Crafting Your College Application: Last-Minute Tips

Webinar Transcription

2024-11-06- Crafting Your College Application: Last-Minute Tips

Anna: Hello, everyone. Good evening, afternoon or morning, whatever time it is, wherever you’re joining us from in the world. We are so happy you’re here. To, to listen to our webinar on, “Crafting Your College Application: Last Minute Tips.” My name is Anna Vande Velde. I’ll be your moderator today. I’m also a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor.

I’ve been with the company for over three years now. And in addition to working with students one on one, I’m a captain on our essay review team. For undergrad, I studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon, thought I was going to be a clinical psychologist, but ended up at Harvard Law School. I graduated a few years back.

So in addition to college advising, I’m a nonprofit defense attorney and I live in Ottawa, Ontario. That’s more than you need to know about me, but they did ask me to provide a little background. So there it is. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’ll start off with a presentation from our panelists and answer your questions in a live Q& A.

You can start submitting your questions now in the Q& A tab. There’s no need to wait until the end of the webinar to do that. You can also, in the handouts tab on the sidebar, download Maria’s slides so you can have those to follow along with and for future reference. Without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to our panelist, Maria, to introduce herself.

Maria: Great. Thanks, Anna. My name is Maria Acosta Robayo, and I graduated from Harvard class of 2020, so I was a COVID senior. I am, I’ve since then lived in Miami and in D.C. I’m a current, uh, government consultant, uh, and I’m back in Boston, uh, in the Cambridge Harvard area. I’m now a resident tutor, uh, one of the upperclassmen houses, so I get a chance to also help students once they’re already in college and, and help them especially in the years from sophomore year to senior year, um, and while I was at Harvard, I was sociology, uh, or I was a sociology major and a global health policy minor.

And I was on the pre-med track, so I was pre med for all four years, then decided, um, to pursue a, pursue a different track, more in, uh, sociology and more systems level, um, health issues. So there was definitely a pivot there, but that’s my background, and I’ve been a CollegeAdvisor for a little over four years now.

Um, I’m also a senior, um, consultant and, or senior advisor. Um, and have had the pleasure of doing a lot of webinars in the past three years. Um, so I’m really excited to talk to y’all a little bit more about last minute tips on applications.

Anna: Awesome. Thanks, Maria. We’re lucky to have you here. And I just learned we were at Harvard at the same time.

So that’s a fun coincidence. Um, before I hand off to you to present, I thought it’d be helpful to get a sense of who’s in the room with us. So I’m going to open this poll. Please let us know what grade you’re in. If you’re here as a parent or adult support person, feel free to select other. While we wait for your answers, Maria.

I was wondering if you could go back in time and do one thing differently in your college application process, what would it be?

Maria: Yeah, so I think when I was doing my college application process, I did start really early, which is something I would go back and continue to do. But even though I started early, I think one of the things that I didn’t quite realize is how time consuming a lot of the supplemental, supplemental essays would be.

And I think I didn’t choose some school strategically trying to figure out like, okay, what are some essays I could definitely double dip in multiple schools or kind of tweak for multiple schools. Um, and so I did feel like there is some schools that I wanted to apply to early, but I didn’t get a chance to, there was a couple of schools that I just didn’t, um, get a chance to finish, uh, and ended up just applying to the top ones in my, uh, in my college list.

And so I think. If I could go back and do things earlier, I would definitely try to. Choose schools where I could double dip more of my essays. Um, I think I would have given myself a little bit of a longer runway. Um, I did, um, I’m really grateful I did end up getting into Harvard and I had done QuestBridge and got in Match, and so I knew, um, I had some, like, schools that I, I was gonna get into, but I think before knowing that, I just felt very nervous about not giving myself enough of a runway with other schools that I wanted to apply to.

Anna: What a surprise. Thank you for sharing. And just so you know, in the room, we have a few juniors and then mostly seniors, which makes sense. And this is about last minute tips for your applications. No more delay. I will hand it over to you, Maria, for your presentation.

Maria: Amazing. Thank you. Um, so it’s great to know who we have in the room.

Um, I think this is something, uh, that hopefully will apply to several folks, regardless of where you are in the process, as long as you still have have schools you’re submitting before December 1st or before the spring semester at some point, um, this will be helpful for you as well. So some aspects of the application that you should focus on in these final days, and again, final days being we’re looking at some deadlines in early January, early, um, early January, late December, as well as potentially some rolling, um, Application deadlines in the spring for some of you.

Um, so with that timeline in mind, there’s kind of two categories of things that would be helpful to think about. So it’s how do you improve the content of your application? And how do you make sure that you don’t forget some logistics and important requirements in your application? So when it comes to content, I think the best thing to really focus on is your essays.

Uh, this is a qualitative portion of your application where you’ll get a chance to really distinguish yourself, talk about your skills, your personality, your character, the things that you’ll bring to campus. Um, so this is a really important part of your application. So really focusing on, on the essays, um, making sure that, uh, they’re really personal, especially, um, again, being able to showcase parts of yourself that maybe aren’t, um, seen in a lot of the quantitative parts of the application, um, and then making sure that for your supplements.

You’re being very school specific. So obviously in your common app, which is going to all schools, you don’t want to be school specific. Um, but when you are working on your supplements, which do go to individual schools, um, that you make sure you’ve done your research. So you’re being specific about. Not just interesting extracurriculars that you’re that you want to apply to but specifically which ones why are they so interesting to you?

What classes are interesting to you what professors would be good to um study under? These are all ways to really show schools that you’ve done your research that you know Why you want to go to this school, that when you go, if you get accepted, that you would really, um, maximize your time. Um, and so making sure that there are those personalized tweaks in your supplements.

Um, there’s also, um, just making sure that your short answer questions on your Common App are also very well polished. That means, uh, definitely do your grammar tracks, but also, um, I know that the, some of the short answer questions on the Common App have very short, um, or yeah, very short character count, and so it can be really stressful to think about how to organize your thoughts in such a way that it’s still compelling and shows a lot of detail but meets the character count, and so just making sure that you’re able to go through, uh, those short answers and really optimize them for each score.

Um, and then, uh, for the logistics side of the house, um, I would say definitely make sure that you’re keeping track of deadlines, um, that could be one of the sneaky things about the process is you’re keeping track of so many deadlines, um, that you might want to make sure that you’re planning ahead.

Having some accountability, some reminders, some extra ways to make sure that you’re on top of making sure that you send everything out at the right times. Um, making sure that your required supplements are done. Um, so on the common app, you’ll notice that there is a lot of rows and tabs and those tabs have sub tabs and those sub tabs have other sub tabs.

And so making sure that everything is checked off, um, and that your application is ready to go before your deadline. Um, and lastly, that your recommendations are sent. So, uh, one of the also tricky things of the application process is that it depends on other people as well. So making sure that your recommenders are fully aware of the deadlines that they’ve submitted their things.

Those are really important on these last days. I know. It’s really easy to kind of get tunnel vision into what you need to do, but part of your application also depends on others submitting the things they need to submit and with sometimes teachers writing many, many applications in a single month, um, it can be really stressful for them.

And so just making sure that you are, um, your, your letters of recommendations are ready to go is another really important thing to focus on on the final days. Um, when it comes to, uh, some of the mistakes that are, uh, that are common during, you know, this, these last, uh, couple weeks before the next application, uh, deadline is, um, so I’ll list a couple of mistakes that are very common, and then also some ways that you can avoid them.

Um, so some mistakes can just be like the time crunch makes you rush. Um, it can be like, You know makes you feel like you have to submit what you have so far it can lead to a lot of errors So one way to really try to mitigate this is to Think ahead of the things that need to happen between now and your deadlines and try to plan.

Okay. What’s what am I getting done? This month, okay within this month to accomplish these things. What do I need to get done in each week? Okay, what does that mean for the cadence of my day today and really trying to break it down into Digestible chunks of work that do have that long term vision So again starting with the big picture of like what do you need to get done?

by a certain date and then moving backwards and trying to break it down into um Shorter work sprints can be really helpful. Um, and that can help you, uh, finish early and give you time to have some final reviews. Um, another, another mistake is not proofreading. Um, so, uh, yeah, grammar mistakes can really hurt your application.

Um, they’re not going to be, uh, the end all be all, but if your personal statement, your supplements and everything just has a lot of grammar mistakes, um, it’s going to be, a little bit harder to get a sense of your academic writing skills. And so that’s one easy way that you can just run your, um, or one way easy way to avoid that is to run your essays through a grammar checking software.

Um, you could also have someone else review and read it out loud. A lot of times this happens with, uh, teachers. And especially if you are a sophomore or junior, haven’t quite started your application process, you’ll definitely want to make sure that your English teachers, um, um, are aware of the essays that you’re writing, uh, that they’re helping you, uh, grow into the skills of being a better writer, but then also that you’re building up the relationships.

So then in your senior year, ask them to please review your essays. Uh, I know I asked my senior year English teacher to please look at my essays and she gave some really great feedback. Uh, so definitely, um, making sure that you are talking to folks around you who can help support that proofreading process.

Uh, another, uh, mistake is just skipping instructions. Um, missing requirements are quite common, and sometimes schools are flexible and allow you to send things later on, but you really don’t want to run that risk. You want to make sure that you’re submitting everything on time and that your, uh, application is fully complete.

So make sure that you’re double checking, uh, each school’s specific instructions. Um, remember that each school has supplements that are specific to their, um, to their application process. And so make sure that you are, uh, kind of cross referencing what you are learning, what you’re seeing in your Common App with, like, their website.

And that you’re, again, going the extra mile and trying to figure out, like, what do I need to send to each school and that you’re fulfilling those requirements. And lastly, another mistake can be just ignoring or missing deadlines. Um, and I kind of mentioned that in the previous slide, but just making sure that you’re tracking your deadlines and that you verify that you’ve submitted, making sure you don’t submit and then immediately close your laptop or something.

Like, try to give yourself some buffer to double check that everything has been submitted and that you have the correct deadlines.

So how do you stay organized and keep track of application deadlines as they approach? Um, you, again, as I mentioned in a previous slide, create a timeline that really helps you to see the big picture, but then also allows you to see chunks of what you need to do to get to your final goals. And so making sure you create a timeline that can be Um, on a, uh, Excel sheet, on a Google sheet, um, it can be on a whiteboard, a big piece of paper, whatever you’ll see and, and interact with the most is going to be the most helpful to you and then make sure that in that spreadsheet or in that, um, Form of documentation.

You have all the deadlines that you need. Um, make sure that you’re using checklists. Um, that can be a sticky notepad. It can be a note, a notebook. It could be again, an Excel sheet. Uh, it could be a bullet form list on a Google Doc, but just make sure that you are keeping track of what you’re to do is on the day to day basis, the weekly basis, the monthly basis and making sure that you’re on track for submitting your app, your application with all the requirements.

Another thing is to set reminders. So you can schedule alerts for upcoming deadlines through your Google Calendar, you can do it on your phone through reminders, you could have it, um, you could have accountability groups with other students or with other people in your life who will remember a specific date and help you kind of keep track that that date is coming and where you are in your process so far.

Also, just prioritizing, um, is going to be a really helpful skill. You’ll have a lot of things that you’re juggling, both with school, you’re a full time student as full time senior, if you’re applying, um, and also taking on this brand new workload. And so making sure that you’re focusing on, or having a big picture of all the things that you need to do, and then a prioritizing based on when deadlines are due, um, how much work you need to get done on some of these and making sure that.

As you’re writing your to do list, that it’s focusing on the right things. You don’t want to be working on something that’s due in two months when you have something due next week. Um, and so making sure you’re prioritizing correctly. Uh, and lastly, and I think this kind of ties in with a lot of the other bullet points, is just doing a, a weekly review.

So making sure that you’re reviewing that timeline that you make and the checklists and that you’ve, um, you know, addressed the reminders that you put in, that you’ve prioritizing your goals. So just doing, uh, kind of little Reflections on where you are. If you need to change those timelines that you need to make more checklists to achieve your goals.

So making sure that you’re not just running without pausing and seeing where you are in the process. And if you need to change any of your habits or any of your daily cadences.

Um, so what tips, uh, do I have for requesting last minute letters of recommendation? So I definitely recommend that if you have the opportunity to reach out to prof or to teachers earlier on that you do, um, I rec usually recommend that students reach out their junior spring. Uh, and the reason for that is that it’s the first kind of interaction you might be having with some of the professors or some of the teachers you’ll have next semester, you can already just, uh, reach out and say, you know, like, I’m really, I really love being in your class.

I’m excited to be in your class. Uh, usually the, I recommend that folks. Reach out to a couple professors they’ve had between their freshman and junior year. You might also, uh, really connect with teachers in your senior year, and that’s also an important category of teachers to keep in mind for your letters of recommendation, but at least for the teachers you’ve had so far.

I’m from freshman and junior year. You do want to try to think about like, okay, who might I ask to be a, um, a writer for one of my, my teacher recommendations and making sure that you’re meeting with them and just saying like, Hey, I know you’re really busy as the semester kicks off, things might get even more busy for you.

So I want to take this time that we have to Spring semester to get to know you a little bit better to share more about my goals, um, and to ask if you would be open to writing a letter of recommendation for me next year, and they’ll see that as just you being extremely proactive, um, you being careful of their time, uh, and conscious of their time.

And so I definitely recommend that. Uh, this question is about, uh, if you haven’t gotten a chance to do that, then what do you do to get last minute recommendations? But I, I thought it would be important to also mention for folks who are not seniors right now that that’s an important thing to keep in mind for your junior spring.

Um, so again, if that’s not the case and you’re doing some last minute letter of recommendation request, it’s really important to ask politely, um, to just acknowledge the reality of it being very short notice and to be very respectful with acknowledging that their teachers are probably very overwhelmed right now.

They also have their full time teaching roles and on top of that writing letters of recommendation. And so just acknowledging that you’re asking them short notice and being respectful or acknowledging that you want to respect their time if they’re not able to write them. Make sure that you, uh, make their job easier.

Uh, so provide a lot of details about your resume, your goals, and key points that you want them to highlight in your letter. Um, don’t expect them to remember everything about you. They probably have lots of other students. And again, especially if they’re doing this last minute, don’t add to their workload by expecting them to know, uh, what to write.

You really have to help them by giving them the content that they can then, then mold into a good letter. Um, be flexible. So again, offer to help with drafts or reminders. And by that, I don’t mean writing the letters for them at all. That’s not something that you, that you can do for the common app. Um, but definitely being able to write little snippets of like, Hey, if you wanted to know more about my academic experience, this is a blurb of my experience so far.

Um, if you uh, I’d really be interested in you writing more about my personality and my character And so this is a blurb of the things that i’ve enjoyed doing. This is how i’ve grown as a person Um similar as like if you were kind of sharing your your personal statement or something like that giving them some um fodder and some text to work with um And then express gratitude make sure that you realize that they didn’t have to say yes to writing you a letter of recommendation Um that they are probably already You And over their heads with, um, so many other letters that they have to write.

And so just expressing gratitude for their time and support is really helpful. Um, so how can you effectively tackle, uh, and sorry, is there a pot? Oh, there’s, I think this last slide and then I’ll pass it back to you, Anna, uh, for the poll. Um, but this last, uh, question here before we take a small break is, how can you effectively tackle supplemental essay prompts with limited time?

Um, so just make sure that you are. Focusing on key points in the essay, so make sure you are identifying a main message for each prompt, like what is the thing that you want to get across? Um, and so it’s really important to realize that, um, not all supplemental essays are the same, that you can’t just copy and paste, but you have to really think about what do, how do I want to answer this question?

Specifically, and then the length that you should always bring to any supplemental essay is how can I show more of who I am through the supplemental essay. So, um, regardless of what the question is asking about, maybe it’s asking you for who’s a role model in your life and like, what have you learned from them?

The focus of the essay, again, is not the role model itself, but how you’ve grown because of that role model. And they’re not admitting that role model to their school. They’re admitting you, hopefully, and so, make sure that regardless of what the essay prompt is, that you have a clear message and that it’s pointing back to who you are and why you’re a good candidate for the school.

Um, be specific, so use clear examples that show that you’re a good fit for the school. So, um, if you know the school is really big into, um, let’s take the example of MIT. It’s a very STEM focused school. Make sure that you are, uh, the, the supplementals that you’re writing are really focused on your STEM experience.

Maybe that’s not something that you would use for a different school that’s focusing, you know, Chicago is very, uh, UChicago is very well known for its humanities and social sciences programs. Maybe, again, it would be a slightly different tweaks to some of the essays and the tone that you have. Um, so make sure you do your research and knowing.

What is the culture and the type of background of the school? Um so that you’re making sure that you’re being very clear about how you’re a good fit for the school um limit your draft so um Try your best to write one strong draft that then you can pick out and that you can grow I think sometimes students get into this loophole of writing a ton of little mini essays to answer the same question Um, and that might be okay if you have a lot of time, but especially if you’re You Press for time, really try to just write one really good story that answers the question and just commit to it.

Um, again, doesn’t mean you can’t ever pivot, but don’t fall into that loophole or Yeah, into that, that rabbit hole of writing lots of different stories and not really landing and perfect or revising one of them. Um, and lastly, prioritize the ones that you have. So make sure that, or prioritize the essays that you might need to write.

So make sure you are, um, having maybe a piece of paper or somewhere where you can just put down all the essays that you need to write and prioritize them based on maybe what, um, Well, first of all, the deadline. You know, when do you have to turn each one in? Uh, but two, maybe some essay prompts come easier to you than others.

Maybe some you’ve already used for a scholarship or a fellowship or something else in class that maybe is really easy for you to copy over. Um, and so, start with the ones that come easier to you, uh, that might be shortest so that you can get them done. Um, that won’t always align with, uh, the ones that are easiest.

Sometimes the shortest one can be the hardest one. Um, but if you’re able to just, At least write a draft for, for a lot of them and sometimes the short ones are easier to write a small draft that you can then revise. Um, then it’s sometimes better to start with the short and easier prompts first. Um, but again, each student is different.

Some of the larger prompts might just, um, resonate with you more. Uh, and it might lead to a lot of thinking that can help you with your shorter prompts. So, just make sure that you’re taking stock of what would come easiest to you and what you need to submit earlier. Uh, and I’ll pass it back to you.

Anna: Sorry, Maria, I didn’t mean to turn my camera on there. Um, okay, we’re going to do another poll, uh, to give us a sense of where you are in the application process. So, while you’re letting us know, uh, Maria, I was wondering, you were just speaking about essays, given the theme of the last minute tips, do you have any suggestions for students that I’m looking for quick ways to trim on word count, uh, especially knowing that supplemental essays tend to be shorter than the personal statement.

Maria: Sorry. Um, yeah, so I think that there is a couple ways to think about trimming. Um, there’s some that hurt a little bit less, some that are a little bit more difficult to do, but I would say start out with, especially if it’s just a couple of like word count or like characters, um, try to condense your sentence.

So if you have a sentence that has a lot of clauses or like. You know, it’s just a run on sentence really try to condense it Think about like how to streamline your thought process a little bit more and see if you could actually merge two sentences into one Um Sometimes that’s just not enough. Um, I know that I really wanted to talk about one aspect of my life in my common app essay and it just was not fitting the work count and I had to, um, eventually realize, okay, I need to cut an entire idea, uh, from my essay.

And at the moment, I thought like this was going to be, you know, very bad for my essay. It just wasn’t going to flow the same. And actually what I realized is once I committed to not writing about that idea and keeping the other ones, I just made it work. And it actually. Nobody, I think, could have, uh, could have been able to tell that I, um, had another idea in that essay.

Um, so sometimes I, I just ask students to try to disassociate themselves a little bit from, from the things that they really, really want to share and try to think about, like, okay, which ones make sense to share in this one essay. You might be able to share the idea that you need to cut in a different essay.

Anna: Absolutely. And, if you find yourself doing that, I would suggest Not completely deleting it, maybe copying and pasting that part somewhere else. Um, like Maria said, you might be able to cycle it. Yeah, great point. Um, so this makes sense because we had about an even number of juniors and seniors we’re also pretty evenly split in terms of where people are in the process.

So some haven’t started. Some are researching schools, working on essays, getting their materials together, and some are almost done. So we’re glad you’re all here to hear Lillia’s tips and with that I’m going to hand it back to her to walk us through some more. Amazing, thank you.

Maria: Um, so another couple of questions here about You know, just being really effective with your time is, um, what are some quick and effective strategies for revising your essays?

And I think this kind of gets to some of the points that Anna raised, um, in this question that we had during the poll. Um, so you might see some repeat of that, but I think something that could be really helpful is just reading your essays out loud. Um, I do this with all of my students whenever they want to.

Um, Go through an essay. I asked them, okay, we’re going to go through it. Just share your screen. I’m going to be following along, but I want you to read it out loud in that sometimes, uh, or actually most times helps them catch awkward phrasing and errors and they get to edit it right then and there, and, um, it’s just a really helpful way to identify things because when you read it out loud, you’re really, um, Kind of catching where maybe a sentence is too long or maybe there’s awkward phrasing that you’re like, Ooh, this did not sound great read out loud.

Um, and that’s harder to do when it’s just words on a paper and you can kind of skim over things. Um, if it’s on paper versus if you’re seeing it out loud, um, cut the fluff. So sometimes there is, um, unnecessary words that, uh, students put in because they’re just kind of getting ideas out of their head.

And so making sure that as you’re getting to your final edits that you’re cutting out any fluff or words that don’t actually add to the essay, um, making sure you’re checking the flow of the essay. So ensure that, um, paragraphs are flowing from one to the other, that you’re not just kind of jarring the reader with ideas that don’t seem to connect, but rather that you have a pretty, uh, comprehensive thesis that you are supporting with your body paragraphs and that you’re showing how one thing leads to another, how your ideas transition from another, especially when you’re writing A personal statement or supplements that follow a life chronology, you want to make sure things are flowing, um, pretty smoothly.

Um, seek feedback, so I already mentioned making sure that you are getting in touch with your English teachers, but also, um, talking to your CollegeAdvisor. CollegeAdvisor also has an essay review team, so making sure that you’re maximizing, uh, the resources there, uh, and making sure that folks are giving you input.

Um, and then proof for grammar. So again, that’s one of the very common mistakes is you can get through and, uh, write your essay, have really good content, but then if you have a lot of grammar mistakes, that’s also not going to, um, not, that’s going to reflect poorly on the writing skill portion of the, of the application, and so make sure that you’re correcting spelling and punctuation errors.

Um, when it comes to, uh, best practices for actually proofreading your application, um, so making sure again that you are, um, have good flow, good grammar, um, I would say definitely make sure to take breaks. Uh, sometimes I see things for several hours, whether that is, um, I’m currently, you know, um, at work and writing a lot of reports or writing, uh, things that I, you know, maybe work on for a couple hours.

And it’s. It’s just really easy to start getting so familiar with the content that you don’t spot mistakes. And I think that’s very true, especially in essays where you’re writing about yourself. And so you just assume. You know, your brain is kind of filling in the gaps, and you’re assuming that everyone else is also making those connections.

Um, so sometimes taking a step back and really coming back with a lens of, if I didn’t know who I was, if I was seeing this paper for the first time, like, having that refreshed perspective can help you catch errors. Um, uh, so read backwards. Uh, so, That’s another tactic of obviously make sure you’re reading forwards when it comes to the flow.

Uh, but sometimes, uh, to make sure that you are not kind of conflating different, uh, or, or to give your brain a bit of like a, a different, um, approach and way to look at the, at the words. You can proof, sorry, let me rephrase that. When you’re looking for, uh, to improve your flow and the content of your essay, definitely move forward.

If you’re trying to proofread and spot grammatical errors, Sometimes, again, your brain will fill in the gaps with something it knows already. And so, kind of jarring your brain into just looking into something very specific and a specific window of text, it can be helpful to sometimes just say, I’m going to just look at this, this paragraph, and then like, you know, move over to a paragraph, maybe three paragraphs down in the essay, and just give yourself a lens of just proofreading and grammar editing.

And so sometimes that, again, just helps to bring diversity and variety to your brain so that you can process things better and, uh, be able to spot mistakes that maybe you wouldn’t have if you just kind of read right through the way that you’ve been doing for most of the essay. Um, use different tools.

So there is, um, different tools. spellcheck tools. There’s Grammarly, which I think is very popular among some of the students that I work with. And so, um, definitely feel free to use spellcheck, but don’t rely solely on it. Sometimes it doesn’t catch things. Um, sometimes there’s things that you maybe expressively wanted to emphasize something and the, you know, there might be a little bit more attention with like the grammar there.

And sometimes, uh, most of the times you do need to make a grammar check, but, or a grammar change, but sometimes you don’t. And so making sure that you’re also. Um, talking to your advisor, the essay review team, and other humans and folks who can kind of talk through the ideas that you wanted to put on paper and make sure that it fits the grammar rules.

Um, focus on key details, so make sure you’re double checking names, dates, and other specific requirements. So, making sure that if you’re talking about wanting to start Um, in the fall of 2025 that you’re not writing fall 2026 or something like that. Um, so making sure you’re being very clear about that.

If you’re saying you’re really excited to work with Professor so and so, make sure that Professor so and so’s name is spelled correctly and that their class is spelled correctly. Um, so those are other, uh, proofreading tips. Um, and then get a second opinion. I think I mentioned this. But just making sure you are talking to other humans who can look through your, your, um, essays and make sure that they’re understanding, uh, what you want to put on paper and that you’re conveying that, um, through your text.

So what online tools or resources can help streamline your application process at the last minute? Um, so calendar apps can be really helpful. So make sure that you’re setting reminders for deadlines through your Google calendar, or like even if you’re doing it on the day to day, making sure that you have reminders on your phone, um, that can be really helpful so that you don’t have to hold even more things in your brain.

Uh, document sharing. So I really suggest that folks use Google Drive because you might have a spreadsheet that you use for your applications and your timelines. You might have different documents. You might have, um, I don’t know, a PowerPoint that helps you to maybe organize your thoughts a little bit more.

So you might have different types of documents. Um, and I found that having a drive or somewhere where all those files can live in one place is really helpful. Um, using grammar checkers. So again, I mentioned Grammarly before, but that’s really helpful, um, to just spot and spot errors in grammar and just proofread your essays, uh, college websites.

So I make sure that I have links to the college websites that I, or when I was applying, I made sure I had the links to the websites right on my tracker so that I knew like, okay, if I, you know, had a last minute. Hesitation about whether the deadline was on a certain day. I could just click immediately and verify on the school website.

Um, and lastly, uh, task managers. Um, this is something that I found really helpful at work and in college. No, I don’t think I. you guys knew about it too much as a high school student, but there are some task manager, um, apps that can be really helpful. Um, those include Trello or Notion and what you do is you pretty much create like if you had a whiteboard, you just create like, okay, this is the task that I want to get done in this month.

Within that, I want to get done this, this and this during the week. Um, and it sends you reminders. It gives you, um, different checklists, which feel really good when you like. Check things off. And so it’s just one more way to streamline that, uh, administrative work, uh, so that you don’t have to keep track of it all the time.

Um, so, um, kind of taking a step back. So a lot of those things were logistics and very practical help. Um, I think there’s a very human element in this that can just, you know, Um, you know, when you’re so focused on doing the thing, you kind of forget that like your mental health and your emotional health is really important as well.

Um, and it does impact your ability to do really good work. And so, uh, making sure that you’re managing your stress, um, and having a positive mindset is really helpful. Um, not just again for your own mental health, but also because it will reflect on the quality of work that you’re able to do. And so A couple tips that I have there is just breaking down tasks.

I’ve mentioned this in previous slides as well, but just making sure you’re tackling small steps so that you’re not feeling overwhelmed. And a really important way to do that is to, again, make sure that you’re having a big picture of, like, what are the goals, what are the things that you need to do, and then working backwards to say, like, okay, over the next Three months I need to do X, Y, or Z.

Then what do you, what do I need to get done the month before? To do that, what do I need to get done the month before and the month before? And so you work backwards and within that also saying, okay, if in this month I need to do A, B, C, what are the steps that I need to do on a weekly basis in order to meet those end of month goals?

Um, so again, breaking it down into a lot more digestible bites is really helpful. Um, setting limits. I do this all the time in work. I did it in college and it was really helpful to do in high school and it was just having, um, What I guess I call work life balance or what people call work life balance now, but also like school life balance, um, where you are working really hard for periods of time and then taking a break to be with loved ones, to be outside, to do hobbies you really enjoy, um, making sure that you are recharging and avoiding burnout.

At the bare minimum, that’s like sleep and eating and doing all the things to keep your body healthy. Um, but also doing things that keep your mind healthy. So again, doing exercise or moving your body, doing things that allow you to, again, kind of recalibrate a little bit more. Um, which leads to the next point, which is if you can just try to stay active exercising or walking to relieve stress or doing other things, again, that help mobility, um, for, for, um, um, mental health as well as physical health.

Um, then there’s also just kind of realigning your thoughts to focus on progress instead of all the things that need to still get done. So making sure you’re pausing and celebrating all the things that you are being able to check off your list, even if it’s small, it’s a line on the checklist, which is one less thing to do, uh, on your play or one less thing on your play and one less thing to do.

And so making sure that you’re actually taking time to celebrate the progress that you’ve done so far, or that you’ve had so far. Um, and lastly, practicing self compassion. Um, reminding yourself that you’re doing your best, um, that you’re so much more than a college applicant. You are a human, you’re someone in your community who is loved, and in your family who’s loved.

And so, um, making sure that you recalibrate to realize, um, The bigger picture of so many other important things in your life. Um, that’s not at all to belittle the important season that you’re in. Um, this is like an important season for folks who are pursuing college. And, um, it’s important to note that, but also to just balance that with a good perspective on all the other amazing things that you have in your life outside of college applications.

And that is the presentation for today, or at least the spoken part for me.

Anna: Thank you so much, Maria. Great advice for students. As you said, that’s the end of the presentation part of our webinar. We hope you found the information helpful. Please remember you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab to have them for future reference.

Now we’re going to move on to the live Q& A. I’ve been reading through the questions you submitted in the Q& A tab, as well as the ones you submitted when you registered for the webinar. As we get to each one, I will paste them into the public chat so you can see them and read them out loud before turning it over to Maria for her answer.

As a heads up, if your Q& A tab isn’t letting you submit questions, Just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page. So you might need to close out and come back. Um, but don’t worry, this is being recorded so you won’t miss anything.

I think that’s all the housekeeping I had to do. So Maria, first question I find is, One of the golden questions in college admissions, how do I know when my application is ready to submit?

Maria: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And that’s a question that just varies from person to person. Um, I think I’ll talk about a couple, maybe markers that it’s ready, but ultimately it does come down to, um, someone individually looking through their work and saying like, okay.

I feel comfortable that I’ve done my best. Um, and if I keep on working on this, it might take away from, from things or from, yeah, from tasks that I need to do in other applications. So, um, for folks who maybe have all the time in the world and are feeling like, okay, I’ve submitted or I’m ready to submit everything a month before and there’s nothing else I want to work in or work on.

Um, I often suggest, okay, have other folks take a look at it. And if everybody around you, um, your teachers, your recommenders, everybody else’s. Also giving you a green light. Maybe it is time. Um, I also suggest if you have time before your deadline to maybe give yourself, okay, maybe you feel done today, give yourself a week.

And if in a week, you’re also ready to submit, then submit then, um, most schools are not, uh, again, unless it’s like a rolling admission, they have a deadline and that’s when the, after that is when they’ll start looking at your application. So it’s not, you will have necessarily a comparative advantage by submitting early.

So give yourself a break and then reevaluate. Um, If you are more in a time crunch, which is I think the most common situation that students find themselves in, and they just have to decide, okay, at what point do I stop working on this so I can now work on this other thing? Um, I suggest a couple different checks.

One is, uh, do you feel like your essays and your written portions really reflect who you are? Have you gone through the different proofreading and the grammar checks and like all those logistical things about, um, your recommendations being in and all like, All your requirements are in, you feel good about the proofreading in your essays, and you know the content reflects who you are.

And I think those are the three main checks that I look at, um, when, when students are ready to submit. Um, and I think that that’s been really helpful. Again, for different schools, it might feel a little bit more stressful. And, um, if it’s really high stakes, maybe it’s your top school. Um, sometimes it’s helpful to say like, okay, maybe I’ll pivot to another school for now, but I’ll, I’ll make sure to leave some space to come back to this.

My top school application. And so it can be a bit more of a fluid progression. It doesn’t have to just be like, okay, I’m ready to submit. I’m going to submit today. It can be like, okay, I’m ready to submit. I’ll work on something else while my brain kind of refreshes. And then I’ll come back to this. And if I still feel confident, I’ll just submit.

So I think those are kind of the benchmarks I’ve used so far.

Anna: Yeah. Great advice. Thank you for that. Anything you suggest students avoid mentioning in their application.

Maria: Yeah, so, um, that’s a really good question. Um, I can maybe talk a little bit more broadly around the types of themes that I’ve seen come up that maybe are a little bit, um, maybe send students down a rabbit hole, um, or maybe is not as unique as students thought.

So for example, like when students really focus on, um, in their personal statement, they’re talking about an obstacle they overcame, but they really focus on like, look at all the bad things that have happened to me. That’s like a very common, um, trap in the personal statement because folks feel like, okay, if I just divulge all this information about the terrible things that have happened to me, then like admissions officers will like definitely see I’ve had a lot of bad things happen, I’m a strong person, therefore I will do great in school.

That’s not a line of logic that is necessarily very successful. I think the line of logic there should be Be honest about the difficulties that you face some of the obstacles that you’ve had But really focus on how you grew as a person the skills that you develop the perspective changes that you’ve had and how you’ve again grown as a person and how um You’ve changed throughout that process.

So focusing on that instead of like the, the difficulty for, for the majority of the essay, making sure that you’re clear about the difficulty, but that the greater proportion of the essay is more on, um, how you’ve grown and, and, Um, how you relate to that challenge now, and that doesn’t have to be that you are completely unaffected by the challenge, but just talking about how you grew as a person throughout that process.

Um, another kind of pitfall there is, um, sometimes students write about, um, Um, you know, they went to a third world country or a developing nation, another place that had a lower socioeconomic income, and then they’ve had like these revelations about the world, but they were there for like a week or they were there for two weeks.

And so I think that can be another pitfall where, um, making sure that if you’re writing about a situation where you were able to. Do service in another country or in another region that you’re being very Honest and careful about what were the services that you did provide or how did you grow? But how did it also just open?

um a lot of new questions that you don’t have the answers to like having a very humble posture of Okay, I’m not not saying like okay. I went to this place and now I know all these things It’s more like I went to this place and it opened my eyes to all these questions I didn’t know about these are the ways that I want to pursue Growing and learning more about them in a long term process.

Um, and I think that’s kind of another way to, um, address some of those pitfalls. Um, I feel like I kind of narrowed down into some of like essay pitfalls, but I, I’m not sure if that answered your question, Anna, or maybe I kind of took that, took it into the personal statement direction.

Anna: No, I, I thought that was great and I loved the framing you gave to it all.

I’ll add for what it’s worth, as a captain on the essay review team, I read hundreds of essays every year, and there’s only been one time where I told a student, I think this topic is entirely, perhaps not the best topic for your essay, because as you were saying Maria, a lot of it’s about framing, and how you approach the topic, so you’re not saying don’t talk about the topic.

service trips. You’re saying what you focus on and how you frame it is really important. And because I said that, I feel like I can’t just dangle it out there and not tell you what the essay was about. Um, the student had written about a romantic breakup they had just gone through. And I’m not saying it’s impossible to write a strong personal statement with that topic.

But concern wise, given Our society admissions readers who are older than applicants who are applying just are, um, might not take very seriously a romantic breakup because most of us when we were your age had relationships that didn’t work out and we decided that’s just kind of how it is and we don’t want that.

Don’t always take it too seriously. So that’s, that’s the only time I’ve thought, maybe don’t, maybe don’t write about that. Um, yeah,

Maria: and actually just to add to that, because I think now that you’ve asked it again, another topic that I found, um, can be difficult is when folks talk about, um, Just like very controversial topics and accidentally use this as like an argumentative essay to show their beliefs instead of Really focusing on okay How do I express more of who I am as a person and how I’m learning from others and from my community?

And I think that again, it’s part of the reframing I don’t think it’s necessarily like you can’t talk about any controversial topics but I think the You have few opportunities to show parts about yourself to an admissions officer, um, and it might not be the strongest strategy to have something very controversial be one of those very few qualitative data points that they know about you.

Anna: I absolutely agree. I think I’m going to give you a little break, Maria, so I can talk just a minute about CollegeAdvisor. Okay. So for those of us, sorry, long day, for those of you who are not already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be. CollegeAdvisor has a team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one on one advising sessions.

We’ve already helped over 8,000 families in their college journeys, and And I’m excited to share after doing some data analysis, we found from 2021 to 2024, our CollegeAdvisor students are 2.4 times more likely to get into Harvard, 2.9 times more likely to get into Stanford, and almost two times more likely to get into Princeton.

So increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 60 minute strategy session with an admissions specialist on our team. You can do that by scanning the QR code on the screen. If you are joining from a phone and therefore you don’t have a camera to scan it with, you should be redirected to the site when the webinar closes out.

Also, please remember the slides are available for you to download so you can have this QR code with you. I suppose you could screenshot it. Whatever you do, make sure you’re able to scan the QR code and sign up for that free strategy session. In that meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations from us on what you can do to stand out.

At the end, you’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer that pair you with an expert like me, who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, And so much more. We’re here for the whole process.

I’m going to leave that QR code on the screen for the rest of our time together to answer some of our questions. Maria, given the recent Supreme Court decision about affirmative action, are students able to talk about their race, their ethnicity, anywhere in their application?

Maria: Yeah, absolutely. Um, it’s a really important part of folks identity.

Um, it’s a salient part of how they present to the world and also to maybe the way that they see themselves. And so if that’s you, then definitely make sure that that is incorporated in your personal statement. Um, it might not be labeled as a diversity statement anymore, but, um, when The personal statement is open enough to ask, uh, like it’s so open ended that it asks you to write about anything you can talk about an experience where maybe you, um, your, um, racial background, your demographic background really came, uh, into the picture and like where you started to realize it more, where you started to see it come up in maybe your society, in your community, uh, maybe different, um, Elements of that have come up either in school or in your, uh, in your personal life.

And so those are all things that you can still talk about in your personal statement that you could still mention in your supplemental statements. Again, the title might not be a diversity essay anymore, but Um, you can definitely include it in who you are, if that’s a salient, um, identity that you have.

Um, some essay topics can still talk about that as well. I think, um, when they ask about an obstacle or challenge that you’ve overcome, if relevant, um, if it’s something that is related to your demographic background, your experience, um, then that’s something that you can definitely use. You don’t have to take that out from your essays just because it’s not relevant.

necessarily a specific essay or something that’s specifically being looked at by, um, or officially being looked at by a board.

Anna: Absolutely. The decision does not change what you can share. It just impacts the questions the colleges can ask you and how they, they look at demographic data.

What advice do you have for students? deciding if they should submit their ACT or SAT scores for schools that are still test optional.

Maria: Yeah. So that can be a little difficult when tests, when schools are test optional, it kind of leaves like the, should I do it? Should I not? And no longer is such a clear line that students see when it’s like required or when it’s not.

Um, not looked at at all. And so, uh, for folks who are in that situation, uh, again, just want to say, like, it is a difficult situation. It’s not just the black or white. Maybe some students are deciding. To do it, um, but again, don’t follow what everybody else is doing because the situation is very specific to you in your own case Um, and so I definitely recommend that students think about what their SAT and ACT scores are comparative to Or compared to uh, what maybe the standard of the school is some schools like the ivy leagues don’t actually share like, um You know, this is the the GPA or the standardized test score that we’re looking for.

Um, but there is some data sometime about sometimes about just kind of the percentile of students that get a certain score. Um, I would say don’t use that as like a determinant of whether or not to submit. Um, there is lots of students who got a perfect score and did not make it to Harvard. I did not get a perfect score and I made it to Harvard.

So there’s a lot of different factors that play into this. Um, but I think the key question is, Do you feel like that score will help, um, provide an extra positive data point on your quantitative, um, test taking skills, on your academic skills? Um, Maybe, uh, that’s something that, you know, the score is not one that you think actually reflects your academic skills, and maybe in that scenario it’s not as helpful to submit, especially if you have a really good GPA.

Um, another question that folks sometimes bring up, or the students bring up is, You know, I haven’t taken it yet. Should I actually go through the process of studying and taking it when the school’s test optional? And I think it really depends on how much time you have and whether it will take away from your application in other places.

And what I mean by that is maybe you haven’t written some of your supplemental essays and you’re in a time crunch and you’re deciding should I? I study and take this test or should I really focus on my supplements? And I think for folks who have a strong GPA, the answer is a little bit more clear. Uh, there is an academic marker through your GPA on how, you know, predicting a little bit of like how, um, you might be ready for, for the school and really focus on, on the supplements can just kind of tell you apart, um, in the application process.

And so. Usually for students who are maybe in that scenario have a really strong GPA still need to focus on their essays I usually advise that they maybe don’t focus on submitting a standardized test score, but rather on writing really great essays. Um, but for students who are, again, talking like different kind of cases and scenarios, the most difficult scenario is when maybe like the GPA isn’t as strong, you are in a time crunch for writing essays, and then you also are deciding whether to submit maybe a score that you don’t feel, um, really reflects your academic background.

Um, and in those scenarios, I. Usually recommend, um, just thinking through like, okay, if it’s not going to help, um, then maybe don’t include it and use the time to really try to improve other areas of your essay. Um, again, it’s, it’s very case dependent. I gave different types of scenarios in case that fits any of you, um, in the moment, but Anna would also love to hear, um, what you think on this question.

Anna: Oh, no, I agree entirely with what you said. I will add, in case students aren’t aware of this, I certainly wasn’t, that when you apply, colleges also see a profile of your high school, so they will see what courses are offered there, if APs are an option, and so they’re also looking at how rigorous of a course load you’re taking, given what’s available to you.

I think that’s an important thing to know when making this test. Do I submit my scores or not decision that they are, they are looking to see how rigorous of a course you can maintain. So, I think we have time for maybe one or two more questions. Let’s see. Any advice on how to present extracurriculars if they’re not directly related to the student’s intended major?

Maria: Yeah, so this is a really great question because your extracurriculars don’t have to all be tied into your intended major. Actually, it’s helpful that your, some of your extracurriculars are not tied to just that because you don’t want to be just the one dimensional, you know, You don’t want to have a one dimensional profile.

Um, and so. I think the best way to do it is the same that I would say even for the ones that do relate to your major, which is to make sure that you’re showing why you’re passionate about this extracurricular, why you enjoy it, why you care about it, um, your level of experience and leadership. And then, um, I think the extra bonus point, if, if it applies is how you are helping others to also learn more about it, how you are being.

Someone who’s not only benefiting from this activity or from this extracurricular, but how you’re giving to others and helping to expand the passion for the extracurricular among others in your community. So those are kind of the three pronged approach that I usually take when trying to help students build out their extracurricular description.

Um, and presenting those in essays as well as making sure you’re talking about your passion, level of involvement, and kind of your service towards or how you’re giving back.

Anna: Absolutely. And if you find yourself approaching the application deadlines, like I did for law school, right? Because I was on this path towards psychology, then decided I want to go to law school.

I had some stress. Oh my goodness. None of my activities or my work experience is relevant to law. Well, one that’s not entirely true because skills you build anywhere can apply anywhere else. So I would emphasize this relevant skill sets you’re building. And also maybe your essays, as Maria said, become even more important than in telling a story, right?

Of how you went through all of these extracurriculars, what you learned and how you got to where you are now in how it’s informing your future goals.

Maria: Yeah. And that actually brings up a really important point around Skills that you learn in one area actually allow you to build a more multidisciplinary approach to something where maybe folks don’t have that experience and would come, um, to think about that in like a very different way.

And so kind of leveraging. You know, what skill sets, what frameworks or ways of thinking did you develop that you can then bring to, you know, your specific major. So for an example of that is, um, I see this a lot in folks who are pre med and have done psychology and are really interested or have an extracurricular in music.

Um, there’s a really interesting connection there around how the brain processes music and, um, ways to think about that, that I’ve seen then fit into, um, Essays about interest in neuroscience and other Behavioral sciences and so I I think that that is one other way to make the connection

Anna: Thank you so much Maria for your time this evening for your expertise We were really lucky to be able to learn from you. This is the end of our webinar Thank you everyone for coming out. We had a great time, you know, handling your questions tonight and Being together in this virtual world. Thanks for joining us and please check out our website.

We Do these webinars quite frequently and we have some exciting upcoming ones to check out. Thank you all. Best of luck with your applications and have a great day. Bye.

Maria: Thanks everyone. Thanks Anna for moderating.