OK, so you applied, did your best to make your application stand out and none of your favorite colleges sent you a “Come on down!”. Don’t worry, there are many colleges that didn’t fill all the seats and beds. These are great institutions, some in your back yard, some across the country.
Here’s the link to finding just the right place to start your college career.
Best of luck!
Some colleges don’t care a fig whether you come for a visit and others want to see your face if at all possible. Most colleges track the interest you show in their campus and among those that do, quite a few add or subtract points when evaluating your application.
Its a good idea to perform, DI, Demonstrated Interest, in the colleges where you will, or have already applied. Its never too late to show an admissions office how much you care.
Applications from students who have no history with the university are called stealth applications. Typically, they are given less weight under the assumption that the student isn’t particularly interested in coming. The admissions office is charged with filling seats and beds and will choose students who are more likely to deposit if admitted.
Go forth and communicate! Its not too early or too late!
I recently learned that in many high schools students are told to write the recommendation or to tell the counselor what to write then to edit the document.
If this is the policy in the high school you attend you will need to know what the admissions office wants to read in the recommendation.
Every part of your application should contain different information. For instance, don’t write your essay about the most important thing on your activities list. That is covered already. Write about something the reader can’t find elsewhere.
That principle applies to the counselor rec, too. Write about things you care about that are outside of school-organizations, events, awards. Include details that show executive skills like your reaction to failure (did you get extra help?); persistence when challenged (use an anecdote); critical thinking you’ve applied to projects; ways in which you’ve helped a person, club, or class outside of a leadership role or mandated volunteering.
You can add the WHY to information on your record.
Do you have a perfect attendance record? That will show up on your transcript but the reader won’t know that you came to school everyday because you didn’t want to miss learning even one thing unless you tell them.
Did you join the modern dance club although you don’t like dancing because your best friend wanted to join but was afraid he/she would look stupid so you joined for moral support?
One way to prep for this task, ask 3 family members, 3 good friends and 3 acquaintances how they would describe you or what they see as your best qualities. Ask for examples.
Even if you write the recommendation, its possible that the counselor will only use it a background information. If you put in the work you will have a good chance of sending the colleges an accurate snapshot of who you are.
If you are asked to write the recommendation, I can help you gather and organize the information. stephanie@accessguidance.com or 610-212-6679.
What should I include in the ‘Additional information’ section of the Common Application?
Keep in mind that the people who read applications have a case load of 1000 or more and may read 50+ applications during a weekend. Less is more when deciding what to include.
Additional information should be material that isn’t anywhere else on your application or adds insight into why an activity or event had meaning for you.
Depending on what a college has asked to see you can upload a well-crafted resume (get help with this!), portfolio, a graded paper, links to a brief recording of a recital, the link to your Zeemee account.
The format for your resume, activities list and additional information should follow STAR.
Situation (or activity, club), Task (what you tried to accomplish such as being membership chair), Action (promoted club activities and sign ups), Result (increased membership by 25%).
Readers: this advice is solid and highlights one of the difficulties in gaining admission to selective colleges: qualified applicants are a dime a dozen but finding the few who have something unusual is difficult. Fill a niche and you increase the chances of success. Lets talk about your unique opportunities. stephanie@accessguidance.com or 610-212-6679.
From the Huffington Post
Sara Harberson 3/24/17
Four minutes. Four years. Oh, the irony and the sobering reality of modern day elite college admissions.
There used to be so much secrecy surrounding how admissions officers read college applications and how much time they spent on each application. Not anymore. The University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Admissions Office recently revealed in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that it takes their staff a mere four minutes to read one application.
When I worked in that same office, it took me five or six times as long to initially read an application. That didn’t include the unaccounted time I spent re-reading, preparing, and meticulously going over each application for the selection committee. Back then, the reading and selection process moved swiftly. Fast forward to today, and Penn’s new reading and selection process moves at warp speed.
Penn officials say they needed to come up with a more sustainable model to handle the volume of applications they receive. Now, a team of two admissions officers reads a student’s application side-by-side. One person reviews the academic criteria (transcript, test scores, and recommendations), while the other person “reads” through the rest of the application (extracurricular involvement, essays, and interview report).
Within the four-minute period of time allotted, the two staff members make a recommendation on the admissions decision: ADMIT, WAITLIST/DEFER, DENY. And, then they move on to the next application.
Penn is not the only college doing this. Swarthmore, Emory, The California Institute of Technology, and Pomona College have all streamlined their reading and selection processes. I predict there will be more colleges to follow. This needs to be viewed as the new “normal” when applying to elite colleges.
How has it gotten to this point? The answer lies in the economics. All colleges want more applications and the lowest admit rate possible. But they do not want to enlist more admissions officers—that would be very expensive. So the only way a college can pull off reading tens of thousands of applications is to significantly reduce the amount of time they spend considering each student.
At least we know the truth. And knowledge is the ultimate power. Students should approach this process understanding that their very best self needs to be represented in the most succinct and powerful way in their application. Those four minutes should be the best four minutes of an admissions officers’ day.
Today’s admissions officers have extraordinarily less time to consider the nuances and details of a student’s college application. This new approach forces students to think more succinctly about who they are and how they want to present themselves in an application. The new mantra for the applying student needs to be seize the moment; that’s all the time you get.
Four minutes. Four years. Oh, the irony and the sobering reality of modern day elite college admissions.
There used to be so much secrecy surrounding how admissions officers read college applications and how much time they spent on each application. Not anymore. The University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Admissions Office recently revealed in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that it takes their staff a mere four minutes to read one application.
When I worked in that same office, it took me five or six times as long to initially read an application. That didn’t include the unaccounted time I spent re-reading, preparing, and meticulously going over each application for the selection committee. Back then, the reading and selection process moved swiftly. Fast forward to today, and Penn’s new reading and selection process moves at warp speed.
Penn officials say they needed to come up with a more sustainable model to handle the volume of applications they receive. Now, a team of two admissions officers reads a student’s application side-by-side. One person reviews the academic criteria (transcript, test scores, and recommendations), while the other person “reads” through the rest of the application (extracurricular involvement, essays, and interview report).
Within the four-minute period of time allotted, the two staff members make a recommendation on the admissions decision: ADMIT, WAITLIST/DEFER, DENY. And, then they move on to the next application.
Penn is not the only college doing this. Swarthmore, Emory, The California Institute of Technology, and Pomona College have all streamlined their reading and selection processes. I predict there will be more colleges to follow. This needs to be viewed as the new “normal” when applying to elite colleges.
How has it gotten to this point? The answer lies in the economics. All colleges want more applications and the lowest admit rate possible. But they do not want to enlist more admissions officers—that would be very expensive. So the only way a college can pull off reading tens of thousands of applications is to significantly reduce the amount of time they spend considering each student.
At least we know the truth. And knowledge is the ultimate power. Students should approach this process understanding that their very best self needs to be represented in the most succinct and powerful way in their application. Those four minutes should be the best four minutes of an admissions officers’ day.
Today’s admissions officers have extraordinarily less time to consider the nuances and details of a student’s college application. This new approach forces students to think more succinctly about who they are and how they want to present themselves in an application. The new mantra for the applying student needs to be seize the moment; that’s all the time you get.
Increasingly, competition for college admission is making it difficult to predict where a student will gain the the coveted “Yes!”. Every section of each application must be carefully curated with targeted information. I’m here to help you develop the application that will stand out from the pack. stephanie@accessguidance.com or 610-12-6679
Rising seniors are beginning to assemble documentation for their applications, and filling 
in the Common App which now rolls over for the next application season. I’ve heard college students lament choices they made at this point in their journey and I’ve read about the lessons others have learned. Here are a few.
1. Get your priorities straight before you start choosing where to apply. If you don’t know what you want from a college or the education it offers, you can’t begin to make good decisions.
2. Getting into an ultra-selective college may boost your ego but the actual environment might not be so appealing. One student was upset to find her friends took free time when she was studying and studied when she wanted to play or sleep. The constant pressure of exams and projects wore her down, resulting in a 6-week bout with mono.
3. Choose your colleges wisely. Don’t add some just because Uncle Henry went there, your mom liked the campus, or it has a respected name. If you don’t like a college or don’t think you’re a good fit, don’t apply because you might be the only one you get into and the one you will attend.
4. Mind your deadlines! Everything must be in on time and there are no do-overs.
5. It isn’t possible to know or understand the variables that each college considers and how the elements are weighted. If you did, you would still not be able to maximize your use of the application real estate. Stop worrying about getting everything right on each application. Do the best you can. When you click Submit, let it go and enjoy peace of mind.
6. Prepare for disappointment. No matter how wonderful you are, how bright, thoughtful, charismatic, committed, you are, college admissions decisions can seem random (and maybe they are).
7. Do not prepare for failure. Getting a “Dear Suzie” letter only means that you weren’t the right person at the right time for that college. It isn’t a failure. We humans are good a picking ourselves up and moving on. I give the same advice for college rejections as I do for dating or not getting the perfect job: Why would you waste time on someone who doesn’t want to be with you, want to hire you, or admit you to their freshman class: step right up to the person, job or college that really wants to have you. That is the one that deserves you!
Plan your college applications carefully, execute diligently, trust your own judgement. I’m here to help. Stephanie@accessguidance.com or 610-212-6679.
Please share with others who may need this information.
Some seniors will find that college applications are asking the student to fill in a form with details of all of the courses they have taken and will take over 4 years of high school, including the final grade. According to one admissions office, this is because while high school transcripts have pretty much the same information the format is different on each one. Figuring out the location of the material the admission officer is hunting is time consuming. Students are asked to use the form so information is presented in a standardized manner making comparisons among applications much easier.
Now is the time to take a look at the applications you will be using to see if any prefer SRAR. Another avenue to get this information is to email your admissions rep at each college and ask about self reporting grades and scores.
If at least one college uses this form, check online to see if your entire high school transcript is available to you. Should only the last year’s curriculum and grades appear, contact guidance for an unofficial copy of your entire history. Perhaps in 8th grade you took Algebra I or a year of foreign language that counts toward fulfilling a foreign language requirement; you may need to access your 8th grade record, too.
Once you have the transcript in front of you, make notes. Start with 9th grade and write down your courses, final grade and a description of what the course covered. If your high school has an electronic course book from which you choose your classes, consult this tool to help with course descriptions. Avoid guessing.
Why should you do this now? The SRAR is a convenience for the admissions office and a nuisance for students. Filling out the form is time consuming. Do it now as the school year winds down and you have fewer pressing assignments so that when you are ready to apply you won’t need to invest a couple of hours tracking down the information.
Be assured that if you are accepted you will be required to submit official test scores and an official transcript from each high school you have attended.
If you’re ready for a consult on your list or to begin writing essays, filling out your apps, lets make an appointment! stephanie@accessguidance.com or 610-212-6679
All college applications request a letter from your guidance counselor and usually expect 1 or more teacher recommendations. Your counselor is predetermined but you get to choose who will write the teacher recs. Please read to the end of this post to learn what to do if you are asked to write your own recommendation.
1. Most schools prefer that students ask for recommendations at the end of junior year so that teachers can take time to write thoughtfully over the summer. If you school has other policies, be certain to follow them.
2. Who should you choose? Ideally, the persons you approach should know you well. Perhaps you’ve taken more than one class with a favorite teacher or one of your current teachers is the advisor for a club or organization you belong to. The more interaction you’ve had, the more detailed the letter from the teacher can be.
3. Its helpful to write a note asking for the recommendation and to present the note to the teacher during a free period, before or after school. If you have copies of assignments from the class you took with this teacher, you could offer them along with the note, or continue the conversation by mentioning how much you enjoyed, or struggled, or learned from the work.
4. Also give the teacher a list of colleges to which you are applying. Know if there are special requirements for submitting the letters via Naviance, if you high school uses this tool. If the letters will be submitted by mail, attach any forms and addressed, stamped envelopes.
5. Before school begins for senior year, check with the guidance office to make certain that all recommendations have been turned in. Then write a thank you note to each person who wrote a recommendation.
What Should You Do If Asked To Write Your Own Recommendation?
I’m learning that self-written letters are becoming a common practice, particularly at large high schools. Unfortunately, many counselors don’t know all the students in their cohort and use the self-written recommendations as guides (or just turn in the student’s work). If you are asked to write such a letter here’s what to do.
1. Special circumstances. Counselor recommendations are used to explain circumstances not in evidence elsewhere in the documentation. When a family experienced trauma, death, financial hardship, student academic problems, learning challenges or any other factor affecting the student’s performance, it is usually the counselor who offers the information. If this applies to you, write this part of your story. First, the circumstance (what happened); next, how you were affected; the current state of your recovery or accommodation.
For instance, in 11th grade you were found to have dyslexia; what treatment has occurred and how have your grades improved? Ex 2, Your parents experienced a messy divorce and you were unable to focus on academics; what has changed and how are you coping?
2. Your Achievements. Take out your resume and activity lists. The format you should have used to create both is: List the organization, dates participated, what you did and how it benefited the club. Ex. French Club, 3 years, As program chair started a French club at an elementary school; increased membership by 20%. Ex. International Club, 3 years. Facilitated the smooth running of meetings by setting up, arranging refreshments, cleaning up.
Don’t just copy your Resume or Activities List, choose a few items and amplify what you’ve written, including the importance to you of this activity or event, something you particularly enjoyed or learned, leadership role, how the experience might impact your college experience. Ex. Environmental Club. I worked with local organizations and officials to clean up a trash from a creek. I’ve learned about the world-wide clean water shortage and hope to take a trip to Africa where I can participate in a clean water project as well as taking courses in hydrologly in the geology department to learn more about water.
3. Executive functioning. These skills include persistence, organization, time management, and so on. You want to present the skills with supporting evidence. Ex. Persistent: failed 2 tests Algebra 2, got help from teacher and secured a tutor from National Honor Society. Brought grade up to a C+. If you are unclear on what to say, try asking teachers and classmates to describe you in 1 word, or in 3 words. Use their comments to develop this section.
4. Goals. What do you want to get out of your college experience? Are you planning your coursework so you can study abroad? Do you have plans to take specific courses to learn about a special interest?
When you’ve completed your recommendation, have several people you trust read it over. Discuss it with your guidance counselor.
Asking for your letters of recommendation is good practice for getting a job. You will need to know your strengths and who can best describe them to others. Don’t gamble on getting winning testimonials, prepare the path for the people whom you will ask. Be professional in your approach and show your appreciation generously.
Questions? Call/text me at 610-212-6679 or email stephanie@accessguidance.com