Connecticut College joins coalition to improve college admission process
Goal is to recast admission process, broaden access and encourage college-going mindset for all students
Connecticut College has partnered with 80 other public and private colleges and universities to improve the college admission application process for all students. The resulting Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success is developing a free platform of online tools to streamline the experience of planning for and applying to college. The planning tools will be available to high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors beginning in January 2016.
In creating this platform, the coalition colleges hope to encourage a more engaged, ongoing and educationally reaffirming college application experience. They also hope to motivate a stronger college-going mindset among students of all backgrounds, especially those from low-income families or underrepresented groups who have historically had less access to leading colleges and universities.
“The Coalition schools want to ensure that all students have access to the highest quality education, without the barriers that can prevent some students from applying,” said Andrew Strickler, dean of admission and financial aid at Connecticut College. “We are very pleased to be able to bring this new option to our prospective students.”
The Coalition currently includes more than 80 public and private colleges and universities across the United States that have made a commitment to make college affordable and accessible for students from diverse backgrounds, and for students to be successful in completing their education. Connecticut College, for example, develops financial aid packages for students that meet 100 percent of the student’s demonstrated financial need and offers an inclusive campus environment with comprehensive support for student success.
Later this year, the Coalition will share details about new college planning and application tools that will streamline the admission and financial aid processes and allow students to begin planning for college much earlier in their high school years. The online tools—which will include a digital portfolio, a collaboration platform, and an application portal—seek to reshape the process of applying to college as the culmination of students’ development over the course of their high school careers, reducing the unfamiliarity of the application and leveling the playing field for all students. The application will add another option to all the ways that students currently apply for college.
The Coalition’s online portfolio of college planning tools will be open to high school students starting in January 2016. Additional details about the application process enabled by the platform will be announced before summer of 2016. More information can be found at coalitionforcollegeaccess.org.
| Coalition Member Institutions Amherst College Bates College Bowdoin College Brown University Bryn Mawr College California Institute of Technology Carleton College Clemson University Colby College Colgate University College of Holy Cross College of William & Mary Colorado College Columbia University Connecticut College Cornell University Dartmouth College Davidson College Duke University Emory University Franklin and Marshall College Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Grinnell College Hamilton College Harvard University Haverford College Illinois State University Indiana University - Bloomington James Madison University Johns Hopkins University Miami University - Ohio Michigan State University Middlebury College Mount Holyoke College North Carolina State University at Raleigh Northeastern University Northwestern University Oberlin College Ohio State University Penn State Pomona College |
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September 29, 2015
