvard University Haverford College Hobart and William Smith Colleges Howard University Hunter College of the CUNY Illinois Institute of Technology Indiana University at Bloomington Iona College Ithaca College John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the CUNY Johns Hopkins University Johnson & Wales University (Providence) Juniata College Kansas City Art Institute Kent State University Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Lafayette College Lawrence University Lehigh University Lehman College of the CUNY LIM College Long Island University, Brooklyn Long Island University, Post Loyola University Maryland Manhattan College Marist College Maryland Institute College of Art Marymount Manhattan College Marywood University McGill University Michigan State University Middlebury College Missouri State University Molloy College Montclair State University Mount Holyoke College Muhlenberg College New York Career Institute New York Institute of Technology New York University Northampton Community College Northeastern University Northwestern University Oberlin College Ohio University Pace University, New York City Pennsylvania State University - University Park Pennsylvania State University, Abington Pennsylvania State University, Altoona Pomona College Pratt Institute Princeton University Purchase College State University of New York Purdue University Queens College of the CUNY Reed College Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rhode Island School of Design Rhodes College Rice University Rochester Institute of Technology Rutgers University-New Brunswick Rutgers University-Newark Sarah Lawrence College Savannah College of Art and Design School of the Art Institute of Chicago School of Visual Arts Skidmore College Smith College Southern Methodist University St. John's University - Queens Campus Stanford University State University of New York - Plattsburgh State University of New York at Albany State University of New York at New Paltz Stella and Charles Guttman Community College Stevens Institute of Technology Stony Brook University SUNY College at Cobleskill SUNY College at Cortland SUNY College at Geneseo SUNY College at Oneonta SUNY College at Potsdam SUNY Delhi SUNY Fredonia SUNY Oswego Susquehanna University Swarthmore College Syracuse University The American University of Paris The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art The George Washington University The New School - 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