College Selection, Admissions, Financial Aid Tips

Now we focus on college selection. Let’s begin to talk about the application process and procedure. I want you to know that if you send your stuff in October, you’re going to get answers sooner. You might get an answer as soon as December or maybe for some schools the wait till early in the spring. But sometimes this cause us problems. For instance, you may have to mark somewhere clearly on your application “please hold for my second SAT scores”. So what happens next?

Well, hopefully, you get an acceptance letter and then the college makes a deposit request. Meaning, we have accepted you, now send us some money to secure your seat in our next year’s class. Sometimes you get deferred and you need to find out what do I do next. Do I need to send updated grades, updated test scores, etc? Sometimes you get waitlisted. And for that you truly have to wait to find out what comes next. And sometimes you do get denied. But fear not, denial doesn’t mean the end of the ball game. You may be able to start in what’s called a Summer Start Program. You go there in the summer, to take a few classes to prove yourself academically, and maybe you’ll be allowed to start with everybody else as a freshman in fall.

Sometimes, there’s a J-term options. Every year a certain amount of students will show up as freshmen and by the middle of the year in January some have dropped out or transfer and seats open up. In some extreme situations, I’ve seen students appeal their decision. And sometimes it works, most of the times it doesn’t. But if you truly feel that information was overlook, or new information is available since you heard back, that may be the right you choose to go. So I want you to call or e-mail for information and application but I also want you to know that they would prefer that you apply online.

The common application, I get a lot of question about this. There is a common application, a universal application. Most state systems have a common application. Really what that does is help you cut down on your workload. So when it comes to time to use a common application, if that’s what you choose to do, just notice that there’s usually extra forms you will need to do. And it goes without saying that the application is a crucial document. But I put this last syllabus point on because I want you to know that I’ve seen many applications where I know that the student has very poor handwriting, and all of a sudden they send me application with excellent handwriting.

And I’ll usually say to the student, “Wow, your mom did a really good job filling this out for you. Now take it back and do it yourself.” If you are serious about applying to that college, what message would it send if they would assume that that’s not your work. Just something to think about. If you’re student athlete, you also need to think about filling out the NCAA eligibility form. If you completed your application, I said, I would like for you to send that on October. And that’s tough to do because you need to collect other stuff such as teacher recommendations, which if you’re smart you will start working on those spring of your junior year.

If you need to write an essay, please know that a lot of times admission officer will say we want to hear your unique voice. There are a lot of ways to write really good essays, but unfortunately most of the time, essays stink. It is not because students are bad writers, it’s just because essay writing is a completely different type of writing. The more essays you read, the more you will understand us. Academic resumes, there are some high schools where every student will create one of those. That will be a great example of what not to put in the application if it duplicates things you put already put in the application. If it truly shows a different side of you and an edge to your profile, send it.

But if not, don’t you send extra documents because you think that’s going to sway their decision. If you’re interviewing with a college, you need to know who you’re interviewing with. Because if you are interviewing with someone who is an alumni versus a student who is there now versus an admissions representative, the way you approach those three types of interviews would be very different. And in all these, don’t forget the four key questions especially “what makes you so stinking special?” I said earlier about applying to no more than 6 schools, well this is why. If you’ve done your research, you will arrive at a solid short list of colleges, a safety school.

Meaning one that you’re always guaranteed to get accepted to which hopefully would also qualify as a financial aid safety school. Meaning if you qualify for no financial aid, you could still probably afford to go there. I’d recommend about three target schools, schools where the chances are good of you getting in. And then I would encourage you to go after one or two reach schools, schools that are very competitive but you really want to try anyway because you have your sight set on that school or those schools for a quite while.

You need to know what type of admissions plans your schools have. Are they open admission schools, many community colleges are this way. Or like most of the four-year colleges, the two examples below, are they rolling admission? Meaning there’s a define start time where they will start reviewing applications and usually four to six weeks later they will let you know their decision. Or it more like Ivy League or Spring model where you’ll submit everything by January 15th let’s say, and they’ll let you know in early April. What complicate things are early actions such as early decision which may increase your chances up to 35% but it’s binding. So you go after ED, early decision, you need to know that sometimes there is a first round of early decision and second round of early decision, sometimes there’s early action, restrictive early action. But the biggest difference is early decision you’re committing to that school.

You’re saying to that school, I’m so sure about your school that if you accept me I would withdraw all my other applications and I will attend your school which is why it increases your chances of being accepted. Early action, you don’t have as much advantage but it’s a little bit less troublesome for students because it’s not as much of a commitment as early decision. Early action is not a binding agreement, unless it’s one of the types of restricted early action. You really need to know what you’re getting into before you start applying early. So what point am I trying to make in this slide, well one thing you should consider is colleges are looking for something, and different schools are looking for different things.

There’s a lot of misconceptions about what schools are looking for. On the left you’ll see the old fashion bright well rounded kid, but on the right you’ll see what’s more commonly known as angular. Angular means maybe there’s a hook. Maybe there’s something specific about you that makes you quite different. Now not to say on the left if you’re a bright well rounded kid that that’s a negative, but it may be less interesting than a student who has those attributes but is angular in a certain way. He is interesting because of one or a couple of very specific things that they did that they did in greater details than most of their peers. What I’ve seen is colleges want to see depth not breadth. Let’s say you’re involve with 5 things and you’re a superstar in two of them because like the guy in the left you want to be professional, you want to be coordinated, you want to be very purposeful in what you’re doing and why and how that will fit you and help you grow as a student in high school and hopefully help you build up a reason why you are majoring in something.

You don’t want to be like the guy in the right, where you’re so involved with everything that you end up being twisted like a pretzel. On the left is what colleges will probably commit to, on the right are factors that maybe important to some schools, such as tip factors. You’re maybe, you’re under-represented category, such as a minority, you’re first in your family to go to school, you come from a geographic region outside of what they usually look at, or you’re a public school student applying to a college where almost everybody who applies is a private school high school student.

Maybe you are a legacy or a son or daughter of a donor, maybe you have a specific athletic talent or you’re an international student and on down the line. On the left is the picture from the admission’s office mailroom, which is why it takes so long sometimes for your file to be complete. On the right, this is your volume of files that one admissions officer has to read through in a day. So what’s the morale, well, send in all your stuff in one envelope if possible early on in the process and highlight what makes you unique. So that’s the end of part three, please take the time to go on to part four.