Crafting a Standout Business Major Application: Key Strategies for Success

Webinar Transcription

2024-06-25 – Crafting a Standout Business Major Application: Key Strategies for Success

Anna: Hello, everyone. Good evening. Good afternoon. Good morning. Wherever in the world you are joining us from, we are so happy you’re here. My name is Anna Vande Velde. I’ll be your moderator today for our webinar on, “Crafting a Standout Business Major Application: Key Strategies for Success.” The company’s asked me to give you just a bit about my background.

I’ve been with the company for three years now. In addition to being a senior advisor to students, I’m a proud captain on our essay review team. So we do hundreds of essays every season. For my undergrad, I studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon. Really thought I was going to end up a clinical psychologist.

Um, but I worked for a few years and my journey just took me down a path. So I ended up at Harvard Law School where I graduated. About three years ago. So in addition to my work with CollegeAdvisor, I’m a nonprofit defense attorney and I live in Ottawa, Ontario. I think that’s more than enough about me. I want to get to why we’re all here to orient everyone with the webinar timing.

We’re going to start off with a presentation and answer your questions in a live Q and a on the sidebar. You can download our slides under the handout tab and you can start submitting questions in the Q and a tab. Please don’t feel that you need to wait until the end of the webinar to submit your questions.

You can submit them as you go, and we’ll get to as many as we can at the end. Without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to our panelists who I’m so excited is here. Renee and Renee, I’d just like

Renee: to ask you to introduce yourself. Sure. Thank you for that kind welcome. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to chat with you all this evening.

As Ana said, my name is Renee and I am a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor.com. I’ve been with the company for the past two years. Like Ana, I’m also on the essay review team and I enjoy reading all of those essays that come our way. Um, and I attended Northeastern University for my undergraduate degree and went across the pond actually for my graduate studies at UCL, which took me then to South Africa where I lived in Cape Town for several years working at an educational nonprofit.

As an only child, my parents were desperate to get me to return to this continent. So I returned about seven years ago and started working at a community. Based organization supporting first gen students on their college application process. And I’ve loved every minute of it. And yes, I’m eager for the conversation to begin tonight.

Um, and talk about the strategies to really enhance your business application.

Anna: What a fantastic background. We are really lucky to have you with us. Before I turn it over to you for your presentation, I thought it’d be helpful to get a sense of who’s here with us. So I’m going to open this poll. Please let us know what grade you’re in.

If you’re here as a parent, guardian, educator, support person, um, please just select other. And while we wait for your responses to come in, Renee, if you don’t mind, I’m going to put you on the spot. Sure. And ask, knowing everything you know now about college admissions, I’m Is there anything you would do differently if you had to redo your undergrad applications?

Renee: Not applying to so many schools. I think the sweet spot is like 10 to 12. Uh, and I applied to far more than that. And if I, in hindsight, it’s always 2020, but I feel like if I had just targeted a little bit better and had just, uh, Slightly pare down list. I think I could have even crafted even stronger applications.

So certainly in this process, I think it’s, it’s quality over quantity.

Anna: Absolutely. Yeah. And I know you’re going to get into, I think that later in your presentation, how to balance your college list. So, um, stay tuned for more on that. So, you know, Renee, we have about half and half 11th and 12th graders with us.

Okay, great. A diversified crew. Yes. So I’m going to close the poll and then turn it over to you.

Renee: Yeah. So I think it’s helpful to lay the foundation before we dive deeper into the business application, just to give you a little bit more context as to what the college application entails in general, regardless of what major you are.

Thank you. So many of you will be using the common application to house the majority of your college applications. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule with everything. There’s always exceptions. Um, namely the UCs, if you’re interested in any of the UC institutions, then you would be using the UC application or if you’re applying to schools abroad.

But say, for the context of this conversation, you are using the Common App. You’re going to be expected to give some demographic information about yourself and your family, as well as some educational data within the application form itself. Additionally, you’ll have the opportunity to highlight up to five awards or honors that you’ve received throughout the course of high school.

You’ll also have the opportunity to highlight your extracurricular involvement. You have 10 slots to do so within the Common App, which is nice. And then the final piece of the application form would be those all important essays. So you’ll have the main personal statement or main college essay, those six.

Terms are kind of used interchangeably, and then you may have some supplemental responses that you have to do that are institution specific. Then the next two items are going to be pieces that your guidance counselor are responsible for submitting on your behalf. So that would be your academic transcript, which would lay out nicely to the admissions officer, what courses you’ve taken throughout high school, and of course the outcome.

Sometimes it will also say information about your GPA, your class rank, any, any attendance data as well. And then the second piece that your guidance counselor will be responsible for submitting on your half, behalf is the school profiler. So that kind of gives a one pager lay of the land to the admissions officer as to what your high school offers, the type of courses, clubs, et cetera, so that you can be evaluated fairly within the context of your high school environment.

And then the next component, which may or may not be relevant to you would be the use of your standardized test scores. So those ACT or SAT test scores. You know, with the pandemic came a lot of shifting of testing policies at a lot of institutions. So some schools pivoted to being test optional. So that gives you, the student, more agency to decide whether or not it makes sense to submit your test scores.

Of course, now some schools have pivoted back to requiring them. So it’s very important to do research to know whether or not the institutions you are interested in, uh, what their testing policies are so you can prepare accordingly and strategize accordingly. And then the final component would be the letters of recommendation.

So, I always advise students to identify two teachers that you would want to write a letter on your behalf, and your guidance counselor will also be writing one too.

All right, now specifically looking at the business application. Are there major differences? Well, that very much depends. So that’s why going back to that key word of research being so, so important to your process. Because it will depend on the institution. So some programs will have you directly apply during the freshman admissions process.

And therefore, you may have to write specific essays to address your business aspirations. So some institutions that are well known that are like that are Penn and the Wharton School of Business, or the University of Michigan and the Rosk School of Business. No relation. I wish I was related to him. That would be cool though.

Um. On the other hand, other institutions will have you start in a liberal arts program, and then you will apply for the business program specifically after earning enough credits and meeting any pre admission requirements during your first year or two of college. So an example of that type of institution would be UNC Chapel Hill.

And then one final thing to note, which I think sometimes students are confused about, um, because they are top schools, so you assume that they would have a business program. But actually, some top schools don’t have a business program. So Northwestern, Duke, and Vanderbilt are prime examples of this. And if you are interested in those institutions, and still interested in business, you would likely want to choose economics as your major in their liberal arts school.

All right. So which parts of the application are most important? This is a toughie because your application is truly a sum of all of its parts. So it’s how all of the different components that we alluded to in the first slide, how they work together to tell your cohesive story and narrative. So, you know, there are certain elements, of course, that you want to take note of, but really, because many schools will be looking at you holistically, you want to make sure that everything is quite strong, or as strong as it can be.

So you definitely want to be mindful of your transcript outcomes, of course, the grades that you’re receiving from year to year, and the rigor of your coursework. Colleges, not just the top ones, Any colleges want to see that you’re challenging yourself and taking the highest level of courses available to you.

And that can look different depending on your high school context. That could be honors coursework, AP, IB. So again, it depends on what your high school offers. Since I know we have some seniors in this room, I want to reemphasize that senior year performance matters. It counts. So please don’t let senioritis set in.

You need to maintain your top level performance or at least continue to improve on an upward trend. And that same goes for rigor. You know, you want to continue to keep pushing, pushing yourself to challenge yourself appropriately, because that is equally as important. And then because I’ve alluded to, you know, course selection being really important, I think it’s highlight, It’s important to highlight some particular classes that look really attractive to admissions officers on your college application.

So, when you’re looking at math, math is super important. So, at the minimum, you want to be getting to, Calculus. Uh, Calculus is often a prerequisite for many big business programs. So if for some reason your school doesn’t offer Calculus, I really encourage you to pursue dual enrollment at a local community college so you can show the initiative and take you know, the fact that you are meeting that requirement.

And then from AP statistics, from a math perspective too, is a really another great course that admissions officers love to see. Um, from a social science or history perspective, if your school offers AP macroeconomics or AP microeconomics. Those are also a really great look. Um, any AP computer science courses can also look favorably, especially if you’re into business analytics.

Uh, and then a no brainer from an English perspective. If AP is offered to you like an AP laying in composition course is also, uh, quite important. And then moving to SAT and ACTs. If a school is requiring them, then, of course, the outcome matters. So you want to. invest time accordingly to prepare. It’s always good to take the test and get a baseline and a benchmark so you know what your areas of strength are and potential areas of growth.

And then you can strategize on preparing for those areas of growth so that you can see improvements in future testing dates. You can take it multiple times. I don’t recommend doing it more than three though, because then you’ll, you’ll begin to have test fatigue. Um, and then Another caveat I just want to mention is, again, going back to the idea of being test optional.

Uh, if a school is test optional, again, that means that they are test optional. So, you can actually do more harm than good by submitting your scores if they are below the range that is being reported on their website. So, just keep that in mind. If you have the agency to not submit your scores and you’re not within range, it is in your best interest to not submit your scores.

So I just wanted to really drive home that because it’s, it’s, I really wish back in the day when I was a student, um, you know, I had more control over that type of testing data. Um, fortunately I did not, but, um, you know, the ball is in your court to make those informed decisions. And then another really important part of the application would be your personal statement.

Because as I, you know, alluded to earlier in some of the other quantitative data elements that a college is receiving of you, which can get a little bit monotonous, this is the one piece of the application where they can hear your authentic voice. And that is so important. So they can get a sense of who you are as a student and what you would bring to their campus.

And then the final critical piece of the puzzle would be your supplemental responses. You want to be intentional in those, uh, in how you, uh, propose to answer those questions. You want to do your research and your homework, um, because that will definitely serve you well and admissions officers will know then you took more time than just copying and pasting what you said to every other, uh, school.

All right, now looking specifically at how you can develop an application that really showcases your interest in business. So of course it’s, it’s really essential to get involved and get involved early. I know we don’t have any ninth or 10th graders in the room, but if any ninth and 10th graders are going to be watching this video later on, um, you want to start early.

Um, the earlier the better because you want to be able to show consistency and longevity in some of the engagements that you’ve And engagements specifically that pertain to your alignment in your business interest. You want to see that there is that cohesive narrative that you’re involving yourself with things that you’re saying you want to pursue from an academic perspective and a career perspective.

So if your school offers JECA or Future Business Leaders of America, really well known national organizations, Um, I would highly encourage you to get involved and as I said, get involved early. Um, and then because business is such a broad field, there’s so many different directions that you can go in and so this will look different depending on each student and what your specific interests are.

You want to, again, tailor, you know, your involvement to what your specific niche is if you’ve established that. So say you are a finance guy, it would make sense maybe to be involved as your stock market club at school if you offer something like that. Or if you’re involved in the idea that you want to go into marketing one day that you would, you know, show your social media prowess, um, by being the social media marketing.

marketer for one of the clubs that you’re involved with. So you definitely, again, want to be strategic in how you’re thinking about what involvement to select and, you know, how to invest your time appropriately so that you can demonstrate, again, your real passion for business. And again, this will look differently to every student.

Some students may want to create their own nonprofit because they’re really interested in entrepreneurship. So that could be a really great way to show that and demonstrate that to the admissions officer. So those are just some examples, but that is just definitely a way to kind of knock it out of the park when it comes to deciphering how you should spend your time in high school.

It’s really important to show that alignment to your business interest. And the more, experiences you have within the field, the more you can leverage those experiences to make your essays stronger, which leads to my next point. It’s really important to present high caliber essays that fit within this business narrative within your application.

So you want to ensure that you’re really unpacking the why for why you want to be involved in business. And so this takes a level of self reflection and exploration of your identity. So to start getting the wheels turning on that front, I, I gave some examples of some questions to ask yourself. So why do you want to work in business?

What issues do you want to take on? How does that stoke your desire? How can you show who you are and your identity to admissions officers? What hobbies do you truly enjoy and how can you showcase them or take them to the next level? So those are just some questions to get the juices flowing. Um, because Um, you know, frankly, the idea that you want to make a lot of money isn’t going to cut it for why business.

We want you to have a really powerful and compelling reason.

Anna: Thanks, Renee. I’m going to interrupt you for a second so you can get another poll, um, out there. So we just want to know where folks are in the application process. If you can go ahead and answer that while you do. Renee, you were just talking about essays. We get this question a lot. Yeah. When do you think students should start writing their personal statement?

Renee: Yeah. A common theme, the sooner the better. I think, um, you know, oftentimes, you     know, it’s human nature. We procrastinate and we wait to the last minute to do things and wait until the deadline. But just because of the sheer volume of work associated with your college application process, you don’t want to leave anything to chance.

You want to give yourself time to be thoughtful in the drafting process and brainstorming and, you know, get it to the level that, you know, you know it can be. And And polish appropriately. So I would say, you know, you know, the latter half of your junior year would be a great time.

Anna: Um, and it sounds like folks who are with us are sort of on your suggested schedule.

So a third are researching schools and two thirds are working on their essays. Great. That’s awesome.

Renee: And with that, I will turn it back over to you. Sounds great. Thank you, Anna. Um, okay, so this seems like the The appropriate slide, then, since so many of you are working on your essays. Um, How do you use your personal statement and supplemental essays to stand out?

So, specifically for your personal statement, you really want to make sure you’re showing the reader and not just telling them. You want to transport them to be a fly on the wall to your story. So, think about captivating the reader from the introduction through the conclusion. Instead of merely just stating facts, aim to show your reader through your experiences using descriptive and storytelling language.

Be creative. You should be specific, utilizing sensory details and specific examples to engage the admissions officer to really make your essay stand out. And then along the same lines, you want to make sure you’re connecting your story to your future goals. Think about what you’ve done and what you could be doing before college to bring you closer to achieving your goals.

Let the admissions officers know how your past experiences have influenced your interests, career goals, or academic pursuits. And then looking specifically at the supplemental essays, you want to make sure they’re passing the whiteout test. And what I mean by the whiteout test is that say you’re writing your pen supplemental essay, and you were to remove pen from all the places that you name drop them.

And you were to replace it, say with Yale, the essay, would not work because you’ve been so thoughtful in being specific to, you know, show your interest in pen that you can’t copy and paste it and put it anywhere else because You’ve been very intentional and that intentionality is so important because admissions officers want to see that you did your homework, that you did your research and that you can truly articulate the reasons why this particular institution is a great fit for you and how it mutually can be a beneficial relationship if you were to be accepted.

So a way you can do that and, and to be very specific, cause I know it can feel a little bit nebulous. Like how do I get to that level? Um, some common strategies would be to. You know, name drop a, uh, a faculty member or professor that you’re excited to be mentored by because of X, Y, Z, or name a particular course that is only offered at Penn because it aligns nicely with your interest in ABC.

Or cite a particular research center at that institution and say that, you know, it would be great to involve yourself because you can continue the things that you’ve already started to lay the groundwork for in high school. So those are some ways and strategies to make sure that your essays, your supplemental essays are passing the whiteout test.

Right. And then how can you as a student demonstrate your personal brand and stand out through extracurriculars when interested in the business major? So kind of going back to what we discussed earlier, we want to make sure that you’re creating a cohesive narrative that is aligned with your future goals.

So by cohesive narrative, I’m talking about those particular components of the application process. that we talked about on the first slide. We want to make sure that your extracurricular engagement, essays, letters of rec, all of those things are working together to showcase that image to the admissions officer, so they really understand your passion for business.

And then spending When looking at your extracurriculars, I know I said this before, but it’s worth re emphasizing is, you know, that consistency and longevity that you’re having in your engagements. You know, it shows your deep commitment, um, and those are values that admissions officers are looking for in students that they accept to their campuses.

And ideally, you know, because maybe you’ve been involved with an activity for four years, you can demonstrate your leadership by your junior or senior year by obtaining a leadership position. Leadership is a value that, again, college admissions officers want to see. in your application. So I know it can be a little bit intimidating, kind of reaching for the stars with some of those leadership roles, but I highly recommend it and encourage you to, to push yourself.

And then believe it or not, uh, in the description section, when you’re sharing these activities in the common app, you only have 150 characters to say how you impacted this particular organization or club, which is nothing. It’s not words, it’s characters. So you want to really make sure that you’re packing a punch and be very much concise in how you’re showing this impact.

And so a way that you can do that is to make sure you’re leveling up these descriptions. So that means you can incorporate strong verbs, you can develop more detailed content, specifically metrics. Because when you quantify something, You’re able to show the impact and pack that punch, uh, without using that many words.

So if you can quantify, that’s great. Um, and then of course you want to demonstrate the skill and value that you bring to the table and all of these activities. Great.

So what are some best practices for choosing recommenders and requesting letters of recommendation? So ideally you can identify teachers within the your core subjects. So that would be your math, science, history, or English teachers. And again, preferably in your junior year, because their experiences with you are most fresh in their mind.

Um, and you know, they are speaking to you, you know, in in more real time than perhaps a teacher that saw you as a freshman or a sophomore. You want to make sure that you’re identifying teachers too who can speak to your strength, um, but not just your strength. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be the the class which you thought was a piece of cake and you found easy.

It certainly can be but it doesn’t have to be because it’s also value in identifying a teacher where you know, they can demonstrate your growth. So if there’s some adversity you faced in the classroom and you were able to overcome that, that’s a great story that a teacher can tell in your letter of recommendation.

So I encourage you to think outside of the box on that front if there’s a particular teacher that can fit the bill for sharing that type of narrative. And then definitely another common theme of this presentation is the earlier the better. So the earlier you ask, um, you know, is, is in your best interest, you know, preferably before the end of your junior year.

And why I say that is because, um, At a certain point, your teachers are going to get inundated with multiple, multiple requests from your peers. And at a certain point, they may have to say no because they’re just, they don’t have the, the bandwidth to support any more letters. And you certainly don’t want to be in that no camp.

So you want to be the first in line and have the opportunity for them to agree to write your letter on your behalf. And then finally, I would provide a teacher with a brag sheet. regardless if they ask for it and or not, um, because the more content that you provide them, the better, um, this way they have more information to share in your letter of recommendation.

It’s not a time to be humble, hence the name, you know, brag away, share all of your achievements both inside and outside of the classroom so that they can reference that potentially in your letter and also share your interest in business so they can allude to that in your letter as well. So, those are definitely some of our best practices when it comes to, uh, thinking about your letters of recommendation.

And then, what are some mistakes students and parents should avoid in the process in general? Um, I will say that it is so critical. to develop a balanced college list. And I’m talking from a selectivity standpoint. So, unfortunately, no Ivy or T20 institution is going to be a slam dunk for everyone, or even a match school.

It’s, you can be the valedictorian of your class, you can have perfect SATs, you can be doing all the things, and still not get into one of these top schools. You just really don’t know how the cookie is going to crumble because it is so competitive. So it’s in your best interest to identify other institutions that would be solid target or match schools or these likely admit safety schools.

So I said the sweet spot is like 10 to 12 schools. So want to balance accordingly and make sure that you have a healthy number of each of those categories. And you certainly don’t want to apply to a school for the sake of applying just to check a box. Like you want to find schools that you truly can envision yourself because if plan A doesn’t pan out then you have some really solid plan B and C choices that you’re excited about.

So it’s definitely very important to make sure that you do have this balanced college list. And then the second point is, uh, having this idea that You know, it’s prestige or it’s a bust, um, this tunnel vision for the name brand schools. So, of course, these name brand schools are fantastic and they’re, and they’re well known, but there are equally a number of lesser known institutions where you would get a fantastic, you know, fantastic quality business education.

Um, so, you know, just for example, say, You know, Cornell has a great business program, so you’re going to apply to Cornell, but the reality is, you don’t want to be in upstate New York, you don’t like cold weather, You’re probably not going to be happy there for four years. Um, so you’re probably not, you know, going to have the best experience maybe from an academic perspective, but the social pieces aren’t adding up.

So understanding what your college fit is, and that’s unique to you, is so important. So unpacking those academic and social and financial aspects as to, you know, how to go forward. know, cater your college list. You know, you want to make sure that the schools that you’re identifying, you know, check the boxes off of what you’re identifying as important to you from a college fit perspective.

And so you may have some name brand schools, but you may not. And that’s okay. Um, there are again, many fine institutions. Maybe it’s your flagship public, uh, institution in your state that, you know, you’d have a fantastic experience at that is also more affordable because, you know, finances come into play and that’s a critical aspect too.

So just keep an open mind, um, and again, keep doing your homework and research.

And then what are some best practices when it comes to developing a strong business major application? Um, going back to the key word of research, you want to make sure that you are from the get go, you know, being thoughtful and diligent in your research. So that goes from, again, the start from building that balance college list, like identifying a healthy number of safety target and reach institutions.

And then once you land on that final college list, Knowing the ins and outs of the admissions requirements at each of those institutions because that’s going to set you up for success because you’ll know then how to strategize, um, it’s really important to know the admissions pathways at the schools that you’ve identified, you know, is the school something, you know, that offers early decision or, you know, early action or rolling or regular decisions.

So having all of that intel at your finger fingertips will be essential to the success of the outcome of your applications. So definitely you can’t, uh, spend too much time doing laying the groundwork and doing those things. And then As I also had said earlier in the presentation, you do want to be strategic from the jump.

So I know, you know, I’m speaking to juniors and seniors. Well, a lot of that groundwork has already been laid, um, but you want to keep, you know, your foot on the gas pedal and that comes to your course selection in your junior and senior year as well as maintaining that rigor throughout, um, that also means thinking about which extracurricular activities you’re involving yourself with and when.

Um, so yeah, you keep, you want to keep thinking about all of those things, um, as you progress in this process. And then finally, again, I said this before, but it’s worth repeating. You want to convey that why for business effectively and appropriately. So just saying you like numbers, or again, I want to make money is not going to cut it.

You have to go deeper than that. And so that’s why, you know, going back to the previous slides, you know, where we kind of laid out some questions to get you thinking about those things. It’s really important to start jotting down those ideas and, you know, unpacking that rationale for why you want to go into this particular field because that’s what will make you stand apart in this process.

Thank you so much.

Anna: Thank you, Renee. Um, it’s my pleasure. Oh, well, we’re very lucky to have you with us for all that information. Also to outfield some questions. Yeah. Um, just to name it very formally. That’s the end of the presentation part of our webinar. We hope you found it helpful. Remember you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab.

We’re now moving to the Q and A. So I’ve been reading through the questions you are submitting in the tab and the ones that came in pre registration. As we get to each one, I will paste it into the public chat so everyone can see it. I’ll read it out loud and then give Renee a chance to answer. As a heads up, if your Q and a tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you join the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

So you might need to log out real quick, log back in through the email. Um, and then you should be good to go to submit your questions. All right. Housekeeping out of the way. Renee, the first question is, Do you have advice for how students should frame extracurricular activities on their application that are

Renee: not business related?

Yeah, that’s a great question. And that’s totally okay, not to have activities that are in a direct alignment to your employment. Business aspirations. Um, you know, admissions officers are going to love that. You’re also well rounded and that you have diverse interests. I think that if you can capitalize on picking out a particular piece of that activity, that can can somehow relate back to business, even if it’s quite broad.

I think that can be helpful. So say, you know, for example, you are in, involved with the drama club and, uh, within drama, you’ve decided to take on social media as a particular task within that club. And great. You’re in, you’re interested in marketing at the same time. That would be a win win because you’re showcasing your talent in the drama sphere.

But at the same time, you are showing a particular element of your involvement that then correlates back to your business aspiration. So win win.

Anna: Absolutely. Great advice. You spoke to this a bit, so I’m going to make the question a little broader. What advice do you have for students if their high school doesn’t have economics, business courses, or extracurriculars?

Does that put

Renee: students at a disadvantage? What should they do? Yeah, so you are certainly evaluated within the context of your high school. So that, that’s where that school profiler comes in. So, you know, Admissions officers understand like the context and the environment that you’re in without being said, you know, requirements are what requirements are.

So if you can step outside of the box and do some of that coursework at a local community college, you know, through dual enrollment or just, you know, on your own, like, maybe during the summer, I definitely encourage you to do that because that certainly will make you even more competitive. And then. Anna, did you see, there was like a second part to your question.

Anna: I do have a bad habit of asking multi part questions. No, I’m sorry. In addition to everything you just said about coursework, what if a student feels that there just are no extracurriculars at their school?

Renee: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for, for sharing again. Um, yes. So that is a time where you can be proactive and this will be fantastic because you can go to your school administration and you can say, Hey, I noticed a gap.

We don’t have any business offerings. Can I start my own chapter of future business leaders of America or DECA or, you know, stock market club or. finance, whatever. Um, taking the initiative to begin something. Um, I mean, that’s certainly demonstrating your leadership and also articulating again, your passion for not only wanting to expose yourself to the business world, but also paying it forward and helping your peers within your school community also have exposure.

Um, so that’s certainly a way that you could do that. And then also it doesn’t necessarily need to be a formalized activity. It could be something that You know, you’re doing on your own that you can highlight. So, so you, you know, you’re really invested in, um, learning more about the stock market. So you decide that you’re going to create your own like fund that also your parents are monitoring, but you’re seeing like the growth of your investments.

Um, that’s something that’s. you know, not formalized through your school or maybe your community, but it’s something that you’re doing and that you’re investing time in. So you certainly can showcase an example like that within your activities list.

Anna: Absolutely. Uh, this feels like a natural follow up question.

Uh, we’ve got it in pre registration. Should business students

Renee: get a job in high school? You think that’s important? Yeah, they definitely can. If they have the, the space and time, like all of the skills that you would be developing, you know, within a job, whether it’s, you know, you know, at McDonald’s or at the mall, wherever, um, that all that adds value.

And those are all skills that, um, you know, admissions officers want to see that you have responsibility and care and supporting customers, um, or whatever that looks like. So certainly I definitely encourage students to do that if they have time. Seems

Anna: sort of like a natural exposure to it. Business. Yeah, absolutely.

Um, shifting focus a bit away from extracurriculars. How much would you say that essay weighs in admissions decisions compared to

Renee: grades

Anna: and test

Renee: scores? Yeah, So I don’t, I don’t think there’s like an exact science, as I kind of alluded to earlier, or some of all the parts is how everything is working together.

I definitely think like if, you know, perhaps there were some difficulties in your, you know, in the outcomes of your coursework, then that means that your essay is going to be all that much more important. Um, because you you gotta, you gotta raise it up to kind of balance out maybe some of the other pieces that, you know, aren’t as strong.

Uh, so I think, um, you know, it’s all important and you want to invest time and effort into ensuring that you are submitting the highest, you know, caliber of essays possible.

Anna: Absolutely. I’m going to give you a little break, Renee. You’ve been going for the whole hour. Um, so I can talk a bit about CollegeAdvisors.

So for those in the room who are not already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be. CollegeAdvisors team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts is ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one on one advising.

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You can do that by scanning the QR code on the screen. And during that meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile along with some initial recommendations. At the end, you’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer, which as you can see on the screen, are on sale right now.

These packages pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and so much more. Um, so please go ahead and scan that QR code. It’s a free strategy session with an admissions expert. Um, it’s a great opportunity. We’re going to use the rest of our time to go back to some more questions, but that QR code is going to remain on the screen, so please scan it at any time.

And remember, the slides are also available for download and the QR code is there as well. All right, so Renee, um, and I did mute you because I was getting a little feedback, so you’ll need to unmute for this. Um, when should a student apply or do you want me to mute you? A or regular decision. And also, I’m sorry, it’s another two part question.

I’m saying Evie in the a and regular decision. I’m aware that there might be students who don’t know those terms. So would you mind briefly defining them and then like how they should think about that decision?

Renee: Sure. So early decision is binding. So if you decide to pursue early decision somewhere and you are yet in, then you’re locked into attending that institution.

Uh, early action is non binding. So you also apply early, this was an earlier deadline, but if you do get in, it doesn’t mean that you are contractually obligated to attend that institution. And, I like to tell students that if a school offers early action and perhaps they offer early decision too, but you realize that’s not the right pathway for you, highly encourage you to still do early action because this can increase your looks on your application potentially.

So say the admissions committee really likes you, but they don’t want you to they’re not quite sure yet. They can actually defer you to the regular decision pool, and that just increases your odds. Every time the admissions counselor can look at your application again, great. If you wait until regular decision, then potentially, if it doesn’t go your way, it doesn’t go your way.

There’s no second chances at that stage. So if a school offers early action, really encourage you to look more deeply into that. Um, regular decision is Another admissions pathway. Typically, the deadline would be in January. A lot of highly selective institutions usually will have early decision as an option or early restrictive action, which is similar to early decision and regular decision.

So if you don’t decide to do the binding pathways, then you’re left with regular decision. And regular decision can make sense at some junctures. Again, if you are not 100 percent sold on an institution and you don’t want to lock yourself in, then, you know, it makes sense to wait for regular decision.

Also, if you’re anticipating that you’re going to have a really small rock solid fall senior year and you want to show those outcomes to the admissions committee, then sometimes it makes sense to wait until January. So you can highlight the best of your best if, um, maybe things were more challenging in earlier stages of high school.

And you really want to show that you’re killing it in your senior year. Maybe makes sense to wait. And then just one other. about early decision, there’s also, you know, obviously you’re locked in. So if you’re not 150 percent sure that that is the place that you want to be, then maybe that’s not the right pathway, but also there’s the financial commitment component to it.

So financially, not everyone is able to make that decision because you’re basically saying that, all right, I’ll go there. But I don’t know what the award letter looks like. So that’s a tough, that’s, that’s tough to, to reconcile. Um, because you have to be sure that you can make that work, um, you know, financially if, um, push comes to shove and you do get accepted it, you know, there are ways to kind of get out of that agreement, but it’s, it’s frowned upon.

And, um, you know, financially, if you can’t afford it, then you can step out of that agreement. But, um, we like to avoid that in the admission space. So definitely that’s something to keep in mind, um, when you’re thinking about the ED option.

Anna: Absolutely. Thank you, Renee. Sure. We just got a question about, going back to the essays.

Yeah. Do you think it’s important for students to talk about their business interests in their main personal statements? Is it okay to leave it to the supplementals? Do you advise one over the other? Or like, what, how

Renee: would you guide the student? Yeah, I think the, the student has to do them. So, excuse me. I think for some students it may make sense, to start talking about their business aspirations and their main essay.

Um, but for other students who want to maybe talk about a different aspect of their identity or interests, they certainly can do so as well. I, so I think it’s really contextual, you know, based on the student’s own story and what makes sense to them and their, and their journey. Um, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong.

I think it’s, context based. So, um, you know, don’t feel, you know, like you have to talk about business, especially because you’re probably going to have the opportunity to address that elsewhere in your supplemental essays. And certainly you don’t want to be repetitive in what you’re sharing. You want to, you know, give different insight.

So, um, and you’re really maximizing your ability to, to share different things about yourself, um, when there is such limited qualitative information that an admissions officer is receiving. So I think, I think it depends.

Anna: It’s

Renee: often the answer.

Anna: It depends. Yeah. Do you know, Renee, um, within business majors, do some schools have concentrations or specializations?

What should students know about that at the, at the beginning? At this point of the admission.

Renee: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. So again, it depends on, it depends on the institution. So every institution is going to structure their business program, you know, accordingly. Some will just have like a blanket, you know, like business administration major, and then, you know, different, Maybe concentrations that you can specialize as you get deeper into the business major.

Other colleges, it’s the reverse of that. You, um, you know, you can say from the get go that you want to major in marketing or that you want to major in finance or accounting. Um, so it very much is dependent on the institution and your response to like what your particular, you know, what you’re selecting on the application may differ because if a school you’re really into marketing, but.

X school that you’re into doesn’t have that as a major, you’re likely going to be selecting business and then like marketing as a concentration later on, which you may or may not even have to reveal on your application from the get go. That might be something that you talk with your academic advisor, you know, two years into your college experience.

Anna: Thank you. Can you share a bit about what the expectations are for business undergrads in terms of workload, classroom versus outside of class commitments?

Renee: Yeah, so You know, business, especially, I know I talked about the ones that are not direct admit and that’s something that you, um, apply for a couple, a year or two into your college experience.

Um, you have certain pre admission requirements that you have to meet, um, not just from a coursework perspective, but also maybe, um, from an externship or internship experience to in order to leverage that to strengthen your application to get into their business school. So I think again, it depends on the program, but, uh, and depends on the requirement of the program.

But especially I think there has to be some intentionality for schools that are not direct admit, because you want to make sure that you’re checking off all the boxes and then some to make sure that you’re competitive into getting into the business school. If that’s your end goal. So I think it’s even more critical for those folks.

But regardless, across the board, I mean, you want to be, um, performing well in your studies, regardless. And also, you know, putting yourself out there for a different internship or, you know, Co op experiential learning opportunities because that will only further your ability to get a job after you graduate.

So the more experiences like that that you have, you can leverage and showcase when you go for interviews. Maybe sometimes you can even land a job before you even graduate. Um, if an internship leads into a full time employment gig, sometimes that happens. So, I definitely think it’s important to have experiences both inside and outside of the classroom.

Anna: Absolutely. And I’ll just take a second now to plug What I wish I had done differently. Um, when I got to college, I didn’t. And maybe we take advantage of career services that Carnegie Mellon had and just my academic advisor. Um, so I think sitting down early on with them your first year to share your goals and hear from them the opportunities that are out there that you might not even know about.

It’s such a smart thing to do. Absolutely. I concur. Um, we have time for just a few more questions, I think, Renee. Okay. Um, you you talked a bit about putting together a strategic college list. So, are there factors about a school that you think students should consider but often don’t? Like, what should they be

Renee: researching?

Yeah. Um, So I think it’s really important to understand the nitty gritty of the finances. Um, I think it’s hard as a 17 or 18 year old to realize the implications of what it means to leave college with student loans and debt. Um, it can have a big impact, um, and it can be a burden. So I think understanding what your costs what your true costs of attendance would be at that institution by taking advantage of like the the net cost calculator on a school’s website.

You can plug in your financial information or your family’s financial information to get kind of an estimate of what Your total cost would be, um, so that you’re going into it equipped with that knowledge. Um, even though I know it’s not the most like flashy or fun, you know, um, information to have, it’s so critical.

Um, so I would definitely, um, invest time in understanding what those expenses are and what the bottom line would be at the any given institution that you’re interested in to make sure that it is financially feasible for you and your family and that you graduate with manageable debt and ideally no debt, but manageable.

There’s a difference between like crazy debt and manageable debt. So

Anna: very good advice. Um, last question, Renee, what’s one piece of advice you, you give to any applicant, regardless of their background, their aspirations?

Renee: Yeah, that it will all end well. So I know that’s cliche, but you know, you will land where you’re meant to land.

And it may not be the place that you initially envisioned, or you know, be that it school that you know, you thought it would be. Um, but in the end it will work out to where you have you know, a wonderful college experience. And again, going back to why it’s so important to develop a list that you envision yourself at all the institutions, regardless if it’s a reach or safety or whatnot.

Um, so you have that baseline that you know that you would be You know, solid in ending up there. Um, so you have that comfort. So I would say that, you know, you got this and that it will be okay. Yes. I

Anna: love that. I concur. It will work out. Thank you so much Renee for sharing all of your wisdom with us. We really appreciate your time and knowledge.

Before folks log out, I want to point out that we do these webinars with some frequency. Um, so you can see we still have one more this month. Um, uh, it’s an HBCU college panel. So, historically, you’ve probably Black college panel. Check it out on the 27th. And I know we’re already planning a busy July webinar schedule.

So keep checking our website. Um, we will keep doing these and don’t forget to scan that QR code and sign up for a free advising session. Thanks to everyone. We hope you have a great night. Take care. Thank you.