Webinar Transcript: Live Q&A with Santa Clara University Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions

We had the privilege of sitting down recently with AJ Howell-Williams, the Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Santa Clara University, to talk about current admissions trends, test-optional, and the other unique challenges and trends within higher education in the year ahead.

Elton Lin: Okay. Welcome to the next installment of our webinar series. We're excited to have A.J. Williams from Santa Clara University join us. Glad to have people from all over the U.S. joining in just to learn a little bit more about Santa Clara University: about the admissions process, and perhaps how we can be better prepared for this coming fall.

Really excited to have A.J. Williams join us. He's a senior associate director of admissions at Santa Clara University. And he is actually a San Jose native – so this is his territory! He can share a little bit more about which areas he represents.

But really excited to have him on. He has not only worked in admissions for quite a few years, but he has also published a book on guiding students and parents through this crazy process – that he can share more about at the end of our webinar.

But, A.J., would you mind giving us a little bit of an intro?

A.J. Williams: Sure. Well, hey everyone – and, obviously, every time I do one of these, my neighbor or someone down the street wants to start a lawn mower. But it's okay. Hopefully that’s not going to be too loud.

Elton Lin: Oh, I don’t even hear it!

A.J. Williams: Okay, good.

But, yeah, welcome folks. And, again, to Elton's point, it's great to see folks coming in and tuning in from all over the country.

I am a native of San Jose. I'm a Bay Area guy. But I've lived in the four corners of the country. As we were talking about earlier, my mom was just out here visiting from Atlanta. She flew back yesterday; already miss her. But, yeah, San Jose and the Bay Area, California – that definitely is home, as Elton said.

I'm one of the older folks in the office. I've been in the field of admissions for about sixteen, seventeen years. Been at Santa Clara for around fifteen. So I definitely found a home at Santa Clara. My wife went there. A lot of friends and family have gone there. It's a good place; it's a very comfortable place.

That said, I do what I do because I enjoy it. I really do like demystifying this whole process for folks – because it really shouldn't be as complicated and as cumbersome as we've made it! “We” being society and admissions folks and the media and all of that. I definitely like these opportunities to talk to folks and answer any questions that I can. 

Elton Lin: Just to jump off what you shared… having spoken with quite a few admissions people, it seems like there are definitely admissions reps coming in and coming out of the office, but other people who are lifers – and they really enjoy the admissions process, really talking with students and really being in that point of the student’s journey. What do you like about admissions?

A.J. Williams: I, myself, was a first-generation college student. I'm pretty sure by now folks have a good sense of what that means, but that means my mom and dad didn't finish college. So I really had to figure it out along the way. That said, I definitely had a village of folks who saw promise in me, and guided me along the way. So this is my attempt to be somebody else's village – be a member of that. And that is what I like about it.

When I first started in admissions, I fell into it like anyone else. I graduated from the University of Puget Sound – a small, traditional liberal arts college. And the woman who was number two in admissions was basically the basketball team mom. And the benefit of those smaller environments is that she knew me very well, and said, “Hey, A.J.,” when I graduated, “We have a position I think you'd be good for.” So I fell into admissions, and really, from day one, just really enjoyed it.

When you start in, there's a saying. A lot of folks will start in it, and you're either in it for a couple years, trying to get your masters or whatever, or, if you go past that two or three year mark, then you're a lifer. I laughed at that, but it's become true for sure!

Elton Lin: Very cool. So let's get into this past season and Santa Clara. There have been a lot of changes. A lot of them driven by the pandemic – including schools mostly going test-optional across the United States. I would love to hear: what have been some of the bigger challenges for the admissions office this past year for Santa Clara, and some adjustments you all needed to make in the process of assessing students?

A.J. Williams: You hit it on the head with the test-optional, right? I used to say, prior to the pandemic, that the big three pieces, academically, were GPA, how rigorous your course load was – what you took at your high school; did you challenge yourself? – and then test scores. Those are the big three things that we as admissions folks would fall on, in terms of evaluating someone academically. Obviously we look at the personal side as well, but, academically, those are the big three.

Well, COVID forced the hand of higher education – and I say that in the sense that a lot of schools, prior to COVID, had discussed being test-optional or test-blind. COVID forced our hands.

The reason that we’d wanted to do that is because there's a stronger socio-economic correlation, in terms of resources – in terms of who does what on tests. Stronger than any ethnic or racial correlation, socio-economics was the driving factor on who did what. We as admission folks – we as folks in education – we recognize that. But tests are also tied to rankings. They're also tied to a lot of different things that universities, and the power brokers at universities, liked – in terms of, “What's our stature in higher ed?” and so on.

So COVID kind of forced our hand with that. And we really saw it as an opportunity. We saw it as a challenge. I was part of the team that looked at our evaluation matrix, and said, “How can we switch this up?” And not recreate what we've seen in the past – in terms of the classes that we yield and things like that. It was a fun opportunity.

There's a lot of research out there on non-cognitive variables: what kind of attributes could you look for? Which is tough, because, again, we're evaluating seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds. I don't know about you, but I wasn't a fully formed adult at that age! So, while we looked at those things, academically it really fell on GPA and the rigor component. We need to suss that out a little bit more. And then add to that layer these different personal things that we're trying to assess.

So it was a fun challenge. But I think we were successful this year – in terms of our admissions cycle. We were very successful. We hit our numbers, definitely. And I just finished up our transfer process – those numbers are strong as well. So I think we did pretty well. Could we do better? Yes, we can. But we did pretty well.

Elton Lin: Before I forget this – I think I forgot to mention this in the very beginning – but those of you who have been a part of our webinar series before know: go ahead and post your questions at any time. Anthony's going to come back at the very end and we're going to go through all the questions and give A.J. an opportunity to answer everything. So go ahead and post your questions at any time; we look forward to hearing them.

Let me back up a little bit on what you just shared. It sounded like you had to rethink the entire assessment or review rubric to a degree, and really try to understand students, apart from that test score. We've heard other schools who said that, “Hey, test scores were one thing we weren't overly emphasizing.” That it wasn't that big of a deal. And other schools that did need to revise everything – maybe on your guys' end.

What did that really mean to not have test scores? Does it mean that you're automatically looking more at rigor, or you're automatically looking more at something else? What does that mean when you remove test scores from a rubric?

A.J. Williams: Well, we read holistically before that. Meaning we read the personal side. We read the essays. We read letters of recommendation. All of that. And we continue to do that.

However, yes, in our rubric, with how we evaluated students, test scores held weight. They held a chunk of what we were looking at. And so we had to replace that. We did that through, basically, increasing the strength of the GPA: increasing the weight of the GPA. And the weight of how rigorous a student's curriculum was. Things like that.

Because, while we were holistic – we never had cutoffs or anything like that – there were averages. Santa Clara’s admitted student averages for the last few years were pretty strong. We’re talking an unweighted GPA, on a 4.0 scale, of like a 3.8. Our students who we admitted were always in the upper tiers of our rigor rankings and things like that. Our average SAT, out of 1600, was a 1420 the last three years. It was a 32 on the ACT.

So doing away with that, the big questions were, “How are we going to decide who's admissible? Who's meritorious?” And that kind of thing. And so, we really had to… as I dab my forehead real quick. I don't know what it is in Chicago or Atlanta, but it's over a hundred degrees right now!

Elton Lin: Yeah, it's a West Coast heat wave right now.

A.J. Williams: It’s a West Coast heat wave.

So, yeah, it was that kind of stuff: just looking at, “How do we make those decisions,” right? So we went back in the data, and removed test scores, and we looked at, “What did everybody look like who was admitted? What did everybody look like who was meritorious outside of test schools?” And we got a pretty good bearing. We did the same thing, too, with the students who were denied. And said, “Okay, now that we have the top tier and the bottom tier, we can get a better sense of what the middle looks like.” And that kind of thing. For me it was a very fun exercise.

This year, again, I think we were pretty successful in figuring out a way to do it.

Elton Lin: I appreciate the explanation, because it seems like it was a very thoughtful process for Santa Clara – and this whole aspect of, “What are we really looking for as an institution, and have test scores really affected that?” Whether test scores really do matter. And you were also alluding to, earlier in the conversation, some of the unfairness – or a lot of the unfairness – with how test scores are being administered or expected.

So, in that sense, are test scores a determinant of anything? As you've finished that research, do test scores matter at all?

A.J. Williams: Again, there are a ton of resources. The College Board, NACAC, and all these organizations have done research for years. And the thing that people would fall back on – that the experts would fall back on – is it was indicative of how students did their first year at an institution.

I've never seen that in my seventeen years! I've never seen that strong of a correlation to make that case. I am in charge of, again, the transfer process of Santa Clara, and it's pretty interesting. You'll see the trend of what a student did in high school. Usually that can carry on to what they did in college. But, quite frankly, there are students who don't do too well in high school, and go to a community college and immediately turn it around!

A test score was something that students were taking for five hours on a Saturday after prom. It wasn't, to me, more indicative of what they could do as a student than their four-year career at a given school.

There's a school of thought where test scores might be too big to fail. And once students are able to sit for the test again, schools might revert back to looking at them. But I've been very encouraged that a lot of schools – the UCs in particular, and University of Washington – they flat-out said, “We're not going back to it.”

Higher ed, in general, moves slowly. The “academy” – if you will – moves slowly. And higher ed is a lot of keeping up with the Joneses. If these big name schools are doing X, more than likely other schools are going to fall in line.

So I think a hybrid model, or schools being test-optional or test-blind – some aspect of that is here to stay moving forward.

Elton Lin: The only perhaps criticism of test-optional is that – and there's definitely some data that's come out from this past year's admissions class – it seems like those students who submitted test scores tended to have higher admit rates than those who did not submit. But there are certainly some explanations of that, too.

But with that being said, does submitting a test score really matter? Does it really give a clear benefit? What are your thoughts?

A.J. Williams: Socio-economics.

Elton Lin: Yeah.

A.J. Williams: Socio-economics. It's resources. Because the students who would do well on tests were the students who had access to resources, and the ability to take the test again. Those are the students who are more likely to be loaded up on APs. Those are students who… you know what I mean?

Elton Lin: Yeah, understood.

A.J. Williams: So, yeah, that was the correlation. In my opinion, that's the correlation: that a higher percentage of those students submitted.

We were test-optional this year. 47% of our applicant pool still sent test scores to me – in a year where they couldn't even sit for the test! To me that says they had the ability to take the test earlier, or they were in situations where they could go outside of their region, and take a test in another area that wasn't shut down. So, to me, it's all correlated in that sense.

I did see a question pop up, saying, “Test-optional: what does that mean?” And I don't want to jump ahead, but, you know, some schools are “test-blind.” They never look at it. For us, we're “test-optional” – in the sense of: we will consider you the same for admission, or any type of funding, academic or merit-based, regardless of whether or not you submit scores.

So, really, we treated it as additional information. It wasn't going to make or break a case. If the student was admissible, they were admissible. If they were on the bubble, maybe that additional information might help. But it wasn't something that we relied our decisions upon.

Elton Lin: Right. And we can certainly spend hours on test scores, but let's come back to it in Q&A, because I want to give A.J. an opportunity to answer some other questions about Santa Clara – perhaps what kind of student fits, or what type of student might be most viable and the best fit for Santa Clara.

Let's shift gears a little bit. Let's talk about the admissions process, and once the application lands on your desk. What happens from there?

A.J. Williams: I always tell folks that applicant pools are sort of like a parabola. There's a bell curve kind of thing. And I was not a math guy, so bear with me!

But you have your top 25% of applicants who – just based on the numbers – they're strong. And they're going to get into your school. They're going to get into school X, Y, or Z. That kind of thing. You’ve got your bottom 25%, where you really hope they’ve got a plan B! And then a lot of folks. Most students look so similar, in terms of GPA, in terms of the courses they took, and all that kind of stuff. Extracurriculars look very similar. You wouldn't believe how many eagle scouts there are! Black belts running around. And that kind of thing.

As admissions folks, we have to say, “What kind of individual are we looking to bring into the institution?” We want to have a conversation with this person at Santa Clara. We're a very residential campus. What are they going to contribute to the campus community? We have a lot going on. We want to keep this an environment that's thriving and interesting and a fun place to be. What would this student add to that?

We really try to look for all of that. I would say, again, for those students on the higher end of things, they probably only need one read. Are they admissible? Yeah. Boom. Move it. Keep it going. For anybody who is borderline, they're going to get at least one or two additional looks.

We're an institution that receives around 16,000-17,000 – we're knocking on 18,000 – applications a year. That's few enough to where our admissions team can read all of those. So when I get an application, I read it front to back. It's not farmed out, in that somebody has read the personal, and I read the academics… I read everything for an application. And I enjoy that.

Some institutions are so large. UCLA, for example, receives the most applications of any school in the country, I think. They got over 130,000 applications this year. Because of that volume, they have to farm pieces of it out.

I enjoy being at our level – if you will – in terms of the app volume that we receive. Because it does allow us to really read everything, and get to know the applicants. Not that I remember everything about the 2000+ applications I'll read the cycle! But I save good essays every year. I have a folder going, where I said, “This was a great essay.” If I ever get asked about what makes a good essay, I have plenty of examples!

I really enjoy that. When I worked at Puget Sound – I worked there right after graduation – we used to do interviews. And it was this much smaller school. Much smaller in volume. And that was fun: getting to know students on that level.

That said, as an admissions professional, that can also be taxing and eat up a lot of your time. So I like that we do information sessions – and whoever can hear those online, or in person if we're in your region, that's great. But there's no pressure to flag me down as an admissions counselor and say, “Hey, remember me?” Because I tell students all the time – as nice as you are, I probably won't.

Elton Lin: As nice as you are. Or as mean as you are!

But would that imply that you are actually spending quite a bit of time on each application? Whereas, it's perhaps rumored that on 130,000 applications in the UC system, you're really spending no more than five minutes. And perhaps, when it's all said, only two or three minutes!

It sounds like you're able to really spend time reading the story, understanding the student, and really understanding the context. Is that correct?

A.J. Williams: I would say yes. However, I would say that that time frame is not far off, you know?

Elton Lin: Yeah, I appreciate that.

A.J. Williams: Honestly. I'm one of the faster – if not the fastest – readers in the office. So my app volume is up there. But I do enjoy that piece of it. And I would say, if we have to get through X amount in a day, you really do – not that you sit there and time it out, like with a little timer next to you or anything like that – but you need to hit a certain volume.

But with that said, some decisions are easier to make than others. And with some you do have to come back and touch that file a couple of times to get to a final place.

Elton Lin: So if you're seeing some raw numbers that really show that that student is, perhaps, a top five percent student, then it's very clear. You can make the decision very easily. But the students who are more in that middle 50% – as you were referring to – you might take a longer look, and then pass it off to another reader and have them give their input… and go from there. Is that correct?

A.J. Williams: I'll put it this way. For the students who are meritorious, we're putting in consideration for our top scholarships. You spend a little bit more time on those because you need to figure out how meritorious they are. Is this a student who's getting our Dean's Scholarship? Or is this a student who's in the running for our Johnson Scholarship – our top scholarship?

A student who's an admit is clearly an admit. You know. And then a student who is on the border or not, you know those. Again, it's rare that you get students who are just clearly not in the ballpark. Most students are somewhere in the bubble. Those are the ones you have to come back to, and say, “Where are we going to fall?” And at the end, when you look at what everybody's done, that's what dictates “Okay, waitlist,” or, “We just simply can't take the student.”

We are not a denial factory – as some schools are known, when you're only taking less than 10% of your applicants. We're lucky enough not to be in that situation. I used to have hair when I played basketball. I wouldn't have had any air at all if I was in that situation. And so I like the fact that we're not there.

Elton Lin: Got it. And since you brought it up… with regards to the waitlist, how much did SCU use it this past year? Tons of schools use a waitlist, and it seems like the pattern was that they didn't actually pull off the waitlist much this past year. That could be circumstantial: students trying to get back to school, or people who took a gap year. Those kind of things. But what's the waitlist situation look like this past year at Santa Clara?

A.J. Williams: Sure. I'll address the gap year thing first, because I think that that was one of those old wives’ tales that was floating in the beginning of the year: that that's going to impact it; those numbers from last year are going to impact this year. That really wasn't the case. Now, that said, with the waitlist… I had to talk to the honors folks from my high school last year, and I said, “Plans can and do change.”  If last year taught the world anything, it was just uncertainty. If you can be certain about anything, be certain that there's going to be uncertainty.

I think institutions really took that in stride, and said, “We need a healthy waitlist to give ourselves a buffer.” We were no different. We definitely did that. That said, when deposits started coming in, we were like, “Wow, folks really like us. And we might not need to use the waitlist as much as we thought we would!”

I think families sometimes say, “Why was I waitlisted? What was the reason? Why didn't you take my son or daughter?” The reality is that universities see applicant pools that look like this, and you have to admit this many in order to get a class that looks like this. It's an art more than a science. We are guessing what seventeen-year-olds and their families really want to do. And if they really want to come to Santa Clara.

Because everybody says, “Oh, yeah, I love you, and that's why I'm applying, but in the end school X gave me more money so I'm going over there.” As admissions folks, we need to guess and plan accordingly.

And our wait list is not ranked, if we go to it, in terms of shoring up the holes that the class might have as we get closer to May 1. We were fortunate to be in a position this year where we didn't really have many holes.

That said, we still have students who are on the waitlist, but we try to release as many as possible so that they can go ahead and find their next home, and then be confident and comfortable in that situation.

But that's why waitlists are used. And every school uses them. The Ivies use a waitlist, you know?

Elton Lin: Yeah, got it. Got it. There's a demonstrated interest question that's in the Q&A; I'll leave that for later. In light of what you just shared, I think that the demonstrating interest question will be good!

But let's switch gears real quickly – because I want to give as much time for Q&A as possible. But with regards to, “What type of student is Santa Clara looking for?” Certainly, academically viable. And you had mentioned earlier about character traits and some of the other things you're looking for in activities. But what type of student really thrives at Santa Clara?

A.J. Williams: Sure. I think an individual who is a multitasker – and I say that in the sense of we're in California. We're in the Bay Area. We get great weather – usually not this hot! But it's a very active student body.

We're on the quarter system as well, and so that is something that folks need to think about in terms of the speed of things. I always tell folks, in higher ed four classes usually makes you a full-time college student. Well, in the semester system you take eight classes in an academic year. In the quarter system you take twelve. Things move very fast, and it keeps you on your toes!

At Santa Clara I don't know any one student – even our athletes – who just does one thing. Students are involved in clubs. They are active socially. And they're in cultural clubs. It is a very engaged student body.

So I think a student who can multitask: who can juggle a few priorities going at once. Those are the kinds of students – and individuals – who do well at Santa Clara.

And I do think that the Jesuit piece – whether you're religious or not – the Jesuit philosophy of doing for others, and of answering those larger societal and global issues and questions. We attract students who care about those things. Not everyone – it ain't a bunch of saints running around our campus. But, by and large, we attract students who care deeply about those things, and want to put effort towards those causes.

Elton Lin: Got it. And maybe one last question before we go into Q&A. I'm here in Silicon Valley. You're down the street – perhaps literally. Certainly there are a lot of students who are more geared towards – in Silicon Valley – engineering and computer science. What makes Santa Clara a really good place to study STEM, or study engineering, perhaps, in contrast to going to the UCs or studying at a more classic research university? What makes Santa Clara a great place to study those areas?

A.J. Williams: I think you hit it on the head: our location. We are literally in one of the most innovative places – the tech Mecca for the world, really. I tell students all the time, for all you folks from Colorado and Atlanta and everywhere you're tuning in from, the Bay Area is one of the more expensive locations in the country to live. You have to be productive here. I don't care if you're an art history major. You have to be productive here. And our students are.

Let alone the fact that I think our physical location is great. I live in downtown San Jose. I could ride my bike to work. You can hop on a train and be up to the city – San Francisco – in a little bit. Oakland's a couple minutes away. And the beach. I've taken my family to Santa Cruz four times in the last month. That alone!

You talk about resources. You talk about access to internships and jobs. 80% of our students graduate with at least one internship. Our graduate students, across the board – no matter what major they graduate with – graduate to the top 1% of salaries after graduation. And throughout their careers. Those kinds of returns-on-investment metrics are pretty tough to beat!

For the business school, Leavey School of Business, literally, the last five or seven years, anywhere from 95% to 98% of the students who walk across that stage do so with either a job or a grad opportunity lined up. Those kinds of things are tough to replicate in other locations.

So we're lucky. I tell folks all the time: we pay for it, but we're lucky.

[Laughter]

Elton Lin: There's no question. One: the advantage of being in Silicon Valley. And two: definitely Santa Clara students are being recruited and going into the Silicon Valley corporate pipeline – be it in tech, or even in the business pipeline. So there's no question.

A.J. Williams: And if you're an adult you know this, but I think a lot of times, at the high school level, students get caught up on, “If I'm going to be successful, I have to be this particular major.” That really isn't the case. A lot of these CEOs, and people with letters behind their names, at the undergrad level they had liberal arts degrees! They were doing other things.

It's that graduate degree that speaks a little bit more to your acumen, and things like that. So the undergrad years should really be spent – in my opinion – pursuing your interests and your passions. That kind of thing.

But business is a hot ticket. I think because everybody thinks, “If I'm going to be successful, I’ve got to be a business major.” Not the case! Google needs lawyers. They need people with communications degrees – because they have a heck of a marketing department. That kind of thing.

So think outside the box!

Elton Lin: Absolutely.

I want to open up for questions now. We have a good host of questions that are coming in. And if I can invite Anthony back… welcome back, Anthony.

Anthony Su: Welcome. Hope you guys are still staying cool!

All right. Let's start this idea of admissibility. I think a lot of parents just have a question of  “Well, how do you define admissibility?” Of course GPA is the obvious one. They'd say, “Okay, that's a number. I can figure that out.” But there are questions around community college courses or summer programs.

I guess I want to ask: how would you factor that in? How would you explain that process when trying to figure out who would be admissible. What are you looking for there?

A.J. Williams: Sure. That falls into that category of how rigorous your time was at your given high school. I tell students, and I tell families, all the time: it is not you coming out of your high school versus the kid coming out of the private school down the street, or the public school down the street. It is you coming out of your high school that we are evaluating.

Each application becomes a school profile. So we know, at school X, Y, or Z, what was offered: how many years of foreign language, math, science… that kind of thing. So we look to see: did you challenge yourself? If your school offers honors classes, AP classes, or IB classes, we want to see that you challenged yourself and took a couple of those things.

I think what ends up happening a lot of times is that parents or families pay a lot of money in high school and send their kid to private school X, Y, or Z. And are mad that their student doesn't get into college. A lot of times you can just look at the transcript and say, “Look at all the resources available to your student. Now look what your student did.” Not that we do that. I wouldn't do that. But I would want to! That's the consideration: did you take advantage of the resources you had at your disposal?

For us, if you're looking at our business or engineering programs, STEM – math, and science – preparation is very important. To any student who's listening to this right now: if you want to be competitive looking at schools that offer STEM programs or business programs you should shoot to be at calculus about your senior year – if not higher! Most competitive programs are going to want to see that. Not to say that we don't admit students who are in statistics or precalc. But calculus is the level you want to shoot for.

So that – in conjunction with the GPA, and in conjunction with everything else – is important.

Anthony Su: So rigor, right? Going out and challenging yourself. And I think there's also this idea of, “Does it matter that I show my rigor, particularly in… let's say chemistry. I want to be a chemistry major. Would it be fine to also go try a lot of different other things – whether it's music, or that I'm an athlete as well. And these other interests?

A.J. Williams: What I don't want the message to come across as is: “Arm your transcript with as many APs as you can” – because I do not support that! I don't want that. I tell students, “If you're going to take those more challenging courses, you should really focus on the core areas: English, math, science, history… that kind of thing.

Not to downplay AP psych, or something like that. But for students who load up just because it looks good, there's a mental health aspect, and there's a work-life balance aspect, that really need to be taken into consideration!

We want to see students who are athletes. We want to see students who are in theater. We want to see students who do whatever you can think of – because that simply lets us know that they have a positive pursuit outside of academics that keeps them grounded and keeps them level. And that maybe they'll continue it in college or beyond!

So those are the things that we look at and look for.

Anthony Su: We’ve also touched a little bit on scholarships and merit aid, and looking at those top applicants. Can you talk about what that process looks like at Santa Clara? Whether there's an early deadline, or extra essays and things like that? And how that's decided.

A.J. Williams: Yeah. Santa Clara is a very expensive school. Let's not beat around the bush. We're in the Bay Area – and all of that. Our total cost of attendance right now is about $76,000. It’s up there with Stanford. It's up there with USC and NYU if you're not an in-state student.

We consider students the same for any type of funding, regardless of what period they apply – whether you apply early decision, which is binding, or early action, which is not. Regular decision or early decision II, we consider you the same for funding.  

In terms of merit and all of that, we read an application… and at the time that we read that application, we're also considering merit. So we consider that during the admission review.

The gift and the curse of how we do it is that it's very simple. We make that evaluation on the front, and there are essentially buckets – or levels – that students will fall into. And then we go from there. I think the good thing is that there's no additional essay. There's no specific timeframe. For test scores, we consider you the same with or without them. So it’s very simplistic in terms of how we do it.

That said, 75% of our students receive something to make it work. So not everybody is paying that $76,000 a year! And that's one thing to always tell students: is that, when it comes to price tags with private schools, never let that price tag scare you. Because you really don't know how they fund, and what your situation will look like.

Now, to that end, if I can also add, for families that say, “We don't think we're going to qualify for need-based funding, so we're not going to bother to fill out the forms…” Big mistake. Big mistake. Wouldn't you rather be certain? I know I would!

The FAFSA is pretty universal. Most schools in the country, public or private, utilize that. It's free. The CSS is an additional step – an additional form that most private schools ask for. So take the time to fill out the forms, and just see where the chips fall!

And if school X, Y, or Z you get into is realistic… I tell you, what ends up happening is that students don't do that. Families don't do that. They get in and then they come there, saying, “Is there any additional funding?” You didn't take the steps that we told you to take!

Anthony Su: For sure, some good advice. Make sure you fill all those things out, of course. But, automatically, you’re considered in regards to merit aid, right?

Let's go to this demonstrated interest question. I think this is a mom, hearing that Santa Clara would really like you to go out of your way to go demonstrate interest. Is it true? Is it a disadvantage if you don't do this? How would you suggest students tackle that?

A.J Williams: Sure. That's one thing – especially in this day and age of COVID – where a lot of schools worked overtime to put resources online, or to put info sessions online – that kind of thing. If you're serious about a school, you could at least spend 30 or 40 minutes listening to somebody like me talk about that school online. Because we'll see that.

But even before that, if we're in your backyard, and you're applying early or wherever – whenever you're applying – if you haven't visited us, and you haven't checked us out, are you really that interested?

That's not something that, if you're admissible, we're not going to admit you. But if you're on the bubble and it's coming down to looking at, “Okay, waitlist or admit?” and that kind of thing… Did you check us out? Did you ever attend an info session? That kind of thing can come into play. It, again, will not be a make or break decision. You’re not going to get admitted or denied based solely on that.

And I also will say that we don't have the bandwidth to go into your social media accounts. and check all that kind of stuff out. We really don't – unless you do something crazy and you make the news. Then, yeah, we'll see that.

I will say this – for schools that offer interviews, you probably want to take them up on that! Let them know that you're serious.

That said, we get applications from all over the world, and a lot of folks don't have the resources to come out and see Santa Clara, perhaps, until they're admitted. Totally fine. That's not something we can hold against you.

Elton Lin: Just to jump in on that… especially because we're in the Bay Area. We work with, primarily, Bay Area students. And applying to Santa Clara – it's right down the street! Have you not taken the time to actually just go and visit, check in with the admissions office, go on a tour, or anything like that?

With that being said, there are certainly a lot of families not in the Bay Area who are interested in Santa Clara. A lot of people on the call today who are not from California. So this is where I think what you're implying is that, “Hey if they can jump into a virtual tour, or jump into a session like this… If you're on the bubble, certainly you care about the students who are more interested in coming than those who are less interested, right?

A.J. Williams: That goes into the guessing calculus. We're admitting students that we hope will come. We're not admitting students just to admit them.

And I saw a question that just popped up. “Do we do Zoom interviews?” Santa Clara does not do interviews. In normal times, we travel – domestically, internationally, and all that. If we're in your backyard, or if we're at your school, stop by and have a conversation. That kind of thing.

Not that those are interactions that are going to go into your file. We're not going to put notes into your file. But, if you know the little cards that you used to fill out at college fairs – that lets us know where we saw you. That kind of thing.

It's important that if we're making the effort, you're making some sort of effort as well.

Anthony Su: Another question, cycling back to aid really quickly: a question about the FAFSA, asking if filling out the FAFSA can reduce your chances of admissions. I'm gonna hope the answer is no, but do you wanna chime in here?

A.J. Williams: That's one of those questions where the family's saying, “We don't want our financial situation to scare an institution off.” And what I'll say is this: for most schools, if they're being honest, finances come into play at some point. The schools that have the ability to say, “If your family makes under X dollars, we'll cover everything,” – that's like two percent of all the schools in the land.

The old thing about the waitlist was that students coming off the waitlist would receive less funding than students who were admitted outright. That kind of thing. Whether the school told you they were considering finances in their calculus or not, they were. At Santa Clara, we're straight up with it. We’re need blind for the first 90% of our class. That last 10%, we have to take that into consideration.

And for any schools that are offering merit-based money and things like that, look for the students who usually qualify for merit-based money. Usually they’re students who are coming from families of means. Because, again, resources.

So we get back to that question. It's resources, and that kind of thing. Especially for California families. California's the fifth largest economy in the world. Our metrics are skewed. They just are. Remember when everybody was flipping out about gas a couple of weeks ago in the South. They were talking about, “Oh, it's going to get to three dollars, senator!” We're in California talking about, “What?”

Honestly, if you understand the reality of where we live, fill out the forms. Just see what the school's gonna offer you.

Anthony Su: Just emphasizing the idea that you were saying – that the students who are going to be great applicants for merit aid have gone above and beyond.

Let's talk about majors. There are just a lot of students and parents asking, “How does the major factor into the application process?” Do you automatically get into the college or the major that you want to do? And they’re asking about, of course, computer science, medicine, business… Within our area just very hot majors for students, right?

A.J. Williams: Yeah, definitely. So at Santa Clara – and, generally speaking, I would say for most medium-sized schools – unless you're applying to something like a nursing school or a dental program within the university… For Santa Clara in particular, you apply to one of our three colleges. The college of arts and sciences, which is our liberal arts division, is our largest division. About forty different majors to choose from there. Our business school is about a quarter – 25% – of the student body. In engineering, even though we're in Silicon Valley, it's only 15% of our student body.

The most popular programs at Santa Clara are computer science and engineering. Then we have a computer science and mathematics major in the college of arts and sciences. Those are probably the most competitive. The business school overall – because of the volume of students who apply to it, but it's only a quarter of our student body – it's been the most popular for the last few cycles.

In terms of a major for both business and engineering, both of those schools make everybody undeclared when they first get there. And then it's not until the end of sophomore year that you declare. Okay, you should probably start thinking about declaring a major earlier. That said our four-year graduation rate, four-year not six-year, is 88%. It's one of the highest in the country. And our retention rate is 95%. That's one of the highest in the country.

It's one of those situations, especially at smaller institutions or medium-sized schools, where, while you may come in as a particular major, you still have the flexibility to double major, or major and minor. That kind of thing. And, again, especially because we're on the quarter system, the speed of things allows for that even more so.

Anthony Su: Let's see. Just the final few questions for today. Of course, if anyone else in the audience has questions, definitely put them in right now. But I've just got a few more.

There’s a question about context. The parent, student, or whoever asked the question: “How would you evaluate a homeschooled student?” Since you don't have a good way to look at the local context, necessarily, with the high school – how many students or what courses they took. How does that evaluation process differ?

A.J. Williams: It's the same. But it is more intensive. It is more cumbersome. Because you really need to try and understand what that transcript means.

And I'll say this, too: it used to be the case that, with homeschool students, the test scores really were something that you could fall back on. And the reality is most homeschool students would tend to do pretty well on tests and that kind of thing. With that going by the wayside, it's a little tough.

Because most homeschool students are, if not 4.0, they're 3.9’s. Unless mom's really messed up! So the GPA and the rigor are there. But, again, the rigor piece has to be… you know. What I like is that, when students do homeschool, they are working with a local community college. They're working with a program that is established. So that there's some basis. What I'm looking for, essentially, is: “Where's validation of what that transcript means? What do these courses that you've taken represent?”

So, yeah, on our end it's more work. But that's what we signed up for. It's all good.

Anthony Su: Awesome. And also a question, because I think you mentioned 47% of students applied with scores. I guess they were also just asking, “Do you know what the admit population looks like in regards to that potential skew towards tests?”

A.J. Williams: Yeah. We're in the process of crunching those numbers now, And I can say that half of our admits did not submit test scores. Half did.

Anthony Su: Got it.

A.J. Wlliams: So to me, that speaks to the fact that the test scores really didn't play a huge factor in that. And looking at our meritorious group, I would say 40% of our students who were meritorious did not submit test scores.

Okay, now that said, folks are going to look at that and say, “Well, 60% did. And it means that that was a bigger factor.” But what was I saying earlier? Socio-economics. Those are students who were already strong. They were already taking rigorous courses. They were already doing that kind of thing.

Again, we were test-optional. It was seen as additional information. But that's how things played out.

Everybody thought, “Okay, Obama's gonna come in and solve all the country's problems.” Didn't happen – because that's one man in an eight-year gap for a two-hundred-plus-year country. COVID’ll go away. All right. Test scores are going out; the results are going to be completely different. No.

It was the first year that a lot of schools went test-optional, test-blind, or whatever. So we were going to probably see what we had seen all the years leading up to that. Now let test-optional be in place for the next fifty years, and who knows what that looks like?

Elton Lin: I totally get you. I think what you're saying is that we're in a new season of time where we're trying to understand, really, where test scores fit. And I think it's been well documented that test scores are misplaced to a degree. How should we be assessing?

We're at the beginning of the season, and it could be many years. And at the same time I can imagine students and parents like, “I'm going to college next year, so I need to get this figured out next year, because it's my turn to apply.” So I can understand the perspective on both sides.

A.J. Williams: I think we're all trying to figure out where to be in this coming cycle. And to your point, for anybody who's a junior now, or a sophomore, even, don't overexert yourself to try and go out there and take a test. About 75% of all the schools in the country right now are test-optional, test-blind, or some variation of that.

So to my point earlier, that whole hybrid model, in terms of instruction, I think is here to stay. Or it will be for at least a few years. This whole test optional test blind – that's going to come into play for many, many years, if not from now on.

So, again, for anybody who's thinking of flying their kid out of state to go take a test somewhere, don't do that!

Elton Lin: I completely agree – I don't think test-required is coming back. And you mentioned 75%… I'm trying to think of the top 100 schools. If I'm not mistaken, it’s only University of Florida that requires the test. Because it's Florida. Those of you in the audience who live in Florida – I love Florida. But if I'm not mistaken, among the top 100, I think Florida's the only state.

So this is where I definitely agree with you. I think test-optional is here to stay. And this movement towards test-blind or test-free, definitely, is gaining steam. There's no question.

This is where I think it becomes more fair. And what you alluded to earlier – if you're a student at any particular high school, in the end it's still, “What have you done to take advantage of the resources that you have?” Regardless of what high school you're going to. And that's equal for everybody – just your ability or your willingness to take advantage of what you have. And I think that's the most equitable.

Anthony Su: You guys are psychic! Because you read the next question. Effectively it's like: “Is Santa Clara also, going forward, thinking about test-optional, continued, or removing the test-blind or test-free? Something like that?

A.J. Williams: I'm one of the folks spearheading a team of us. We are trying to make the case to the rest of the campus community. But you need to do that with the numbers. You need to do that with this group that we just admitted being successful next year.

We announced a two-year pilot. But our goal is to validate the fact that, regardless of test scores or not, we can bring into the university competent, competitive students. So, yeah, we are hoping to be that way moving forward for sure. Whether that's test-optional or test-blind, we're not sure.

[Video breaks off breifly.]

You guys got me?

Anthony Su: You're here.

Elton Lin: We got you.

A.J. Williams: Cool. I was just giving a great pearl of wisdom!

Anthony Su: Yeah. I'll give you one more chance to give another pearl of wisdom with this question. Just a clarification, because it was a little bit confusing earlier, when you're talking about the schools of business, engineering, and then arts and sciences. Are you saying that everyone going to arts and sciences is effectively undeclared – in the sense of they get to choose between courses there? And also a question of how easy it is to transfer from college to college, or take courses from other schools and things like that.

A.J. Williams: Gotcha. Our policy is: whatever school students are admitted into, they're in that program for at least their first year. So if you really want business, or if you really want engineering, you should apply to one of those two schools.

Are they tougher to get into? Yes. Because they're smaller and they're popular. That said, from day one – while those schools make students undeclared – you're taking business courses, or you're taking engineering courses. It's a lot easier to be there and work with the college of arts and sciences for a second major or minor, because the majority of your general ed is housed in the college of arts and sciences.

If you're in arts and sciences, you have access to business or engineering minors – but not a major. While those two schools make everybody undeclared, in arts and sciences, if you apply to psychology, from day one you're taking psychology courses in addition to your general ed.

Again, because of the size of things and the speed of things in Santa Clara, we get a ton of students who double major, or major and minor. It’s very easy to do in Santa Clara, for sure. And most students do.

Anthony Su: Just to be clear, I got it completely the opposite! You're saying for engineering and business, you're taking those courses – but you get to choose what type of business or what part of engineering. Whereas for arts and sciences, you're picking the exact major and going down that track?

A.J. Williams: Well, you are, but you still have to do general ed, which makes you touch a lot of different areas.

And so, if you're in arts and sciences, there are forty different majors to choose from. It’s very easy to double major and minor within the college of arts and sciences. But if you're in arts and sciences, you can only have access to minors in business and engineering. Hopefully that clears it up.

Anthony Su: Got it. Awesome. Let's wrap it up here. Apologies again – there are always a few extra questions. But definitely I think we got to the vast majority of this overarching process of admissions and things like that.

Elton Lin: So, A.J., thank you so much. Do you want to post a link to your book in the chat? That would be terrific.

But I just want to say thank you so much, A.J., for coming along with us. I think it was super informative. I think you gave everybody not just one pearl of wisdom but quite a few pearls – and we’ll make a necklace and wear it off into the sunset! Really appreciate your time.

Next we will be having Northeastern students come and share on our next webinar series. And they're not competing with you, A.J. They're just Northeastern students hanging out.

A.J. Williams: It’s a good school.

Elton Lin: Indeed. We're gonna have a chat, and talk about what it's like to be a student at Northeastern. And this way families and students can get a feel for what the student experience is like.

So that's Northeastern next week. And, Anthony, who else have we got coming down the pipe?

Anthony Su: I think we're going to have Northeastern around August and Brandeis around August as well. So a little bit of a gap – but we'll also be talking about college essays, so you can stay posted for that as well.

Elton Lin: Fantastic. Thank you, everybody, for coming on with us tonight. A.J., thanks for posting your book. And, definitely, keep a lookout on your email for other webinars coming up.

Really appreciate everybody coming on. Thanks, A.J. Get yourself some cold water!

A.J. Williams: I need it.

Anthony Su: All right, thanks man. Appreciate it. Bye.