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by Rebecca Kern
The Flight of Jumbo stars a remote-controlled blue elephant helicopter created and flown by a high school student as an homage to
Andrew Flagel,
While many of the videos feature high-quality production and animation, quite a few look very homemade. "From our standpoint, we're not looking for the best film producer or best video equipment," Flagel says. "What we are really looking for is energy, enthusiasm, and leadership; someone who would make the best
Richard Edgar, the St. Mary's director of admissions, says the school added a video as an essay to see another side of a student. "It's so important for us to understand who they are," he says. "The essay should be able to share about the soul of the teenager."
Hayley Fremuth, a high school senior from Ellicott City, Md., was accepted early admission to St. Mary's for this fall. She created a video to show the college her many talents. "Your résumé is supposed to show what you've done, and the essay is supposed to show who you are," she says. "The visual effect you get from a person in a video is different from their writing style. I wanted to show them who I was when I wasn't on a piece of paper."
The Common Application, which is currently accepted by 389 member schools, has solicited videos on its arts supplement for the past two years, and it will be accepting videos in the athletic supplements next year, says Rob Killion, executive director of the Common Application. "Other than that, we have no plans to encourage or solicit video or other multimedia submissions from common applicants," Killion says. By contrast, the Universal College Application, which currently has 86 member schools, began allowing students to submit optional multimedia through its main application form during the fall of 2008, says Joshua Reiter, the president of ApplicationsOnline, which creates this consortium application.
While colleges are becoming more receptive to videos as part of an application, there are still mixed opinions among high school counselors. Some counselors worry about privacy issues surrounding videos on YouTube and their possible negative effects when students apply for jobs. There are also concerns about a socioeconomic disparity between students who can afford to make videos and those who can't. "If accepting videos becomes commonplace, it will increase the divide between haves and have-nots," says Jim Jump, the director of guidance at
However, others argue that video technology is widely available to young people these days. "The accessibility of tools to do online video are common in phones, cameras, and classrooms," Flagel of
To further level the playing field for all students' accessibility to multimedia in college supplements, Steve Metzman founded CollegeSupplement.com, a company that provides video cameras to high school students, allowing them to create videos and digital portfolios to send as supplements to colleges. Currently, the company has partnerships with several large public school districts, including inner-city schools in Philadelphia and Chicago, and he says over 250 colleges have viewed the students' online supplements at CollegeSupplement.com. Students can create videos about their experience growing up in inner-city neighborhoods. For students who don't have the money to travel for college trips, these videos enable the students to introduce themselves to college admissions counselors, Metzman says.
Deborah Carrera, the principal of
Jonathan Drullard, a senior at Kensington, created a video with CollegeSupplement.com. He will be the first in his family to graduate from high school and the first go to college. Drullard will be attending the
Some high school counselors worry that videos add further pressure to an already stressful application process. John Boshoven, a counselor for continuing education at
Despite their critics, applications with videos may become common. Shirley Bloomquist, an educational consultant in suburban Washington, D.C., says she thinks that in five years, the vast majority of colleges will allow videos as an option. "These videos are going to transform admissions," she says. "This is the medium where young people are right now. The videos are an opportunity to provide a window of insight and depth into the person, and can give the written word some vitality."
Education: YouTube the New Essay in College Applications | Rebecca Kern
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