Demonstrated Interest

How do you show Demonstrated Interest? 

1. Request Information.  Visit the websites for each of the schools you are interested in and register your email and other requested information.  More than ever, schools are tracking prospective students’ activity on their website.  For an in depth analysis see this 2019 Washington Post article which explains how colleges track data, Colleges Quietly Rank Prospective Students Based on Their Personal Data.

   1. “Visit” and Connect. If colleges visit your school be sure to attend the visit (be it in person or virtually). Be sure to take virtual college tours and keep your eyes open for online college fairs this fall.  

   2. Participate in Interviews. Many schools these days offer in person and online interviews. We recommend participating in any way you can. I can provide a list of schools that offer interviews BEFORE you apply! 

   3. Open Emails.  If a school to which you are applying sends you an email, be sure to click on it. 

   4. Get Social: Participate in social media interactions by joining schools’ Facebook and Instagram pages. Like posts. Be aware, however, when you are engaging in social media with these universities, they are not your online friends. Interactions should be much more formal. 

   5. Be Specific. In your supplemental essays, be sure to include information that is specific to that institution. Use this information as it relates to your particular interests. Scour the schools’ websites and see if there are any classes or professors who share your passions.

   6. Thank Everyone! Please remember to thank everyone with whom you interact. Do not to send anything in the form of gifts or gimmicks — your words are enough. You do not want to cross the line between demonstrating interest and becoming a nuisance. 

   7. Proofread all your Communications. Need we say more? 

   8. Choose Early.  While it is difficult and not always possible, the best way to show a school your demonstrated interest is to apply Early Decision or Single Choice Early Action. 

List of Colleges that Track Demonstrated Interest

If a school tells you it considers demonstrated interest as a factor in admissions, believe it! This list is not comprehensive and subject to change.  Please check the website of each school. Our source of information is The Common Data Set issued by each school.  

Demonstrated Interest = Very Important:

• American University

• Cooper Union

• Dickinson College

• Hampshire College

• Ithaca College

• Morehouse College

• Quinnipiac University

• Syracuse University

• Thomas Aquinas College

• United States Air Force Academy

• United States Naval Academy

 Demonstrated Interest = Important:

• Allegheny College

• Auburn University

• Bates College

• Bentley University

• Butler University

• DePaul University

• Eckerd College

• Elon University

• Fairfield University

• Florida Institute of Technology

• High Point University

• Kenyon College

• Lehigh University

• Loyola University Chicago

• Michigan State University

• Oglethorpe University

• Reed College

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Roanoke College

• Seattle University

• Seton Hall University

• Skidmore College

• The College of Wooster

• Trinity College

• United States Merchant Marine Academy

• United States Military Academy

• University of Arizona

• University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Wheaton College (MA)

 Demonstrated Interest = Considered:

• Agnes Scott College

• Babson College

• Bard College

• Barnard College

• Baylor University

• Beloit College

• Berea College

• Boston University

• Bradley University

• Brandeis University

• Brigham Young University

• Case Western Reserve University

• Catholic University

• Chapman University

• Clark University

• Colby College

• College of Charleston

• College of the Holy Cross

• College of William and Mary

• Colorado College

• Colorado School of Mines

• Connecticut College

• Cornell College

• Dartmouth College

• Davidson College

• Denison University

• DePauw University

• Drew University

• Drexel University

• Duke University

• Fordham University

• Franklin & Marshall College

• Furman University

• George Mason University

• George Washington University

• Georgia Institute of Technology

• Gettysburg College

• Gonzaga University

• Goucher College

• Grinnell College

• Hamilton College

• Haverford College

• Hobart and William Smith Colleges

• Hofstra University

• Howard University

• Juniata College

• Kalamazoo College

• Knox College

• Lafayette College

• Lake Forest College

• Lawrence University

• Lewis & Clark College

• Loyola University Maryland

• Marietta College

• Marist College

• Marquette University

• Middlebury College

• Mount Holyoke College

• Muhlenberg College

• New York University

• Northeastern University

• Northwestern University

• Oberlin College

• Occidental College

• Oregon State University

• Pitzer College

• Providence College

• Purdue University

• Rhodes College

• Rice University

• Rochester Institute of Technology

• Saint Joseph’s University

• Saint Louis University

• Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame

• Santa Clara University

• Sarah Lawrence College

• Sewanee: University of the South

• Simmons College

• Southern Methodist University

• Southwestern University

• Spelman College

• St. Olaf College

• Stevens Institute of Technology

• SUNY, Binghamton University

• SUNY, Stony Brook University

• Swarthmore College

• Texas A&M University

• Trinity University

• Tufts University

• Tulane University

• Union College

• United States Coast Guard Academy

• University of Central Florida

• University of Chicago

• University of Colorado Boulder

• University of Delaware

• University of Denver

• University of Florida

• University of Miami

• University of Michigan

• University of Missouri, Columbia

• University of North Carolina at Charlotte

• University of North Carolina at Wilmington

• University of North Texas

• University of Notre Dame

• University of Oklahoma

• University of Pennsylvania

• University of Pittsburgh

• University of Portland

• University of Puget Sound

• University of Rhode Island

• University of Richmond

• University of Rochester

• University of San Diego

• University of Texas at Austin

• University of Vermont

• University of Wisconsin

• Ursinus College

• Villanova University

• Virginia Tech

• Wake Forest University

• Washington & Jefferson College

• Washington and Lee University

• Washington University in St. Louis

• Wellesley College

• Wentworth Institute of Technology

• Wheaton College (IL)

• Whitman College

• Whittier College

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

• Xavier University

• Yeshiva University

 Demonstrated Interest = Not Considered: 

• Albion College

• Amherst College

• Arizona State University

• Belmont University

• Bennington College

• Berry College

• Birmingham Southern College

• Boston College

• Bowdoin College

• Brown University

• Bryn Mawr College

• Bucknell University

• California Institute of Technology

• California Poly, San Luis Obispo

• Carleton College

• Carnegie Mellon University

• Centre College

• Claremont McKenna College

• Clemson University

• Colgate University

• Colorado State University

• Columbia University

• Cornell University

• CUNY, Baruch College

• CUNY, Brooklyn College

• CUNY, City College

• CUNY, Hunter College

• Drake University

• Earlham College

• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

• Emerson College

• Emory University

• Florida State University

• Georgetown College

• Georgetown University

• Georgia State University

• Harvard University

• Harvey Mudd College

• Hendrix College

• Hope College

• Indiana University

• James Madison University

• Johns Hopkins University

• Kettering University

• Loyola Marymount University

• Macalester College

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Miami University

• Millsaps College

• Milwaukee School of Engineering

• Mississippi State University

• North Carolina State University

• Ohio State University

• Ohio University

• Penn State University

• Pepperdine University

• Pomona College

• Princeton University

• Ripon College

• Rockhurst University

• Rutgers University

• Saint John’s University (MN)

• San Diego State University

• San Francisco State University

• Scripps College

• Smith College

• Stanford University

• SUNY, Purchase College

• SUNY, University at Buffalo

• Temple University

• Towson University

• University of Alabama

• University of California, Berkeley

• University of California, Davis

• University of California, Irvine

• University of California, Los Angeles

• University of California, Riverside

• University of California, San Diego

• University of California, Santa Barbara

• University of California, Santa Cruz

• University of Cincinnati

• University of Georgia

• University of Hawaii at Manoa

• University of Houston

• University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

• University of Iowa

• University of Kansas

• University of Kentucky

• University of Louisville

• University of Maine

• University of Maryland

• University of Maryland, Baltimore County

• University of Minnesota

• University of Mississippi

• University of Missouri, Kansas City

• University of Montana

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• University of New Hampshire

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• University of Oregon

• University of Redlands

• University of San Francisco

• University of South Carolina

• University of South Florida

• University of Southern California

• University of St. Thomas (MN)

• University of Utah

• University of Virginia

• University of Washington

• Vanderbilt University

• Vassar College

• Washington State University

• Wesleyan University

• West Chester University of Pennsylvania

• Williams College

• Yale University

What should high school students do in the summer to stand out to college admissions committees?

For many parents of high-achieving children, summer breaks are difficult beasts to manage. Sure, you want to give your child a chance to enjoy sunshine, the pool, and friends. But alongside the idyllic visions of summer is the urgent need to ensure your child is productive, which likely leaves you wondering: what summer activities should a teenager seek out?

If you and your child are planning ahead for summer break, you may be looking into summer programs to expand your child’s horizons and hopefully give them a leg up in the college admissions process.

Summer programs for high school students, particularly pre-college summer programs located on college campuses, have greatly proliferated in numbers over the past few decades to the point where there are now hundreds of programs to choose from. Some are quite the opposite of the classic bunk-beds-and-mosquitoes summer camp adventure, delivering an intense, heads-down experience. Many others promise to meld the best of a (safe and supervised!) teenage summer with opportunities that can challenge your child and add texture to their Common App essay and other college essays.

But with so many to choose from, how do you know which are truly worth the often-extensive application process and frequently high price tag?

Here, I will review the benefits and drawbacks of participating in pre-college summer programs everywhere from Cambridge to Palo Alto, including the question on everybody’s minds: do these programs actually help your child get into college?

Pros and cons of attending a pre-college summer program

Your child could spend their summer in a wilderness program, on volunteering trips abroad, attending an arts camp, or participating in a specialized summer institute for an extracurricular activity at which they excel, like an academic team, robotics, or debate.

Typically, these programs aim to approximate the college experience by holding classes taught by professors or visiting scholars, while housing students in campus dorms. Programs frequently incorporate lectures, networking events, and opportunities to socialize with fellow attendees, and they can range anywhere from one to eight weeks in length. 

Pros of attending a pre-college program

• Your child may get the chance to study a subject and/or get hands-on experience beyond what their high school offers.

• Your child will be able to get a firsthand feel for what college life is like, which may make transitioning to college easier when the time comes.

• Your child will get exposure to a specific campus and type of environment, which will help them make an informed decision about what kind of school they could best succeed at (e.g., an urban setting vs. a rural one, or a large research university vs. a small liberal arts college).

• Your child might be able to earn college credit or use a course to place into a higher level in college or high school.

• Your child might develop a relationship with an instructor who would be willing to write them a letter of recommendation for college.

• Your child will be able to meet and befriend like-minded peers.

Cons of attending a pre-college program

• Pre-college summer programs are frequently very expensive.

• The selectivity, prestige, and academic rigor of programs can vary quite a bit and don’t always correspond to the academic reputation of the host college.

• Contrary to many parents’ optimistic beliefs, with the exception of the most prestigious programs, attending a pre-college summer program probably won’t directly help your child get into college. Don’t spend money just because you want your child to be able to drop “Yale” or “Stanford” in a college app. We’ll go into more detail on this, including some exceptions, a little later.

  The reality of pre-college summer programs

  Though pre-college summer programs can be found at most elite colleges these days, their own selectivity and rigor vary quite a bit.

  It’s important to understand that, in many cases, colleges lend their names and campuses to programs run by outside, for-profit companies in order to make money off of otherwise vacant facilities over the summer. In some other cases, programs are organized by an individual university department or division, such as a school of professional studies, that has little connection to undergraduate academic standards and certainly doesn’t have a direct line to the admissions office.

  While the quality of education may still be excellent, the chances of acceptance into some of these programs will be quite high for most students with solid academic records and the ability to pay full-price tuition. Less competition may be good news, but it also means that attending a summer program at, say, Harvard doesn’t confer nearly as much prestige or achievement as getting into Harvard itself.

  Will attending a summer program at a university help your child get into that college?

  The short answer: probably not, at least not directly. The vast majority of pre-college summer programs have no bearing on their host college’s undergraduate admissions practices and should definitely not be viewed as a backdoor into that school.

  On top of this, college admissions officers are well aware of the high acceptance rates and price tags of many pre-college programs and, with the exception of the most prestigious programs, won’t necessarily view acceptance into one as a significant achievement.

  Nevertheless, attending a pre-college program may still be worth your child’s time. Remember that many summer programs draw their instructors from their host college’s faculty and may still be academically challenging, even at less selective programs. Plus, if your child has the opportunity to take a course that’s in line with their existing interests and specializations, this will underscore their commitment to that subject and enhance the profile they are trying to build in their college applications.

  For example, if your child is obsessed with Russian and has been teaching themselves the language because their high school doesn’t offer it, taking an intensive course at Bryn Mawr’s Russian Language Institute would be a worthwhile pursuit, so long as your family can afford it.

  More important than simply attending the program, though, is that your child capitalize on the experience personally and in their college applications. Their college essays during application season should reflect that passion rather than the “achievement” of attending one of these programs.

  On that note, while this guide largely focuses on academic pre-college programs, we recommend taking a similar approach if your child is interested in attending a non-academic summer program. Whether they are looking into a service trip to a foreign country or an intensive drama course, the program your child chooses should reflect what they are already interested and active in.

  In general, we strongly caution parents and students against investing in flashy, expensive activities unless those activities are thoughtfully chosen and connect to the student’s interests and specializations.

  Summer volunteering—abroad or otherwise

  Volunteering can be another great way for your child to spend their summer if (and this should come as no surprise by now) their service reflects their genuine commitment and interest and doesn’t come across as a perfunctory attempt to seem like a good person.

  Like pre-college summer programs, volunteering comes with its own set of complexities, particularly when it comes to service trips abroad. While these types of trips are understandably popular—international travel is undeniably exciting, and volunteering in a developing country often seems like a surefire way to stand out from the crowd—they run the risk of falling into the “flashy and expensive” trap we mentioned above. Not to mention that volunteer abroad trips for teens usually last only a few weeks, which is typically not long enough to make any real impact, raising moral concerns about how you should treat the situations of those less fortunate.

  Generally speaking, if your child is looking to make community service one of their specialties, we usually recommend sticking close to home where they will have more opportunities to get involved in long-term projects. This will translate into them leaving a more profound, lasting impact on whatever cause they choose to work on.

  However, if your child has the opportunity to go overseas to work on a cause that they are truly connected to, a service trip abroad may be worthwhile. This is doubly the case if a trip abroad provides them with opportunities that simply can’t be had in your local area.

  For example, if your child is active in environmental cleanup activities and hopes to major in marine biology, they might apply to join a trip devoted to coral reef conservation in Mexico. Or if they are geopolitically-minded and are interested in studying international relations, perhaps they could volunteer with an NGO aiding refugee resettlement in Germany.  A good volunteer abroad program should have clear objectives, be well-connected to and invested in the local community, and promote local self-sufficiency.

  Final Thoughts

While participation in these programs won’t necessarily lead to your child’s acceptance into a top-tier university, they can still be quite selective and carry significant prestige. Furthermore, many of the skills required to get into a prestigious summer program translate over into university applications.

Attending a pre-college summer program can be a fantastic experience for your high schooler, so long as the program is challenging, within your family’s financial means, and not counted on as a backdoor into a prestigious college. There are also many other good options that your child can pursue to stay engaged and challenged over the summer. If your child is interested in attending a summer program, be sure to research the program’s quality and choose a subject that’s in line with their interests and specializations.

List of the top summer programs for high school students

Contact Planting the Ivy for a suggested list of programs!

Should I take the ACT or SAT?

While the ACT is currently more popular than the SAT, colleges have made it clear that they do not prefer one or the other. Before getting into the weeds about ACT vs. SAT, it’s important to know that the two tests have become more similar.

A good first step in making your decision between studying for the ACT or SAT is to take a practice test of each and see how your scores stack up. If your score for the ACT or SAT is significantly higher than the other, you should study for the test on which you did much better. If your scores are somewhat close, consider the following factors:

In favor of SAT

• More time per question: If you struggle to complete tests on time, the SAT may be the right option for you.

• Less geometry: The SAT has about a third of the geometry questions that the ACT does.

• Less science: While the SAT does not have a dedicated science section, science concepts do appear throughout the exam.

• Easier to navigate questions involving reading passages: The SAT usually provides line numbers corresponding to various questions and lists questions in order. The ACT lists questions in random order.

In favor of ACT

• Less challenging vocabulary: The SAT includes more advanced vocabulary words and more vocabulary questions overall.

• Fewer evidence questions: The SAT often tests your ability to refer to certain parts of reading passages to answer questions correctly. The ACT, on the other hand, requires far less effort in trying to “explain” how you arrived at your answer. 

• Subject matter is clearly separated across sections: On the ACT, science questions appear in the Science section, and so on. On the SAT, you may encounter, for example, science passages in the Reading section.

• You like science: The ACT has a science section, whereas the SAT does not. If you enjoy nerding out about experimental design in addition to questions incorporating charts and graphs (the SAT tests only the latter), you may prefer the ACT.

• Allows calculator use throughout the exam: If you don’t like or feel comfortable doing calculations by hand, the ACT may be the way to go. The SAT has a no-calculator section, though the calculations you’d be required to perform by hand for that section tend to be fairly simple.

Studying for both exams is one of the most common ACT/SAT mistakes we see students make. The amount of time you have to prepare is limited, so choose the one that most plays to your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.

When should I take the ACT or SAT?

Most students should take the ACT or SAT during junior year. US News reports that students should take the ACT or SAT during their junior or senior year of high school in order to have completed the most relevant classes. We have also found that taking the test in your junior year is ideal (if you’re prepared), as this will give you plenty of time to retake the test if you don’t get the score you’re aiming for on the first try.

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How many times should I take the ACT or SAT?

There is evidence that shows taking the ACT or SAT more than once results in higher scores. Therefore, we recommend choosing one of the exams, studying very hard for it, and taking it during consecutive administration dates.

Beyond your first two attempts, you’ll have to consider whether you can really score significantly higher to justify taking the test again. Studying hard for each administration comes with a significant opportunity cost, that is, it takes time away from other important tasks, such as developing a unique extracurricular profile or writing exceptional college essays.

What is superscoring?

Superscoring refers to the process some colleges use to take the highest section scores from the ACT or SAT, regardless of administration date, to come up with your “super score,” as opposed to simply taking the highest overall score, averaging scores, or treating all scores equally.

For example, a student who received a 1520 on her first SAT attempt (720 Evidence-Based Reading and Writing [EBRW], 800 Math) and a 1560 on her second SAT attempt (800 EBRW, 760 Math) would have a 1600 super score (800 EBRW from the second administration + 800 Math from the first administration).

On the other hand, a school that considers a student’s highest single-administration score would only be interested in the 1560 when making admissions decisions.

Whether a college superscores SAT or ACT test results should also factor into your decision of which scores to send to the schools that allow score choice.

What are test-optional colleges?

Test-optional schools do not require you to submit your ACT or SAT results The movement is led largely by FairTest.org, which maintains a frequently updated list of test-optional colleges and universities.

FairTest’s stated mission is to “end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial” and they actively campaign schools to adopt a test-optional approach to college admissions.

Is it really OK to not send test scores to test-optional colleges?

This is where things get interesting with test-optional colleges. Just because a school classifies itself as test-optional does not necessarily mean that school is test-optional for you.

It’s no secret that studying for the ACT or SAT can significantly increase your score. However, despite the proliferation of free test prep materials (most notably through Khan Academy), students with means still have access to more high-quality and individualized test prep.

In addition to the expectation to do well on the ACT or SAT, a student with significant means and opportunities will be expected to send their score reports to selective test-optional colleges because their peers will.

Therefore, make sure to honestly evaluate your context—your means, opportunities, and peers’ behaviors—when deciding whether to send test scores to various test-optional schools.

How to get an athletic scholarship

Introduction

If you’re the parent of a talented high school athlete, you’ve probably asked yourself these questions: How hard is it to get an athletic scholarship for college? How do you get a college athletic scholarship? How do athletic scholarships for college work?

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which governs college athletics in America, there are roughly 460,000 undergraduate students involved in intercollegiate sports competition. These “student-athletes” encompass less than 3% of the total number of undergraduates across the country. The answers to your questions lie in the details of what kind of NCAA athlete your child is shaping up to be. 

Can a high school student’s athletic talent play a critical role in the college admissions process? 

The answer is a resounding “yes.” Colleges and universities award close to $3 billion in scholarships and financial aid to attract athletic talent to their campuses. Even at colleges that don’t award athletic scholarships — hundreds of institutions fit into this category — coaches and athletic programs still exert varying degrees of influence over the admissions process. 

Unlike obtaining a merit-based scholarship, which can be awarded by simply measuring an applicant’s academic grades and test scores, your child’s ability to get an athletic scholarship relies on many factors:

• Your child’s athletic talent

• Your child’s sport and its specific recruiting process

• The types of athletic scholarships and financial aid available at different institutions 

• The needs of a particular athletic program (when we say program, we’re referring to a single sports team at a college or university)

• Your child’s academic profile

College athletics is made even more complicated by NCAA rules and regulations, by the breakdown of competition into three tiers (Division I - Division III), and by the athletic conferences that make up these divisions. 

Here, we’ll summarize best practices and strategies for helping your child leverage their athletic talents to get into college, receive funding for college, or be successful in both pursuits. We’ll also answer common questions and root out misconceptions about the recruiting process. 

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How hard is it to get an athletic scholarship? 

High school sports are popular across the country, but only a chosen few have what it takes to play intercollegiate sports. When thinking about how your child can get an athletic scholarship, you first need to consider their athletic talent — are they good enough to play in college?

Your child’s athletic community will probably answer this question for you. For most sports, the process of ranking talent begins prior to high school, because of youth leagues and amateur competition. As a high-school student, your child’s talents are usually on display if they compete for their high schools, play for AAU teams, attend recruiting camps, take part in local or national tournaments, or pursue a mixture of these activities.    

These platforms give teenagers the opportunity to impress college coaches, recruiters and athletic departments, who ultimately make decisions about who receives athletic scholarships and who doesn’t.

If you feel like your child is not receiving the attention he or she deserves, it’s not the end of the world. There are many ways to further his or her athletic career. Later on, we’ll discuss how you can help your child get recruited by colleges.

How many high school student-athletes get athletic scholarships or financial aid? 

Even if your child is outperforming other high school athletes, getting a college athletic scholarship is still competitive. The NCAA reports that approximately 2 percent of high-school athletes receive some funding to play sports in college, totaling around 150,000 students. These figures don’t account for the different types of scholarships or funding awarded to students.

How many college students-athletes receive athletic scholarships or financial aid?

This question is difficult to answer for one primary reason: not all colleges and universities award scholarships to high school athletes. As stated earlier, the NCAA breaks down college sports into three Divisions, each has its own rules about how colleges award athletes: 

Division I

• Comprised of larger colleges and universities with sizable athletic budgets that award students various types of athletic scholarships and financial aid packages

• 58% of student athletes receive some form of financial aid attached to their athletic performance

• Eligibility to compete is determined by the NCAA 

Division II

• Comprised of colleges and universities with more limited athletic budgets, which award students various types of scholarships and financial aid packages

• 59% of student athletes receive some form of financial aid attached to their athletic performance

• Eligibility to compete is determined by the NCAA

Division III

• Comprised of smaller college and universities that don’t award athletic scholarships   

• 80% of student-athletes receive some form of financial aid that isn’t connected to the athletic performance

• Eligibility to compete is determined by individual colleges and universities 

In reality, only a select number of Division I student-athletes get the celebrity treatment that Americans often associate with being a college athlete. Typically, this treatment is reserved for student-athletes who play specific sports (football and basketball, to be specific) that generate significant revenues for universities through ticket tales, endorsement deals and broadcast television contracts.

How many students use their athletic talents to help them in the college admissions process?

Because intercollegiate sports are broken down into different divisions — each with its own set of rules — it’s impossible to make blanket statements about how much athletic talent plays into the college admissions process as a whole. 

For instance, a football player who receives a full-athletic scholarship to a Division I university has a wildly different admissions experience than a football player who joins his Division III school team without speaking to the team’s coaches beforehand. The latter football player may have written in his college essay about his intentions to play football, and this essay may have impressed the admissions committee, but he wasn’t recruited by the school. Because of these nuances in college admissions, I can’t precisely determine how many students use athletics to help them get into college.   

What other sources of funding are available for college athletes?

In addition to athletic scholarships and financial aid packages connected to a student’s athlete performance, college athletes can also apply for academic scholarships and traditional financial aid, including federal grants, through their institution’s financial aid office.

Division I athletes can also apply for funding through the NCAA Division I Student Assistance Fund, which helps student-athletes pay for various aspects of their college experience.

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What is the recruiting process for college athletics? 

If your child is talented enough to play sports at the next level after high school, then they might be getting recruited by one or more colleges or universities. Getting recruited means that an institution is actively inviting your child to play sports and represent the institution in intercollegiate competition. 

Who governs the recruiting process?

College recruiting is governed by the NCAA, which has developed general rules and regulations to protect the interests of high school athletes and colleges. The organization’s guidelines also apply to how colleges can contact a high school athlete’s parents or legal guardians. 

Make sure you remain aware of the rules and regulations that govern your child’s specific sport and its recruiting process. You can get into the details by speaking to your child’s coaches and making a plan. 

How do I know if my child is eligible to play in college?

Student-athletes must register with the NCAA to confirm their eligibility to play sports in college. NCAA eligibility requires that high school athletes retain their status as amateurs competitors and fulfill (or be working to fulfill) necessary academic requirements, including NCAA approved high school courses, minimum GPAs and standardized test scores.  

When does college athletic recruiting begin?

The recruiting process varies from sport to sport. The NCAA has created specialized Recruiting Calendars, which determine when a college can and cannot be in contact with a student-athlete and their parents.

Once contact is permissible, college coaches and recruiters can contact your child in-person, via telephone, text, email, or social media, or through a third party, such as your child’s high-school coach or athletic director. 

Even when a college can’t contact your child, they might still be “evaluating” him or her from a distance. This means that coaches and recruiters are observing your child’s athletic performance at games, practices, tournaments, or recruiting camps, etc., but they aren’t allowed to initiate contact.

Most recruiting calendars also have quiet periods, when only written or telephone contact is permissible, and dead periods, when no contact is permissible. The NCAA wants to give your child free time(s) during the year when recruiting isn’t a top priority, so your child can focus on academics and training. These periods also give college coaches time to reflect on the talent pool and make decisions about dispersing scholarships.    

How else does college recruiting work?

Athletic programs recruiting your child may invite them to formally visit campus. On “official visits,” your child will meet with coaches, current student-athletes and other representatives of the school’s athletic community. On official visits, schools are allowed to pay for certain types of expenses, such as transportation, accommodation, and a set number of meals.

Your child can also complete an “unofficial visit” to a college with an athletic program that interests them. Even if he or she meets with coaches or members of the school’s athletic department, this visit will still be considered unofficial, because your child’s expenses are not being paid for by the institution. 

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What can I do to help my child get recruited?

A common myth is that college coaches are entirely in control of the recruiting process. In reality, they have no way of knowing about all the talented high school athletes who are interested in their athletic program. The country is too large and the number of talented athletes is too great.

How can I help my child connect with college coaches?

Your child can reach out to college coaches themselves. The NCAA allows high school athletes to contact coaches directly, keeping in mind the organization’s regulations and recruiting schedules that also govern this aspect of college recruiting. To help your child conduct outreach, you can:

• Identify colleges and universities with athletic programs that might be a good fit for your child

• Research the specific recruiting process and personnel of athletic programs on your child’s list

• Help your child measure their athletic performance. In addition to taping games or practices for highlight reels, you can calculate your child’s “stats” (RBIs in baseball, average number of rebounds per game in basketball, etc.) that quantify their athletic talent for college coaches

• Track the attention your child receives from local, regional or national media outlets so these press materials can be forwarded to college coaches

• Help draft your child’s initial outreach emails to coaches—note that under no circumstance should you, as the parent, be communicating directly with coaches; this isn’t a rule, but it’s a strong suggestion, as you doing so will undercut any perceptions of your child’s maturity.

• Help your child manage his or her social media, which has become an active platform for college recruiting—this means using their online presence to post responsibly and maturely, with highlight reels, for instance, rather than pictures from high school parties

• Find opportunities for your child to compete where college coaches and recruiters are present.

• Plan and facilitate unofficial visits to colleges and universities  

Common challenges in college athletic recruiting

As is the case with many extracurricular activities, your child may encounter certain roadblocks during their high school athletic career. Here are a few challenges and and suggestions on how to counter them. It matters to troubleshoot these things early and often for your child, since the road to being a student athlete recruit is four years long.

Competition within the team: If your daughter is a soccer goalie, and there is another talented goalie on her high school team who is a grade above her, your daughter might not be able to show her talent until her senior year. This scenario could impact her ability to get recruited by colleges. 

Options: 

• Transfer programs. Depending on how serious your daughter is about playing sports in college, she may need to transfer to another high school where she can show her talents as an underclassman.

• Seek extracurricular alternatives outside of school. Your child might benefit from joining a club team outside of school or attending a recruiting camp during the summer. These activities are often expensive and require long-term planning.

Breaks in high school athletic career: If your daughter is showing promise on the basketball court as a freshman and sophomore, but she’s injured over the summer and can’t play her junior year, she’d lose a season of being actively scouted. Her injury would affect her ability to impress college coaches during a crucial time in the recruiting process.

Options:

• Sustain contact with college coaches. If college sports programs are showing interest in your daughter, she should keep them abreast of her recovery process (physical therapy, summer plans to play club sports, etc.) to ensure they know she’s still interested in being recruited.

• Pursue a post graduate program for high school. Following her senior year, your child might need to complete another season playing sports in high school to secure an athletic scholarship. Many private schools across the country have post graduate programs that appeal to student athletes for this very reason. 

Resources of college sports teams: Your child’s preferred program wants to offer him a football scholarship, but cannot his senior year because they’ve run out of funds in their budget. (See below for more information about how sports programs disperse athletic scholarships and financial aid.)

Options: 

• Explore options to delay NCAA eligibility. Your child might have to redshirt a year in college sports — this means they attend college as a recruited athlete, but forfeit a full year or less of NCAA eligibility. In most cases, your child will enroll as a full-time student and train with their team and coaches, but your child won’t compete in NCAA sanctioned games, matches, etc., and may or may not receive a scholarship or financial aid as a freshman.  

• Become a transfer student. Some college sports programs provide athletic scholarships and financial aid to transfer students. Your child might want to enroll elsewhere for his freshman year of college and transfer in as a sophomore if a scholarship offer is still on the table.     

To help your child manage their high school athletic career, you can: 

• Develop a four-year plan for your child; include key benchmarks for their athletic development.

• Remain aware of your child’s involvement on his or her high school team; this includes developing a rapport with your child’s coaches and guidance counselors. You don’t want to be a helicopter parent, turning your child’s supporters off, but you should be friendly and in communication with them.

• Keep track of your child’s academic profile to ensure he or she maintains NCAA eligibility. Make a plan with them every semester to make certain that they’re enrolled in the right courses and are sufficiently challenged without being overloaded.

• Find opportunities for your child to compete where college coaches and recruiters are present.

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What do I do if a college or university wants to offer my child a scholarship? 

If a college or university is interested in awarding your child an athletic scholarship, they’ll inform your family of their intentions.   Typically, after they’ve formally offered the scholarship, your child is given a set amount of time to decide whether they want to accept the award or turn it down. Later, we’ll discuss how college recruiting relates to the admissions process in greater detail. 

What types of athletic scholarships and funding are available?

Colleges and universities award different types of scholarships and financial aid to student-athletes on a case by case basis. Scholarships can range from “full rides,” which refer to scholarships that include tuition, room and board, and other personal expenses until your child graduates college, to more tailored scholarships and financial aid packages.

What types of student athlete scholarships are available?

Ultimately, it’s up to college athletic departments and specific athletic programs to decide what type of scholarship they want to offer your child. Some programs will award a high school athlete a scholarship for many years with the option of terminating the agreement after one year. This type of scholarship is conditional and renewed annually based on the following considerations: 

• Athletic performance: The athletic program wants to make sure your child performs at the level required to maintain his or her scholarship

• Academic eligibility: Your child needs to fulfill the minimum academic requirements to be a student athlete on campus

• Athletic budgets: The college reserves a certain amount of money each year to fund specific athletic programs

What are the best athletic scholarships or colleges?

There’s no way to rank athletic scholarships or colleges, since there are so many factors, some objective (such as a school’s success in the NCAA tournaments), and other subjective (your child’s preference for small or large class sizes). As a parent, you need to complete due diligence during the recruiting process to ensure your child accepts the athletic scholarship that’s right for them.

You need to be prepared to handle different types of scenarios, which require families to make difficult decisions. Here are some strategies to help you navigate the process:

Have honest conversations with college coaches and recruiters. Will my child play as a freshman or sophomore? Is your athletic program recruiting other athletes to play his or her position? As a parent, it’s your responsibility to ask uncomfortable questions about your child’s athletic career. College recruiting is a tricky business, with coaches and athletic programs competing for the most talented high school athletes. Although the NCAA works to police college recruiting, you need to prioritize your child’s career above the needs of a particular college or athletic program. 

Review scholarship offers and search athletic programs. What’s the nature of my child’s athletic scholarship? Is it conditional on his athletic performance? How many college athletes on campus keep their scholarships for all four years? As we mentioned above, colleges and their athletic programs are in control of how they disperse scholarships and financial aid packages. As a parent, your job is to learn how your child’s scholarship will affect his or her day-to-day existence and living expenses on campus. 

Have honest conversations with your child. Which colleges and athletic programs interest you? Which colleges and athletic programs should we remove from your list? Athletic scholarships complicate the admissions process because your child may be asked to sign a formal contract with a college or university (see below for more details). If they break this contract, it can have serious repercussions, such as losing NCAA eligibility for a period of time or damaging their reputation in their sport’s community. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to stay abreast of your child’s situation to ensure he or she understands the responsibilities of accepting an athletic scholarship.   

For a more comprehensive rundown of considerations, visit the NCAA’s website, which lists questions that high school athletes and their families should ask colleges and athletic programs.  

How does my child accept an offer? 

The NCAA stipulates that high school athletes can’t officially commit to a college before a specific date on their sport’s recruiting calendar. If a school extends an offer prior to this date, your child can issue a verbal agreement with an athletic program, publicly informing  its coaches and your child’s sports community of their intentions to attend that college or university. Verbal agreements are non-binding.

Later on, your child can officially commit to attending that college by signing a National Letter of Intent, which is a contractual agreement between your child and the college. If your child breaks this contract by enrolling in another college, he or she loses a full year of eligibility to compete in NCAA competition.

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How does recruiting affect the college admissions timelines?

Your child's talent, sport's season, and sport's recruiting calendars will help determine the general timeline for how and when they are offered a scholarship and gain admittance to a college or university.

Given the year-round nature of recruiting (with contact, evaluation, quiet and dead periods for each sport) your child's admission process won't necessarily coincide with traditional college admissions timelines, with application deadlines in the fall and winter and notifications in the spring. Athletic programs are in constant contact with college admissions officers, but decisions are made on a case by case basis, thereby affecting the nature of the application process. 

For instance, a high school lacrosse player might receive a verbal offer from a college at the end of her junior year with the agreement that she will apply as an early decision applicant in the fall. Alternatively, a basketball player might still be getting recruited during their senior year and land a scholarship in the spring, several months after typical college applications are due. 

In the former case, if the lacrosse player has the right grades and test scores, then the early decision application may just be a formality — she can be confident about her acceptance even as a junior. In the latter case, the basketball player's college applications are on uncertain ground until college coaches make their decisions in the spring. By this point, college admissions officers are usually waiting on coaches and not the other way around. 

As a parent of a high-school athlete, you need to remain aware of all the options on the table when college is concerned and plan accordingly. In addition to reviewing the NCAA recruiting calendars, here is a timeline to help your child manage the admissions process as it relates to college recruiting:

Freshman year

• Develop a college list with schools that have your child’s target athletic programs

• Register with the NCAA to confirm eligibility

• Initiate or sustain contact with college coaches

• Identify key dates on the recruiting calendar for your child’s sport 

Sophomore year

• Revisit and edit college list, if necessary

• Initiate or sustain contact with college coaches

• Complete unofficial visits to colleges and universities

Junior year

• Revisit and edit college list, if necessary

• Initiate or sustain contact with college coaches

• Take standardized SAT or ACT tests 

• Review and develop a general college application timeline

• Complete unofficial visits to colleges and universities

• Review scholarship offers and issue a verbal agreement, if applicable

Senior year

• Revisit and finalize college list

• Initiate or sustain contact with college coaches

• Complete official visits to colleges and universities

• Retake standardized SAT or ACT, if necessary

• Follow college application guidelines provided by athletic programs

• Apply to colleges and universities 

• Review scholarship offers and issue a verbal agreement, if applicable

• Sign a National Letter of Intent for select sports, if applicable   

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What else should I consider when it comes to my child playing sports in college?

Playing sports will only be one aspect of your child’s overall college experience. He or she will have to attend classes, maintain a certain GPA and continue the process of preparing for life after graduation. While your child is still in high school, it’s important to discuss how playing intercollegiate sports factors into their long-term goals. 

How will playing sports in college affect my child academically?

In addition to being a fulfilling experience, playing sports in college can provide your child with considerable academic and social opportunities. College athletic departments are known to offer student-athletes:

• Academic support in the form of tutors and academic advisors, who help student-athletes manage their studies

• Travel opportunities paid for by the college or university

• Robust alumni networks that can provide professional and career opportunities after graduation

When helping your child make decisions about their college athletic career, it’s important to keep these considerations in mind.

Is it worth it to play sports at Division III colleges?

Even though Division III colleges and universities don’t award athletic scholarships, many have active athletic programs that recruit talented high school students. Some of these colleges, including those that compete in the New England Small College Athletics Conference (NESCAC), have a tradition of being highly competitive in NCAA Division III athletics while maintaining exceptional academic reputations.    

Final thoughts

Athletics can provide an amazing opportunity for your child to succeed as an undergraduate student in addition to helping your family pay for college. If your child has a passion for playing sports, there’s no harm in trying to leverage their talents for the college admissions process.

College Scholarships

Where to search for college scholarships

Have you ever heard people say something to the effect of: “There’s tons of free money out there! You just have to go find it!”? If you’re like most parents, you’ve probably wondered, “OK, so where is it? Where should I look?”

Great question.

There are several different categories of places to look for scholarships, each with their own pros and cons. We’ll start with the most well-known places to search for scholarships and move toward the less well-known ones.

Given that each of the scholarship strategies described below have their pros and cons, I recommend you use them all to supplement one another, rather than exclusively rely on one or two.

Online scholarship databases

There are many scholarship databases online that compile thousands, sometimes millions of scholarships, and match your family to them based on your child’s year in school, GPA, state and city of residence, extracurricular interests, and so on.

Some of the most popular scholarship databases include Cappex, Chegg, The College Board, Fastweb, Scholarships.com, and Scholly.

Pros: Nothing comes close to the sheer number of scholarships that can be found through online scholarship databases. Chances are, your child’s background information will meet eligibility criteria for hundreds of scholarships.

Cons: The cons of using online scholarship databases aren’t exactly the databases’ fault. Nevertheless, I’ll describe them.

First, many of the scholarships found on these databases will end up receiving thousands of applications, simply because most families find scholarships through these websites. In other words, the competition for many of the scholarships is quite high.

Second, there are many “low-quality” scholarships found through these databases, such as those that have few eligibility requirements, whose primary goal is to collect physical and email addresses to send further promotions to.

Despite these cons, you can find several “diamonds in the rough” through online scholarship databases. Therefore, I recommend you include online scholarship databases as part of any college scholarship search.

College applications

While completing various college applications, your child will likely come across questions asking whether they would like to be considered for certain scholarships. Some of these scholarships opportunities are extended to all applicants, whereas others are only extended to students who meet certain eligibility criteria (e.g., state of residence, ethnocultural background).

Pros: Scholarship opportunities extended through college applications are the easiest to come across. To discover them, you simply have to go through the process of applying for college. If you’re reading this guide, you probably will or already have done that!

Cons: Again, given that these scholarships are so easy to find, many students will apply for them. While that shouldn’t be a deterrent, know that these scholarships will have greater competition for them.

School counselors

While a large number of scholarships can easily be found through online scholarship databases and college applications, many others aren’t listed in either of these sources. High school and college counselors may know about several scholarships not listed on larger databases that your child is eligible to apply for; all you have to do is ask.

And don’t feel limited to only asking your school’s counselor. Typically, counselors at other local schools are also happy to help you find great scholarships.

Pros: High school and college counselors are often able to point you to high-paying, low-competition scholarship opportunities that you simply wouldn’t have known about otherwise. They can also help you sort through the hundreds of scholarship opportunities you come across on online scholarship databases.

Cons: School counselors often have a large number of students they are required to support. Therefore, the onus will largely be on you and your child to approach them for help. Moreover, school counselors simply won’t know about the many scholarships listed on online databases, as well as niche scholarships you can find on your own (see the following section for more information). Therefore, you shouldn’t exclusively rely on school counselors for your scholarship search.

Manual searches for private scholarships

The greatest hidden gems are typically found through conducting manual searches for private scholarships (i.e., niche scholarships).

The best approach to finding private scholarships is to first list everything about your child’s and family’s background, including your ethnocultural background, place of employment, and place of residence, as well as your child’s gender, extracurricular interests, disability status, etc.

Next, you should conduct online searches via Google or similar search engines for every single item on your list to see what scholarship opportunities are available to your family. For example, if you search for scholarships for students with disabilities, you may come across Nitro's awesome resource: 131 Scholarship Opportunities for Students with Disabilities.

Pros: Private scholarships typically have the lowest competition, for the following two reasons: they often don’t appear on online scholarship databases, and they have very targeted eligibility requirements (e.g., belonging to a specific ethnocultural group).

Cons: Finding private scholarships that your child is eligible for perhaps requires the most effort and creativity of all the listed approaches. Your search will be most effective after deep brainstorming about your child’s and family’s background.

When to search for college scholarships

I’ll break down this shorter section in two ways: the best time of year to search for scholarships and the ideal grade levels during which to search for scholarships.

First, what’s the best time of year to search for college scholarships?

Most scholarship applications tend to be due in the fall (October–November) or spring (March–May).

That said, several scholarship applications your child is eligible for will likely be due outside of these months. Therefore, it’s worthwhile to conduct a quarterly scholarship search and plan ahead.

And during what grade levels should you search for college scholarships?

Most scholarships require students to be in 12th grade or in college at the time of application.

How to stay organized with college scholarship applications

Keeping track of all of the great scholarship opportunities you find can be challenging. Therefore, I strongly recommend you stay organized with a spreadsheet containing the following pieces of information for each scholarship:

• Name of scholarship

• Scholarship website

• Application due date (and if submitting via regular mail, specify whether it needs to be postmarked or received by the due date)

• Eligibility requirements*, such as:

  • Grade in school

  • Race/ethnicity

  • Citizenship

  • Disability status

  • Extracurricular activity participation

• Application requirements, such as:

  • Transcripts

  • Test scores

  • Résumé or CV

  • Cover letters (including name and address of recipient)

  • Essays (including the number of essays, essay prompts, and word or character count)

  • Recommendation letters, including:

    • The number of letters

    • Types of letters (e.g., from a teacher or from a coach)

    • How letters should be sent (e.g. uploaded to online application vs. mailed, mailed directly by recommender vs. included in larger application envelope)

  • Additional materials (e.g., art portfolio, athletic highlight reel)

  • Interviews

• Submission method and instructions (i.e. regular mail vs. email, name and address of recipient)

*Please note that eligibility requirements can sometimes be confusing. If you have any questions or need further clarification whether or not your child qualifies for a certain scholarship, please get in touch with the scholarship organization immediately. They’ll be glad to help.

Common App Activities

In addition to the dreaded 650-word Common App Essay and the numerous college-specific supplemental essays your child will have to write, they’ll also need to complete the Common App Activities section when applying to college.

Whereas the Common App Essay will show college admissions committees who your child is, the Common App Activities section will allow colleges to understand what your child has done and is doing outside of the classroom, offering one of the best opportunities to stand out among other applicants.

Without college essays and extracurricular activities lists, colleges would be limited to grades, class rank, and ACT and SAT scores to make their admissions decisions. Given that so many students with strong numbers apply to college each year, it’s important for your child to use the Activities section to develop an application theme—that is, to highlight their “it factor” and specialties.

Before we get into writing tips and sample extracurricular descriptions, let’s go over a few Activities section basics:

What qualifies as an activity?

According to Common App, “activities may include arts, athletics, clubs, employment, personal commitments, and other pursuits.” In other words, pretty much anything pursued outside the classroom qualifies as an activity.

Since nearly anything counts as an activity, can my child include activities done on an informal basis? 

Yes. Your child can include activities that were organized formally as well as those activities that may have only involved your child. Examples of the former might be sports teams and school clubs whereas examples of the latter include activities and hobbies your child may also participate in independently, such as reading or scrapbooking. Additionally, your child may perform community service as part of a team or alone. Either way, it could count as an impactful activity for the Common App.

How many activities can be listed?

Your child may list up to 10 activities.

What are the word or character limits for each activity?

Common App sets the following limits for each activity:

• Position/Leadership description: 50 characters

• Organization name: 100 characters

• Activity description, including what your child accomplished and any recognition they received: 150 characters

As you can see, there is very limited space offered for each activity, so we’ll be discussing how to maximize the impact of each entry below.

What other information does Common App collect for each activity?

Common App requests the following information for each activity:

• Activity type (e.g., art, athletics, community service, debate/speech, foreign language, research, social justice, work)

• Participation grade levels (9, 10, 11, 12, post-graduate)

• Timing of participation (during school year, during school break, all year)

• Hours spent per week

• Weeks spent per year

• Whether or not your child intends to participate in a similar activity in college (yes/no)

  (Note: It is acceptable for your child to indicate their intention to participate in certain similar activities in college, but not others.)

How to Get the Best Letters of Recommendation for College

Your child has spent countless hours to achieve a high GPA and standardized test scores. They’ve also participated in impactful extracurricular activities throughout their high school years and have written a wonderful personal statement.

Why, then, does your child need letters of recommendation for college admission?

While the admissions committee learns a great deal about your child from the rest of their application materials, recommendation letters provide them with something they don’t yet have: an adult’s opinion of who your child is as a student and person.

These letters can reveal character traits and unique aspects of your child’s personality that test scores and a resume cannot. They also demonstrate to admissions committees that your child has adult professionals willing to vouch for them.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Okay, but does anyone even read these letters?” The answer is: yes.

Admissions committees want to be able to imagine what your child is like as a person and how they might interact with other students and teachers. If reviewers can’t picture your child adding value to their campus, they’ll be rejected.

Now let’s get specific:

Who to ask for a letter of recommendation

Follow the rules

Your child should always follow the instructions provided by the school. If the university requests a letter from an academic teacher, your child should send a letter from an academic teacher. If the schools asks for two academic teachers and a third open option, your child should send recommendation letters from two academic teachers and a third from someone who closely supervised their extracurricular activities or an employer who observed their diligence, initiative, and impact.

Following the rules is a surefire way to get off on the right foot.

Choose someone because they know you, not because they are famous

Your child should request recommendation letters from people who know them well.

While it may seem like a good idea to ask a teacher who is an alum of their top-choice school, or a teacher who has celebrity status in your child’s community, your child will only benefit if the recommender can write a substantial and persuasive letter about them. If a teacher only knows your child’s face and final grade in the course, the letter will likely be underwhelming and generic.

It is best to choose letter writers who know your child as a student and person and who can elaborate on their unique character. Chosen well, your child’s letters will include information about them that isn’t found elsewhere on their application.

Think outside the box

If your child has a coach, adviser or employer who has known them for some time and can speak articulately on their behalf, perhaps they are a good choice. In addition, instructors who know your child through an extracurricular activity (as opposed to an academic course) can often provide a unique perspective that may not come up inside the classroom.

Main point: unless specified by the school, don’t rule out adults just because they haven’t taught your child inside the classroom.

Stay current

It is best for your child to choose recommenders from their current school year or a year prior, unless they’ve maintained a great relationship with a teacher from an earlier grade level. A teacher who knew your child freshman year and has not interacted with them since? Pass. On the other hand, a teacher who met your child freshman year and has mentored them since? Compelling choice.

When to ask for a letter of recommendation

Your child should request recommendation letters at least two months before their application deadlines and be clear about when their college application deadlines are.

If your child happens to know they would like to ask a particular teacher well in advance, they could let them know early on that they hope to get a letter from them.

Remember, teachers are often inundated with requests 2-3 months prior to application deadlines. Asking in advance means your child’s teacher won’t be rushed and will be more likely to submit a stronger letter.

How to ask for a letter of recommendation

Logistics

Ask in person, whenever possible. Even if your child initially sends an email to set up the meeting, an in-person request is always preferable to an email request. The latter may appear less invested and less mature.

Here is a sample email to request the letter in person:

Dear [Teacher’s Name],

I hope all is well with you. I’m applying to college this upcoming year and am hoping you would offer your perspective on the process as I’ve always valued your guidance. If so, please let me know some days/times that work well for you to meet, and I’ll make sure to accommodate. Thank you for your time and consideration!

Best,

[Your Name/Last Name]

If asking in person is not an option, here is a sample script for the recommendation letter request email:

Dear [Teacher’s Name],

I hope all is well with you. I’m applying to college this upcoming year and am wondering whether you’d feel comfortable writing a strong letter of recommendation. [Authentic sentence explaining why you would value a letter from them (ex. why you value their perspective, etc.)]. If you’re willing to provide a letter, I will provide the following materials: 1) a list of my grades 2) my CV, 3) a draft of my personal statement, and 4) the school’s guidelines for letters of recommendation. Thank you for your time and consideration!

Best,

[Your Name/Last Name]

Ensuring quality

If your child is unsure whether or not an adult will write a compelling recommendation, they should ask the recommender if they would feel comfortable providing a “strong letter of recommendation.” If a teacher seems hesitant, your child should simply thank them and move on to the next. Better to suffer that minor rejection than end up with a weak LOR and lower admissions odds.

If your child is pretty certain that an adult will not write a positive recommendation, don’t ask them. Remember, the admissions committee is evaluating your child, not the person writing the letter. Your child’s relationship with the recommender outweighs their background or perceived status.

Providing materials

Your child should offer to provide their recommenders with application materials or a short list of notable accomplishments (sometimes referred to as a “brag sheet”), should they wish to look them over. Many teachers with stacks of letters to write will decline; however, it is wise to offer. Materials to provide include:

• a finalized personal statement or advanced draft

• a list grades (a transcript copy will do)

• a CV or resume

• any specific instructions from the school requesting the LOR

Waive the right to view your letters of recommendation

Your child should waive their right to see LORs on their application when prompted. Otherwise, schools will not trust the letters, as they assume teachers are less honest with their commentary when they know their letter will be reviewed by the student.

How to follow up on letters of recommendation

Before the deadline

Say your child has requested LORs in advance, but a month has passed and they haven’t heard from their writer or the school regarding submission. Your child is probably anxious to reach out, but concerned about annoying someone who is doing them a favor.

The good news? It is completely acceptable to reach out to recommenders with a reminder. In fact, they are probably expecting it! Your child should follow up with their recommenders about two weeks to a month prior to their first application deadline to express gratitude and ensure their letters have been (or are about to be) sent. Here’s a sample letter of recommendation follow-up email:

Dear [Teacher’s Name],

I hope all is well with you.  I plan to submit my college applications [on date or in # of days/weeks], so I’m sending a reminder regarding your recommendation letter. Please let me know if there is any additional information I can provide.

Thank you for all of your support!

Best,

[Your Name/Last Name]

After your child has heard back

Once your child has heard back from schools and has made a decision on where to attend, it’s important that they send a thank you note to recommenders updating them on their admissions results and decision on where they’ll be attending.

Your child’s letter writers will be grateful to hear their decision directly. A hand-written thank you note will add an extra mature touch.

Here’s a sample thank you letter for your child’s recommendation writers:

Dear [Teacher’s Name],

Thank you again for supporting my college applications by offering your perspectives on the process and submitting a recommendation letter. I wanted to let you know that I was accepted to [school name] and plan to attend in the Fall!

I feel very fortunate to have great mentors like you. Thank you, again,  for all of your support.

Best,

[Your Name/Last Name]

What makes a good letter of recommendation

Specific examples/anecdotes

Specific examples and anecdotes are key components of a persuasive LOR, as they tell the admissions committee that the writer truly knows your child and can provide examples to back up the claims they are making.

• Generic: George is a brilliant student and has a clear passion for chemistry.

• Specific: George is a brilliant student who has a clear passion for chemistry. It came as no surprise that in addition to being the best student in my class, he also scored a 5 on the AP exam. I was continually impressed by George’s zest for chemistry and his involvement in not one, but two different science clubs on campus.

Clear/powerful language

Powerful language and the use of superlatives tell the admissions committee that your child’s writer feels strongly about just how wonderful they are. Rather than imply your child is as good a candidate as any other, this kind of language states that they are superior to other candidates and should be viewed as such.

• Vague/generic: Sally wrote good essays during her time in my AP English course and was always friendly with her peers.

• Clear/powerful: Sally’s essays during her time in my AP English course were some of the most compelling I’ve read in 16 years of teaching. In addition, she was an absolute pleasure to have in class and beloved by all of her peers.

Enthusiastic support

A recommendation and an enthusiastic recommendation read quite differently. You want your child’s writer to convince the admissions committee that they should accept them or they will be sorely missing out.

• Unenthusiastic support: I recommend John be accepted to your undergraduate program. If you have questions, please contact me.

• Enthusiastic support: I give John my highest recommendation, as I know he will continue to excel in college and beyond. It was my pleasure to serve as his teacher and I am confident that he will add great value to your university. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Insight into your child’s personality, not just their grades

As discussed earlier, schools want to know who your child is as a person, not just as a student. A recommendation letter that fails to address this will leave them wondering: does the student have a negative (or no) personality? Does this teacher not really know them, just their name and final grade?

• Grades only: Sonia performed impressively in my course and was well known for her academic prowess on campus.

• Additional insight: Sonia performed impressively in my course and was well known for her academic prowess on campus as well as her kind spirit. For instance, I routinely observed Sonia outside the cafeteria helping sign up peers for volunteer work with several of the organizations she championed. Sonia’s work with Heal The Bay often came up in class discussion, making her passion for the environment undeniable.

Sample College Recommendation Letter

Dear Admissions Committee,

I had the pleasure of teaching Leah Watkins in her 11th grade AP English Literature class at Fitzgerald High School. From the beginning, Leah impressed me with her passion for literature and her ability to understand and articulate difficult concepts. Leah is incredibly insightful and skilled in picking up nuances and subtleties within the text. In addition to achieving an A+ in my notoriously difficult class and a 5 on the AP exam, I am not surprised to find out that Leah is now ranked at the top of perhaps the most capable senior class in our school’s 65-year history.

Leah is an active and engaging student, who participated frequently in class and routinely supported her peers. Throughout the year, she provided her peers with a safe space to share their opinions and receive helpful feedback. Even when others’ opinions differed from her own, Leah was open, compassionate and kind. During a class debate about abortion, Leah offered to speak for the side opposite her own views in order to practice putting herself in others’ shoes. Leah’s warmth and empathy as a person enhance her skills as a writer and make her a true joy to have in the classroom.

Outside of the classroom, Leah demonstrated a passion and talent for poetry as the president of the Fitzgerald Poetry Club during sophomore and junior year. As president, Leah seamlessly combined her skills as a poet with her natural leadership abilities. Leah’s kindness and openness to feedback made her a beloved president, and I imagine she will be greatly missed by her younger peers upon graduation.

Leah has my highest recommendation for admission to your undergraduate program. I have no doubt that she will continue to do great things in the future and will be a valuable member of your community. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Stacy Moore

Fitzgerald High School

The Common App Essay

A few weeks ago, I shared information containing a number of college essay examples from students admitted to programs like Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley.

This week, I'm going to discuss one of the most important essays your child will ever have to write: the Common App Essay (aka, personal statement).

Before I get into the Common App Essay specifically, I want to discuss why you should care about your child's college essays in the first place.

College essays play a HUGE factor in admissions decisions, ranging between 10-30%, depending on the school.

With many schools having gone test-optional or deemphasizing tests, they are likely more heavily weighed than ever before.

Think about how hard your child has worked throughout high school, enrolling in tough courses, studying for AP/IB exams, taking and retaking the ACT or SAT, participating in extracurricular activities, and so on.

Yet, a few essays, written over the course of a few weeks to months, play as large a role as multi-year pursuits.

The nice thing about that is your child can set themselves apart from the competition by producing incredible work over a relatively short period.

The flip side is that your child's admissions odds can sink if they produce so-so essays, even if their stats and extracurriculars are great.

The reason the Common App Essay in particular is so important is because it's your child's core essay, the one that will be sent to most schools on your child's list.

Even if your child is applying to University of California (UC) schools or schools that require a different application (e.g., Coalition App), the Common App Essay can be modified to fit other application prompts.

Admissions committees want to learn what's not on your child's resume. They want to learn what makes your child tick, how they spend their time when they have no competing responsibilities, interesting aspects of their background, the ideas that are most important to them, things they passionately believe or fight for that few others care about to the same degree.

Unfortunately, too many students believe that they have to sound a certain way to impress admissions committees. They read other successful essays and attempt to dilute their own voice.

My goal for this message is to challenge two common misconceptions about the Common App Essay and, frankly, every other college essay your child will write.

Misconception 1: It's important to answer the essay prompt directly.

Common App offers seven prompts your child can choose from, including one that reads, "Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design."

This "wild card" prompt was added in recent years in response to students being unsure about which prompt to select. It was an effort by Common App to communicate on colleges' behalf that the selected prompt is not important. Rather, your child should communicate what is important to understand about them.

We routinely advise students to focus on writing their best personal essay and then decide which prompt to select.

If your child selects a prompt beforehand, they might feel constrained by it, rather than producing their most meaningful essay.

Misconception 2: It's important to select a unique topic.

For nearly two decades of helping students get into top colleges, we've read essays about pretty much every topic.

And for every topic, there are examples of great essays and not-so-great essays.

Yet, parents and students routinely worry about choosing a unique topic, as though selecting something that's never been written about will impress admissions committees.

A few years ago, the famous "Costco Essay" intensified applicants' desires to write about something no one else had ever written about. What people neglect to recognize is that the Costco Essay is written really well. A bad Costco Essay would have just been another bad essay; the fact that it was written about Costco would have made no difference.

Moreover, I routinely read essays with topics I've seen hundreds of times—the joy of practice, growing up in a multi-ethnic household—that provide such a unique perspective that they make me revisit an idea in an entirely fresh and personal way. These essays are just as powerful as the Costco Essay.

In other words, there is no such thing as a good or bad topic, only strong or poor execution.

Your child's Common App Essay can indeed make or break their admissions odds, so it's important that they get it right.

Talk soon,
Jessica

Costco Essay:

Managing to break free from my mother's grasp, I charged. With arms flailing and chubby legs fluttering beneath me, I was the ferocious two year old rampaging through Costco on a Saturday morning. My mother's eyes widened in horror as I jettisoned my churro; the cinnamon-sugar rocket gracefully sliced its way through the air while I continued my spree. I sprinted through the aisles, looking up in awe at the massive bulk products that towered over me. Overcome with wonder, I wanted to touch and taste, to stick my head into industrial-sized freezers, to explore every crevice. I was a conquistador, but rather than searching the land for El Dorado, I scoured aisles for free samples. Before inevitably being whisked away into a shopping cart, I scaled a mountain of plush toys and surveyed the expanse that lay before me: the kingdom of Costco.

Notorious for its oversized portions and dollar-fifty hot dog combo, Costco is the apex of consumerism. From the days spent being toted around in a shopping cart to when I was finally tall enough to reach lofty sample trays, Costco has endured a steady presence throughout my life. As a veteran Costco shopper, I navigate the aisles of foodstuffs, thrusting the majority of my weight upon a generously filled shopping cart whose enormity juxtaposes my small frame. Over time, I've developed a habit of observing fellow patrons tote their carts piled with frozen burritos, cheese puffs, tubs of ice cream, and weight-loss supplements. Perusing the aisles gave me time to ponder. Who needs three pounds of sour cream? Was cultured yogurt any more well-mannered than its uncultured counterpart? Costco gave birth to my unfettered curiosity.

While enjoying an obligatory hot dog, I did not find myself thinking about the 'all beef' goodness that Costco boasted. I instead considered finitudes and infinitudes, unimagined uses for tubs of sour cream, the projectile motion of said tub when launched from an eighty foot shelf or maybe when pushed from a speedy cart by a scrawny seventeen year old. I contemplated the philosophical: If there exists a thirtythree ounce jar of Nutella, do we really have free will? I experienced a harsh physics lesson while observing a shopper who had no evident familiarity of inertia's workings. With a cart filled to overflowing, she made her way towards the sloped exit, continuing to push and push while steadily losing control until the cart escaped her and went crashing into a concrete column, 52" plasma screen TV and all. Purchasing the yuletide hickory smoked ham inevitably led to a conversation between my father and me about Andrew Jackson's controversiality. There was no questioning Old Hickory's dedication; he was steadfast in his beliefs and pursuits - qualities I am compelled to admire, yet his morals were crooked. We both found the ham to be more likeable-and tender.

I adopted my exploratory skills, fine tuned by Costco, towards my intellectual endeavors. Just as I sampled buffalo-chicken dip or chocolate truffles, I probed the realms of history, dance and biology, all in pursuit of the ideal cart-one overflowing with theoretical situations and notions both silly and serious. I sampled calculus, cross-country running, scientific research, all of which are now household favorites. With cart in hand, I do what scares me; I absorb the warehouse that is the world. Whether it be through attempting aerial yoga, learning how to chart blackbody radiation using astronomical software, or dancing in front of hundreds of people, I am compelled to try any activity that interests me in the slightest.

My intense desire to know, to explore beyond the bounds of rational thought; this is what defines me. Costco fuels my insatiability and cultivates curiosity within me at a cellular level. Encoded to immerse myself in the unknown, I find it difficult to complacently accept the "what"; I want to hunt for the "whys" and dissect the "hows.” In essence, I subsist on discovery.

Responding effectively to college essay prompts

Responding effectively to college essay prompts is quite different from other essay writing. The combined challenge of addressing a question in an interesting way while avoiding clichés and making yourself stand out, all within a limited number of words, is something that students struggle with every year. With a wide variety of prompts used by each school, it can be overwhelming to write strong, memorable essays.

However, there are some standard practices that will help elevate your essay:

• Directly address any questions the prompt asks. Many essay prompts will ask you to write about extracurricular experiences in your life or to list interests such as your favorite movies or music. Be sure to include the answer to any questions and don't get distracted while providing context or other extra information.

• Use specific information. Make sure to mention the specific volunteer program you worked at or the name of your favorite instructor from your summer STEM camp. While it's important not to overburden your essay with small details, peppering in a few specifics will highlight what's important to you both academically and personally—in addition to giving admissions committees memorable details to file away about you as they sort through hundreds of other applicants’ essays.

• Create a narrative. Just like with any story or news article, you want to start your essays with a good hook. Setting the stage for your experiences, including anecdotes to drive home a point, or carrying a thematic element throughout your essay will help keep the reader interested and will show off your creativity.

• Reuse material. There’s no reason to write completely new supplemental essays for every school you’re applying to. Many schools ask the same questions with slightly different wording, like the commonly used “diversity essay,” which essentially asks how you contribute to and benefit from diversity. With some editing, a single essay could answer multiple prompts — and cut down on your stress! Just be sure that you’re still directly answering the prompt, and you’re still demonstrating fit.

• Demonstrate fit. Many supplemental essay prompts will ask you explicitly to tell them why you chose to apply to their school, or why you’re interested in pursuing your intended major at their school. In other words, they want you to demonstrate why you’re a good fit for their school—and why their school is a good fit for you. The best way to do this is by providing evidence to back up your claims about why their school is your “dream school,” or why their Biology major is “the perfect place” for you to prepare for a career in medicine. The strongest applicants may even demonstrate fit in response to prompts that don’t explicitly ask them to do so. For example, if you know that the school you’re applying to offers a unique elective course that closely aligns with your interests, you should find a way to mention it in one of your essays.

• Put yourself in your reader’s shoes. College admissions officers read hundreds of essays from hopeful applicants, each of whom think their personal experiences and reasons for applying to a particular school are unique. This contributes to the difficulty in standing out in your essays, since almost anything you write about will likely have been encountered by your reader before.

  Putting yourself in your reader’s shoes can help strengthen your writing. Remember, it’s not necessarily about what you say, but how you say it. If you read your essay back to yourself and some of the descriptions sound trite or typical, these are spots that are ripe for improvement.

  For example, if you describe a trip abroad to help build homes in a developing country with words like “life-changing” and “eye-opening,” you may run the risk of boring your reader. That experience could have been truly life-changing for you, but the simple act of thinking of more creative ways to express an idea not only makes your writing more interesting to read, it signals to your reader the amount of effort you’ve put into your essay.

  Describing an experience as transformative can sound less cliché and exaggerated. Moreover, allowing your experiences to speak for themselves (showing instead of telling) will display your imagination and grant you space to emphasize what you learned–something always popular with adcoms.

• Go through multiple drafts–and do so early. I can’t stress enough the importance of revision. While your initial ideas may be good, the first couple of drafts will never express them as well as they would after a few edits.

  Writing takes place in the mind. It’s a thought process that involves reflecting on your experiences and then translating that reflection into words and—most importantly—time. Make sure you start writing your essays as early as possible to grant yourself as much space as possible to revise.

• Be vulnerable and show emotion. Remember that college admissions officers are people, not robots reading an essay to make sure you’ve ticked all the boxes for a particular university. Showing some vulnerability or emotion in your writing can make your story come alive for the reader.

  Keep in mind there is a fine line between “showing emotion” and exaggerating your experiences just for the sake of a dramatic narrative. It’s a good thing to display your vulnerability in an essay, but adcoms can usually tell if you’re embellishing or exaggerating just for the shock value. And remember, emotion encompasses everything from feelings of triumph to feelings of despair — not all emotions are expressed with tears. Letting these shine through in your essay demonstrates your passion, which engages your reader.

Here are some example essays from some of the thousands of students we've helped get accepted to their dream school.

Note: Some personally identifying details have been changed.

College essay example #1

This is a college essay that worked for Harvard University.

This past summer, I had the privilege of participating in the University of Notre Dame’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program . Under the mentorship of Professor Wendy Bozeman and Professor Georgia Lebedev from the department of Biological Sciences, my goal this summer was to research the effects of cobalt iron oxide cored (CoFe2O3) titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles as a scaffold for drug delivery, specifically in the delivery of a compound known as curcumin, a flavonoid known for its anti-inflammatory effects. As a high school student trying to find a research opportunity, it was very difficult to find a place that was willing to take me in, but after many months of trying, I sought the help of my high school biology teacher, who used his resources to help me obtain a position in the program.

Using equipment that a high school student could only dream of using, I was able to map apoptosis (programmed cell death) versus necrosis (cell death due to damage) in HeLa cells, a cervical cancer line, after treating them with curcumin-bound nanoparticles. Using flow cytometry to excite each individually suspended cell with a laser, the scattered light from the cells helped to determine which cells were living, had died from apoptosis or had died from necrosis. Using this collected data, it was possible to determine if the curcumin and/or the nanoparticles had played any significant role on the cervical cancer cells. Later, I was able to image cells in 4D through con-focal microscopy. From growing HeLa cells to trying to kill them with different compounds, I was able to gain the hands-on experience necessary for me to realize once again why I love science.

Living on the Notre Dame campus with other REU students, UND athletes, and other summer school students was a whole other experience that prepared me for the world beyond high school. For 9 weeks, I worked, played and bonded with the other students, and had the opportunity to live the life of an independent college student.

Along with the individually tailored research projects and the housing opportunity, there were seminars on public speaking, trips to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and one-on-one writing seminars for the end of the summer research papers we were each required to write. By the end of the summer, I wasn’t ready to leave the research that I was doing. While my research didn’t yield definitive results for the effects of curcumin on cervical cancer cells, my research on curcumin-functionalized CoFe2O4/TiO2 core-shell nanoconjugates indicated that there were many unknown factors affecting the HeLa cells, and spurred the lab to expand their research into determining whether or not the timing of the drug delivery mattered and whether or not the position of the binding site of the drugs would alter the results. Through this summer experience, I realized my ambition to pursue a career in research. I always knew that I would want to pursue a future in science, but the exciting world of research where the discoveries are limitless has captured my heart. This school year, the REU program has offered me a year-long job, and despite my obligations as a high school senior preparing for college, I couldn’t give up this offer, and so during this school year, I will be able to further both my research and interest in nanotechnology.

This is a college essay that worked for Duke University.

As soon as the patient room door opened, the worst stench I have ever encountered hit me square in the face. Though I had never smelled it before, I knew instinctively what it was: rotting flesh. A small, elderly woman sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a hospital gown and draped in blankets from the neck down with only her gauze-wrapped right leg peering out from under the green material. Dr. Q began unwrapping the leg, and there was no way to be prepared for what I saw next: gangrene-rotted tissue and blackened, dead toes.

Never before had I seen anything this gruesome–as even open surgery paled in comparison. These past two years of shadowing doctors in the operating room have been important for me in solidifying my commitment to pursue medicine, but this situation proved that time in the operating room alone did not quite provide a complete, accurate perspective of a surgeon’s occupation. Doctors in the operating room are calm, cool, and collected, making textbook incisions with machine-like, detached precision. It is a profession founded solely on skill and technique–or so I thought. This grisly experience exposed an entirely different side of this profession I hope to pursue.

Feeling the tug of nausea in my stomach, I forced my gaze from the terrifying wound onto the hopeful face of the ailing woman, seeking to objectively analyze the situation as Dr. Q was struggling to do himself. Slowly and with obvious difficulty, Dr. Q explained that an infection this severe calls for an AKA: Above the Knee Amputation. In the slow, grave silence that ensued, I reflected on how this desperate patient’s very life rests in the hands of a man who has dedicated his entire life to making such difficult decisions as these. I marveled at the compassion in Dr. Q’s promise that this aggressive approach would save the woman’s life. The patient wiped her watery eyes and smiled a long, sad smile. “I trust you, Doc. I trust you.” She shook Dr. Q’s hand, and the doctor and I left the room.

Back in his office, Dr. Q addressed my obvious state of contemplation: “This is the hardest part about what we do as surgeons,” he said, sincerely. “We hurt to heal, and often times people cannot understand that. However, knowing that I’m saving lives every time I operate makes the stress completely worth it.”

Suddenly, everything fell into place for me. This completely different perspective broadened my understanding of the surgical field and changed my initial perception of who and what a surgeon was. I not only want to help those who are ill and injured, but also to be entrusted with difficult decisions the occupation entails. Discovering that surgery is also a moral vocation beyond the generic application of a trained skill set encouraged me. I now understand surgeons to be much more complex practitioners of medicine, and I am certain that this is the field for me.

This is a college essay that worked for The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).

When I was thirteen and visiting Liberia, I contracted what turned out to be yellow fever. I met with the local doctor, but he couldn’t make a diagnosis simply because he didn't have access to blood tests and because symptoms such as “My skin feels like it’s on fire” matched many tropical diseases. Luckily, my family managed to drive me several hours away to an urban hospital, where I was treated. Yellow fever shouldn’t be fatal, but in Africa it often is. I couldn’t believe that such a solvable issue could be so severe at the time—so I began to explore.

The exploration led me to the African Disease Prevention Project (ADPP), a non-profit organization associated with several universities. I decided to create the first high school branch of the organization; I liked its unique way of approaching health and social issues. Rather than just raising money and channeling it through third parties, each branch “adopts” one village and travels there to provide for its basic needs. As branch president, I organize events from small stands at public gatherings to 60-person dinner fundraisers in order to raise both money and awareness. I’ve learned how to encourage my peers to meet deadlines, to work around 30 different schedules at once, and to give presentations convincing people why my organization is worth their donation. But overall, ADPP has taught me that small changes can have immense impacts. My branch has helped raise almost $3,000 to build water sanitation plants, construct medical clinics, and develop health education programs in the small village of Zwedru. And the effect doesn’t stop there—by improving one area, our efforts permeate into neighboring villages as they mimic the lifestyle changes that they observe nearby—simple things, like making soap available—can have a big effect. The difference between ADPP and most other organizations is its emphasis on the basics and making changes that last. Working towards those changes to solve real life problems is what excites me.

I found that the same idea of change through simple solutions also rang true during my recent summer internship at Dr. Martin Warner’s lab at UCLA. Dr. Martin’s vision involves using already available digital technologies to improve the individualization of healthcare. By using a person’s genome to tailor a treatment for them or using someone’s personal smartphone as a mobile-monitor to remotely diagnose symptoms, everyday technology is harnessed to make significant strides forward. At the lab, I focused on parsing through medical databases and writing programs that analyze cancerous genomes to find relationships between certain cancers and drugs. My analysis resulted in a database of information that physicians can use to prescribe treatments for their patients’ unique cancerous mutations. Now, a pancreatic cancer patient does not need to be the “guinea-pig” for a prototype drug to have a shot at survival: a doctor can choose the best treatment by examining the patient individually instead of relying on population-wide trends. For the first time in my science career, my passion was going to have an immediate effect on other people, and to me, that was enthralling. Dr. Martin’s lab and his book, Digital Healthcare: A New Age of Medicine, have shown me that changing something as simple as how we treat a disease can have a huge impact. I have found that the search for the holy grail of a “cure for cancer” is problematic as nobody knows exactly what it is or where to look—but we can still move forward without it.

Working with Project ADPP and participating in medical research have taught me to approach problems in a new way. Whether it’s a complex genetic disease or a tropical fever, I’ve found that taking small steps often is the best approach. Finding those steps and achieving them is what gets me excited and hungry to explore new solutions in the future.

Supplemental Essay Questions

Many colleges and universities announce their supplemental essay prompts in the weeks leading up to the official opening of the Common Application on Aug. 1. The Common App essay prompts are already available for this cycle, allowing students applying to college this fall to get a head start on their personal statement. It’s a good idea to get started on your supplements in the summer before your senior year if you have access to the prompts for the upcoming admissions cycle. It can be hard to keep up with, so we’re posting supplemental essay prompts as they are announced prior to Aug. 1.

University of Chicago

Question 1 (Required): How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to UChicago.

Question 2: Extended Essay (Required; Choose one):

1. We’re all familiar with green-eyed envy or feeling blue, but what about being “caught purple-handed”? Or “tickled orange”? Give an old color-infused expression a new hue and tell us what it represents.
– Inspired by Ramsey Bottorff, Class of 2026

2. “Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now” – Bob Dylan. In what ways do we become younger as we get older?
– Inspired by Joshua Harris, Class of 2016

3. Pluto, the demoted planet. Ophiuchus, the thirteenth Zodiac. Andy Murray, the fourth to tennis’s Big Three. Every grouping has something that doesn’t quite fit in. Tell us about a group and its unofficial member, why (or why not) should it be excluded?
– Inspired by Veronica Chang, Class of 2022

4. “Daddy-o”, “Far Out”, “Gnarly”: the list of slang terms goes on and on. Sadly, most of these aren’t so “fly” anymore – “as if!” Name an outdated slang from any decade or language that you’d bring back and explain why you totally “dig it.”
– Inspired by Napat Sakdibhornssup, Class of 2028

5. How many piano tuners are there in Chicago? What is the total length of chalk used by UChicago professors in a year? How many pages of books are in the Regenstein Library? These questions are among a class of estimation problems named after University of Chicago physicist Enrico Fermi. Create your own Fermi estimation problem, give it your best answer, and show us how you got there.
– Inspired by Malhar Manek, Class of 2028

6. And, as always… the classic choose your own adventure option! In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, choose one of our past prompts (or create a question of your own). Be original, creative, thought provoking. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun! 

University of Richmond 

One essay response is required. Choose from the following prompts:

1. You have a platform to create change. What is an action or policy you might propose to address an issue of social injustice in your school or local community, or on a national or global scale?

2. Tell us about a time you learned something unexpected. What did you learn, and what happened next?

3. Richmond welcomes students from various backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences. What is at least one way you will contribute to our community that is not already mentioned in your application?

Word Limit: Minimum 350. Maximum 650 words. 

University of Texas at Austin

Summer/Fall 2025 Essay

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. Please keep your essay between 500–650 words (typically two to three paragraphs).

Short Answers

Submit the required short answers to prompts in your admission application. Answers are limited to no more than 40 lines, or about 250–300 words per prompt, typically the length of one paragraph.

Summer/Fall 2025 Prompts

1. Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?

2. Think of all the activities — both in and outside of school — that you have been involved with during high school. Which one are you most proud of and why? (Guidance for students: This can include an extracurricular activity, a club/organization, volunteer activity, work or a family responsibility.)

Optional Short Answer

Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance. 

Villanova University

For the Villanova-specific essay, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of your thoughts, experiences, and opinions. Choose one of the five topics below and submit a written response in about 250 words.

1. St. Augustine states that well-being is “not concerned with myself alone, but with my neighbor’s good as well.” How have you advocated for equity and justice in your communities?

2. What is a lesson in life that you have learned that you would want to share with others at Villanova? 

3. “Villanova” means “new home.” Why do you want to call Villanova your new home? 

4. As an Augustinian community, we value recognizing individuals for their true selves. Please share with us a time when you were misjudged based on your identity or background.

5. At Villanova, we often say “each of us strengthens all of us.” Please detail a time when someone has borrowed some of your strength in their time of need. 

Wake Forest University 

Our supplemental questions remain optional, but we hope that these prompts provide space for you to share with us what makes you, you.

• List five books you’ve read that have intrigued you.

• Tell us what piques your intellectual curiosity or has helped you understand the world’s complexity. This can include a work you’ve read, a project you’ve completed for a class, and even co-curricular activities in which you have been involved (limit 150 words).

• Dr. Maya Angelou, renowned author, poet, civil-rights activist, and former Wake Forest University Reynolds Professor of American Studies, inspired others to celebrate their identities and to honor each person’s dignity. Choose one of Dr. Angelou’s powerful quotes. How does this quote relate to your lived experience or reflect how you plan to contribute to the Wake Forest community? (limit 300 words)

• Give us your Top Ten List. (The choice of theme is yours.) (limit: 100 characters per line)

Yale University

Short Answer Questions

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application, Common Application, or QuestBridge Application will respond to the following short answer questions:

• Students at Yale have time to explore their academic interests before committing to one or more major fields of study. Many students either modify their original academic direction or change their minds entirely. As of this moment, what academic areas seem to fit your interests or goals most comfortably? Please indicate up to three from the list provided.

• Tell us about a topic or idea that excites you and is related to one or more academic areas you selected above. Why are you drawn to it? (200 words or fewer)

• What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application or Common Application will also respond to the following short answer questions, in no more than 200 characters (approximately 35 words):

• What inspires you?

• If you could teach any college course, write a book, or create an original piece of art of any kind, what would it be?

• Other than a family member, who is someone who has had a significant influence on you? What has been the impact of their influence?

• What is something about you that is not included anywhere else in your application?

Essay

Applicants submitting the Coalition Application or Common Application will respond to one of the following prompts in 400 words or fewer.

1. Reflect on a time you discussed an issue important to you with someone holding an opposing view. Why did you find the experience meaningful?

2. Reflect on your membership in a community to which you feel connected. Why is this community meaningful to you? You may define community however you like.

3. Reflect on an element of your personal experience that you feel will enrich your college. How has it shaped you?

While answering additional essay questions might seem challenging, the supplements give students the chance to show a different side of themselves to the admissions office, as well as emphasizing their demonstrated interest. Since supplements are an important component of the college admissions process, we always recommend students begin working on these essays early to save themselves the stress of working down to the wire. If you’re getting ready to apply to college and looking for guidance on writing supplements, our team of admissions experts is here to help.

Do Colleges Look at Freshman Year?

A sinking feeling sets in among many high school students as they embark on the college application process. Some might think, “I messed up freshman year of high school” and, with it, any chance of acceptance at their dream college. How much do colleges look at freshman year?

Colleges closely evaluate freshman year grades and activities, but not in the ways you might think. Here’s how ninth grade does matter: freshman year is the foundation for the rest of your child’s high school career.

The courses your child takes early in their career, as well as their performance in them, determine the rest of your child’s high school course load. If they join extracurriculars freshman year, they may become a leader in those extracurriculars as an upperclassman. If they take honors physics at the start of high school, they may enroll in AP Physics senior year. And most colleges consider your child’s overall high school GPA, meaning the grades they receive freshman year do have weight.

But here’s the nuance. Many universities follow a “holistic admissions” process, which means they’re not simply looking at grades or your child’s ACT or SAT scores. They’re seeking a sense of your child’s narrative. Has your child made the most of the academic and extracurricular opportunities available at their school? Did they improve or grow during high school?

In that vein, admissions officers consider both your child’s GPA and their freshman course load in the context of their overall high school transcript. That means that excelling later in high school can balance weak academic performance freshman year. If your child recovers from a weak freshman year, admissions officers will see this as positive evidence of their ability to adjust to new academic demands and expectations, an ability that will come in handy during college and beyond.

This applies to extracurriculars as well. Admissions officers look for depth rather than breadth in your child’s involvement. If they don’t participate in many activities freshman year, your child can still go on to lead or excel in a couple of extracurriculars.  

Course selection: How colleges look at academic rigor

The courses your child takes freshman year matter as much if not more than the grades they receive in those courses.

Why? While most colleges don’t have minimum GPA requirements, they do want your child to have completed a minimum amount of coursework. And at most high schools, freshman courses are prerequisites for more advanced classes. In addition, colleges want to see that your child has challenged themselves by taking tough courses offered by their school. Achieving a high GPA by taking easy courses is not viewed as favorably as achieving a high GPA in hard classes.

On top of that, the courses your child takes freshman year are the foundation for the courses they take in the rest of high school. Choosing courses wisely will help set your child up to take the best classes for their strengths and passions later on.

For instance, if your child is interested in art but their high school doesn’t have an honors or AP course in that subject, your child shouldn’t skip the painting elective freshman year. Instead, your child should enroll in it and find other ways to deepen that interest later on, through community college classes, summer programs or scholarships, or extracurricular activities.

How to bounce back if your child took the “wrong” courses freshman year

If your child didn’t take an ideal course load freshman year, don’t worry. They can still bounce back by choosing to take a challenging course load during the rest of high school. Or, perhaps your child missed a freshman prerequisite for a class they would like to take. They should talk to their guidance counselor to see if there’s a way to test into that class. Your child can also look for summer, online, or community college options.

GPA: Do freshman grades matter?

Admissions committees are far more likely to be excited about a student who had mediocre grades freshman year and went on to receive stellar grades than they are to admit a student who thrived academically freshman year and then declined.

Colleges understand that your child might enter high school not yet knowing what they’re passionate about or that they might be coming from a middle school that didn’t prepare them as well as their classmates’ junior high schools did. Taking the first year as a chance to scope out their new world, learn its ways, and then ace it is much better than starting strong and losing interest or momentum. An underdog story is never a bad one!

Most universities will consider your child’s overall high school GPA, but will always consider their GPA and transcript together, meaning that an admissions officer will see if your child’s grades have improved over time.  

While most admissions officers will not simply forgive low freshman year grades, they will be more understanding of them than they will be of low grades in upper-level coursework. Your child’s sophomore, junior, and senior year coursework is more predictive of your child’s ability to succeed in college courses.

In short, your child’s freshman year grades may be considered during admissions but only as part of the overall picture of their academic achievement—never in isolation. A weak freshman GPA will not rule your child out as an applicant.

How to recover from bad freshman year grades and get into college

If your child is worried about their weak freshman year GPA, they should focus on improving it by excelling in their remaining high school coursework. And don’t assume your child should take easy classes in order to cushion their GPA.

Your child might also consider enrolling in online coursework or classes at your local community college. In addition to potentially boosting your child’s GPA (if their high school factors outside coursework into their calculation of GPA), this can demonstrate your child’s commitment to their education and help them excel in their remaining high school classes.

Holistic admissions: Looking at the bigger picture

Remember that admissions officers make holistic decisions based on your child’s entire application. If your child received weak grades early on in high school but went on to attain excellent grades, receive high test scores, write distinct college essays, complete a handful of extracurriculars, and develop relationships with teachers and administrators who write glowing letters of recommendation, then admissions officers are likely to view low grades freshman year not just as a “fluke,” but as a setback your child overcame to thrive in high school. If your child is stressed about their GPA, they should use that energy to focus on other parts of their application.

Extracurricular activities: demonstrate a deep commitment

Getting involved with clubs, societies, and teams freshman year gives your child a chance to dive deep into an area of interest. Joining early can help them achieve and assume leadership roles within those organizations as an older student. However, sophomore or junior year is not too late to become more involved in your child’s high school, town, or state community.

If you’re concerned about your child’s extracurricular involvement

If your child hasn’t yet involved themself in extracurriculars, how can they bounce back during their remaining time in high school?

Your child should not overcorrect for a low-activity freshman year by joining as many activities as possible later on. They risk seeming scattered and unfocused. Instead, they should select few extracurriculars that are meaningful to them. Anywhere from two to six extracurriculars can be a great number, but it’s the quality and not the quantity of their involvement that matters.  

What activity will give your child the chance to really make the most of their talents and interests? If, during freshman year, your child devoted most of their time to one demanding primary activity, such as a sport or musical instrument, they should not feel they have to take time away from that activity simply to pad their list of extracurriculars.

Is there a way to supplement your child’s core extracurricular activity? For example, if they spend most of their time playing soccer, they might find time to volunteer at soccer camps for younger children or to referee youth games. Or, if they play violin in a youth orchestra, they might share their talent by performing or giving lessons in a local venue like an elementary school or a retirement home. If your child pursues what is truly meaningful or exciting to them, this will come across in their application.  

Summer and school breaks are also opportunities for your child to become more involved in the community. Over the summer, they might follow an interest they haven’t found an outlet for within their school community.

Maybe they’re interested in politics, science, or creative writing. They could volunteer for a political campaign, find an internship at a local hospital, or write a play. It’s even better if your child can then somehow bring that involvement back to their school community in the fall. For example, your child might recruit other students to get involved politically or direct a production of their play with the high school theatre troupe.  

Final thoughts

Admissions officers want to know who your child is as a student and community member. They recognize that your child is not defined by their freshman year. The best way to recover from a “weak” freshman year is to give admissions officers a full picture of who they are now.

Five ways to boost student motivation

I had the opportunity to speak with a psychologist about motivating students and I wanted to share my findings. COVID-induced shifts to remote learning might have exacerbated students’ already declining motivations, even after beginning the “new normal.” Despite these dips in motivation, some educators may believe that students are solely responsible for motivating themselves. However, research has emphasized how educators can create motivationally-supportive environments to engage students while learning.

Learners’ motivation is shaped by three factors, captured by the following questions: Can I do this? Do I want to do this? And, what are the costs? In other words, motivation depends on whether students feel confident to engage in a task, find value in it, and perceive minimal costs during the learning process. Using this framework as a guide, here are five ways educators can boost student motivation in their classes.

Scaffold and build confidence

Construction workers use scaffolding to reach higher elevations in a safe and secure manner, and educators can employ similar methods to help learners grow in confidence. Students may lack confidence in learning because they may have not yet mastered certain academic skills and strategies. Because previous failure and the fear of it can hinder future learning opportunities, students need to experience success—even small successes—to uplift their confidence. Scaffolding involves designing tasks that start at the students’ skill level, and gradually increasing the difficulty of the task once the learner reaches the next level. A series of prior successes can have a cascading effect on learners’ confidence to keep making progress.

Discover and connect to future goals

Learners want to engage in class when the material is useful for their future goals. Discovering what students find the most useful or relevant in the class is essential for building connections between the course content and students’ short-term and long-term goals. Students might want to pursue careers in politics or forensics, for example, so an instructor might want to tailor particular examples from social psychology or research methods to make connections with these subfields, or even current events that pertain to these topics. Recognizing connections to real-world applications, future-oriented plans, and the course content makes learning relevant to students’ goals.

Emphasize personal importance

Students are motivated not only by how useful it may be for their future but also by how personally important the course material is to them. Educators can emphasize aspects of the course material that have salient connections to students’ personal and social identities. For example, students from racially minoritized communities may find that content about the psychology of race and racism resonates with them. Or students who grew up in a family of counselors may readily identify with content about psychopathology. Whatever course material students find personally important can serve as a critical touchstone that anchors a motivationally-supportive curriculum.

Instill true curiosity

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but being curious is truly one of the most sustainable sources of motivation. When students are genuinely interested in what they are learning, the sky’s truly the limit. To fan curiosity into flame, educators may consider the situations that trigger students’ interest and be mindful of what might catch their attention. These instances become the initial sparks that educators can use to build upon and allow students to cultivate their own enduring sense of interest. For instance, students might respond enthusiastically to an in-class experiment about cognitive perception. Students might enjoy doing in-class replications of experiments or find interest in perceptual processes. Now that students’ interests are triggered, providing additional activities or exposure and a chance for them to explore similar activities on their own can nurture personal interest.

Acknowledge and reduce cost perceptions

Lastly, educators can consider how to minimize students’ perceptions of cost, defined as the negative aspects of engaging in an academic task. When students face a challenge in an academic task, they might find it effortful or frustrating. One way to reduce effort and emotional costs is to help students reinterpret cost perceptions in a more positive way, such as acknowledging that challenges are mostly temporary and common to other students. Also, if educators establish appropriate expectations for how much effort is required for a task, students may calibrate how effortful a task might be, rather than overestimating how much effort is needed.

Concluding thoughts

Student motivation is an extremely complex process and depends quite a bit on the learner’s goals, contexts, or tasks. A one-size fits all approach may not always work, but we hope these five strategies can be starting points for educators to think through when creating motivationally supportive learning environments.

What is a “good” SAT Score?

Many students taking the SAT have one goal: score as close to perfect as they can. While students should always challenge themselves to do their best, it’s worth asking: short of a perfect 1600, what is a “good” SAT score? What is an average SAT score? What is a “bad” SAT score? Should my child retake the SAT? 

A good SAT score can mean a few different things. One definition is how high your child scores relative to other test-takers across the nation who have graduated high school within the past three years—in other words, their percentile. Thinking in those terms means shooting for an SAT score that is as high as possible. 

Another definition of a good SAT score is whether it’s within the range of the average score of students admitted to your child’s dream school in the previous year. Thinking in these terms means gauging what scores align with the kinds of colleges your child is interested in.

The definition of a good score must also take into account your child’s year in school. If they’re taking the test as a junior, a good score means something different than if they’re taking it as a senior, because there’s more time for them to retake the test.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty about good and bad SAT scores, I’ll remind you that the SAT is just one component of your child’s college application. It’s certainly important, but remember that grades, extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, and the Common App essay all matter as well, and can help compensate for a less-than-ideal SAT score. 

How is the SAT scored?

The SAT total score ranges from 400 to 1600. This total score comprises your child’s Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW) score and Math score. In each section, a student can score between 200 and 800. 

Section scores can be broken down even further into individual test scores (your child’s score on the Writing or Reading tests individually, for example) cross-test scores, and subscores. For a full breakdown of which scores comprise the SAT total score, you can visit the CollegeBoard’s handy chart here. 

And while national percentiles are helpful, a “good SAT score” depends on your child’s college goals.

At its simplest, the SAT is designed to test college readiness. In order to know what score is desirable for your child, it’s important to think about the which colleges they hope to attend.

In short: your child should aim for a score that falls within the range of the schools they want to get into. Colleges usually publish the SAT score ranges of their incoming class on their website.

Unsurprisingly, score ranges for incoming college classes vary widely. If your child’s dream is to get into Yale, for example, the score ranges of the incoming freshman class were as follows. The lower number is the 25th percentile, and the higher number is the 75th percentile: 

• Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 720–770

• Math: 740–800

• Overall: 1460–1570

Compare this to a national pool. Students scoring a 720 in Evidence-Based Reading & Writing in the national pool in 2021 were in the 96th percentile nationally, and students scoring a 770 were in the 99th percentile. For Math, a score of 740 is in the 95th percentile nationally and 800 is 99th percentile.

Essentially, this means your child can score higher than 95 percent of test takers in the national pool—and they’ll still be on the lower end of the score range for Yale’s incoming class. What would be considered an outstanding score in the national pool is average for Ivy League and other highly selective colleges. 

If your child is interested in attending a top non-Ivy League university, the SAT score ranges can be similarly competitive. The middle 50 percent of freshman at the University of Michigan, for example, earned overall scores ranging from 1400–1540. Nationally, a 1400 is the 93rd percentile, and a 1540 is the 99th percentile. At UC Berkeley, the middle 50 percent of scores were 1330–1530, or the 88th–99th percentiles.

Prestigious small liberal arts colleges boast similarly high scores among their admits. Haverford College, for example, has a score range of 1380–1540 and Williams College has a score range of 1410–1550.

These numbers may seem like there’s little room for error. But it all depends on your child’s goals. The University of Washington’s score range is 1220–1470—a 1220 is the 77th percentile nationally. The range of the incoming class at American University was 1220–1390. At UC Santa Cruz, it was 1200–1380.

Let’s say your child does score below the 25th percentile for their dream school. While that’s not ideal, and might suggest that their dream school is a “far reach,” it may not entirely disqualify them if they have something else going for them—if they’re a standout athlete or musician, for instance.

That wiggle room comes from the fact that the score range doesn’t include the lowest and the highest scores of admitted students. There will always be gifted students whose talents don’t show up on a test. For example, at Yale, 13 percent of freshmen in 2024 scored between 600–690 on EBRW, and 1 percent—around 13 students—scored below 600.

What is a good SAT score for a top-10 school?

Again, there are no hard-and-fast score cutoffs.

The takeaway: If your child wants to attend a highly selective school, they should be aiming for a minimum total score around 1450 or higher. If your child is interested in a highly selective school, we recommend taking the SAT early—during junior year—so they have plenty of time to study and retake the test so they have a satisfactory score when they apply. 

So, what’s a good SAT score for college, in general?

If your child is shooting to attend college, period, note that a number of respected schools are far more forgiving in their score ranges—like Elon University, where the average total SAT score is 1200, Howard University, where the average is 1184, the University of Colorado–Boulder, where the average is 1275, or Baylor University, where the average is 1278. The takeaway: a score of 1200 is a good enough score for many mid-tier colleges and universities. 

Finally, remember that score isn’t everything, and that all standardized tests are part of a larger, holistic story your child tells admissions committees. Colleges and universities consider not only the other elements of your child’s application but also your child’s and family’s educational background and the resources available to you when they assess your child’s SAT scores.

Q&A with Planting the Ivy

How far ahead of time should a student begin working on their college application?

The earlier the better! The Common Application, the online application that is currently used by colleges and universities in the United States (and France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the UK), goes “live” on August 1st of a student’s senior year.  Colleges that do not use the Common Application also go live during August, so it’s important to monitor their websites. Starting earlier allows students to take their time and not rush through the application, essays and individual college supplements. Most early and rolling deadlines are on or around November 1, so that gives students approximately three months to complete the entire application. 

In addition, it’s really imperative to plan ahead in case of an emergency. At Planting the Ivy, we believe in eliminating as much unneeded stress as possible. It is best to plan ahead and adhere to all deadlines….one never knows what could happen.

What are the best ways to go about selecting a terrific essay topic? 

Colleges will present students with a few choices for the essay topic, but I believe that does not matter. Rather, it is vital for students to pick a topic that they feel comfortable with and that demonstrates vulnerability, which typically results in a more genuine piece of writing. Do not write an essay stating what you believe a college or university wants to hear. Show them who you are in a way that is not demonstrated on the rest of your application. The essay is the one place on the application where a student can really let the colleges know who they are as a person. It’s an excellent opportunity for students to share information about themselves that otherwise the Admissions office may not learn through other parts of the application. Take your time – brainstorm, outline, write several drafts. Remember to use detail – it will make the essay stand out and get noticed. 

Are there any essay topics you get tired of seeing or would warn students to stay away from?

Yes and No. Students need to remember that they do not know the values or viewpoints of the person(s) reading their applications and it’s best to not offend the people they are hoping will accept them for admission. Avoid controversial topics of a religious or a political nature. The essay is an important part of an application, and students should focus on topics that best demonstrate who they are as a person that otherwise wouldn’t be evident from other parts of the application. The most important thing is to be honest and authentic.  

What is the biggest mistake a student can make on a college application? 

I am here to help avoid these, but if you do this on your own please be careful and read through your application and essays many times. Several examples include misspellings and grammatical errors, exceeding the recommended word-limit for essays, not answering the essay topic(s) at hand, using acronyms when describing extracurricular activities, submitting extra documentation that doesn’t add to the overall application, forgetting to proof essays, fast-forwarding through directions and missing small details (such as listing credits for senior year courses), applying online and not hitting the SUBMIT button (there are three areas on the Common Application that have to be submitted and students commonly forget to submit at least one, resulting in an incomplete application) and being careless with social media. Colleges are looking for reasons not to accept you – don’t give them any!

What is the typical process an admissions officer goes through to evaluate applications?

College admissions offices are looking to find students who will comprise a well-rounded class. How the process works depends on the individual college. Most selective colleges will take a holistic approach and consider all parts of the application, while at some colleges only the hard numbers (GPA and test scores) are considered. Many schools report having only 15 minutes to read an entire application, while at some colleges an application may get as many as three reads.  Each process is different and several variables are considered depending on the nature of the school. 

Is demonstrated interest still important?

Colleges want to know why a student wants to attend their university. At some schools, admissions counselors encourage students to reach out and start a correspondence with them. Other admissions officers do not like this as they are busy and this can feel distracting to them. In order to demonstrate interest in a productive way, you can meet with counselors when they conduct high school visits, attend college fairs, schedule an interview and definitely visit college campuses when possible. When admissions officers are reading applications there are certain things that are harder to lift off a piece of paper, like fit and enthusiasm about a school. If you’re interested, let the college know! It’s also important when answering a supplemental question “Why X College,” that students be very specific and not generic in their answer. List detailed things about the college that attracted you to apply in the first place.

With regard to visiting in order to show demonstrated interest, only a handful of universities still require showing up (Tulane, Syracuse and Michigan to name a few).

How should students go about determining the culture of a university, and whether they would be a good fit?

VISIT! Whenever possible, it is highly recommended that students visit prospective colleges to see what they’re all about and how they feel on campus. When students visit a college they should take a guided campus tour, attend an information session, have an interview if that option is offered, sit in on a class and stay overnight in a residence hall with a current student. While on campus, eat a meal in the cafeteria, pick up and read a copy of the campus newspaper, meet with a professor in the department of your potential major(s), talk to students about their experiences and visit the Career Center. Whether or not students are able to visit a college campus they should also research college websites to see what is offered at each school - majors, extracurricular activities, internship and research opportunities, residence life and food options, and cultural and athletic events to see if the colleges on their list are really the right “fit” for them. Students can also attend college fairs, high school visits made by admissions officers and regional receptions offered by colleges to show demonstrated interest and learn more about the college. 

Early-Action, Early-Decision, Binding/Non-Binding, Regular Decision. With so many choices when applying, what do you recommend to students? 

It really depends on the individual student and his/her/their situation. If a student has a clear first choice college, then applying Early Decision is advised. Students must be sure that this is the school they really want to attend as they are making a binding commitment to that school, and if accepted they are expected to attend. Several colleges are starting to take a higher percentage of their students through ED, so applying ED could, but not always, give students a better chance of being admitted. It really depends on the college. 

There are a few downsides to applying ED. If a college is a huge reach for a student, then applying ED usually won’t make a difference in admission. Students can only apply to one college through ED, thus limiting their chances to receive various financial aid packages by not applying to other colleges. There is also the option of applying Early Action, which is a non-binding agreement between a student and a college. This is a great option for students when available, because if they are accepted EA, they will know early on in the process that they have a college to attend. Students can apply to more than one college EA, unless they are applying to a college that has Restrictive Early Action (Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Notre Dame to name a few), in which you can only apply to one college early although the agreement is non-binding.

If a student wants to apply to additional colleges aside from those through ED and/or EA, then they apply Regular Decision. These applications are usually due on or around January 1 or 15. If a student is not entirely sure on a first-choice option, or wants to have more financial aid options available, then it is recommended they wait and apply RD.

Finally, there is Rolling Admission, which is when colleges start accepting applications early in the senior year and “roll over” applications as they are received. In Rolling Admission it is imperative that students apply earlier in the process (and meet any Priority deadlines) because colleges with Rolling Admission will fill their class as applications are received. Students increase their chances of gaining admission by applying sooner than later.

How important are grades and standardized test scores when admissions decisions are being made?

Most colleges will tell students that the most important thing considered in the admissions process is the transcript. This is not necessarily just the grade point average but the strength of the curriculum the student has taken. Colleges want students to challenge themselves and take as demanding a curriculum as they can handle. Admissions counselors will look at the courses offered at the high school the student attends and see if the student is taking advantage of the curriculum that is available.

The importance of test scores really depends on which college to which students are applying. Many colleges, especially those with extremely competitive admissions, still care a lot about test scores. Although there are many colleges that are now “test-optional," many are starting to bring mandatory testing back. One thing to consider is that many colleges, whether test-optional or not, will use or require test scores to be submitted in order to be considered for merit aid, which is financial aid based on merit and not need. 

What tips do you have for students asking their teachers for letters of recommendation?

Students are encouraged to ask teachers for letters of recommendation in the spring of their junior year. When choosing which teachers to ask, it is preferable that they ask one from Humanities subjects (English, Social Science or Foreign Language) and one from Math/Science. Students don’t necessarily need to ask teachers whose classes they aced, but more teachers who they are confident will write them a POSITIVE letter of recommendation. Remember that writing recommendations is not required of teachers nor is it their obligation, so please be respectful during the entire process. Ask your teacher in private and without friends around. Be sure to ask, “Would you be willing to write me a positive recommendation for my college admissions?” If the teacher says yes, then provide them a resume or “brag sheet” with your accomplishments and contact information. Don’t forget to send a thank you note that says you appreciate their willingness to write the recommendation letter. Thank you notes go such a long way!

Once students return to school for their senior year, they should follow up with their teachers to make sure they have all the information they need. Make sure teachers know how to submit their letters, whether it is through the Common Application, snail mail or using non-Common Application forms. Make the process as easy as possible  - your teachers are doing you a HUGE favor!

Why Hire a College Counselor

The journey to college can be both exhilarating and overwhelming, filled with many choices and decisions. It is easy to feel lost in the complexities of the college admissions process. I can help you unlock the doors to your dream college. Why should prospective college students (& their parents) seriously consider working with a college consultant?

Expert Guidance

College counselors have a wealth of expertise. I possess an intricate understanding of the admissions process. I am well-versed in creating a comprehensive college list, helping students craft exceptional essays, prepare for interviews, and stay updated on the latest trends and requirements in college admissions. 

Personalized Advice & Comprehensive Support

Every student is unique. I take the time to get to know you to understand your aspirations, strengths, and areas that might need improvement. This personalized approach enables me to offer tailored guidance, ensuring your college journey is unique to your needs. From helping select the right colleges to navigating the intricate landscape of financial aid and scholarships, a college consultant is your all-inclusive resource.  

Maximized Opportunities

College consultants can identify opportunities you might have yet to discover on your own. They can unearth hidden gems - colleges that perfectly fit your aspirations, but may not be on your radar. Their expert recommendations broaden your horizons and enhance your chances of finding the ideal college match.

Reduced Stress and Anxiety

The college application process can be an anxiety-inducing experience. A college consultant helps to mitigate the stress and overwhelm you may be navigating. They ensure you stay organized, meet deadlines, and reduce the stress that often accompanies this pivotal life transition.

Financial Aid Expertise

Navigating the complexities of financial aid, scholarships, and grants can be daunting. College consultants are well-versed in these areas, helping you understand your options and maximize your financial aid opportunities. They can also assist in negotiating financial aid packages, potentially saving you thousands of dollars.

Increased Confidence

A college consultant can boost your confidence and self-assuredness throughout the application process. With their guidance, you'll approach each step of the journey with greater self-belief, ultimately enhancing your chances of success.

Ready to Begin Your College Journey?

Working with a college counselor is an investment in your future. It's a strategic decision that can ease your path to college, provide you with a competitive edge, and ensure your journey is as smooth and rewarding as possible. The road to college is one of life's most significant adventures, and with a college consultant, you'll have a dedicated partner to make the most of it. Don't hesitate to reach out and schedule a free consultation today. Let's embark on this incredible journey together.

The High School Internship

The bar for getting into elite universities keeps getting higher. It used to be that high ACT or SAT scores, a high GPA, and a well-rounded assortment of extracurricular activities were enough to ensure admission into your child’s dream school.

These days, however, universities are inundated with record numbers of applications from high-achieving, well-rounded students. Therefore, your child needs to do more in order to stand out. They need to specialize and demonstrate a deep commitment to one or two extracurricular activities instead of trying to do every activity possible.

There are plenty of ways for your child to stand out on the Common App Activities section, but one of the best strategies is one that many parents and students overlook: internships.

With an internship, your child can get a glimpse at the professional world, one that many students don’t receive until college. This provides helpful material for a Common App essay that will stand out.

Pursuing an internship in high school is an excellent way for your child to find a professional mentor and begin growing their professional network. The mentor can write a letter of recommendation and they may even be able to leverage their network. Building a professional connection while still in high school will become immensely useful when your child is applying for college internships or even jobs post-college.

Finding a high school internship can feel like an impossible task. This is understandable, given that most organizations who hire interns don’t even have high school students on their radar.

Here are some of the best places your child can get started: Family members & friends. High school teachers & guidance counselors. Local universities, businesses & religious organizations

FAQ:

Should my child take an unpaid internship?

Absolutely. In fact, your child should never expect compensation for an internship they do during high school. Money is not the point; experience and professional connections are. If an internship does pay, that’s a nice bonus, but it’s uncommon. Don’t worry: universities don’t care if the internship was paid or not. They’ll be far more impressed that your child has done an internship at all, especially if it helps support the broader narrative in your child’s college application.

Should my child spend their summer pursuing an internship or working a part-time job?

This is a difficult decision, particularly if your child is working out of necessity to help pay for college or even to help you pay the bills. It also depends on the nature of the job. Working at a fast food restaurant won’t provide the same kind of relevant career experience as helping file papers at a law firm, for instance. That said, part-time jobs (even if they are unglamorous) can provide interesting talking points in your child’s admissions interview and could even be the subject of their personal statement. It all depends on how your child is able to frame it.

What if my child doesn’t know what field or career interests them?

One of the main benefits of doing an internship is that your child can learn more about what does (and doesn’t) interest them as a future career. If your child is truly unsure, however, then they should first do some brainstorming and research to figure out what interests them and how that might apply to a future profession.

Does my child need to intern somewhere prestigious?

Many parents think that prestigious experiences will help their children stand out to admissions committees. The reality, however, is that admissions officers care far less about prestige and name dropping and far more about what your child got out of the internship experience.

When should my child start applying for internships?

It’s never too early. We recommend doing an internship during their sophomore year or the summer after it, as that will give them time to think about how to incorporate the experience into their college application.

The College Essay: A misconception

I want to discuss one common misconception that students and parents make when approaching college essays. "It's important to select a unique topic." I want to reemphasize that what your child writes about is far less important than how they write.

While we can all agree that a strong approach is critical, we should discuss what topic your child should pursue.

It would be a mistake for them to stare at a blank piece of paper (or screen) and wonder, "What are some possible essay topics?" This typically leads to a trap of trying to guess what admissions committee wants to hear, or attempting to mimic another student's essay.

The better approach would be for your child to first consider, "What do I want admissions committees to know about me?" In other words, if your child could choose the impression that admissions committees are left with, what would they select?

Achieving this level of clarity will allow your child to filter topic ideas. If a topic idea highlights "Takeaway X", then it could work well. If it doesn't, the topic might be a weak idea.

College admissions is all about communicating qualities, through stories, that will make admissions committees want to admit your child. Grades, test scores, letters of recommendation, and essays all work together to showcase these qualities.

Playing up great qualities through compelling stories will lead to maximum admissions odds. Failing to do so can hurt your child's chances.

As always, we're here to help!                  

Do colleges look at freshman year?

A sinking feeling sets in among many high school students as they embark on the college application process. Some might think, “I messed up freshman year of high school” and, with it, any chance of acceptance at their dream college. But how much do colleges look at freshman year?

Colleges closely evaluate freshman year grades and activities, but not in the ways you might think. Here’s how ninth grade does matter: freshman year is the foundation for the rest of your child’s high school career.

The courses your child takes early in their career, as well as their performance in them, determine the rest of your child’s high school course load. If they join extracurriculars freshman year, they may become a leader in those extracurriculars as an upperclassman. If they take honors physics at the start of high school, they may enroll in AP Physics senior year. Most colleges consider your child’s overall high school GPA, meaning the grades they receive freshman year do have weight.

Here’s the nuance. Many universities follow a “holistic admissions” process, which means they’re not simply looking at grades or your child’s SAT/ACT scores. They want a sense of your child’s narrative. Has your child made the most of the academic and extracurricular opportunities available at their school? Did they improve or grow during high school?

In that vein, admissions officers consider both your child’s GPA and their freshman course load in the context of their overall high school transcript. That means that excelling later in high school can balance weak academic performance freshman year. If your child recovers from a weak freshman year, admissions officers will see this as positive evidence of their ability to adjust to new academic demands and expectations, an ability that will come in handy during college and beyond.

This applies to extracurriculars as well. Admissions officers look for depth rather than breadth in your child’s involvement. If they don’t participate in many activities freshman year, your child can still go on to lead or excel in a couple of extracurriculars.  

Admissions committees will be more excited about a student who had mediocre grades freshman year and went on to receive stellar grades. Admissions officers want to know who your child is as both a student and member of their community. They recognize that your child is not defined by their freshman year. The best way to recover from a “weak” freshman year is to give admissions officers a full picture of who they are now.                                   

How can your child stand out?

Colleges receive an increasing number of applications each year from accomplished students for roughly the same number of spots.  How can your child stand out? 

Most college applicants participate in a variety of extracurricular activities.  They’ve earned leadership positions, volunteered, taken summer courses at universities and participated in theater and athletics.  With so many candidates having similar applications, it can be difficult for admissions officers to differentiate students. This does not remove the heartbreak when many qualified applicants get rejected.

When I was in high school, we were told to participate in as many extracurricular activities as possible to appear well rounded. The game has changed!  So what are colleges looking for?

When admissions readers come across students with a list of “well-rounded” extracurricular activities, it’s difficult to pinpoint what makes them different from their peers. What makes Charlie memorable? He did well in his classes and on his SATs, joined multiple clubs, and played saxophone in the school band. Does he stand out?  On the other hand, Michele also played saxophone in the school band, raised money to purchase band equipment for children in local, underfunded elementary schools, and organized a band competition in her community for charity that was covered by multiple media outlets, including the local newspaper. Michele has an “it factor” that she could leverage for successful admissions.  If we knew nothing else about Charlie or Michele, we would likely find Michele to be the more interesting student, as well as the student who has demonstrated greater initiative, impact, and leadership.

College admissions reps often discuss how they’re looking to admit diverse applicants. Most people misunderstand this to mean that colleges simply want to accept individuals from diverse backgrounds. While these factors are important, colleges are also looking for diversity when it comes to students’ abilities, interests, and achievements. 

There is no single path to achieving extracurricular success. It is important to identify the right opportunities for your child rather than jump into clubs out of anxiety or because you heard an activity “looks good” on college applications. One of the biggest mistakes is becoming a “chronic joiner.”  By participating in too many extracurricular activities, students can spend so much time doing busy work for various committees, sitting in meetings, and attending mandatory rehearsals that having fun and being a kid, along with completing homework, feels impossible. Often, this kind of resume demonstrate little initiative and creativity to admissions committees. I want to help your child develop discernibly unique skills.

GPA & Test Scores Your Child Needs to Be Competitive

There’s no way around it: your child’s grades and standardized test scores represent the most important factor in college admissions. The higher their stats, the higher their admissions odds. 

How many AP courses and tests should my child take per year? Your child should consider the following factors when deciding: How many they could take without hurting their grades: While it’s better to receive a B in an AP or Honors class vs. an A in a regular class, your child should be thoughtful about how many AP courses they could take before significantly compromising their GPA.  They must give themselves enough time to study hard for each class so that they can do well on the AP Exam.

How many AP courses could they take without compromising the depth of their extracurricular activities? Most applicants to highly selective colleges have strong grades and standardized test scores. Therefore, the true differentiator between standout applicants and those who are simply academically high-achieving is the strength of their extracurricular profile. AP Courses are challenging and should not compromise their extracurricular activities.

What does their school allow? Some schools put a cap on the number of AP classes students can take each year. Depending on how many that is, they may choose to take all or some of the offered AP courses and tests.

Which colleges they are targeting: The more selective the school, the more they’ll expect that your child take the toughest courses available.

How many their peers take each year: Context matters so much in college admissions. Your child will be judged against their peers with regard not only to AP test scores, but also number of AP courses and tests taken.

What SAT or ACT score does my child need to get into their dream school? Your child should aim for a score that is at minimum at the 75th percentile of admitted applicants at a given school. Most colleges publish these statistics online. Students whose scores fall below the 25th percentile should concentrate their efforts on improving their scores to make their applications more competitive. Even students with perfect standardized test scores get rejected because they’ve neglected other important parts of their college applications. For this reason, I advise students to spend significant time developing a unique extracurricular profile.