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Top Reasons Why Colleges Rescind Offers

While rare, college admissions offers can be rescinded. Typically, experts say, a college offer will be revoked if a student’s academic performance drops significantly in senior year, or if a student is caught cheating.

US News recently highlighted the top reasons why a college will rescind an offer and offered tips on how students can prevent losing their admission.

POOR ONLINE PRESENCE

Social media has become a part of everyday life—and in college admissions, that’s no different.

In fact, 66% of college admissions officers view applicants’ social media posts as “fair game” when assessing applications. Experts say it’s important for students to keep a clean image online, even after they get accepted.

“Gen Z is very into sharing everything they do, so that can be dangerous in some respects,” Dan Lee, cofounder of New York-based Solomon Admissions Consulting, tells US News. “But if you have a social media page that shows you at different parties and partaking in substances, that is not something you want to share with colleges.”

But it’s not just social media that students should watch out for. Experts say that colleges will also assess a student’s criminal record or run-ins with law enforcement to see if there are any grounds for offers to be rescinded.

“It’s similar to how we have a process for students who are current students when they go through a behavior review and higher code of conduct process here,” Sacha Thieme, assistant vice provost and executive director of admissions at Indiana University-Bloomington, tells US News. “We hold our prospective students to a similar standard.”

CHEATING AND LOW GRADES

While colleges are for the most part understanding of “senioritis,” experts say it’s important to keep your grades from significantly during senior year.

“Ivy League and Top 20 schools want to see mostly A’s,” Lee says. “A couple B’s and ‘senioritis,’ that’s not a huge deal. But if you’re getting D’s and F’s and flunking out of courses, then that’s a huge deal.”

Lee says maintaining academic integrity is also a must.

“Generally speaking, any type of academic dishonesty, whether it be plagiarism or cheating on an exam is, with very few exceptions, going to bar you from any top school,” Lee says.

Sources: US News, Kaplan

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