Of the many factors that colleges take into consideration when evaluating students, “demonstrated interest” is an important one for many small and medium-sized colleges, yet something that students may have never heard of.
What does this mean? Demonstrated interest is when a student engages with a college and shows a strong interest in attending. In this time of students submitting multiple applications to multiple schools, colleges want to know that students are genuinely interested in what they have to offer, and would strongly consider attending if offered admission.
How does a student demonstrate interest? Examples include: 1) joining the college’s admissions mailing list, 2) taking virtual tours and attending virtual admissions presentations (find more info about this on a college’s admissions web page) and 3) engaging with Admissions Officers through virtual college fairs and other online events (and hopefully in person soon too).
The great thing about demonstrating interest is that it’s a super effective way of researching colleges, building your college list, and discovering what’s exciting/important/intriguing to you in a college experience. Bonus: if the college asks you to explain why you’re applying to their school in the application or an interview, you’ll have lots of really interesting reasons thanks to your research. This sure beats the boring/standard answer of, “Uh, I really like the weather?!?”
So, dive in - start making contact with colleges and building your college list. Let me know how I can help!