Applying to college is annoying, difficult, and expensive. Fortunately, a group of colleges and universities have banded together to find a better way.
Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland-College Park are two of the 80 schools making up the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success; others include Ivies (Harvard, Dartmouth); big state schools (Ohio State, Michigan State); and small liberal arts schools (Smith, Grinnell). What all these schools have in common is a commitment to making the college application process easier on students and their families.
The Coalition aims to make the college application more like a portfolio; students will be able to use their platform to showcase their accomplishments and more easily interact with admissions representatives from various schools. The goal is to get high schoolers thinking about college earlier–something that’s particularly crucial for low-income students and/or those from underrepresented minority groups.
“As a partnership of like-minded colleges and universities, we’re creating tools that the best and most talented students—particularly those from lower-income families, first-generation students, and those with fewer resources—can use to find, apply to and enroll at the schools that are right for them,” David Phillips, vice provost for admissions and financial aid at John Hopkins, told the Hopkins Hub.
A new application will be available through the Coalition in January, 2016.
