Blog Posts

Many of the colleges you’ll apply to will ask you to answer short essay questions of 350 words or fewer in addition to the personal statement you draft. The University of California system, in fact, requires four short essays as opposed to a longer piece of writing.

Despite the smaller length, don’t assume these essays will play a smaller role in helping your admissions officer form her opinion about you. Students who overlook these essays raise questions about how interested they are in the school, how polished their writing actually is, and how much thought went into the application.

Whether you’re the likely valedictorian of your class or just finding your academic footing, your college list will include schools that will be a stretch for you to gain acceptance to. These reach schools are aspirational and help push you to do your best work. And students who approach the application process thoughtfully can vastly improve their chances of being successful even amidst an uber-competitive process.

A lot of attention gets paid to the reach schools on your list, those uber selective places where even the most qualified students have a small percentage chance of gaining admission. We certainly understand and celebrate high ambition. However, smart students construct balanced lists comprised of schools they love across different levels of selectivity.

For any number of great reasons – access to internships and research opportunities, scholarships, etc. — it might make sense for you to choose to attend one of your target or safety schools. It’s crucial that you approach selecting them with the same level of scrutiny and self-awareness that you apply to your reach schools. Then after you’ve been accepted to multiple places, you can make a choice about what’s ultimately the best fit for you.

Students who position themselves best for success in the admissions process begin with a well-crafted, thoughtful college list. Certainly, it’s great to have high aspirations and a plan for how to give yourself the best shot to attain them. But, constructing your college list also requires putting as much thought into schools that will be easier for you to get into that still compel you.

There is a common misconception that safety schools are also ranked at the bottom of your list, but this is only true if where you want to attend college is directly related to the selectivity of a school. And selectivity should not be your number one criterion for where to attend college.

Social scientists call it decision paralysis, that feeling you have when you walk into a grocery store to find rows upon rows of cereal brands or cans of soup. How do you choose? You can compare across price, tastiness levels, familiarity, nutritional value, branding, and so on. But it’s a lot of ask of a causal shopper, so some people return home without any cereal or soup in hand.

As silly as this may sound to some of you, decision paralysis is a real struggle—there are just so many options to pick from that people freeze up!

For those of you starting the application process, sorting through thousands of options to find your first choice can feel overwhelming, difficult, and confusing. You might even experience some decision paralysis as you navigate researching colleges while listening to the advice of your parents, high school counselor, and friends.

By now, many 11th graders (and quite possibly 9th and 10th graders as well) will have begun forming opinions about which colleges are right for them. Perhaps you’ve visited a few places, taken a virtual tour, or attended a summer program in the past at one or more campuses of interest. You’ve likely heard the viewpoints of friends and siblings who have already gone through their own process.

As we settle into summer, it’s time to coalesce those opinions into the perfect college list for you. Getting this part of the application process right is the most crucial; if you’ve created a list full of ideal matches for you—from your reaches to your safeties—you all but guarantee your happiness with the outcome, and thus increase your potential to succeed in college.

Applying to college is a family process; and even for students who want to maintain autonomy over their essays and supplements, parents play a big role in the outcome of the journey and in how enjoyable the experience is. For rising seniors ready to jump into the process headfirst, we think it’s important to begin by establishing the kind of working relationship you will have with your parents or guardians.

Keep reading to learn more about the top three issues families face navigating this process and how you can avoid them from adding unnecessary stress to your own.

Summer is in full swing. And though it might not feel like it, your college admissions process is already revving toward its climax. Before the first semester of your senior year is over, chances are strong that you will already have a sense of many of the colleges to where you’ve been accepted.

Successful applicants use the summer wisely to create specific, compelling essays, activity lists, and other components of the process. Backwards planning makes it easier to make mini deadlines that keep you progressing forward on all those fronts. Even if you don’t know your entire college list yet, it’s a great idea to start placing target deadlines on your calendar to keep you on pace.

There is a reason they call it the application process.

Submitting successful applications takes time and planning; nothing happens overnight, but you can make each day count. Now that summer is here, it’s time to think clearly about how your process will take shape.

One of the silver linings to the disruptions we’re all experiencing in our routine is the added time to harness skills or work on projects. For rising seniors, your college applications should be at the top of your list of priority work. And by working diligently, you can make tremendous progress and still have time to pursue other interests.

Below is a checklist of benchmarks you’ll want to hit before the summer is over. Set yourself up for success in this process by making sure you’re allocating time now to move forward on all these fronts.

If you’ve gone through the first six prompts given by the Common App and still not found inspiration for what to write about, you’re in luck…kind of. The final prompt reads as follows:

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

The freedom to design and answer your own question opens up every possibility for you to express yourself in the best light. However, with this freedom comes a certain level of risk. You must find an entry point that draws the reader in and hooks her. Though it can feel cathartic to tell whichever story you’d like, keep the main objective in mind – creating an ally within the admissions office.