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American Morning

David Kaplan Discusses Nation's Hottest Colleges

Aired August 13, 2001 - 11:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The school year is beginning again and so is the competition for college admission among high school students, and it's tougher than ever. Making an informed decision about college may be a bit easier though with the publication of the 2002 "Kaplan/Newsweek" guide on how to get in to college.

David Kaplan is a senior editor at "Newsweek," and he's with us this morning to examine some of this year's hottest colleges and, hopefully, to give us some tips of how to get into one of them.

Good morning. How are you?

DAVID KAPLAN, NEWSWEEK: Good morning. How are you doing?

HARRIS: Not bad, not bad.

Let's take a look at the list. We've pulled the list of some of the colleges that you've tracked as the toughest -- or not toughest, but the hottest ones right now, and I've got to admit, there's a couple of surprises to me. Oberlin College -- I actually considered going there -- that's a small college in Ohio; it's a beautiful campus. Now what makes it so hot?

KAPLAN: Well, they actually call themselves the "big small college." It's got a much looser approach to the liberal arts and an interdisciplinary approach that's made it popular over the last couple of years. It's admissions are way up its yield; that is the number of students who actually decide to come once they have been accepted -- that's up.

You know, these things are cyclical. When I applied to college once upon a time back in the 1970s, Oberlin was real popular, and it seemed to kind of fade from view in the '80s. There are certain schools, of course, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, other Ivy League schools, that are perpetually popular, but a lot of these other schools, including those on the list, kind of rise and fall, and it often has something to do with the actual program's curricular that the school has; sometimes it has to do with a great sports team that gets a lot of recognition, or maybe the president's daughter, when she went to Stanford, that gave the school a bump.

And, of course, it can go in reverse. When there's an earthquake in the Bay area that -- you see applications to schools there go down. So there's no real science to it, but it's interesting to see which schools are on the rise.

HARRIS: Yes. Any of the findings surprise you?

KAPLAN: Well, I think the school that I was really keen on seeing was this Franklin Olin College of Engineering in suburban Boston, which I had never heard of. It actually doesn't begin classroom instruction for a year, but it's a brand new engineering college.

HARRIS: But it doesn't they exist?

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: You're saying it doesn't exist?

KAPLAN: Well, it's built from the ground up. It's a brand new school. The 30 entering students will begin this year. They get a free ride, they free tuition, free room and board, but they will spend this year getting the school going, helping to hire faculty, plan the curriculum, finishing touches on the buildings. It was -- the money for it was from a very well-known philanthropist named Olin, of course, who's built a lot of buildings and programs of colleges around the country. He dates to the 1930s, but it's fascinating that even in this day and age you can have a brand new school start from scratch. And it's gotten a lot of buzz because of this unusual way of paying for all of its students. Some of the kids who are starting this fall turned down engineering schools like MIT and Cal Tech.

HARRIS: No kidding? That's fascinating. It's like getting an internship and a college education getting paid for at the same time.

KAPLAN: Exactly. It's entrepreneurial. You're kind of present at the creation, you get to see the place go up from scratch, and you get to be involved in it. They have a great movie poster for recruiting purposes; it looks like they're advertising a movie when what they're really trying to do is bring in the applicants.

HARRIS: Yes, as a matter of fact that school did make that -- the list that we have here, but it's on the second part. If we can go ahead and put that graphic up to show some of these other colleges: University of Michigan -- we've got actually quite a few people here that went there -- Vassar, and there's Franklin Olin. Emory University here in Atlanta, I'm surprised to see that one on the list.

KAPLAN: Well, Emory has, in recent years, undergone a building spree. There's obviously a lot of money in the Emory endowment because of Coca-Cola, also in Atlanta.

And it's campus outside of Atlanta is beautiful. You have all of the advantages of a big city, but also have space. And Emory -- Emory's applications are way up. It along with schools like Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tulane in New Orleans, Duke in North Carolina have become popular in part because they're away from some of the rush and perceived competition of the northeast; a little slower, a little more gentile, being in the south, but obviously first rate research institutions. HARRIS: Let me ask you about that. You mentioned competition, and on the way out I'd like to see if you can give folks out there some ideas on how to get in, because we've been hearing and reading lately that there's so much competition among students to get into some of these schools that, basically, the schools are getting overcrowded or they're having to weed out people. What's the best tip you can give someone who's trying to get into one of these colleges?

KAPLAN: The numbers are indeed intense, and as the Baby -- the children of the Baby Boom generation, as those kids come of age it's only getting tougher. The best thing to do is apply early, don't wait until December. Apply early and try to make yourself stand out. Your board scores and your GPA are what they are, they're quantitative. But if you can somehow put yourself in the shoes of the admissions officer and explain why you're different from everybody else, whether it's for an extra curricular activity like tennis or chest or playing a musical instrument or something interesting you want to do with the school's curriculum, show how you're different and show why your interest in a particular school is unique. If it looks like you're just interested in 10 first-rate institutions, it's fine, if you've got great numbers, but it's better to try to make yourself stand out on the couple of pages of essays that you can provide to the admissions officers -- he's got a big pile front of them and only a few minutes to look at you.

HARRIS: David Kaplan, thank you very much for the good advice. Pretty good advice. Thanks much. Folks keep an eye out for that Kaplan report.

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