Overview: CollegeAdvisor.com Client Success Stories
Thanks for joining us for another edition of our Client Success Stories! In this series, we have the opportunity to interview CollegeAdvisor students who have successfully navigated the application process with us. That is, they’ve survived the countless applications, essays, and deadlines, and are now headed off to fantastic colleges and universities all over the country.
Our team here at CollegeAdvisor knows first-hand just how challenging the college application process can be. And we understand that choosing to work with a college advisor is a big decision. That’s why we love interviewing our students and sharing their experiences in this series. You get to hear firsthand exactly what it’s like working with CollegeAdvisor and why we do what we do.
For this edition of our Client Success Stories, we spoke with Lucas Angier. We’re excited to share some of his experiences working with CollegeAdvisor and why he’s excited to attend UCLA in the fall.
To start, let’s learn a little more about Lucas.
Getting to Know Lucas
Lucas grew up in Orange County in southern California. “I played a lot of tennis growing up,” Lucas told us. “Another important part of my upbringing is food. I feel like I’m always trying new restaurants, always eating with my family and friends.”
In school, Lucas found a passion for his STEM courses. “I always was interested in the sciences, specifically biology, [and] psychology. And I think from a young age, I knew I wanted to be pre-med,” he said.
However, knowing what he wanted to study in school didn’t make the idea of college admissions any less daunting. When we asked Lucas how he felt going into the college application process, he said, “I was pretty stressed. I knew I wanted to go to a good college, but I didn’t really have any resources on how the application would work or how the whole process was.”
He continued, “If I remember, I would just have a bunch of random Google documents and Google Sheets trying to organize all my thoughts. Writing down ideas for essays, some schools that I wanted to apply to. And it was just really hectic, really chaotic.”
This is where CollegeAdvisor stepped in. After getting a recommendation from his mom, Lucas applied to become one of our CollegeAdvisor Scholars.
Joining CollegeAdvisor’s Scholars Program
Here at CollegeAdvisor, we are dedicated to helping students from all backgrounds reach their full potential. In an effort to make college advising more accessible, we began our Scholars Program.
The Scholars Program provides free, personalized college advising to over 80 high school students every year, just like Lucas. To avoid unnecessary barriers or additional stress, the application process is straightforward. Applicants must write a short essay about why they’d like to become a Scholar. In their application, applicants also need to demonstrate their family’s financial need.
Students who are selected to become Scholars are then matched with a primary advisor, who helps guide them through the entire application process. For Lucas, this was Fritzie de Mata.
How Lucas’s advisor helped him find success
Fritzie and Lucas began working together the summer before his senior year. Throughout the process, Lucas met with his advisor once a week for a one-on-one advising session. During this meeting, they discussed every aspect of the application process, from finding colleges to applying for financial aid to writing college essays.
“Initially, I wanted to just jump in and start writing essays,” Lucas said about their first few meetings. “But she took time to get to know me, and we just talked about our daily lives, what motivates us, stuff like that. I think from there, she was able to determine what essay topics would be strong, and she was able to understand me as a person before helping me dive into my applications.”
By getting to know Lucas first, Fritzie got a sense of who Lucas was, both as an individual and as an applicant. From there, she could come to their meetings with an understanding of what he truly wanted out of college — and how best to help him achieve his goals.
In the next few sections, we’ll learn a little more about the different ways in which Fritzie and Lucas navigated the application process.
Narrowing down your college list
In order to build a college list, students need to come up with a list of factors. That is, what qualities does a school need to have in order to be a good fit for them?
One important factor for Lucas was location. He said, “I definitely wanted a lot of schools in-state… And also, I didn’t want to go somewhere too rural. I like the city. So more of the schools that I chose were along the coast or in a relatively large city.”
Other important factors for Lucas — and for many other college hopefuls — include financial aid and academic offerings.
“I was also looking for good medical programs for undergrads, so that was an important factor,” Lucas explained. “And also, I think financial aid was also a factor. I didn’t really want to choose a school that was going to be extremely expensive, because I knew that would be a big burden on me and my parents as well.”
Reach, target, and safety schools
Overall, Lucas was looking for a school in the right location, with a strong pre-med program, that wasn’t going to be too expensive. As Lucas found schools that fit his needs, he then worked with his advisor to ensure he had a balanced list. Here’s how he described the process of working with Fritzie:
“When we were building our college list, she helped me with that and made sure we had a balance of schools that were difficult to get in [and] schools that I had a better chance of getting in… That way we had a lot of options.” He went on to say, “It was really helpful to know I’m going to get into a few, and I might get into some, and some of these, we’ll see.”
Once Lucas knew which schools he wanted to apply to, he had to determine which applications each school accepted.
Navigating different application platforms
While over a thousand schools accept the Common Application, some schools require students to apply via different application platforms. For his top in-state schools, Lucas needed to apply through their own application platform: the UC application.
The UC application allows you to apply to all nine of the University of California’s undergraduate campuses. Lucas used the UC application to apply to three schools: UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine.
“Fritzie and I tackled the UC application first, and that one’s a little more straightforward since it’s only the four PIQs,” he said. The PIQs, or Personal Insight Questions, provide eight prompts for students to choose from. Applicants must then write four 350-word essays responding to their selected prompts. These essays are shared with every UC you apply to, similar to the Common App personal statement.
After completing the UC application, Lucas had to switch gears to the Common App for the rest of his applications. He noted some of the similarities, saying, “The activities on [the UC application] were very similar to the ones on the Common App. So we just copied and pasted and made a few edits and we transferred those over to the Common App.”
However, after completing both applications, he told us the Common App was the bigger challenge. “The Common App was definitely a lot more complicated, a lot more intricate, and a lot more work,” he said.
Next, let’s see how Lucas approached writing his college application essays.
Tackling college application essays
Essay help is the number one thing students are looking for when they start working with CollegeAdvisor. While some need help getting started, other students come to us full of ideas. Lucas was one of those students.
“Before I met with my advisor, I’d already written tons of essays. Out of nowhere, I would think of something and then I’d write an essay about it,” he said. “So together, we went over hundreds of essays that I had written, and we chose some of them that she thought were strong.”
With plenty of ideas in mind, Lucas’s biggest challenge was the revision process.
“I think editing the essays was the most difficult part,” he said. “It was easy for me to write them out, but it was a little more difficult to refine them and hone them for each school and make sure they answered the prompt. And not only answered the prompt, but went beyond the prompt and showed that I was a good candidate for the school.”
Making essays shine
Lucas found his advisor’s expertise particularly helpful when it came to making his essays shine. He told us, “She was really good with linguistics and grammar. And there’d be sentences where I would write and it would be correct, but she would say, ‘What if we did this? What if we switched the syntax, or what if we changed a few words here to make it more impactful?’ She really helped me refine my essays and make sure they were not just good, but they were exceptional, and I’m really grateful for that.”
Lucas and Fritzie made a good team, working through revisions online, in email, and during their weekly meetings. Nevertheless, it was a long process. “They took a lot more time than I expected,” Lucas admitted.
In order to submit his applications on time, it was important for Lucas and his advisor to make a game plan.
Staying on track and meeting deadlines
With so many applications and essays to get through, staying on track can be a huge challenge. “I was really stressed that I wasn’t going to finish everything in time,” Lucas said. “[That] I wasn’t going to be able to get all my essays in.”
However, Fritzie was there through it all, helping Lucas stay on track to meet his deadlines. He told us, “She gave me a schedule of what I needed to do at certain times in order to finish everything in a timely manner, and I think it was all really helpful to have someone organize the whole process for me.”
When asked what his favorite part of working with CollegeAdvisor was, Lucas told us, “I was very happy that I was able to complete everything on time.”
What was most challenging about the college application process?
After reflecting on the entire application process, we asked Lucas about his biggest challenge. In his interview, he shared with us, “In the most difficult part, I was probably thinking, am I going to get into the school? Should I put the effort in if it’s such a slim acceptance rate?”
Self-doubt is common in the admissions process. With nothing guaranteed, and many schools reporting lower and lower acceptance rates, it can feel like a long shot. However, we think Lucas had the right attitude when he said, “But I think it’s important to just give it your all.”
Acceptance rates can at best be discouraging and at worst misleading. That’s why Lucas encourages students to keep their focus on their applications.
“I think it’s best to just ignore the numbers that you see everywhere,” he said. “Because they’re pretty scary if you think about it… Even if it’s a 5%, 6%, [or] 7% acceptance rate, just do your best. Because there could be a factor in your application that really stands out.”
With a positive outlook and a willingness to try, Lucas was finally able to submit all of his applications–and get his admissions results.
Lucas’s admissions results and the road ahead
With the help of his advisor, Lucas applied to fifteen colleges and received acceptances from a number of them, including UCLA.
With several fantastic schools to choose from, Lucas had a big decision to make. He told us, “It was a little tricky at first, because there were a few schools I wanted to go to that were nearby.”
Ultimately, Lucas found himself deciding between UCLA and UCI. But after visiting UCLA, there was no doubt in his mind about which school he should attend. “I really liked the campus, all the programs, and they have so many classes you can take. And they have a good medical program.” In the end, Lucas said, “It stood as the only option out of all the colleges.”
In addition to having everything he wanted in a school, UCLA also came at a good price. “I’m getting half off, which is really nice. I’m very appreciative of UCLA for that.”
What will Lucas major in?
At UCLA, Lucas will be on the pre-health track. Like many other pre-med programs, UCLA’s pre-health track provides students with advising and mentorship to prepare them for a career in medicine.
Lucas plans on completing the prerequisites required to one day apply to medical school. However, since pre-health is not a formal major, Lucas is free to explore his interests.“My major is psychobiology, and I’m going to add Spanish as well,” he told us.
As one of the best schools for pre-med in the country, we have no doubt UCLA will provide Lucas with all the tools he needs to succeed in his studies.
Lucas’s advice to future applicants
Having successfully gone through the application process, we asked Lucas what advice he’d give to other students who are just starting their journey.
“Start early, because it’s a lot of work,” he said. “I started decently early, I would say, but even then I wish I’d started earlier because there’s so many essays to write, so many activities to choose from.”
Besides starting early, Lucas also shared this piece of advice regarding his approach to standardized testing: “I’d also say to spend less time on the SAT and ACT. I think that those tests, although they are important, they’re not defining characteristics. It’s just a number on an application, and a lot of schools are test-optional. So I’d say spend more time on your application rather than on the exams.”
Why CollegeAdvisor?
If you’re curious about college advising, you might now be asking yourself, Why CollegeAdvisor? In short, we know every student is coming to the application process with different backgrounds, different questions, and different needs. We offer a myriad of resources to help students from all over the world successfully navigate the US admissions process.
For students just beginning their college application journey, we have countless online resources and webinars that are completely free to access. Outside of his weekly meetings with his advisor, Lucas told us he took advantage of our articles and guides. “I remember I’d always read the articles on the CollegeAdvisor website,” he said. “A lot of those are really helpful and have a lot of important information.”
The value of personalized guidance
For students looking for personalized guidance, we offer a variety of packages at different price points, including our free Scholars Program for low-income families. Our network of college admissions advisors covers a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. However, they all have one thing in common: their dedication to ensuring each and every student reaches their goals.
But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what Lucas had to say about working with CollegeAdvisor:
“I’m really grateful for the opportunity of the program and my advisor. It was a really big help in the midst of a stressful season, and CollegeAdvisor really helped calm those stresses and calm those anxieties and help me get through the process safe and sound.”
This article was written by Stefanie Tedards. Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.
