How to Get Into U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 Top Colleges

Webinar Transcription

2024-01-29 – How to Get Into U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 Top Colleges

Hi, everyone, and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I’m a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor, and I will be your moderator today. Tonight’s webinar is “How to Get Into the U.S. News and World’s 2024 Top Colleges.” Before we get started, I just want to orient everyone with the webinar timing.

We will start with a brief presentation, provide you some tips, And, um, prac best practices. And then we’ll answer your questions in a live Q&A on the sidebar. You can download our slides whenever you get a chance under the handouts tab, and you can start spending your questions whenever you get ready in the Q&A tab.

Please, definitely feel free to send questions throughout the presentation, and you don’t have to wait until we start the Q&A to send in your questions. Uh, but first let’s meet our panelist. Stacey, who’s Stacey, how are you doing? I am good. I’m excited to be here tonight. I’m Stacey Tuttle. I, um, am a former admissions officer at the Yale University.

I also went to Yale University for my undergraduate degree. Um, but all of my admissions experience comes from my time working at the Yale School of Public Health. And that’s why I’m with you all tonight. I’m excited to share some insight into the U. S. News and World Report’s top five. College ranking and what that means for your application process.

All right. Awesome. Before we let Stacey get started, we’re gonna do our first poll of the evening. Just let us know what grade you’re in. If you’re a parent or a teacher, we’re definitely happy to have you here. You don’t have to select the grade. You can just go ahead and select other. It helps us know that you folks are in the room.

While we’re waiting, Stacey, my question for you is, as you were thinking about your own college list, Were there specific lists or a kind of references that you were using in order to pick your schools or you know What were the factors you have you kept in mind as you were trying to think about where you want to go?

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I because it was oh my goodness over a decade ago now, I Don’t think I use a lot of online lists. I think we generally knew they existed right and I know you applied around the same time as me, perhaps, or, um, so it wasn’t, I don’t think we use a lot of internet type tools.

It was a lot of word of mouth. It was a lot of talking to college counselors and my peers. Um, and there was a perception, you know, if you’re academically, I went to public school, I was academically at the top of my class. And so there was clearly a perception there that I would apply to teach. Top 20 or Ivy League schools.

So that was definitely something that I always had at the top of my mind and choosing my, my colleges. Um, and I’ve talked about this on other webinars, I wanted to be in the Northeast, particularly in Connecticut, born and raised. Um, so Yale of course came to the forefront for me in terms of Ivy, Ivy’s, but naturally, and this is interesting that I ended up choosing naturally, Schools that were a balance for me on my college list, I ended up choosing state and local schools that were more what we call target, meaning they were, they were schools that I was very likely to get into, um, because my applicant profile matched what they were looking for, or they were what we consider likely or safety schools.

So, schools that I was definitely going to get into. And that’s simply because they were local to me and that was a priority for me. So really interesting, like linking back to my journey and what that looked like for me. Yeah. I feel like, um, my list, some of them told me my list today was probably all breaches, but I think back now, I mean, it worked out for you, right?

It definitely did. It worked out. But yeah, I think, I mean, I think it’s also how time has changed with strategy of the list. But I think for me, I was also, I think we might have predate the like age of there being lists online or many of those. Cause I think my college counselors gave me a list and that’s, and I was like, okay, I researched some schools and narrowed it down.

But, um, That’s when you used to go to your counselor’s office and they would get, I’m walking across and I, they give you the brochures for the colleges. I don’t think they do that anymore. No, I mean, I mean, when I was working in the high school, I would still get posters. I got, I got a lot of posters, brochures, but they’re like, show this map of our campus.

Okay. Um, anyway, we’ll go ahead and close our poll, but just so you know, Stacey, um, we have 4 percent in ninth grade. The majority of folks with us today are in the 10th and 11th grade. So they make up about 60 percent of our group. Um, we have a senior and then we have, it seems like a handful of parents and So we’re excited to have everybody here, Stacey, and I’ll stop chitchatting and let you get to the presentation.

I’ll be back a little bit later. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, let’s dive in. So what is the U.S. News and World Report’s Top College ranking, and why is it important? The U.S. News and World Report, best College Ranking List is an annual set of rankings of colleges and universities in the US and to be ranked, you can’t just be any school, you have to fit a set of conditions that they’re looking for in a qualified.

School to be in the ranking and these factors that they consider as criteria to be included in a ranked List for U.S. News and World Report are things like accreditation um the Number of students undergraduate students that they’re enrolling I believe it’s at least 100 undergraduate students a school has to enroll in order to qualify um, how many Years of graduates they have graduating with a bachelor’s degree You know, they want to see longevity of existence of a university as well So there’s a couple of things that they’re looking for in order for a school to qualify once they’ve Determined which schools qualify the u.

s News then evaluates those schools on a set of iteration of this they evaluated nearly 1500 u. s four year bachelor’s degree seeking institutions or granting I should say institutions and on as many as 19 measures. Okay. And so those measures include a variety of things. You can find them online. It’s, it’s accessible.

They explain. All of those measures and what those mean and how they consider those. I’ve included some here on the slide for your reference. Um, things like academics offered at the institution graduation rates. So how many students of the students enrolled, do they actually graduate? First year retention rates, how many of their first year students, their freshmen actually stay.

through after the first year, um, and continue on in the program. First generation graduation rates. So if you’re a first generation student, do you continue on in the program? Borrower debt. How much are these students coming out of in terms, um, out of college with in terms of their debt and their indebtedness?

Um, what are their loans like? What are, um, their career outcomes is, is another factor they’re considering. And what are the salaries that they’re bringing in? Peer assessment. What do your peer schools think of you as a school? This is actually an evaluative component of the, the metrics that they consider.

Um, and it does take that additional research, that additional step to go out into the world and say to these institutions, what do you think of Yale? What do you think of Harvard? Um, and that’s a comparative factor, uh, that is important to consider is that reputation, uh, on a peer level. Student to faculty ratio.

How many students are there per one faculty member or how many faculty member are there per one student and that gives you a sense of how personalized your experience might be in terms of advising and access to faculty. And then standardized tests. How are your students performing on standardized tests compared to Um a student at another school or averages across the nation and so you can see all of those criteria that Um are considered in the most recent ranking of U.S. News and World Reports top colleges online and there’s a link there. So what does this mean for you? Ultimately more than half of the school’s rank is now comprised of outcome measures that relate to a school success in enrolling Retaining and graduating students with manageable debt and postgraduate success.

Okay, so for you, when you view a school’s ranking, that gives you a sense of the value that you are getting, the return that you are getting on the education you’re pursuing there. What is the quality of education you’re receiving? Is that preparing you for the future? For the outcome that you’re ultimately hoping to have in your career for the long term goals that you have as an individual Are you coming in terms of the the financial investment that you’re putting into a school?

Are you coming out of that and able to? Um meet your financial debt as a student as a graduate later on Are you satisfied with? your Long term goals after graduation and how you’ve been able to achieve those. So These are all really important factors for you to consider, um, when you’re looking at the ranking and what that means.

And ultimately you want to choose a school that is going to give you the best return on your investment, is going to give you the best value given the education that you’re being provided and what you hope to do. And so that’s where the ranking is useful. Understanding That are driving the ranking is key to understanding what that ranking means in your research Okay, so I would suggest using rankings to guide your understanding of a school Given their their resources what their graduates are doing what their alumni are doing um what their students are doing on campus what um, How does the school rank in terms of the research that they’re they’re doing there?

Um compared to their peer institutions what that what is that perception? Really? Dive into, you know, what that school has to offer to you after looking at the ranking, you know, you could see the ranking, see that it’s high. And then you can go and explore that school even deeper and ask yourself, okay, what, what are, what are their faculty doing?

What is the presence online in terms of their publications? If you’re interested in research or if you’re premed, look to see what their premed support looks like. You want to go beyond the metric. You want to go beyond the ranking and actually dive deeper and not just take. The the ranking at face value.

Um, another really useful tool on the U.S. Uh, News and World Report website is the selecting compare schools tool. So you can actually compare schools using this tool online, and that could be a really helpful way for you to assess different schools of interest. But ultimately, the ranking and the tools they provide are just one way to understand whether school is a good fit for you.

We should compliment that deep dive that I’m talking about where you research into the school’s curriculum. You can look at their course catalogs, um, to see what majors they have to offer to you, what programs might be of interest to you, given your goals, you know, their websites to see what, um, student organizations there are, what, um, alumni resources networks there are.

There are so many different parts of a school’s online presence that. You could get lost in a lot of it. There are even outside of a school’s website. You can even look at student forums, um, talking about, you know, pros and cons of a particular school. You can really get that, um, unabridged insight into the student experience by looking through some of these forums online as well.

And of course there’s the good old fashioned campus tour, campus visit. You do want to get a feel for a school. I do encourage students to take that opportunity to explore campus when they can, because, and I’ll tell you this from personal experience, you might visit a college and find that you really don’t like what I call like the feeling or the vibe of the campus when you get there and decide to take it off your list entirely.

I’ve actually done this. And then I’ve gone to schools where I’ve I wasn’t going to include them on my list and because I visited I was like, oh my gosh, I love this campus I love how you know campus life feels I ended up including that school or those schools on my list So a campus visit whether that be online virtually or in person could be really helpful and then don’t discount Your ability to engage with your counselors as well.

Your guidance counselors at school, your mentors, your teachers, even your family network could give insight into schools that might be of interest to you. But remember, ultimately, the best university quote unquote will look different from person to person. So the, the ranking system online can tell you about a school is number one, number two, number three.

But that school may not be number one, two, or three for you. Your list is going to look different from the the U.S. News and World Report ranking list. That is just naturally going to be the case. Everybody’s needs are different, and so your list, your college list, should be different. Um, and you should have, we’re actually just talking about how, uh, it’s a natural inclination for top achieving students to want to apply to the top 20, you know, or the top 10, whatever that looks like.

And that’s not necessarily the best strategy. Your strategy should involve asking yourself what’s important to you in your college experience and then working back to the colleges from there. You want to say, okay, I want this major, this program, I want this size college, I want These types of student groups, I want, you know, this type of atmosphere.

I want to make sure I have this much debt or this much. You need to ask yourself what your experience should look like, and then look for colleges that fit that experience. And that is not necessarily the same as the order of the college list for the U.S. news and World Report rankings. Oh, one more note at the bottom there, you can actually look for ranking of lists, um, on their website.

Based on specialization, they do have some specialization lists. So for example, if you’re interested in business or nursing, they have lists that are specific to those specializations. So it’s not just kind of a broader list of all schools, but rather ranked within that specialization. What are the key components of a standout college application?

So every college application is going to have these key components. Um, in terms of your academics, On your transcript, if you’re looking to get into these top ranking schools, the top 20 Ivy League schools, you are going to want to make sure on your transcript you’re demonstrating that you’re taking rigorous coursework when it’s available to you.

We’re talking AP, IB, type A, Level courses honors level courses, whatever that looks like at your school. You don’t and I will say And again, this comes from experience. You don’t have to take every AP course that’s available to you If it is available, it should be a balance. You need to ask yourself if I take four AP classes Let’s just say in a single marking period or term Will I be able to maintain my extracurriculars?

Will I be able to maintain my GPA? Will I be able to maintain my class ranking? You don’t want to take on so many rigorous courses that it’s to the detriment of all the other parts of your applicant profile for the sake of having these rigorous courses on your transcript. That said, if you are able to maintain rigorous coursework on your transcript, maintain your GPA, maintain your class ranking, maintain your extracurriculars.

It could be hard. It’s going to involve a lot of work, but you should do that, um, in order to make yourself competitive for those schools. Um, but it is a balance. You do want to make sure that you are maintaining, um, uh, a balance on your transcripts so that you can also maintain your, You know, personal social life, your, your mental health.

I did not take every AP course available to me. Uh, and I still did get into my top choice college because there are many other parts of your application that need to be considered. And it’s not all about the academics at the end of the day. So academics is one component. Um, in addition to the transcript, there is also a test score component.

A lot of schools are continuing to be test optional, meaning. You do not have to necessarily submit test scores. Uh, and I will talk about test scores a little bit more after this. Um, that is one part of the academic assessment. They will look to see how you’ve performed on your test, your standardized tests to, to evaluate you on that.

Um. on a standardized academic level, um, compared to your peers who are taking the SAT, the ACT in a similar fashion. Essays are, I think to me, one of the most important parts of your application. Um, this is really where your voice comes into the application process. You are able to tell your story through your essays.

And Often that story can be so compelling and so powerful that it really leads an admissions officer to that point of I want to admit you. Um, of course, all the other application components are important, but writing a really strong story, making a really strong case for yourself, In terms of your interests, your goals, you, how you’ve grown as a person, all of those self reflections, that is helpful for an admissions officer to understand your maturity, your focus, and ultimately what you’ll bring to their campus.

The personal statement is one kind of large statement, um, that you will submit for most of your schools. Uh, on the Common App, you have a set of seven prompts to choose from, and this is the big one. This is the big essay. You want to put your best foot forward with this one. Supplemental questions, meanwhile, are essays that are like, why us?

Why this college? What community are you a part of? Tell us more about that. Tell us about an extracurricular that was really meaningful to you and why. Why are you choosing, choosing this major? So these are more They’re shorter essays, typically, and they evaluate you on specific components of your profile about who you are and give you that additional opportunity to present valuable information about yourself to the admissions officer.

And so you do want to strategize when thinking about how to answer those in order to showcase. all important parts of yourself as you want to relay that to the admissions team. Activities is another important part of your application. Every, some of the app, there’s applications out there that are not part of the common app or the coalition app.

Um, they have their own individual applications. So some of them will allow more activities to be entered than others. But on the common app, as an example, you do have a limit on to the number of activities you can include. And even within the number of activities you’re including, there is a character count as well as to how you can describe them.

So I say this because I remember in high school, I was really stressed about what I call activity collecting, worrying that I’m not doing enough. And the fact of the matter is you are not going to be able to convey everything necessarily that you’ve ever done in high school. If you take on a lot of projects, you’re doing a lot of activities.

You won’t necessarily be able to talk about all that because you don’t have enough room. Um, that being said, you know, you should focus on activities that align with your interests that align with your passions. and that you, through which you can showcase a longevity of interest. So some of your activities, you’re going to want to show that you maintain them for a long period of time.

Um, you don’t want to pick up an activity freshman year, drop it, pick up another one in sophomore year, drop it, pick up another one. You know, you want to show that you have maintained a level of Commitment to some of your activities. Some of them will be shorter. Some of your activities will be shorter naturally But you do want a couple to show that you have dedicated and committed to things Um, and then activities through which you can show leadership if you are able to do so So those are things to consider when it comes to your activities Excuse me, and then letters of recommendation.

So My biggest piece of advice here choose individuals who know you well this is so important. It is really obvious to an admissions officers when and a letter recommendation is sort of, you know, lackluster doesn’t really have a lot of heart in it. Maybe is a canned response copied and pasted fill in some names and some details.

You want to make sure whoever’s writing your letter knows you to the point where they can speak to your qualities as an applicant. Um, maybe they’ve seen you demonstrate skills as part of an extracurricular or a project or in a class, um, where you really shine. As a student, and you want to sit down with your letters of recommendation writer, writers, and talk to them, tell them more about you if you don’t feel like they have all the information they need to write that letter, share with them a copy of your resume, give them some highlights as to why you’re applying to college.

that will help inform a more well written letter for you. So what role do standardized tests play in the application process? I did touch on this a little bit. The SAT is comprised of two parts. There’s the math section and then the evidence based reading and writing section, 800 each for a total of 1600 points.

ACT, meanwhile, is split into four sections, English, Math, Reading, and Science. You can sort up to a 36 in each of the sections, and then they average out the four for a composite score. So the maximum total composite score you could have is a 36. So when you’re considering which tests to take, interestingly enough, what I’m finding is students are defaulting to SAT, and that’s really closing yourself off to other possibilities because the ACT often is a really great viable option for students and some of my students actually score better on the ACT than the SAT.

I had a student recently who was really struggling, really academically, you know, high achieving student struggling to get the SAT score that they want. I suggested, why don’t you go ahead and take the ACT? See how you do. First try got a perfect score on the ACT. Not saying that’s going to happen to you or your friend or whoever it may be, but it’s not going to happen to you.

But definitely take practice tests in the SAT and ACT to see which you like better, which feels better. They are different tests and you might actually perform better on one versus the other. Um, of the schools on your list as well, you’re going to want to look to see, of the admitted student population that they typically have, what is the average score or range of scores.

that they are seeing in that admitted student profile. Are you scoring in a comparable place to that average or that range of scores? Do you fall in the, let’s say the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile range of test scores of their admitted student class? If you’re not following, falling in that average area, You might want to consider not submitting your test scores for a test optional school because, excuse me, what that’s telling you is they’re admitting students academically of a certain test score or above, typically.

Um, and you want to make sure that when you’re putting forth your applicant profile to an admissions reader, you aren’t, um, setting forward information that would be counter to your admissions decision. And if they typically don’t admit students with test scores of X or below, you want, you might want to exclude that data point so that they can really weigh all the other components more heavily and not have that additional factor to consider.

Whereas, if you are hitting that average range of scores, go ahead and submit that test score. What role does GPA play? So there’s unweighted GPA. The unweighted GPA is usually between 1.0 and 4.0, and all classes contribute equally to that GPA. Weighted GPA is usually between 1.0 and 5.0. I’ve also seen schools that go up to 6.0, and these are GPAs where more challenging classes have greater impact on the GPA overall. Um, GPA requirements and the average GPAs that you’re gonna see for universities and colleges will vary depending on the school and for the most part you’re not going to find a minimum GPA cutoff. A school is not necessarily going to put forward a Hey, don’t apply to us if you don’t have a 3.0 or above or something of the like, but, um, what you will find is an average GPA for their admitted student profile, and you should try to use that average GPA that is published as a reference point for you aiming to fall at or above that GPA if you can. Ultimately, the average GPA can be looked at as the average score attained by a successful applicant.

And that’s, that’s how you should read and interpret that information. Um, sometimes there’s a range of GPA as well. You can consider that, um, if there’s no average GPA available. And then safety match and reach schools considerations briefly. So reach schools are those schools that have an admissions rate of 25%.

Um, and really any school with an admissions rate of 15 percent or below is a reach, but 25 percent or below and the applicant, the average GPA, the average test score, the average applicant profile you’re seeing exceeds your what you are scoring, what your GPA is. Um, and so therefore it’s considered a reach because you are not meeting those thresholds of the GPA or the test score for that average applicant profile.

A matched school, meanwhile, is a school that typically has an admissions rate of 25 to 75%, somewhere in that middle range. And the average applicant profile matches what you are putting forth. So if they have an average GPA, advertise an average test score, SAT, ACT, you are meeting that average threshold and therefore you’re very likely to get into this school.

It’s a match school. It’s a target school for you in that way. Meanwhile, safety is usually a school that has an admissions rate of 75 percent or above, and they typically, um, for you, they would have an average GPA or average and or average test score advertised that is lower than what you are achieving.

And so, therefore, As an applicant, you’re highly competitive for that school. You’re very likely to get in. It is a safety school for you, given their admission rates and what you’re seeing in an average applicant profile. Okay, Michelle over to you for the poll.

Sorry, finding my mute button. Okay, we will do 1 more poll. And just tell us, I mean, I feel like I know where most people will be, but tell us where you are in the application process, how far ahead you may be, if you’re just getting started, if you’re still thinking about that college list. I appreciate what you shared regarding the broad variety of GPA options out there, and it being a very confusing system for folks to understand how they should operate or.

Navigate. And then also knowing that a lot of colleges just recalculated, so like the number that you have in your head may not even be the number that the colleges ultimately see, like, you know, UCs will just, just take 10th so nothing in 9th grade. Yes. Oh my god. So it’s like you have your own GPA system within your school, and then you, your colleges could be seeing three or four different versions of your GPA as well.

So, right. And so, you know, really picking those, those classes that through which you feel you can succeed is really important. You know, and if that means that you’re taking a few less AP classes, okay, do that because having a higher GPA overall, I think, um, I is a better aim than trying to take more APs and IBs and then that being to the detriment of your GPA.

Um, and I often get this question a lot, actually might as well answer it here. Should you report weighted versus unweighted GPA in the absence of, um, explicit instructions on this, I usually advise weighted GPA if your school offers that. Why? Because I feel like I normally say the opposite. Do you really?

Yeah, because I was like, they’re going to apply their own weights. Well, sorry, say that again. No, I assumed that colleges will apply their own weights, when they calculate your GPA anyway, so just give them the unweighted. So I typically say, um, Um, I typically say weighted because when an admissions officer, usually there’s a regional admissions officer assigned to your particular area, they’re familiar with their high school, they have your high school profile.

Um, it might be less confusing for them if you report the weighted GPA because they are going to have your high school profile. Yeah. And they might have to recalculate for weighted versus unweighted. And it’s likely easier for them to get the weighted versus the unweighted. But every admissions officer, and honestly, most, as you said, most schools are going to be recalculating that.

Um, because they do have to compare apples to oranges, right? Sometimes they have to kind of understand where you’re sitting versus another high school is sitting. It’s tough. Uh, well, I just, I was just thinking about how complicated it is for students. And it’s also equally as complicated for admissions officers.

Um, We’ll go ahead and close our poll. Um, so the, so 33 percent have not started. That’s totally fine. Given the fact that we have the majority of underclassmen at school that you have not started. 56 percent are researching schools. That’s a great place to be in. And we hope that we can nudge you in the direction of understanding how to evaluate those schools.

Um, and 7 percent are almost done, and so we’re happy for those folks. Um, and then one person is working on their essays, so welcome. This is the time to start doing that. Um, actually it’s a pretty good time in junior year to be working on your essays for any other, uh, juniors out there who aren’t doing it.

But, um, all right, so we’ll stop talking. We’ll try to get through the next few slides a little bit faster, so we can open up our questions in a few minutes. All right. Thank you. Of course. Yeah, sorry. I, I, I, So we’ll get through this quickly. Um, key writing tips for standing out on your essays. I split this up into do’s and don’ts.

Do, answer the prompt. Seems like a really straightforward piece of advice, but I will tell you as you write, as your student writes, um, whoever you might be advising, you’re going to find that often you start with a great idea, a great concept, and you veer from answering the actual question. So as you write, always go back to the prompt, every couple sentences, every, you know, Every, um, paragraph, go back to the prompt and ask yourself, is this advancing my narrative?

Paint a picture. Be descriptive. Don’t just tell somebody what you did. Elaborate more. Be reflective. Help us understand. What I always say is the so what of the application? Um. Read for the admissions officer. So what, why are you telling me this? Why is this useful information to me as I start to try to understand what you’re going to bring to our college campus?

Be concise, clear, and specific. Again, every sentence should advance your narrative. Cut out a fluff. You do not need to have a thousand very complicated, flowery words in an essay, especially some of these shorter essays that you’re going to write for colleges that you don’t have a lot of words for. Um, I had a student who felt very strongly about writing this very verbose, very lengthy prose that honestly, sometimes it was really beautifully written, but You had to read the sentences over and over and over again to understand what they were trying to say.

It was to the point that it was overcomplicated, and you don’t want an admissions officer to have to re read something you wrote because they didn’t understand what you said. That means you need to go back and rewrite that sentence. Um, and for that reason, it’s helpful to get, you know, other feedback from other people.

Um, as you’re writing, another piece of feedback I give is think about outlining your journey. Think about where you’ve come from. Where you are now and where you hope to be. That should really be the anchor of, of the theme of your kind of overall application is who are you? How have you grown? What values do you have?

What skills do you have? Um, what goals do you have now? And what do you hope to do in the future? How does this applying to the school relates to that future? Be authentic and true to your passions. Don’t try to fit yourself into what you feel like the school, um, wants necessarily in a student, you should instead put forward the important parts of who you are.

It’s a two way street, right? You don’t want to just, um, have the college feel that you’re the right fit for them. They have to be the right foot for you. And it’s honestly a disservice to the school if they were to admit you and they don’t have the programs you want, they don’t feel like they can support you in the way that you need.

You want to be successful when you get to college, any of the colleges that you apply to. And so being authentic and true to yourself ensures that you end up at the right college, because again, two way street and proofread, proofread, proofread. Um, don’t regurgitate information from your activities. That information already exists someplace else.

You have an opportunity to put forth your activities for admissions officers to understand and read about. That’s not going to be useful if you just reiterate that in one of your essay responses. Tell us more. So what? Why are you telling me this? Why are you writing about it? Don’t focus on other people.

I know it’s really easy, especially when some prompts actually ask you to ask, to talk about somebody who inspired you. It’s really easy to get wrapped up talking about this other person who had an impact on you. A lot of students do this when it comes to being pre med and having health problems and in your Maybe, um, a close family member had a health problem that was impactful for you.

That’s not invalid, you know, that’s a really important part of your journey. But don’t focus exclusively on that other person. You need to focus on you. The application is about getting you into the college and not grandma or grandpa. Um. Don’t submit without another review from a trusted source. I would say at least one other review, but don’t over, over review either.

Um, I think an optimal amount of readers would be one to two, um, an advisor, counselor, parent, someone who knows you well and can give you feedback and try to avoid naming a specific school because it’s very easy to not remember that you wrote this essay about a UNC Chapel Hill, um, and then copy and paste it into Harvard’s Response and not change the name of the school and that’s not a good look How can I best showcase my extracurricular activities?

So you can do this in a lot of areas the most prominent area and the most obvious area is your activity section In the section I have some tips here You’ll use action verbs like you do in a resume. You want to be concise, clear, and specific because you don’t have a lot of word count. Um, consider what can be included elsewhere in your application to cut down on word count as well, uh, because you don’t have that many words in the activity section.

So perhaps you can include an honor. or award in the honor section as opposed to in the activity description. Even though maybe you got that award for that activity, you can include it in the honors and award section and not in the activity section. Consider order of importance. Usually you want your activities to be in order of importance.

And in fact, that’s often part of the instructions and definitely highlight your leadership when you can in your essays. Again, paint that picture, be descriptive. Don’t just say, I, Volunteer at the hospital, and I did this, this, and that. Um, and that was a great experience. So what, what did you learn? What did you gain?

What insight did you gain, uh, understand about, you know, the healthcare system? How has that inspired you to do something else, um, with your career, with your education? Did it lead you to look at something a different way? To approach something a different way? Ask and answer the so what. In your letters recommendation, you can also highlight your activities by asking your references to talk about leadership or qualities that you brought to an activity that they witnessed you participate in.

Maybe it’s a mentor or somebody who is a teacher who has to supervise an activity for you at school. These are people you might want to consider asking. And so the takeaway there is you can talk about activities in a lot of different places, but they should be talked about in slightly different ways.

Um, what can I expect to experience during an interview? So interviews are not used in the same way as they’ve been used in the past. Um, some are informational while others are evaluative, meaning, um, inform informational interviews are those that are strictly for your information as the student.

Evaluative means that they’re added as part of your application for admissions officers to consider us as a part of your application process. They’re not always required and Interviews are typically now with representatives of the school which are not always admissions officers A lot of the times we’re seeing alumni or current students and this is just simply because of the high volume of applications Admissions officers simply can’t interview everybody and especially so because there’s applicants all over the country in the world So, um, your interviewer can be a current student or alumni, a lot of the time.

And if I think back to my experience, I interviewed with a current student. One of the most meaningful experiences for me, and it was evaluative at the time. Um, I actually credit it to me, my admission to the school. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. Um, but I felt it was a very positive experience.

And positive experiences in an interview will, um, Typically very, be very conversational. The interviewer wants to get to know you as a person. They want to understand more about your overall profile, their academic interests, extracurriculars, career goals, but above all else, it’s an opportunity to showcase your personality, um, beyond what’s on paper.

And you can quite literally put your own voice to the application and the admissions. interviewer can then, um, absorb, you know, who you are, what you’re bringing to the table, what kind of qualities you have in person, and assess, can I see them on our campus? Can I see them fitting in, um, in certain areas of campus, given their interests, given their extracurriculars?

And so it is a really unique experience, um, but definitely not As important or as common as it was in the past, um, tips for preparing for your interview, practice, practice, practice. Um, that is the one way you can get better. So I definitely emphasize that I would suggest researching questions, common questions online, practicing them, um, in your answers.

Be concise and specific try to practice not rambling and get it helping you get to the point is going to be very important Um, I would suggest rehearsing with someone else and even further Recording yourself and then playing it back to yourself so you could see What um, you might be doing that you’d like to change Be prepared when you get an interview request for a particular school Be prepared to talk about that school, make sure you know the school, make sure you understand what’s important to you about that school, programs, um, resources of interest, those things you should be able to come forward to the interview with so that you can highlight those when the opportunity presents itself.

Again, you want to demonstrate your fit with the school and the school needs to be also a good fit for you. And then the last part of the thank you email, send the thank you email. It means a lot and it’s a valuable step in the interview process is demonstrating, thank you. I appreciate your time and your consideration in a simple email.

What financial options are available at top ranked schools? So top 20 often do focus on need based aid rather than merit based aid. And this is because you can imagine, um, they’re admitting a lot of academically high caliber students. And so merit based aid is perhaps less, um, or perhaps harder to evaluate.

Another reason why this might be the case is a lot of these top tier schools are well endowed. They have a lot of funds. Um, but ultimately that need based aid is a really important consideration for students who are interested in minimizing their debt when they get out of. Um, college given the resources they have available.

So need based aid is awarded based on financial need, excuse me, versus merit based aid, which is awarded based on the merit of a student. And so when you set forth your financial aid application, this could be through the FAFSA and or the CSS profile, depending on what the school requires. And they might also require other documentation for scholarships and other institutional related aid that’s specific to that institution.

Um, you’ll set forth all of these application components and then that will bring forth to the institution, their financial aid office, what your need is. would be, and then they will present to you a financial aid package given that demonstrated need. You can also consider outside scholarships. You don’t just have to rely on the institutions you’re applying for to offer you aid of some type.

You can apply for scholarships outside of the universities and colleges that you’re attending. Types of aid you might see, grants and scholarships do not need to be repaid. Federal student loans must be repaid, private education loads must be repaid, and then federal work study student employment options are also a very popular part of financial aid packages.

And what these essentially are is that a student will take on student work in order to acquire funds toward their degree. Last tips. So going back to the purpose of the presentation, the rankings, you use rankings as one tool in your toolkit when it comes to your college research. It’s not the be all end all, but it’s one tool that could be useful in understanding the value of an institution, given the investment that you’ll be putting into it.

Remember your time, your money, whatever that looks like. Remember that the best school for one person may not be the best school for you. Avoid looking left and right. A colleague of mine always says that comparison is the thief of joy. I know that’s not their quote. It’s probably somebody else’s quote. I don’t know whose quote that is, but it’s true.

Do not look left. Do not look right. Ask yourself what’s important to you. Prioritize resources at a school that meet your academic interests, your extracurricular interests, career goals, and financial needs. Be strategic when it comes to understanding that average, excuse me, average applicant profile. So do your research, understand what the average applicant looks like to these schools.

What is their test score look like? What is their GPA look like? How do you rank in comparison? How do you relate in comparison to those averages? If a top ranking school or two or three is on your list, be sure to balance those reach schools with match and safety options. So make sure you are not just applying.

To top 20s, but also schools that are going to be the target range for you. So they match your profile and have middle of the range admissions rates. And then also those likely schools, those safety schools that have the higher, um, admissions rates and also, um, our schools where your applicant profile exceeds what they’re looking for or meets what they’re looking for at the minimum and do not submit your application without another pair of eyes reviewing it.

Absolutely. Get that second feedback. All right. I’ve talked long enough. My apologies. Any stress? No way. Uh, we’re going to keep talking, but with some questions. All right. So that is the end webinar. Hope you found the information useful. Again. You can go ahead and download Stacey slides under the handouts tab and please start submitting your questions under the Q&A tab before we get started.

If there are any folks are having troubles with submitting questions, you might have to log out, log back in. Via the link that you received in your email and not through the webinar landing page. All right. Our first question that came in to us was, did you always know what you wanted to major in before you chose a cop?

They also added how we made it too complicated these days. I don’t know if that was a two part question, but I’ll ask them together. I’m at the chat. I think the second one’s going to be challenging. I’d love your input on that too. Um, major. I know. So my background is, um, I was. I was an electrical engineering major when I applied and I graduated with a major in psychology and a concentration in neuroscience.

And I ended up getting my Master’s of Public Health, so, and working in education. So my journey was not linear by any means. Um, I did not always know what I wanted to major in before I went to college either. So it was a journey to understanding, okay, what did I like in high school? Which classes were of interest to me?

And then, quite frankly, I, I was a first generation college student. So it was very important to my parents that I considered, Um, and my family that I considered lucrative positions, positions that would guarantee me employment, things of that nature. Um, and so engineering has always been a very, very lucrative and attractive, uh, major in terms of.

financial gain and then also career outcomes. So I do think that that drove some of my decision, but I also love STEM. I love physics. I love math. And so all of these things just made sense to me. Did I know, did I ever take an electrical engineering class before I went to college? Absolutely not. Um, and I got there and.

Freshman year. I figured out very quickly that it was not where my passions lie. Um, but did I stay in stem? I did. I love neuroscience. I love my research. Um, I loved doing my thesis later on, but I found that love and social science work, um, more than I did sciences. So how we made it too complicated these days.

I don’t know what this is in reference to. I am assuming it’s, um, the application process. I think it’s actually less complicated than it’s ever been, um, because we’re cutting out some of the, I don’t think we have time to review things the way we used to, um, and so I don’t think the decisions are as We don’t have as much time to make those decisions, and they’re not as agonizing as a result, like, you just don’t have time, um, to think twice, necessarily.

I don’t know, Anesha, what’s your experience? Um, I think we’ve absolutely made it too complicated, I, but I think we meeting society, like, I think that, um, I think that the whole rat race of college admissions, and all of the drama around it, I think we’ve College, a college degree also becoming some kind of external representation of one’s self worth or one child, one’s child’s worth, I think has, is really bound up anywhere.

I’m going to go on like a sociological. I think we’ve made it worse. I think we’ve made it more complicated. And I think that all of that has led to the increase in volume, which then takes away like the ability for people to be more thoughtful about it. I think if, Students were applying to a normal number of colleges and college admissions officers could have a, like, very, have the capacity to do a thoughtful number, but everyone’s out here kind of shooting their shot and taking advantage.

And I, I feel like that’s not, I think it, it sounds nice on like, uh, you know, social media posts, but it’s not a strategy. So that’s been like for me, how I think we’ve made things a little too complicated by Yes. I always say removing strategy from it entirely. Yeah. I, I agree with you and I always say that.

You could have an Ivy League education anywhere, you could have a top 20 education anywhere. It just depends on the student and how resourceful they are. Um, you know, I, I do think there’s a benefit and I had this conversation with a student the other day. I do think there’s a benefit to considering the value of being at a college where you can still be top dog.

I hate to say it like that, but you know, there’s, There’s a lot of benefits to being a big fish in a small pond that I think people want to take advantage of. You want the ocean, but you can have the ocean. You can have it for later. You can have it for the doctor. You don’t necessarily need it for college.

Exactly. All right. Um, we had, I mentioned starting essays earlier. So someone said, if you start essays in junior year, what happens if the prompts change the next year when you apply? That’s a great question. You’re going to have to rewrite your essays. Um, no, I’m totally kidding. I think there’s value. And Anesha and I have worked closely on, on packages, um, through CollegeAdvisor, where, you know, you work on essay preparation, not specifically to the essays for a school, but general, for a school.

essay writing, um, that helps you prepare for a certain type of essay. I think that is much more useful in practice than trying to write the precise essays for a particular college in advance of them being published in August. Um, you know, if the school has, has used the same essays for the last decade, is there a chance that they could still change it?

Absolutely. And if you want to take that chance, Go for it. Usually it’ll be some variation or perhaps for another college you could leverage the essay that you’ve written for the college that changed their essays. Perhaps you can leverage that for another school. What you will find in the application process is a lot of the supplements, um, will be similar from school to school, especially the Ivies.

They usually have a why us essay. They usually have a why this major essay. They usually have community essay, an extracurricular essay. And so preparing for these more generic, um, essays, I think is a better strategy. Anesha, what are your thoughts? Yeah, no, I agree with you. I said, I think I responded in the chat just in case we ran out of time, but I just said that yes, the school specific ones will change.

Usually the personal statement stays the same. And so if you’re working on anything during the new year, I would say to at least be working on your personal statement. Cause those topics tend to stay the same. And if, They do switch up. They always, they usually keep in, you know, talk to me. So, yeah. Um, okay.

We’re going to do a quick, uh, PSA for folks in the room who are not currently working with us. We know that you have, we know that you think or know that the process is overwhelming or can be. Um, and so we have a team of over 400. Uh, former admissions officers like Stacey and admissions experts like myself.

We’re ready to help you and your family navigate the process through one on one advising sessions. You can take the next step in your admissions journey and sign up for a free 45 to 60 minute strategy session with the admission specialists on our team by using the QR code on the screen. During that meeting, we’ll talk about your extracurriculars.

We’ll talk about your potential college lists and discuss the application strategy and outline tools that you’ll need to use. stand out in the competitive admissions world. So we’ll keep that QR code up on the screen for any folks who are not currently working with us, but would be interested in doing so.

Um, we talked a little bit about test prep, but someone asked us in the registration, they said, are standardized tests like the ACT and SAT still worth investing time and prep into? That’s a really good question. So there will ultimately be colleges that are not test test optional and so you do want to have a test score available.

If that is the case, you don’t want to exclude a college. That might be a really great fit for you. A really, um, you know, top college of interest because you decided not to prepare or take the test. Um, that said. I think there’s a lot of agonizing over the test score for students who just can’t seem to break through the test score threshold that they’re looking for.

Um, and having test optional schools is a real strategy in your college application process. And so I think it’s better to err on the side of having them and preparing for them. Um, And ultimately, if you decide not to use them because of how you’re scoring, um, that would be a personal strategic decision, but I, I do think it’s worth having and also consider the fact that if you don’t submit your test score, it is one less.

application component for the admissions officer to weigh when it comes to your academics. So, let’s say you don’t perform well in your math classes in high school, but you do really well or much better on the math section of the SAT. An admissions officer during your academic, the academic review of your profile might look at your transcript and say, I don’t know if they can handle the quantitative, um, level of our courses on campus, but then look to your SAT score and say, oh, wait.

You know, they’re clearly do, they clearly can handle it, but maybe they just didn’t do well in these particular classes. So there’s this, there’s an holistic application review going on where somebody is looking through your application components. And trying to understand your abilities as a person. And so it’s something to think about.

And I think they just updated the research on like the SAT continues to be a stronger predictor of success in the long run at college than GPAs are. So I think, I think to your point, like, yeah, if you’re not doing great at calculus, but you’re getting a 600 on the SAT, Um, then definitely send the SAT score because it would be, it would be to your benefit.

Um, all right, but you mentioned holistic and someone else had also mentioned holistic review in one of the questions. So they said, I’m building a holistic resume such application with a strong ACT score. Will this help me or is it strictly just GPA and class record? So a resume application with what?

Sorry, um, a 34 ACT so they they called their resume and application holistic, but I guess they’re asking doesn’t even matter Is it just going to come down to GPA and classroom? Okay. Got it. So I would It’s not just about a CT and actually I was just talking to an issue about this for whatever reason every year They’re academically excellent students who do not get into top 20 schools.

And this is because some of them rely too heavily on the fact that they are academically excellent students and they don’t prepare appropriately the other aspects of their application. Meaning they don’t write strong essays, they don’t ask for strong letters of reference. They don’t prepare their activities appropriately, so that those are read competitively and appropriately, and they’re not doing their college research, perhaps, either.

They’re maybe just applying to all of the top tier schools, um, the top 20 schools, and they’re not actually asking themselves, are these schools the right fit for me? And that comes across in an application. An institution like You know, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, all the Ivy’s, they have the luxury of being very picky when it comes to choosing their community because they’re gonna have very academically excellent students applying and they can’t admit all of them.

So no, it does not just come down to the academics. It comes down to the overall application after they get there. Past the academics. I was just having this conversation as I have have a student who just like was just like, I just want all the top 20 schools on my list. I’m like, fine, you can have all the top 20 schools on your list if that’s what you want.

But why ? Why? And because they know that they’re top 20. You saying that they are top 20 is not going to be impressive to them as a reason of why you wanna lie to them. And at the end of the day in your essays. Specifically your supplemental essays, it is great if you want to just focus on the top 20, if that’s your goal and you’re academically prepared to do that, but you need to then have an argument specific to each of those schools about why that school is a compelling candidate for you and why you’re a compelling candidate for this.

And if you can’t get into the whys and it’s just all about statistics or lists in your application, it doesn’t matter how good your GPA is or how good your SAT scores or ACT scores are. It’s just going to be flat and uninteresting at the end of the day if you can’t come up with those personal details, um, that connect directly to what’s happening on that campus.

Sorry, um, had to get that off my chest, obviously. Okay, what types of students should apply, what types of students should apply early action versus regular decision? That is a great question. So when, um, let me take a second to, I know we don’t have a lot of time, early action versus early decision. Some schools will offer early action and early decision options.

Early action is non binding, meaning that if you apply early action, you do not have to go to that school. If you apply early decision that is binding, you do have to go to that school. institution as a result of the early decision versus early action, which is non binding. Um, if you do apply early action or early decision, there is a slight increase in admissions rate, um, for students who apply in the early rounds.

Um, so strategically could be helpful for some students to apply early. I typically advise, um, students who feel academically And application ready to apply in the early rounds. I think there is a downside you applying early if you’re rushing your applications. Um, you do want to be thoughtful and complete those applications in a timely manner.

Um, schools are really throwing. I don’t know. I need to know how you’re feeling, but the early action only decision. rounds really threw me through a loop this year. I’m not, I don’t have a good pulse on, you know, if they’re really what those decisions are looking like. I don’t, there’s also formulas in the background that we’re not necessarily privy to that schools will use to understand their yields.

And they’ll quite literally take applicant profiles and say, okay, this person is likely to yield if we admit them. Um, and so, That information is not something that we have, you know, a magic looking glass into at any point in time. Um, so I would say if you are academically competitive and you’re matching the school’s profile, applying early couldn’t hurt.

Um, and you should, do you have any additional? No, I, no, I think what you said was great. And then someone just asked in the chat, can you only apply to one school early decision? Yes, you can only apply to one school early decision because it is binding. You can apply to some multiple schools. So, Um, I’m not nervous or anything.

that’s not really asked like that, but I think it’s just another resource of it for me to use, to relate to. Yeah. So, um, so that a lot of the questions we did forget, Options are every school will not have. All right. Um, so thank you, Stacey. Thank you to all the folks who submitted questions. Thank you for your patience tonight.

Um, that is the end of the webinar. We hope to gain some insights. I was standing out in the competitive college admissions landscape. We also hope that you will join us for upcoming webinars. We’re going to kick off February with an application, a session on applying to pre med and BSMD programs on February 1st.

So we’ll follow up on February 6th with a webinar on experience. for joining us on the sixth for Exploring Extracurricular Activities and Their Impact on College Admissions. And then we’ll also have, we’ll talk about Cracking College Essay and Tips for Stellar personal Statement on February 7th. So a few of the big topics that we talked about today.

So come back and join us on the 1st for Pre-med the 6th for Exploring Extracurriculars and on the 7th for Cracking the College Essay. Until next time, take care and have a great evening. Everybody. Thank you, everyone.