The New York Times ran an interesting article about student application trends in the United States that indicates applicants’ concerns about how to “market” themselves to colleges and universities.

Just as corporations and institutions of education before them, college applicants are feeling that they, too, must brand themselves in order to gain acceptance into the school of their choice. Applicants are being seen as products, and applicants are being encouraged by paid counselors and coaches to market their experience and skills to colleges.

This may not seem so terrible, especially considering applicants always want to expose colleges to their best work and attributes. However, the Times likens this push to brand applicants to turning students into “so many marketable boxes of cornflakes.”
Applicants have always struggled to “sell” themselves to schools and to set themselves apart from the masses of other students applying for acceptance. This newer notion of branding oneself to gain college acceptance has taken it to another level. These days, many students end up participating in activities not because they enjoy them or are passionate about them, but only because it will help to market themselves to schools.

The article attributes much of this applicant branding trend to the fact that there are so many applicants, as well as so many applicants to popular, renowned colleges. Schools need to find some way in which to comb through all of those applications and as a result, applicants are often reduced to one-sentence slogans by which they are evaluated.

–Sara Elizabeth

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