Essays vs. Test Scores: What Matters Most in College Admissions

Webinar Transcription

2026-03-16 – Essays vs. Test Scores: What Matters Most in College Admissions

Lydia: Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Lydia Hollon. I’m gonna be your moderator tonight. Welcome to, “Essays versus Test Scores: What Matters Most in College Admissions.” Um, as I said, my name is Lydia Hollon. I’ll be your moderator. I’ve been with the company for about four years now, and in addition to advising students, I’m also a member of our essay review team and a graduate of New York University.

To orient everyone with our webinar timing for tonight, we’re gonna start off with the presentation, then answer your questions in a live q and a, and on the sidebar, you can download our slides and start submitting questions in the q and a tab. We will be recording this session so that you can review it later.

So don’t worry if you need to get up and grab a drink of water or go to the bathroom, you can always watch it back on our website after the fact. And I will go ahead and pass it to our presenter to introduce himself.

Manuel: Good evening. My name is Manuel Stefano Castano, graduated from Princeton University.

I’m a senior advisor here CollegeAdvisor. And excited to, you know, talk about this very important topic, essays versus test scores, what really matters most.

Lydia: Fantastic. So to get us started, we’re gonna do a quick poll to figure out what grades you all are in. And while I give you all a chance to answer that, I’m curious, Manuel, when you think back to when you were applying to college, what were you thinking about when it came to essays?

Were you nervous about essays? Did you feel confident about what you were going to say? Did you feel more confident with your test scores? Did confident with your essay?

Manuel: I think at that moment I probably felt more comfortable with my test score just because I didn’t really know. Too much about how the college admissions process worked?

Uh, so for me, a test score was something, I guess more simple in the sense that I take a test, I get a score, um, or I, you know, study in a certain sense and I get a score. But the essay, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Um, which is pretty ironic. ’cause later on I came to understand that the essays are actually really, really important.

So probably would’ve been good to watch the sort of webinar back then.

Lydia: Yeah, definitely can relate. I think for, I mean. Now with there being more complications with whether school requires tests or not, like I think it’s even more important to have a really strong essay. ’cause there might be fewer things that colleges are even looking at if they don’t have those test scores to look at.

But I was definitely in the same boat as you when I was applying to colleges. Like knowing, okay, I’ve got this on the SAT, I know what that equates to, versus looking at an essay and having no idea what they’re looking for and not knowing if it’s good or bad can definitely bring up some anxiety. So completely understand there.

Um, and looking at our attendees, seems like we’ve got a decent mix in terms of grades, 18% in ninth grade, 39% in 10th, 32% in 11th grade, no seniors, and a few in that other or parent category as well. So I will go ahead and pass it over to you to get us started with a presentation.

Manuel: Awesome. Thank you so much.

So, um, welcome again and to get us started. You know, the first thing that I wanted to kind of comment on is that, you know, one of the biggest misconceptions that families have on the admissions process is that it’s just a numbers game, right? Like, what do I have as a GPA, what did I get on my standardized test score?

And it’s not, you know, selective colleges use what, you know, what we call a holistic review. That means that they look at everything. It’s not just one single element. It’s not just your GPA, it’s not just your, it’s not even just your essays that determine the outcome itself. It’s everything together.

Everything together. So, um, you know, obviously how the call, how do they make decisions? Well, you know, they’re gonna look at your academics that matters. Right. They look at your transcript over time. They look at the academic rigor. Know how hard are the courses that you’ve chosen, how many aps or if you’re in the IB program, um, your grade trends, right?

Did you decline? Did you continue study? Did you increase, um, the level of challenge that you might have chosen within what your school offers, right? That context is also important. But then we also have some qualitative elements, right? So your essays, your activities, which is basically your extracurriculars and the things that you did outside of school, the recommendation letters that you receive from, from teachers or from, you know, outside, outside sources.

So these pieces begin to help answer a deeper question, right? Who are you beyond your transcript, right? Um, and extracurriculars, you know, aren’t just about quantity, right? They’re about impact. It’s about initiative. It’s about growth. Did you build something? Did you lead something? Did you commit to something on a deeper level?

Right? And recommendations are also, you know, important because they add another layer. You know, they have someone speak to your character, speak to your intellectual curiosity, your resilience, maybe traits that maybe you’re not gonna be able to talk about. Um, and you being the person that’s gonna say them, right?

It’s more something that someone else says about you. And finally, you know, there’s also going to be an institutional fit, right? Because colleges aren’t just admitting individuals, they’re building a class, right? So as they build a class, they consider different things, academic interests, geographic diversity, uh, different talents, maybe needs that they have institutionally, um, maybe in alignment with the mission that they currently have on things that they want to, uh, accomplish.

So, all in all, to start as a very general overview, when people ask, you know, what matters most? Or how do colleges actually make decisions on accepting a student or not? The real answer is more nuanced, right? It depends on a lot on the student, the school, the context. And that’s exactly what we’re going to unpack today.

So now zooming in, know where the essays and scores fit in, in that very overarching process that I kind of just super quickly, uh, went through. So the first thing is, you know, you can think of test scores as, as a benchmark. So they help admissions officers assess your academic readiness to a certain extent, right?

Can the student perhaps handle the curriculum at this university? Do they perhaps have the foundational skills for the level of rigor, for the, the courses or the major that they might want to, you know, pursue, you know, at at the same time? You know, scores are also very comparative, right? So they give colleges a standardized reference point across thousands of high schools.

Grading systems, even countries. So it’s also a data point that is used to be able to compare one student to another. Again, holistic review. It’s not the only thing, but it’s something that helps them compare one student to another, one, applicant to another. But here’s the thing about test scores. You know, test scores rarely differentiate students at the highest level.

So when we’re talking about, you know, competitive schools, Ivy League schools, or you know, the most prestigious schools, thousands of applicants are gonna fall within very similar ranges in terms of their scores, be it the SAT or Beit, or be it the ACT. So if we have a student with a 1480 versus a 1520, you know, that’s not really going to determine admission, right?

As long as you know, the applicants are within a certain range, it’s kind of just like a check mark on, you know, they did good on their standardized test. Now let’s look at everything else. So. It’s important to, to keep that in mind, to know that it’s, it’s something that’s necessary, but it’s not going to be sufficient.

So it’s necessary to have a good score, yes, but it’s not gonna be sufficient to be able to differentiate yourself. And that’s where essays operate completely different, right? They humanize the applicant, the file, the application, they add depth, they reveal personality, curiosities, values, your story, who you are, right?

They answer questions that numbers can’t. So who is this student really right? Beyond what we can see in the transcript beyond what we can see in their scores. Who is this person? So in other words, a score can answer possibly to a certain extent. You know, can you do the work? Are you gonna be able to do the work that is necessary here at this university or at this college?

But answers but essays answer, you know, why? Why here, why this school? What will you bring? So it’s also important to understand that neither of these operate in isolation, right? A strong essay is not going to be able to fully compensate for major academic weaknesses or, you know, standardized test score weaknesses.

And a perfect score also can’t compensate for a flat or maybe forgettable application. They function together inside a larger story, but really it’s the essays that tell that larger story. Now, the question of, you know, does what matters most vary by college type? This is important to also address because we want to understand, you know, if I’m applying to this sort of college or this sort of institution, how does this change the answer to this question?

So the answer is that yes, it definitely varies. It’s very important, and that’s where nuance really begins to matter. So as we. Kind of foreshadowed before at highly selective institutions or Ivy League level institutions, almost everyone is going to be academically qualified. So what does that mean? That essays for those sorts of applications are what are going to allow you to have a certain distinction, a certain differentiation.

So you know, if everything else is equal or similar, the essays are gonna carry a lot more weight because the numbers themselves are not going to separate the candidates, right? So that’s one type of comparison where the answer would be, you know, essays are gonna matter a lot at these highly selective and Ivy, Ivy level institutions in so far as you’re able to meet the requirements in terms of everything else, academic rigor, standardized test scores, et cetera.

At test required versus test optional schools, you know, schools, uh, scores obviously are gonna play a more formal role, but even there they’re going to be a part of a broader evaluation. So just making the distinction between test required and test optional, it’s still gonna be the holistic, uh, overview that’s gonna, you know, carry the most weight.

So even if it’s required, or even if it’s optional, it doesn’t mean that the test is gonna itself, you know, carry your application at larger public schools or public universities rather, you know, especially with high application volume, you know, they may lean more heavily on GPA and test scores as an initial filter just because they need to be able to have something.

And, you know, many of these universities actually use like a formula based models or academic indexes. To be able to kind of filter everything out to then be able to move on to the holistic consideration. So here it’s not so much what matters most, but more understanding that the first part, which is your scores and your GPA, are what allow you to get to like that next step.

And then they begin the holistic review where essays are gonna play a big role. Liberal arts colleges see here, it’s very different because they definitely emphasize writing and voice and alignment with their institutional values. So essays here definitely have a more central, uh, importance. So if you’re gonna apply to a liberal arts college, essays are definitely very important.

When we talk about merit scholarship driven institutions, you know, they frequently use test scores as a major factor, you know, for financial awards. So in those cases, you know, for that specific part of like how much you’re going to receive in terms of scholarship, test scores are definitely gonna make a difference.

And having certain point differences in your test scores can actually be the difference in receiving thousands of dollars extra. And then obviously, you know, we’re gonna have, you know, specialized programs, whether it’s engineering architecture, performing arts business, et cetera. So in those spaces, you know, even though essays are important, and even though standardized test scores are important, the additional components like portfolios and auditions or demonstrated STEM rigor actually have a bigger weight.

So that’s where we see that, you know, it really varies. So when families ask what matters most, the real answer is, well, it depends where you’re applying. Because admissions isn’t just one universal system that follows the same rule, right? It’s more of a spectrum. And it depends where the applica, where the institution falls on that spectrum.

Um, whether it’s shaped by different institutional priorities or selectivity or their mission, where the answer to what matters most is going, uh, to vary. I now, in terms of test scores, I did want for one moment to be fair to test scores because, you know, we often hear today, you know, that test scores don’t define us.

And, you know, it’s not a real measure of our intellectual capacity and all of these different things. So much so to the point that, you know, a lot of schools began for one moment to not even want to receive standardized test scores or made them optional. But we do have to be honest for a moment and understand that they do measure certain things quite well.

Which is why they’ve almost always been a part of this process. And even after that wave of kind of criticism against standardized test scores, they’re still making their way back. A lot of schools that were optional are now required again, in terms of standardized test scores. So we do have to also understand what they do measure, but at the same time what they miss.

So in terms of what they do measure, well, they do assess your core academic competencies to a certain extent. So whether it’s math, reasoning, reading analysis, grammar, logic, they do test these things, right? So they do show whether students can process information quickly and accurately, but more importantly, under pressure, right?

Because if you give a student enough time, they’re going to be able to answer a question. But can you do it under pressure without looking at your notes, without, you know, having the time to maybe think. But it’s something that you just need to understand quickly, right? So it does measure that to a certain extent, pretty well.

They also provide standardization, which is super important because, you know, understanding the admissions process and what admissions officers have to go through in the review of thousands and thousands and thousands of applications, being able to have a common reference point or something to compare one student to another is actually very useful for them.

Because remember that kind of the biggest difficulty they have is how do we decide one student or another if the GPA is the same? The transcript is the same if their activities list is the same, right? So having additional data points is meant to help them also make that decision. So it does measure that well, um, additionally, right?

The, it also measures that well, so in that sense, you know, they kind of just answer a practical question. And in a very overarching sense is, you know, is the student academically prepared? That’s kind of what they’re wanting to understand. But here’s where we can get into what they don’t measure. And that’s where the essays begin to fill those gaps.

So they don’t measure creativity, they can’t measure leadership, for example. They can’t capture emotional intelligence, right? They can’t reflect maybe the initiative that a student might have curiosities that, that student might have. They can’t show whether a student, you know, built a nonprofit, for example, or had a very, a big passion project and conducted independent research, um, maybe supported their family through hardship, right?

These sorts of questions are not gonna be able to answer just through a standardized test score, because obviously these tests are not asking those sorts of questions. They also miss growth, right? So a test score is really like a snapshot of what you accomplished. One Saturday morning, for example. Right?

But it doesn’t show trajectory, right? It doesn’t show resilience. If, for example, you know, I started my first or second year in high school with maybe subpar grades, but then junior and senior year, I really was able to improve, right? It doesn’t show that, it doesn’t show that trend. It doesn’t show that story.

So because of that, it also doesn’t show depth of character in terms of academic capacity. It only shows a moment, right? What you did at that one moment when you took that test. So all in all, you know, when colleges are building a class, um, they’re not just admitting test takers, which is good to understand, right?

It’s not just about being a good test taker. Those intangible qualities, you know, they do matter a lot. So test scores are powerful, but they’re incomplete. So, as I said, necessary but not sufficient, and that’s how we should understand them. But we should do, but we should be fair to them and, and also understand that they do measure things that are important for the college admissions process.

So in terms of essays, so what can they reveal that grades or tests cannot? Because here’s where we begin to see the comparative value in essays. So as we said before, an essay is where the application becomes human, right? So grades can tell us how you perform, scores, the same thing, but essays tell us or can tell us if we write a good essay, why you are who you are.

Why you are who you are. So through an essay, an admissions officer is gonna be able to see your values, for example, what you care about, what moves you, what inspires you, maybe what frustrates you, what’s driving you forward, what’s your goal long-term, your mission, your vision, all of these different things, right?

So it’s not just, for example, that you earned an A in biology. Let’s say that biology is your strongest score or something that you really wanna, you know, pursue and A is not gonna be able to tell us. Why biology fascinates you, or what questions about biology keep you up at night, right? So that’s where an essay can fill those gaps.

So essays can also reveal self-awareness. You know, can you reflect on your experiences? Because high school is also about that. It’s about growing as a person is about learning different things, um, on a personal level, maturity growth, right? So can you articulate that growth in that essay or are you just listing accomplishments?

Right. So these are the different things that essays also allow us to understand or allow admissions officers to understand. They can show motivation, you know, because for example, you know, two students might start a nonprofit, right? But one did it for resume optics, whether the other did it because there’s a deep personal story behind why they did what they did.

So the essay is where that difference can become visible, and that’s why they’re so important because that visibility. Is what causes differentiation. And that’s kind of the goal in terms of what we wanna do for our co our, our, you know, our applications. We wanna be able to differentiate ourselves, be unique, because that’s the biggest challenge for college admissions officers today, is how do we pick one students over the other?

So again, that’s where essays play a huge role. You know, they can also provide context. So all of these are examples of what they can do. It doesn’t mean that year one essay needs to do all of these things because it’s not gonna be able to, but it can take from these different sorts of, you know, concepts or, or factors or elements.

So one of those is context, right? Maybe you have a cultural identity that’s important to you. Maybe there are some al family dynamics that are, you know, also salient or important in, in your life or, or, or in or in high school. Um, you could talk about challenges maybe that you overcame. And again, none of these things show up in GPA or in a test score.

But maybe the most important thing is that, you know, de an essay can demonstrate voice because writing is basically thinking on paper. It’s your thoughts translated and transcribed onto a piece of paper or in this, you know, case, a digital screen. Um, and because colleges are academic communities, right?

They are academic communities, they want students who are gonna be able to communicate clearly and thoughtfully, you know, so in many ways the essay answers, you know, probably the most important question in admissions in general, if we admit you, who are we inviting into our campus community? What kind of person are we allowing in our campus community, right?

So that’s why essays. Um, reveal things that just grades and tests obviously are not ever gonna be able to do. So now we understand, you know, what essays reveal. So now we also want to understand, you know, how do admissions readers evaluate an essay? Because, you know, if we wanna write a good essay, we also need to understand how they evaluate them, what they’re looking for, what’s, what’s a good thing, what’s a bad thing, et cetera.

So, remember that admissions readers are not grading essays like English teachers, right? That’s, it’s very different. So they’re not gonna be circling grammar mistakes with reading ink or, you know, anything like that. Although, obviously, you know, you want to avoid grammar mistakes in your, in your essays.

But the point is, they’re not evaluating you on grammar, or if you’ve used, you know, certain or different grammatical structures correctly or not, that’s not really what they’re evaluating. They’re asking something that’s much more strategic. What does this essay teach me? The admissions officer. About this student that the rest of the file doesn’t.

So here’s where I also want to emphasize the following. Admissions officers are people too, right? They’re not robots, they’re human beings and they have emotions. So one of the things that we wanna keep in mind as a kind of like an umbrella concept, when we’re gonna talk about everything else, is that we’re trying to impact these human beings.

So if we’re able to write an essay that’s very moving, or that’s captivating, or that’s authentic, right? That’s real. We increase the probability that the human being that’s reading that essay is gonna feel more connected, attached. And when they feel that, when that happens, when we’re able to have that connection, you know, it’s also going to increase the likelihood that this person is gonna, you know, vouch for you within those committees and say, you know, this applicant has a great application, et cetera, right?

So that’s something we wanna always keep in mind. But in terms of how they evaluate them specifically, so the first thing is authenticity. Does this essay sound real or does it sound or feel manufactured? And believe me, admissions readers can definitely sense when a student is just trying to impress them or trying to hard or being disingenuous.

They’ve read so many of these essays that they already know one thing from the other. Right? And me being a part of the essay review team here at CollegeAdvisor, that’s something that you know, always happens from the good intention of a student to applicant wanting to write a good essay. Sometimes they make the mistake in just writing something that’s not really genuine or sincere, that they’re just trying to impress or trying to say what they think someone else wants them to say.

College admissions officers also understand that difference, so that’s one of the things that they definitely look for. The second thing is depth of reflection, not just storytelling, right? So. Because telling a story isn’t enough, right? It’s about the reflection, like, what did you learn? How did you change?

Why does that matter to you? Right? Because anyone can tell a story or even a good story, but it’s not so much the story itself because remember that not everyone is gonna have the same life experiences, right? So it’s not gonna be, you know, the case where they’re going to privilege someone’s application over another because they might have had certain experiences or were, you know, allowed a certain experiences that others just, you know, didn’t have the opportunity to have.

You know? So it’s not the story itself, it’s not the experience itself, but it’s the depth of the reflection, right? That’s what they’re really looking for. Another thing is specificity, right? So being overly general in an essay, not good, right? So we’ve definitely heard, you know, the idea of, you know, you need to show, not just tell generalities are kind of along that same vein.

So. Vague essays just blur things, but specific details like moments, conversations, decisions, anecdotes, those create what we call memorability. The more specific we are, the more memorable we are. And obviously that helps towards our cause in getting accepted. They also access clarity, right? So is the writing coherent?

Is it structured? Is something being communicated effectively? Right? So having that sort of understanding of how to tell a story well also helps, but in the sense of clarity. So since it’s just one element that’s not, you know, everything, but it is a part of it, you know, being clear, um, is, is important because strong writing also signals academic readiness in a different way than test scores does.

But it also signals academic readiness, right? And in university, independent of what major you are, you’re gonna have to write. So it’s also important. Here’s where alignment sometimes matters too. Not always, but it might matter. So here’s where we go back to what we said before about context. Depends where you’re applying.

It could matter, right? So if a specific college values collaboration, for example, I don’t know, or intellectual exploration or civic engagement in the, in the example of Princeton, you know, they value civic engagement a lot. If that’s the case, you know, does the student’s voice resonate with our values?

That’s a question that you know could be asked and could be taken into account. When we are writing one of these essays, does it mean that we have to try to align our essay with their values? No, because we can be authentic and genuine and sincere, but it is something that we can take into account and that they might also take into account.

And I think the last thing is being very distinctive, right? So remember as I said before, admissions officers read thousands and thousands of essays. So the question becomes, you know, really, will I remember this student at the committee? Is this essay something that stood out to me? So if we are able to have a resounding yes to that question, we’ve done a very good job with our essays and we’re probably giving ourselves a pretty good shot at being accepted.

Because at the end of the day, you know, essays aren’t just read, they’re discussed, right? So one of the things that stands out often is. The conversation that can be created between admissions officers because of the essay that we wrote. So, um, that’s something important to take into account in terms of how they evaluate it.

Okay. Now going back to test scores for a moment, we always ask this question, right? When can submitting test scores significantly help or hurt, or at least now when a lot of these are are optional. So in this sense, you know, this is where strategy really matters. Submitting test scores can absolutely help, but only when they reinforce your academic strength.

So how can we understand this? So if you are at, you know, above or around the school’s middle 50% range in terms of like the scores that they, um, or the scores that students that they have. Admitted, get that score definitely adds confidence to your file. So basically, you know, if we are within a school’s typical range, it’s gonna help us.

But before moving on to the rest of the points, you know, we also have to remember that in terms of strategy, we maybe want to sometimes make the application process easier. So we say, okay, if it’s optional, then why do it? I’m not gonna do it right, because that just will make my life easier. But always remember when it’s optional, that means that other students are going maybe to submit test scores.

So you can be at a disadvantage if you and another student are basically the same across the board with everything else, but they submitted a test score and did well, and you didn’t submit a test score. So. Beyond the question of, you know, when can they be significant to help or hurt? We all, we should also remember that we should always give ourselves a shot, right?

So unless your school doesn’t accept test scores, always study for one, take 1, 1, 2, maximum three times. Give yourself the best possible chance at having a good test score. And after having done that, then ask the question of whether you want to submit them or not. But don’t rid yourself of the chance of having a good test score by just saying, yeah, I’m just not gonna take the test.

Um, okay, that being said, so, um, let’s remember that test scores, it’s not just about what range we are in and whether it helps application, but they can also be very useful for merit scholarships, especially for, you know, for STEM majors. Um, a lot of scholarships are dependent on being able to hit certain markers or certain things.

Right. That’s why some institutions still rely very heavily on score thresholds when awarding aid. But at the same time, for STEM heavy majors, particularly engineering or any quantitative field for that matter, strong math scores definitely reinforce readiness. So they’re helpful for both of those cases.

If you’re looking for scholarships and you know, you’re, the school that you’re applying to gives them based on the sort of merit. Obviously test scores are super important and for STEM majors, having strong math course math scores is gonna be very important. But here’s the flip side. So that’s what can help, right?

But if a score, you know, again, after having given yourself the opportunity, after studying, doing your best, doing it one, two, maximum three times, if your score still falls below the schools range, now it’s when we begin to say that submitting it, if you have the option to submit or not, if it’s not, you know, uh, an obligation.

Now it can begin to weaken your positioning. So obviously in this case, you don’t want to introduce doubt where none, you know, is needed to exist. So this is more of just claim it safer. So if it is the case where I didn’t do as well as I thought I could, then in that case, you know, if I’m not, you know, within that middle range, if I’m below that range, then probably not, right?

Because now you’re, you’re probably gonna hurt yourself more than you would help yourself in submitting the score. So remember that the question is not emotional, is strategic. Does this number make my application stronger, yes or no? If yes, submit, if not, then let the rest of your application and story and your essays carry the weight of what your test score couldn’t.

So with this. We also come to the question of how can we decide whether we want to submit scores at a test optional school? So again, going a little bit deeper and more specific into the previous slide, this decision should not be based on pride or fear or what your neighbor’s doing. You know, because this person submitted the test score than I should too, right?

Start with data. So what I talked about before in the previous slide, look up or research the school’s middle 50% score range, meaning from the applicants that they admit. What’s the middle range? If you are comfortably with thin or above that range, submitting is likely going to strengthen your application.

If you’re well below, well then it’s not. And remember that numbers don’t exist in a vacuum. And here’s maybe the nuance of of this slide, right? Your transcript’s gonna come first. If you have a very strong GPA and rigorous courses, that already sends a powerful academic signal. So those other elements also compliment your score.

And that’s where it just really creates a dynamic where it’s not static, but you know, it’s very variable, right? It could be one thing, it could be something else. Your major matters too, right? So if you get a seven 60 in the math section, you know it might carry more weight for engineering than for English.

So context also shapes the impact of, of your test score. Um, also consistency is important, right? Did you test once and underperform compared to your academic history, or do your scores align with your class classroom performance? So admission readers also look for coherence, right? If we have a very low GPA, but a very high standardized test score, although it’s going to help, they also are going to be able to, you know, notice that that lack of coherence between two things.

And on the flip side too, if I have a very strong GPA. And maybe not the best standardized test score, they might say, okay, so maybe that day when that student took that test, they didn’t do as well as they thought, but we can see based on other factors and elements that the student is academically strong, right?

So consistency is, is something that we should also take into account, um, when deciding to, you know, to, to submit or not. And again, you know, scholarships, all of the things that we said before. You know, ultimately it’s, it’s a decision based on how we want to position ourselves. You’re building a case for yourself, so every component you should admit should reinforce that case that you’re trying to build.

And obviously it’s a positive case of why you want to accept me, so we want to reinforce it. Not complicated. So having clarity on that strategy is going to beat ego every time, because sometimes because of. You know, maybe our ego, we wanna submit a score, right? We, we don’t wanna be the ones that are left out and that didn’t submit a score.

We don’t wanna think about it that way. We, we wanna be as strategic as possible and at the end of the day, make the best with what we have. Now in this second to last slide, if I’m not mistaken, so how about in terms of context and opportunity for impact in how applications are read? So as we’ve kind of stressed within this webinar, colleges read applications in context, meaning they’re going to evaluate students based on the envi, the environment they had access to, right?

Not just some abstract national standard, because not every city’s the same. Not every school is the same. Not every family dynamic is the same. Not every story is the same, right? So they do read applications within that context. So for, for example, right, if a school only offers five APs and a student takes all five, you know, that’s rigor.

But they’ve also done as much as they can, right? They couldn’t do more. They just, there wasn’t any more options, right? So they’re not going to penalize this student in comparison to someone that did eight APs or 10 APs or something like that. Right? Now, if another school offers 20 and a student only takes two APs, you know, that begins to tell a different story.

So that’s where context really, really matters, right? And it matters for everything. You know, family responsibilities matter too. You know, there, there are students in high school that they have to work part-time, right? They have to help their family meet ends. Uh, they have to care for their siblings possibly, right?

Um, maybe they have parents that have certain language barriers in the US or what, whatever country they’re in. So they have to translate for their parents and be, you know, on top of a whole bunch of other things that, you know, typically high school students don’t have to worry about. Right? So those experiences too, they shape how time and opportunity are distributed.

College admissions officers also take that into account. So it’s important to understand how applications are read on a general sense, because that also shapes how an essay is going to be read. How a standardized test scores going to be. Read. How all of these things are going to be read. You know, access also plays a role, right?

So, you know, certain students might have access to tutoring and testing centers, research programs, summer opportunities. Not every student has the same runway, right? They also take that into account overall. What admissions officers often look for is initiative. Right, relative to circumstance. I’ll repeat that because it’s very important they look for initiative relative to circumstance.

In other words, what did the student do with what they could have done? Did the student stretch within their environment? Did they seek out what was available? Or did they take the more comfortable route of just doing something easy within what they could have done? Right? Did they try to, you know, succeed beyond maybe what they had available?

Right? These are the things that they also look at initiative relative to circumstance. So if the circumstance does not allow for much, okay, within that pool of not much, what did the student do? If the circumstance allowed for a lot, what did the student do? Right? So these things are also important to take into account.

So. It is not it. I do wanna be clear here. So it’s not that context lowers standards. No. Right. What it does is clarify achievement because potential isn’t measured only by resources, right? It’s measured by what you did, right? What you had. So here’s where a test score between two stu two students, even though it might be the same test score, it’s not gonna tell the same story.

That context begins to matter there, right? So these things are also important to take, to take into account within, you know, the question of essays and test scores and what matters most within college admissions. And to conclude, right? Maybe to give some final advice within, within the context of these questions.

So let’s, let’s break everything back to kind of the core question of, of today’s webinar, right? So test scores and essays serve different functions. But they are not competitors. They are complementary signals. They work together. They work in tandem. So academics, including testing when submitted, establishes academic readiness.

You know, they answer, can you handle the work? Can you handle the rigor, can you handle the curriculum? Essays do something very different. They create differentiation, as we said before. They answer questions like, why you? What perspectives do you bring? What kind of thinker are you? What kind of person are we going to allow within our college campus community?

So remember that these two have to work together because at the end of the day, you know, what we wanna do is submit the best application possible. Because a high score, as we said in the beginning, is not gonna be able to compensate for a flat. Generic application that didn’t differentiate, that’s not unique.

But at the same time, the most beautiful essay is not gonna be able to erase major academic gaps or test score gaps at highly selective institutions. So that balance matters, right? But here’s what families often miss. And what I want to kind of emphasize towards the end, at the most competitive schools, again, many applicants or academically qualified.

So if we’re gonna talk about highly selective schools, competitive schools, Ivy League schools, the academic part is kinda like a prerequisite that you have to be able to, uh, to get to. If you don’t have the, the range of the GPA or the range of the test scores, you’re really putting yourself at a disadvantage, but.

Assuming that you’re able to be within the scores and the ranges and, and the GPAs that give yourself a shot, that’s where voice reflection, authenticity are going to shape the final conversation. So, I all, in all, maybe instead of asking what matters more, it’s more about asking which part of my application is strongest, and how do I make sure the other components support it, right?

Because that’s what you can control. That’s something that’s within your reach. And all in all, you know, admissions is less about perfection. It’s about coherence, it’s about strategic positioning, it’s about context, it’s about circumstance. It’s about what we did with what we had available, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But in terms of what matters most to college admissions, the answers going to be everything matters. Context will, you know, make differences. There might be some things that outweigh one thing or the other depending on the context. But all in all, as maybe we’ve seen with this webinar, all of these things matter because balance is the most important thing.

Lydia: All right. Thank you so much. That is the end of the presentation portion of our webinar, but we are not done for tonight. Uh, I hope you found that part helpful. And remember, you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab. We’re now gonna move into the live q and a where I will read through the questions that you all have submitted in the q and a tab, and Manuel will get an opportunity to answer them.

Um, you can continue to submit questions if you haven’t already. We’ll keep going until the end of the hour. And as a heads up, if your q and a tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

You can also try logging out and logging back in through the link in your email, um, to access it as well. So to get us started, the first question that I see is, I am a freshman in Thailand in an IB program. Should I be taking AP classes online to do over the summer to show rigor?

Manuel: Good. That’s a very good question.

So I’m gonna answer it in the context of having applied to Princeton from Canada and having also done the IB program, having taken no AP courses. So, um, the answer is, is going to be no, you know, it’s not going to be necessary for you to look for AP classes online because the IB program is also very reputable, rigorous academic program.

So here’s where we go back to what I had mentioned earlier, circumstance, right? So not every circumstance is gonna be the same, and that is very, very true for international students, right? You have different countries, different academic systems, regulations, you know, the design for how high school works, all of these different things.

So. Admissions officers understand that context too. So when they see an application and they see, for example, in your case, uh, an applicant from Thailand, or if they see someone from Africa or from South America or from Europe or you know, from wherever it is, they take that into account. So they’re always going to analyze your case based on your circumstance.

And they also, you know, are going to understand when a school doesn’t offer IB and also doesn’t offer ap, right? Because that all that, that also happens. So the answer to the question is, you know, I don’t see it being necessary because being in the IB program, you’re already kind of fulfilling that requirement of having a rigorous program.

Right? But if the question is more of. Should I worry about what program I’m currently in? The answer should be no because you can’t really control that. So it’s more about doing the best that you can with what you have available. So if that’s the ib, great. Do the best that you can with the ib. If it’s the ap, great.

Do the best that you can with the AP and what AP courses are being offered at at your high school. If it’s an neither, doesn’t matter. Do the best that you can with what is being offered. Try to find what are the rigorous courses that you can take, what aligns with what majors you want to take, and just do the best that you can with whatever is being offered to you.

Lydia: Yeah, definitely agree. Um, and I would just say the only time I’ve seen that be beneficial is like you were saying, um, where maybe a student had a specific class. Like even if their school did offer AP or ib, they, there was a specific class they really wanted to take that their school didn’t offer, and so they self-study it and that showed just motivation of them finding.

It’s something that they could do online to still explore it. But that’s a good point. It’s definitely not, yeah, it’s definitely not like a requirement. If you’re already at a school that offers those advanced classes, don’t feel like you need to be also doing ap or if you go to a school that offers ap, you don’t need to be also taking IB classes.

Um, this one is also from an international student. They’re asking if you live in a different country other than America and you want to apply to an American university, should you be taking a standardized test and how do you study for it? And which one should you take?

Manuel: Okay, good, good. This is also an important question because not all countries are gonna be familiar with an with what an ACT is or an ACT, right?

So here it’s more about what the university you’re applying to requires, right? So even if you’re from a different country, if the school that you’re applying to for international students is requiring a certain test. Well, there’s the answer to your question. What test should I take? Well, that one, the one that they’re asking for now in terms of, you know, how should you study?

So there’s a lot of different questions. There’s a lot of different answers to that question, right? And it really depends on resources, on what’s available. Um, but what I would say is, you know, if you can get a tutor, great. If you can subscribe to a program, great. If you have the e the e economic means for that, that’s awesome.

But there’s a lot of, you know, information online. There’s so many free courses, there’s so many YouTube, um, I, I don’t know if, if, if I call them courses, but they have almost all the information that you could want. There’s practice tests that you can find online. So there’s definitely like a lot of like self initiative that if you search enough, you’re gonna find information, you’re gonna be able to study, you’re, you’re gonna be able to kind of have.

The content that you would need to understand what the test is about. What do they ask? What are the sections? How long is it? Um, beyond that, what I would say, you know, depending on the country that you’re in, you definitely do wanna find out what is available to you in terms of testing centers or where it is that you could even take the test because, you know, it might be the case that it’s not as simple as you might think.

So obviously there’s so many countries in this world that I’m not gonna be able to give an overview of what every country has or doesn’t have. But what I would say is that you definitely want to start researching for your specific country and context, what that might mean. And after you have the information, how can you resolve or how can you, you know, figure out how you can take that test?

Um, what I have understood in certain cases where it is actually, you know, beyond the students, uh. Capacity to be able to take a test. You know, you could also have that be presented to the university. Say, listen, I’m this applicant, I wanna do my application, but I’m having this, you know, um, this issue with, with this part of the application.

And universities tend to also be pretty understanding and also try to help you out so that you can see what you can do and what you can’t do and what requirements they might be more flexible on. Um, but all, but again, that really, really depends on the context of the country and, and everything else.

Lydia: Um, another question we have is about academics. So you talked about for highly selective colleges, you know, academics kind of being a prerequisite. What is generally considered a strong GPA for selective universities?

Manuel: Okay, good. So, um, if we convert O-A-C-G-P-A, ’cause I know that, you know, different countries have, have different, uh, scoring systems.

You know, the closest that you can get to, to that 4.0 better, right? Basically the answer is gonna be the closest that you can get to it better. Um, obviously talking about, you know, when, when it’s just on, on, on the 4.0, I know that you can have, uh, scores that go beyond the four, but if we’re, if we’re gonna stick to, to that four, you know, in, in my experience, I would say anything between a three, seven to a four, you’re giving yourself a pretty solid chance.

Once you get between 3, 5, 3, 7, you’re still good. You know, you’re, you can still be competitive, but you’re definitely at a, at a bit of a disadvantage below 3.5. Pushing it a little bit. You, you would definitely have to have other components in your, in your application that are really strong to make up for it.

Um, so, you know, generally speaking, three, seven and above. Great. Between 3, 5, 3 7. Still good below three five. Uh, definitely gonna wanna, you know, structure your, your application so that other components, you know, kind of make up for that difference.

Lydia: Yeah, I think that’s helpful context. I was looking at another question here that was asking, like, basically are grades used as a filter?

And I think what you’re saying here is every application is viewed, everyone gets a shot. Mm-hmm. But there is just a much higher chance when you are above exactly that threshold. Yes,

Manuel: exactly.

Lydia: I I, I know in my experience, students who got in, who had below a three five, let’s say someone with like a 3.1, 3.2 GPA, usually those were students that had some very strong reason that they were being admitted otherwise.

Like Exactly, they brought something, they filled some sort of gap like you were talking about before. Whether it was on a sports team or a niche major or something like that, that was really hard for them to fill.

Manuel: Exactly.

Lydia: Otherwise. Or they had a coach advocating for them or something like that.

Manuel: Mm-hmm.

Lydia: Um, so we’re gonna take just a brief pause before we go back into the q and A here for me to talk a bit about CollegeAdvisor. So for those in the room who aren’t already working with us CollegeAdvisor has over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process and one-on-one advising sessions and essay editing through our digital platform, CollegeAdvisor has had.

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So increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 60 minute strategy session with admission specialist on our team using the QR code on the screen. And during this meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out.

And at the end you’ll also learn more about the premium packages that we offer, that pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and much more. We’re here for the whole process. All right. Um, another question we have is, is there any disadvantage to taking the SAT more than once if the subsequent attempt is higher, is the number of attempts in an issue at all to admissions officers?

Manuel: Okay, so, um, the answer would be no. Right? So I think more the disadvantages on your mental health. If you take it 4, 5, 6 times, I think it’s just more like what you did to yourself to, to take it that many times. Um, but within like a normal range, you know, a university is, is not really gonna take that into account.

They’re gonna take into account the score that you’re submitting, right? That’s really what they’re gonna. Want to see the most because it, it’s normal. You know, if you’ve taken an SAT once, I mean, it’s normal. You’ve never taken it before. So I mean, you’ve, yeah, you’ve never taken it before, so you don’t really know how it is, the pressure, the time, et cetera.

So it’s very normal for students to take it once, twice in maximum three times, like within that range, between one to three. It’s normal, right? Because it’s, it’s also a performance, right? It’s you being there. It’s, it’s very similar to, uh, athletics. Like you might practice a lot in the practice test.

You’re, you know, hitting out of the park, everything is going great, but performing day of, you know, it’s, it’s different, right? So sometimes we perform well, sometimes we don’t perform as well. So giving yourself a shot, perform better, um, multiple times. Is it, it’s okay. Uh, so I would say, uh, no, it’s not a disadvantage, but if you start taking it too many times, I think it’s more about what you did to yourself, uh, mentally.

That would be the disadvantage.

Lydia: Definitely understand that. Um, another question that we have is about essays. So you mentioned that readers want, or admissions readers want there to be an alignment with institutional values. How can students do research on what those values are and connect them to themselves while still being authentic since they’re applying to multiple schools that might have different personalities?

Manuel: Okay, good, good. So here, there’s, there’s different, uh, components to the answer for this, for this question. So the first thing is that remember that there are different sorts of essays. So we have the main personal statement, common app essay, you know, if it’s a common app school, which is like the longer general essay about ourselves, but there’s also supplemental essays, right?

And the supplemental essays is where like these big Ivy League or prestigious schools, competitive schools, they’re gonna ask. School specific questions like why here, for example, right? Or they’re gonna give you the opportunity to demonstrate your specific interest within that school. Um, so even if you’re applying to multiple schools, you know, maybe you’re not gonna be able to distinguish that institutional alignments within your general personal statement essay, but you definitely are gonna have the opportunity to do it within your supplemental essays.

Um, so where do you get this information? Well, the good thing is that all these universities have websites. And they’re typically very, you know, vocal about, you know, their mission, their vision, what they wanna do. Um, so the first step would be to start researching, right? Go on Google, research the school, enter their website, and just click around.

You know, every website’s gonna be different, but they’re gonna have a lot of information. Start looking at their majors, start looking at their academic programs, their curriculum. Start looking at what professors they have, you know, do they have professors that are, that are famous, that have written very famous books, or that give famous conferences, right?

What courses do they teach? What are those courses about? So when you are writing those supplemental essays, you know, dropping the name of a course, you know, sometimes it’s good because you say like, oh, and, and I’m interested in, I don’t know, professor X with their, with their course on, on something and their research on, on this, this topic because I feel that it really aligns with what I wanna do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right?

So, um, first answer is. You’re probably not gonna align too much in your main personal statement, but you will definitely have the opportunity to align within the supplemental essays. And where do you get that information? On their website, they have a lot of info, so you’re gonna be able to really understand, uh, what the university is and what they believe and what they wanna do, what, et cetera.

Lydia: All. Um, last question that we have is about finding your personal voice or your personal brand. Do you have any advice for how a student can figure out what that is and how they can show it in their essay without seeming too eccentric or assuming like they’re pulling gimmicks and stunts to stand out?

Manuel: Okay. Definitely a very philosophical question. Um, but I would say, you know, the, the first step is just doing a lot of self-reflection, right? Just think, uh, talk with yourself. You know, what have I lived? Who am I? Where did I come from? Who’s my family? Um, these sorts of questions will begin to help you kind of understand, you know, maybe who you are.

What am I interested in, what hobbies do I have when I think about the future, what do I wanna do? What do I wanna accomplish? What’s important to me? Um, so self-reflection is definitely very important. First, interview yourself. Get to know yourself once you have, you know, kind of maybe that process done.

Um, you know, the essay writing process is, is kind of like, uh, a marble statue. You’re gonna begin with a gigantic block and you’re gonna have to Chile away at it, right? So at first it’s not gonna be pretty, it’s probably gonna sound, you know, the essay is not gonna be good. That’s fine, that’s normal. The first draft is never gonna be good.

But you just, just away at it. You have other people read it, you, you edit it, you have other people read it again, and, and, and, and you begin to kind of just polish it more and more. Until you’re able to have not only the self-confidence that, you know, I’ve written a good essay that really speaks to myself, but that, you know, when other people read it, they kind of understand what it is that I’m trying to say.

One thing that I sometimes say is if your parents were given 10, 20, 30 essays, uh, blind, right? They don’t know whose essays is who. If they can read your essay and say, this is my son, or this is my daughter, you’ve probably done a good job. Right? So the idea is being able to distinguish who you are within that essay, and again, understanding that the process is gonna, you know, it’s gonna take some time and, and that’s normal.

Lydia: Yeah, I, I love that piece about parents. I think that if you’re not sure where to start or how to define who you are or how you become who you are, talking to your parents is a, is a great place to start. They probably have stories that could even be, you know, a starting point for you as like a, you know, anecdote for the beginning of your essay of who you are.

Um, so yeah, friends, family, those are great people to go to if you’re not quite sure. And I always say, you know, when writing an essay, very rarely do I see it work out where a per person, for example, spells out their name and they’re like, my name is Emily, E for extroverted, M for M for maternal, or something like that.

Like. Don’t feel like you have to be really gimmicky like that.

Manuel: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lydia: Or write a poem when you’ve never written poetry before, just because that’s not what anyone else is going to do.

Manuel: Mm-hmm.

Lydia: I think it’s about being authentic and leading with a story, um, that resonates with the people who already know you best can be a good place to start.

But like Manuel said, your your first draft probably isn’t gonna be the thing that you end up sending off to schools, and that’s perfectly fine. And the great thing is, I think everyone here is in 11th grade or earlier. Obviously, you know, it’s March, so we wouldn’t expect seniors to be in here. But even for those of you who are juniors, you still have a good amount of time before those essays need to get sent out to school.

So you can spend your spring break and your summer break thinking about that. Yep. You still have plenty of time to workshop it. Okay. Well, thank you all so much for joining us and coming out tonight, and thank you so much, Manuel, for giving us an amazing presentation. I mean, I’ve worked at admissions, I’ve been with College of Medicine for four years, but I feel like I learned so much just hearing you talk about the process.

So thank you so much for your expertise and for those of you who haven’t been able to scan the QR code and schedule a free assessment with us, please keep this browser open until the webinar officially ends and at that time, you should be directed to the booking page. So that is the end of our session for tonight.

We had a really great time talking to you all about college admissions and thank you all so much for joining us. Have a great night. Bye.

Manuel: Have

Lydia: a

Manuel: good night.