Stuff I Learned During the College Admissions Process – Part 9

It’s been a while since I posted what was going on with my senior as she applies to colleges. I thought I’d give an update.  We have heard back from 90% of the colleges regarding admissions. Why do I qualify it like that? Because sometimes all they tell you at first is whether you are admitted, not anything about scholarships or Honors College or other programs you may have applied for. Those things may come later on. She has gotten accepted at all the colleges she applied for. Several have offered scholarships and/or Honors College admittance.

I’m not going to name specific names or dollars amounts here, but if you are in need of details, contact me and I can tell you more. I think for internet purposes, we will keep it generic.

She has ruled out one college because she went to see it on a college tour and she determined it was totally not the right fit for her. This is an important observation and I’m glad she recognized it. I could have told her that, and did express some concerns, but it was the act of actually going there and seeing it that helped her make up her mind.  This is why having some conversations and some college visits throughout the process is extremely helpful.

She ruled another one out because of research she did online and the general feeling she had about the college. It may end up being a perfect fit for one of our other kids, but not for her.  It is helpful to research each college online and create a spreadsheet or document with all the info you come up with so you can look back at it and analyze it.

After that, we’ve also narrowed our list down to the top 3 colleges, based on the best value / least expensive  and best reputation nationwide.   From here, we visited our top school one more time.  We are still waiting for a few more scholarship offers and Honors College decisions to come in. These things have the potential to move another college up into the top 3 spots, so we will wait and see what happens with those items before we totally make our announcement.

A few things that I have learned with both my daughters’ college application processes:

1. 1. • Senior year is rough. Your student needs to be working on keeping good grades, filling out applications, writing essays, attending all the “last” things of the fall season…  If you can get their SAT / ACT test score taken care of BEFORE fall, then you should totally do it. Get it as high as possible so you aren’t stressing out during the fall over the score.  Many scholarships are tied directly to the score. I can’t stress that enough. It’s a stupid game but we have to play it if we want to win.
   1. • You can start writing drafts of the essays during the summer, but some colleges don’t even open the application until September, so you won’t know exactly what the essay is going to be until that happens. Each college is different and they each have their own unique processes. Some will publish the essay questions before the application opens so you can at least get a start on your draft.
   1. • If you can wait as long as possible to announce your decision, some colleges could offer you more money. This happened to my oldest daughter. She received an offer from an in-state college on 3/29 and since she had not yet decided, they sent her a second offer on 4/21.  If this had been our top school and we had accepted the first offer, I highly doubt another one would have come our way. We weren’t trying to be obnoxious with them, we just had barely made up our mind when the 2nd offer arrived.
   1. • Definitely have in mind what your top activities / honors / awards are before the application season hits. I highly recommend building a resume starting in 9th grade and just updating it each semester. Then when you have to enter activities into the application, you can copy and paste your best stuff. Having to figure that out from scratch in the middle of the application process is a stressful waste of time and you might forget something you did in 9th grade that was valuable.
   1. • From all I have read from college admissions advisors, I believe most are looking for well-rounded students and also students who stick with something. So it’s better to have 4 years of ballroom dancing than 1 year of swimming, 1 year of golf, and 1 year of basketball. Try to find things your student likes and then encourage them to stick with it as long as possible during their high school years. Also, the colleges don’t want to see someone with a high test score and grades, but nothing outside of schoolwork for their activities.  At a minimum, help your student get a part-time job. They can be saving for a car or for their dorm room. Finally, my impression is that colleges also want to see that your student is a leader. Find some group or project they can be involved with and get some leadership experience. These things will really go a long way to set your student apart, make them look unique (which they are, but you have to sell it to the college), and give them some great experiences for life.

I hope this post gives you some helpful ideas to shoot for when doing the college application process. Let me know if I can help in any way! I do custom meetings in-person or online/phone call to help people with their specific needs and questions.  This post has been part of a series on college research. Click here to go to the first one. Click here to go to the next post in the series.

Blessings,

Michelle