How Admissions Officers Make Decisions

Webinar Transcription

08-26-2026-How Admissions Officers Make Decisions

Lonnie: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. My name is Lonnie Burrell, and I will serve as your moderator for tonight’s webinar. Welcome to CollegeAdvisor’s webinar entitled, “How Admissions Officers Make Decisions.” To alert everyone with the webinar timing, we will first begin with our live presentation, and then we’ll have the opportunity to answer your questions during our live Q&A.

Lonnie: Just a, um, one note that I want to make, if you would like to follow along, we do have our handouts that are readily available to you. You can download them by visiting the Handouts tab, and they will be there for you. Uh, without further ado, let’s go ahead and meet our presenter.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Thank you so much, Lonnie.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Hello, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are logging in tonight. I am Dr. Aya [00:01:00] Waller-Bey, and I’m your presenter tonight. I’m super excited to present to you all about how admissions officers make decisions and to answer your questions later in the presentation.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: To tell you a little bit about me, I often like to begin with establishing that I am a proud first-generation college student, which means I was the first person in my family to graduate from a four-year university, and I am from Detroit, Michigan. I earned my bachelor’s at the, uh, Georgetown University, excuse me, where I also became an admissions officer and coordinator of multicultural recruitment.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: After my tenure in admissions, I earned my master’s in philosophy of education at the University of Cambridge in England as a recipient of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, and then I also completed my PhD in sociology at the University of Michigan, go Blue, um, where I studied college admissions and college admissions essays.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So I have a lot of experience discussing and talking about and researching the college admissions process, and I’ve been supporting young people with CollegeAdvisor [00:02:00] going on six application cycles. So again, super excited to talk to you all about how admissions officers make decisions and to answer your questions later on.

Lonnie: Great. Very, very impressive background. Thank you, Dr. Aya. So before she gets into her presentation, ’cause she has a lot to share with you all, we would love to know what grade you are in. So for those who are attending with us live, please share with us so we can just have the opportunity to, you know, maybe touch on some points that might related to your grade level.

Lonnie: Um, but it just gives a sense of who is in the live space with us this evening. And I see the responses are rapidly coming in. I’m gonna just give it five more seconds, and then I’m gonna read the responses out loud. Okay. Thank you to everyone for filling out our poll. So Dr. Aya, we have [00:03:00] 43% of our live audience right now are in the 12th grade.

Lonnie: Followed by that, we have 35% that are in the 11th grade, 17% are in the 10th grade, and under 1% are in the ninth grade, as well as other. Um, so with that said, I will now turn it over to you to kick us off in our presentation

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Lonnie. Awesome. So we have some great diversity, but naturally we have a lot of seniors.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And I also should have said, um, I’m hoping everyone has an amazing start of their academic year. So for those who’ve started school already, I hope the school year is phenomenal for you all, and for those who will be starting after Labor Day, I’m wishing you all the best and much success. All right, so, um, in thinking about how admissions officers make decisions, we first need to talk about what do AO’s do.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You know, what are the key factors that we or admissions officers typically base their, their [00:04:00] decisions on. So first and foremost, admissions officers are evaluating applicants. They are looking at your application profile, and they’re making decisions based on whatever institutional priorities that their respective institution has.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And when we say applicant profile, we’re talking about the various components that make up your, your package, right? So they’re looking at your high school, the demographics of your high school. And when we say demographics, we’re saying, you know, what percentage of students who are going to four-year universities.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Is it a public school? Is it a private school? What’s your class size? You know, um, does your school rank? Um, is it in a urban center? Is it suburban? Is it a rural institution? So all these, you know, factors are relates, as they relate to your high school and its demographics. Naturally, your academic background, your high school transcript, your record of achievement across time.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Test scores, where appropriate or if you choose to submit them, and the [00:05:00] rigor. So not simply what classes you are taking, but how you are performing in the classes that you do take. Naturally, they’re looking at your academic focus. What did you say you want to study, if you did decide to make a decision?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: We know that students often change majors, and it’s okay to be undeclared and undecided. I often like to share with families that when I speak to my colleagues currently working as admissions officers, I’m hearing more and more that they actually miss the undecided student. Students have, you know, increasingly have decided, “I want to be a computer scientist,” and that is the, the plan that they have starting in, you know, ninth grade.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Where some students, back in the day I would say, there was a little bit more flexibility as far as how students were thinking about what they would study. So again, if you do choose, you know, if you check the box psychology, you check the box government, they are looking at your academic focus. Also, individual qualities.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: How are you showing up in your current community, in the [00:06:00] classroom, outside of the classroom, in your family? What brings you joy? What do you get excited about? What do you love, and what do you do well? And then finally fit, right? Super important. Where’s the alignment? If you articulate in your application that you really want to be somewhere green, somewhere rural, you know, applying to a campus in downtown Atlanta may not show alignment with the best fit, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they’re looking at fit. And then as we think about largely what admissions officers do, they’re making admissions decisions and recommendations, right? So they are either solely deciding with themselves or their colleagues or with a committee, or they’re making recommendations. “I think you should recommend these five students for admissions given all these factors, um, given all of these, these aspects of their academic profile.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So roughly that’s what admissions officers do. They also give admissions presentations, which we don’t talk about, but when you visit campuses, [00:07:00] you often might receive a presentation, right, from an admissions officers as well. That used to be my favorite part of the job, honestly. So I used the words institutional priorities earlier, and I wanted to clarify what I mean by that.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So it’s important to realize that universities and admissions officers are building a class. So they’re taking into consideration various priorities or aspects that universities need to keep the lights on. So there might be departmental needs. There might be that a university needs, you know, as X amount of historians or X amount of, um, psychologists or X amount of nurses, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They need to make sure there’s a certain amount of students in particular majors to make the major viable financially. You know, so departmental needs. Relationships. So universities have all types of relationships with schools, [00:08:00] communities, programs. So a university might, um, have students a part of like the Questbridge program, um, that participates in a matching program for students who select certain schools, they might be matched.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So the university says, “We have to take X amount of students from the Questbridge program.” Or some schools might have religious affiliations. I attended Georgetown, which is a Jesuit school, so we had relationships with Jesuit high schools, right? Or, uh, charter school networks, um, or just regional programs.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So there are relationships that universities are also considering as it relates to their institutional priorities. Now, geographic representation. You might hear universities or admissions officers during presentations say, “We have one student from all 50 states and Puerto Rico and Guam.” You know, some universities really get excited about saying, “We have students from, from Idaho to Wyoming to New Jersey represented at our school.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Or they [00:09:00] might say, “We have students represented from 125 countries in the world,” right? They wanna show that geographical, uh, diversity. Then you have the enrollment camps… you- caps, and you see this largely for public universities, right? Whose sole purpose is supposed to be to educate the residents of that state.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they might prioritize in-state applications, and we know in-state tuition tends to be cheaper than out-of-state. So they might have to have, you know, 70/30 or- You know, at least 60%. Well, we know in states like Michigan and, and schools like University of Michigan, that tend to be a lot more selective, where you might see almost same number in-state versus out-of-state, which can be, um, concerning to some residents.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: But we know that universities sub- are often trying to balance the in-state versus out-of-state. So that can be, and often is, an institutional priority. And then finances, right? We cannot ignore finances. That is the elephant in the room [00:10:00] currently as folks or universities are thinking about shifts, uh, as it relates to ins- international students, the different priorities that they have to acknowledge in these current times, and finances is one of them.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they might look at are you a student that is a full pay student? Like are your… Is your family able to afford without any financial aid, without any scholarships, without any institutional aid? Um, and then there’s need-blind or need-aware policies. Need-blind meaning if, you know, students… Or excuse me, universities are evaluating your application, um, outside of the context of whether or not you can afford to pay.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Those are need-blind. I attended a school that met 100% of demonstrated need. It was need-blind, so I got, you know, my education fully funded, uh, when I went to Georgetown. And then you have schools that are need-aware, right? So depending on where you fall, if you’re like a middle of the road applicant, they might see, “Hmm, does this student need $50,000 to attend if we accept them, or do they only need [00:11:00] $5,000?”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And then they might make a decision based on that as well. So again, lot of different institutional priorities that admissions officers and universities are often taking into consideration when they are making decisions So I talked a little earlier about applicant profile or application, right? And most, uh, there’s a lot of seniors here, so hopefully you’ve already created your Common App profile, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: On August 1st, the Common App revealed itself again, so you can create your profile, input your demographic data, you know, um, college-going status, whether or not you’re a first generation college student like I was, or maybe second, third, fourth generation. Geography, where do you live, right? Um, gender identity, and then also race and ethnicity.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And we’ll… You’ll see this caveat here. In 2023, the s- uh, United States Supreme Court ruled, uh, against race-conscious admissions practices, so ultimately ending affirmative action as, as we often talk about it. Um, so there [00:12:00] are different ways that, uh, the racial and ethnic identities are used by admissions officers.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They have to be very, uh, mindful of that, um, because there are legal, uh, parameters surrounding the way race is or is not, um, considered, right? But the demographic data is a part of the applicant application profile. And then you have the academics. High school type, as I mentioned earlier, public, private, independent.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You know, d- what’s your grading system? You know, some schools you get, you know, a, a 90 is a B, in some school. You know, there’s all types of grading scales. Um, do you d- give letter grades? I’ve worked with some private schools when I worked in admissions, and I saw all types of grading systems. There was, like, one through seven at one private school out in Midwest.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they can vary, but they’re gonna look at the high school type, the rigor of curriculum. Does your school offer AP, IB, or dual enrollment? Or do you have a completely different curriculum altogether? Which again, some independent schools and private schools, they really vary, [00:13:00] uh, uh, with that. So again, they’re looking at your academics and the type of offerings your school have.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Remember, admissions officers read in context to your school, okay? And then of course, GPA and rank. People often ask, “What is the most important part of the application?” And we often say on the admission side, your high school transcript, right? How did you perform in the classes that you took, and how did you perform over time?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they’re looking at your GPA, and if your school provides it, your class rank as well. A part of the applicant profile is also standardized test scores, and we know that schools are moving back towards requiring test scores, or I heard recently from a colleague at Rice, test recommended, right? So some schools are recommending, especially if you’re applying to a STEM discipline, they might recommend you submit those scores.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So if you do submit scores, they will be taken into consideration. If you don’t submit scores and the school is test optional, then they, they won’t look at them, right? And then as I mentioned earlier, your major or [00:14:00] your department of interest. Do you want to be in the engineering school? Do you want to be in the, uh, the education school?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Do you wanna be in the nursing school? Those are taken into consideration as, as relates to your a- applicant profile and evaluation. Now, each university has their own type of applicant rating, so this isn’t really standardized. Um, but often when admissions officers are trying to sort students, they’re gonna start again with the academic.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They’re gonna look at that GPA. They’re gonna look at the test score. They’re gonna look at the rank, right? So they’re gonna look at those quanti- uh, the quantitative aspects of the application. And then there’s the curriculum. Have you taken, s- for an example, calculus? Like if you, if you wanna apply to Wharton, right, as an undergraduate student You need to have taken calculus.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So what type of classes have you taken? Have you maxed out the math and started taking classes at the local community college, right? Are you enrolled in dual enrollment? So those, um, more, again, [00:15:00] quantifiable factors are also, are often a part of how universities are rating and sorting at the first level.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And then you have the activities. You have leadership. You have your level of performance and participation. How long have you been a part of the activities that you’re a part of, right? Did you just wait till the fall of senior year to add 20 different clubs to your list? Or, right, did you… Have you been a part of a club since eighth grade or organization since ninth grade or, or 10th grade?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Did you start as a general member and become president? Did you create something? Which I just want to reassure you, you can get into an amazing institution without being a founder. I know a lot of students founding things or creating and building things. That is wonderful and if that is something you are committed to doing and it’s authentic to you, do it.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: But just wanna highlight that you definitely do not have to be a founder or, you know, cure a disease to be successful in the admissions process, right? [00:16:00] Um, but students have a lot of diversity of interest, and activities are important. I also want to note that for students especially, um, who might come from backgrounds where they have familial responsibilities or they might have to work or they might have, you know, limitations because of transportation, you name it, what you do in the household also is important.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So activities also include the babysitting of siblings. It also includes working as a barista at a local coffee shop. It also includes translating documents for parents. It also includes helping to take care of a ailing, uh, grandparent. So familial responsibilities are also a part of that as well So as we think about this, these y- kind of other aspects of the, of the rating or how admissions officers are sorting applicants and making sense of them, they’re also looking at, again, the personal, the brand, the narrative, the story.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, I, I studied college admissions [00:17:00] essays. It’s still one of my favorite parts of the application process, and they want to know how are you talking about your background, where you’re from, your interests, your joys, what brings you sadness, um, what’s… Something you’ve, you know, endured, something you’ve created, something that has inspired you.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They’re gonna look at those activities, as I mentioned earlier, and letters of recommendation. What are your teachers saying about you? What are your counselors, you know, saying about your general performance? I also want to note, because this part gives a lot of people angst, I realize that students and families get concerned where there are parts of the application where other people are speaking for them, which are usually the letters of recommendation.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Admissions officers look at high school profiles and look at the context of high schools for a reason. They know that if you are attending a school that’s 800 folks in your class, and there’s one high school counselor or two high school counselors, that they know that there won’t necessarily be very intimate [00:18:00] details, you know, letters.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Some students and families get really nervous about that because they think that’s g- they’re going to put them at a disadvantage, and that’s not true, right? But thinking about it in the context of your high school. Also, applicant ratings, uh, school fit community, as I mentioned before, and they’re looking at the essay.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: As I gave that example, you say, “I want somewhere rural, green, on the river or on the lake, the ocean,” right? And then you pick a, a, a landlocked university in the middle of a downtown community. It might say, “Hmm, will this student be happy here?” Right? Um, and then overall, the admissions officers are looking at all these pieces, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Especially for schools that are making holistic decisions. They’re looking at your, your essays, your activities, your grades, your test scores, your letters, your experiences, um, high school background, geograph- you know, geographic representation. All those things are together, and then you are assigned some, some, some rating of a sort, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: That helps [00:19:00] admissions officers make decisions.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So I use the word fit, and we hear it a lot. I mean, I feel like, like 15 years ago fit just became it. Fit, fit, fit, fit, fit. But what’s the significance of that, right? So when admissions officers are determining which students are the best match, they’re looking for students who will fit into campus life and culture.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: That doesn’t mean they’re looking into cookie cutter, like everybody has to do the same thing. However, some schools, um, attract certain types of applicants. I’ll say this for someone who went to college in Washington, DC, it attracted a student who was very community-oriented and civically minded, I would say.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You know, we had… At, at one point it was like over 60 students, 60% of, um, students are participating in some community service program, right? Also being in the nation’s capital, there was… Students were very globally minded. So it was like over 80% of students study abroad. You know, those types of things. So, [00:20:00] um, there are ways that students can signal based on their alignment of their interests and backgrounds that say, “This is a school that’s really- Really interested, you know, that I’m really interested in, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Again, students who are going to, to, to college in DC have diverse experiences, backgrounds, and interests, but you’re more likely to find a student who’s interested in studying government or political science at, at a university in DC, right? So fit. How are you interested in campus life and culture? I mean, some universities are known for their very robust Greek life and social activity.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, again, not all students match that. However, if you’re a student that says, “I do not like Greek life, I don’t care about, you know, SAC football or SEC football, and I just, I really wanna put my head down and be engineer,” you know, maybe, you know, some of those larger public universities, uh, at, at, you know, in, in Mississippi or Alabama rather, they, they may not be the best fit for you, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So thinking about matching. [00:21:00] You’re also… There are… Universities are also looking for students who are gonna add to the richness of the community as well. So make no mistake, there is not a kind of cookie cutter profile. Students do have diverse backgrounds, right? And if you are one of those few students, say you’re, like, really interested in environmental science and you’re a rarity because very few students major in that, then that is also something that admissions officers will look at too.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Like, finally we have, you know, some environmental science folks who can, you know, help fill that major, right? Remember I mentioned earlier that academic majors and departments are a part of the institutional priorities a lot of times. And again, you’re, you’re dating, you know? S- sorry, parents, but it, it’s, it’s this idea that it needs to be a fit for not only the university, but more importantly, I would say, you.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: I don’t want you to be miserable and, and neither do the admissions officers. They want to admit people who want to go there and who will be successful. So you really wanna make sure that it’s a good fit [00:22:00] for you based on your personality, your interests, right? So determining that, how, right? How does one consider what is a good fit?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: As I mentioned, academic goals. Does your major and department selection match what the university has available? Right? That’s what admissions officers are thinking. If you say you want to major in journalism But the school does not have journalism as a major. Not a good fit, right? There’s a misalignment.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And I know, I’ve seen students do this. They’re like, “Okay, they don’t have journalism, but let me do English,” which we know those are not the same. Students make it work, but you want to go to a school that has your major at minimum. And if you say, “We- I wanna do this specific research with this specific type of faculty member,” they’re also wondering, “Can we meet your research needs?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Like, will we be able to, to do that?” And also recognizing that so- you know, some universities prioritize graduate students when it comes to research. So if you’re like, “I’m, I’m research-minded, undergraduate research,” and they’re like, “We [00:23:00] actually don’t have a lot of opportunities for that,” might not be a best fit.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Letters of recommendation, right? Do your mentors, your teachers, friends, speak to qualities in you that we see in our students, right? Are, are they talking about the ways that you’re mature or resilient or, again, civically minded and globally minded? Are you excited? Are you a learner? Are you curious, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, they’ll look for those types of, uh, acknowledgments in those letters of recommendation. As I said earlier, essays. What drives you as a person? And will my campus help you fulfill your individual goals as a person as well? So again, admissions officers are hoping that there’s an alignment and that students are not forcing themselves to be something that they’re not.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And I know students get a little nervous about that. It’s like, “Will the university like me?” Well, you wanna go to the place that is, aligns with you. Don’t, don’t force it. And a- and activities, how we contribute to student life once on campus. Listen, [00:24:00] as much as particularly the selective universities are very dedicated to academic achievement and rigor, we know, uh, you know, it’s…

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Hopefully you all are going on college tours and experiencing. Maybe you have a older sibling you visited. Activities are very much a part of student life, so they need people who say, “I go- I’m gonna run for student government. I’m gonna be in theater. I’m gonna create this program. I’m gonna da- you know, join the a cappella and the dance teams.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Universities need students who are gonna contribute to student life on campus. They need RAs, residential assistants. They’re gonna need folks, too, who want to contribute to the community as well. So that’s something that universities also consider, um, when determining which students are the best match.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So I’ve used the word holistic admissions earlier, and it’s something to, to clarify because, again, more selective universities tend to use a holistic application review. So the decision is made in reflection of the application and as a person, right? As a whole, [00:25:00] right? So it’s not looking solely at academics and solely at essays.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: It’s all of it. However, academics, priority forever. Will always be the priority. Some students say, “If I have not so good grades and I write a kick, you know, amazing essay, will I get in?” And usually no, right? Um, the, the academics have to be there because they want you to be successful while on campus. So after academics, looking at essays.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You’re looking at letters of recommendation. You’re looking at background. You’re looking at extracurricular activities and leadership, all of those pieces to the puzzle. So again, the admissions officers make a decision in reflection of all components, right? That includes background, that includes geography, that includes college going stat- going status.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: The burden is on you to paint a clear picture of who you are and your fit with the school, okay? Every admissions officer is working through your application hoping that those puzzles, puzzle pieces fit, and you might have [00:26:00] heard the expression admissions officers are looking for reasons to admit you, and I, I find that to be true.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They, they want to admit really great students that will help them build a really thoughtful, smart, fun, passionate, um, curious class, right? That’s really important for universities. So there are very sta- various stages of review processes, right? So when students or when admissions officers receive applications, there are different internal processes that take place.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Often there’s this initial stage, right? There might be a academic algorithm. Again, most selective and particularly holistic schools don’t often publish cutoffs. They don’t say if you have a 3.5, no, or if you have a 1200, no. They also don’t publish that. You’ll see ranges, right? You look at their common data set.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You’ll look on their website, their median. There are always ranges and averages, okay? 25%, 75%, median, you know, [00:27:00] the middle 50%. So there is something internally though often, you know. If you are applying to a school, say, who accepts 16% of its applicants, which would make it a very highly selective school, if you have a 2.8 GPA, you will probably be kind of cut off in that first, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Because that might signal that you may not be able to perform well at that institution. It might, right? It’s not definitive, they don’t know. But based on the profile of the students that they admit, that might fall below that. And then you have a second stage, admissions officer review, and that varies as well.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So at that stage, we’re reviewing applications. There’s ratings involved, there’s comments, there’s documentation to support ratings. If I’m saying you’re a five out of five, I need to be able to justify that. Or if I’m saying you’re a three out of five, I need to justify why you’re in the middle. Ratings sometimes drive automatic denials, automatic admits, and finally, those applicants that might need to move to further discussion.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: [00:28:00] And in some cases, there is always a second read. So at some universities, you cannot definitively admit, you cannot definitively deny someone without another person signing off on that, a second reader, um, a- as they call it. And then the third stage, the committee review. Not all students go through a committee review, but some schools require it.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, some schools only require it for those who need further discussion. But those may not be clear denials or admits that, you know, the committee review will then probably look at whether or not they should admit that student, waitlist the student if applicable, or ultimately deny them. So there are various stages, and the various eyes that are taking a look at your application.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So the word science is, is interesting here ’cause we, when we think science, we think empirical, we think it’s black and white. But admissions is, is a science and an art at the same time. There’s enrollment management that’s driving the data process, as I mentioned. [00:29:00] Universities need to ensure that they meet their, their yield, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Their goals, their yield goals. And just in case you don’t, don’t know, yield means the percentage of students who accept the offer, like of a, of acceptance, right? So the, if you accept 100 students, um, and 50 decide to come there, then you yield 50%, which is considered decent, you know, pretty high. And then you have more selective universities, usually the, the Ivys and places that usually once students accept, they ultimately go.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They tend to have higher yield. But they, they have goals that they’re trying to meet, and they also have time-dependent kind of review processes, right? We know that the admissions process is cyclical, so in that way it is a science, right? There is a cycle that we all participate in, you know, and we’re currently going through that process right now.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And then you have algorithms at beginning of review an- and at the end of review process. So there’s some beginning, as I mentioned earlier, increasingly there’s some algorithm that is used to assess academic profiles. And then [00:30:00] there might be some predictive modeling that come at the, on the back end, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: How, how many of these students will actually accept the offers? How many students will actually end up in those majors? You know, there’s, there’s some science, there’s some, you know, use of data increasingly to help admissions officers in universities make sense of the applicant pool. We’re seeing in a lot of different shifts as you all, if you watch the news, lot of changes happening in higher ed right now.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So essentially the, the truth, you know, the, the hard truth, the easy truth, the, the important truth, every school is different. So I know some students are gonna ask questions about specific schools. They’re all different. But all are using some enrollment management strategies based on the needs of the universities in some way, in some shape or form, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They also need to keep the lights on. So you will see shifts in priorities, you’ll see shifts in institution, uh, priorities, and majors might change, or buildings might be built or renamed, or you might see [00:31:00] more public health programs, or you might see fewer art history programs. So there are a lot of shifts happening in higher ed as we speak.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So it’s important to look at the admissions data when creating your college list and deciding on the application strategy. You often talk about having reach schools and match schools and likely schools. Some stu- some people say safety, I like to say li- likely schools because truly in 2026, I don’t know if there are truly many safe schools.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: But you want to look at the data, you wanna look at the Common Data Set to really help inform your strategy when creating your college list, and again, and deciding on an application strategy. And by that, are you gonna apply Early Action? Are you gonna apply Early Decision? Or are you gonna wait for Regular Decision?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So definitely think about, um, those factors when making your, your decision for, uh, admissions. So how can you develop an application that is authentic to you but also check off all of the boxes? Really [00:32:00] popular question that we get. Um, students really grapple with this because they want to show that they are a good fit, as I mentioned earlier, but they wanna be true to themselves.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So you want to be honest. I mean, don’t embellish, but you wanna talk about yourself. So often students let other people hijack their applications because they start writing essays about grandparents and parents or other people that they admire, um, and they don’t talk enough about themselves. Admissions officers don’t know what you don’t tell them.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So there, there’s no guessing game. I mean, they don’t have a lot of time, right? They have to read you, and they gotta make… You know, rate you and, and move on, right? There’s thousands of applicants. So you need to make sure you are talking about yourself. You wanna focus on what ignites your passion, what makes you excited, what makes you happy, what brings you joy, what, what keeps you up at night, what are you thinking about?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Have you just, like, discovered some new books, or are you… You know, are… Do you love plants? You know, like, what, what is it? Make it… If you focus on that, it really will [00:33:00] help your application, um, stronger, right? It will really show that you have a passion, that you’re au- you’re authentic, and you’re mindful, you’re thoughtful.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You really want to lean into who you are. And do your research. Understand what’s important to a school, and make sure that aligns with what is important to you. I know, like, when I went through the process, I knew I definitely wanted to be in a city. I knew I wanted, um, to be in a campus that students were very active, whether it was, like, civically or participating in events.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: That was really important to me. I knew I wanted to be in a city like DC. I knew w- I wanted to live largely in the East Coast. That was important to me, right? And I… When I visited and, you know, I heard the admissions presentations, I saw the campus, I liked the style of the campus. All those things were important to me Take tours, speak with current students, alumni, admissions officers.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: If you have students from your high school who graduated who went on to a school that’s on your list, talk to them. If you can, take a tour, whether it’s virtual [00:34:00] or, or in person. Of course, being in person is better, but not… that’s not feasible for everyone. I, I mean, I never visited a university on the West Coast because I just couldn’t afford to do that from Detroit.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: I couldn’t, you know, it was just cost prohibitive. So take tours, speak with current students, alumni, admissions officers, look at their social media. Oh, universities, I mean, they have TikTok pages now, they, they have subs- Substacks and Instagram. So follow their social media. They’re often profiling students or having a day in the life or a get ready with me type of content now, so it can tell you a little bit more about the students.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Okay? And then always, when in doubt, ask for help. Ask for help with your application strategy, your essay writing, activities list. Ask family, friends, counselors, or folks like us here at CollegeAdvisor. So ask for help, okay? It, it really takes a village, um, in a lot of ways. So as we wrap up and, and transition to the Q&A portion of [00:35:00] the conversation, here are just a few last insights.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: As an applicant, try not to obsess over the science. You might say, “Dr. Aya, you just did a whole presentation talking about this stuff.” But don’t obsess over it because there’s only so much you can do, right? You need to think about what’s in your control. That’s that personal statement, right? If you’re applying regular decision, that, that means doing the best you can this first semester of your senior year.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, that means making sure your activities list is thoughtful and descriptive and colorful. That means staying on your time, your deadlines, your timelines, right? That means building a college list that has those reach schools, but also has some match and target schools for you. You know? So think about what you can control, right?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Every school is different and decision-making is driven internally by so many different factors, and a lot of amazing students get rejected from their first choices every year. And it’s sad and it’s heartbreaking. It happened to me. I will [00:36:00] not disclose what school that was. Um, but I ended up in the most, I mean, the best place I could have ever ended up, and that was at Georgetown.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So everything happens for a reason. Again, focus on what is important to you as a student. Does the school align with your values and principles? Okay? You can google them and click the news tab and just see what comes up, and just see if there’s an alignment there, right? Again, a lot of universities are in the news.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Follow that. Just see what’s happening, okay, on, on the campuses you might be interested in. And in terms of application components, please don’t collect extracurriculars. Please don’t say, “Let me just join 25 clubs so I could put that on my resume or activities list.” You can’t even put that many, um, in the Common App, and then for the UCs, you could add a few more, but do not collect them.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Also, you don’t have time for that. Choose letter writers that will write you meaningfully… You know, meaningful, strong letters. Caveat being we know not all students have access, uh, access to counselors who know them [00:37:00] well. I had three counselors by the time I graduated from high school. I was lucky I got a good letter.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, I think I got into most of the schools, so, like, maybe. But there is context around that. So please make sure, um, you don’t beat yourself up if you’re like, “My counselor doesn’t know me that well.” Um, write essays about your passions. Don’t try to say, “Oh, let me write about this because this is what admissions officers, you know, wanna hear.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, and also, as someone who studies trauma in college admissions essays, do not feel compelled or like you have to talk about your pain or your deepest, darkest secrets, okay? Co- the college personal statement is not a diary. And then balance your academics so you can perform well while also pursuing rigorous, uh, coursework.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You want to do well in the classes you take. If you’re taking all APs and IBs and you, you have all Cs, it’s not gonna do you any good, okay? So you wanna do well, and you wanna protect that mental health, which is so important, okay? And again, build a bal- balanced college list to ensure you have [00:38:00] optimal success and to ensure that you have options.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You really want to have options at the end of the day And there we go. Thanks, folks, for listening. Looking forward to your questions.

Lonnie: Thank you, Dr. Aya. That was a lot of great information. Thank you so much for sharing that. And as Dr. Aya just mentioned, we are now gonna move into our live question and answer.

Lonnie: So how it’s gonna work, I will read the question out loud for everyone to hear, and then Dr. Aya will answer it. We’re gonna do our best to try to condense some of the questions down if I see like a, a topic that has come up multiple times in the questions. But just to give you a heads-up, we may not get to everyone’s question, but we’re gonna do our best, okay?

Lonnie: So with that said, we’re now gonna move into our first question, and it says, “Do- does admission officers [00:39:00] use AI to help them narrow down the pool of applicants?”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They might. Yeah, it’s one of those questions. I didn’t mean to, to laugh, so please, I hope I did not offend the person that I, I just chuckled, uh, at. Uh, potentially. You know, we know that, um, AI is here, and universities and institutions, particularly large ones, are trying to discern how to leverage technologies to, um, make processes more efficient.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So there might be some schools who have integrated some form of art- artificial intelligence in that initial stage. I cannot say for certain which schools, um, those are. And you know, honestly, knowing the person that I am, if I w- was visiting a school or had that question, that is something I actually would ask.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: I would literally go to an info session and say, “Hey, I have a [00:40:00] question. How are you all using AI in your admissions process, if at all?” I would ask- Mm-hmm … because how else would you know? I, I genuinely would ask that question to a specific university, because you might get some really interesting responses.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And maybe I’ll start calling admissions offices and asking them, because now I, you know, I’m, I’m curious about that as well. But yeah, it is… I, I cannot say for certain that they are, but I would be surprised if, you know, some universities are not integrating, uh, you know, technologies to help make processes more efficient

Lonnie: Great.

Lonnie: Excellent. Let’s move to our next question. Does one admission officer read all the applications from the same high school? How do they, how do they compare between students from the same school?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Great question. When I was in admissions, I did. So I had a region, um, four states in the Midwest. I had Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and those were sorted by, [00:41:00] uh, schools.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So if I had five applicants from one school, I would read applicant one, applicant two, app- you know, in order. Um, but then they were also sorted, right, often by, you know, maybe highest to lowest GPA or highest to lowest class rank and, and then all the other additional factors. So, um, yeah, oftentimes you’re re- you’re being compared to the, you know, the students at your high school.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Now, if all the students at your high school who submit the application are all A students and all similar test scores, um, but they’re all majoring in different things, that, there’s different factors that might contribute to that. But yeah, you, you’re definitely read in the context of your high school.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And, and again, it’s not black and white because, for an example, you could go to a school with a lot of socioeconomic diversity. So there might be students who are, again, third generation, they might even be legacy applicants from your, you know, for that particular institution. And then there also might be a student who’s the first in their family to go to [00:42:00] college.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Schools that are holistic, who practice holistic admissions are still gonna review those, those, uh, applicants differently because there are different contexts that might impact how a student might perform, what classes they took, et cetera. So yes, you are often read in the context of your high school.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You know, um, if you go to a school that’s really competitive, or a school that submits a, 25 applicants, you know, to one school, um, it, it, I, I doubt that all 25 of those students will get in, right? That’s just, they need, uh, high school diversity. So that’s often how you’re read. Again, there’s often sorting and rating systems that are happening internally, and then they’re looking at that holistic part.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: What majors did you select? Did everybody choose computer science or is there a English major and an environmental science major and a government major? Because that also affects, you know, what, uh, how many spots they might have for specific majors. So that is some context of how s- uh, institutions are evaluating students from the same high school[00:43:00]

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Lonnie, you’re muted.

Lonnie: Thank you. That was some great insight that you provided to our, um, to that question. We’re gonna move on to the next question. All righty, so when is the best time to ask and… Well, basically we’re gonna ask, I’m gonna ask just the first part of the question. When is the best time to ask for a letter of recommendation from your teacher?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, and here’s the response that people hate: it depends. So, so some students in some high schools actually identify that junior year before the students, uh, go on summer vacation. So you might talk to a, a, a teacher and say, “Hey, when I’m applying to school in the fall, I would love for you to write a letter of recommendation.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They’re… And they say, “Okay, we’ll circle back in September.” Um, [00:44:00] in some schools, you know, there is a formal process that teachers and counselors have, and often that might kick off in the fall. But you want, if you are gonna wait until the fall, I would say the first few weeks of school are often mad, you know, so, um, you would like for the dust to settle.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Usually in September students are asking that. And please know, teachers know that this is part of the process. I have had parents and students panicking because, you know, it’s August 13th and the Common App opened on August 1st and they don’t have letters of recommendation. Your teachers are on summer vacation, too.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So it’s perfectly fine if, you know, you do not, um, ask them on the first day of school. You just wanna give your teachers at least three weeks to write those letters, okay? And just make sure they have enough time to submit by the institutional’s deadline, okay? Some universities require all letters of recommendation to be in exactly when the deadline of the application is.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they might say November 1st, [00:45:00] complete application including letters. Some universities have actually internal deadlines where they say, “Your materials, your application must be submitted on November 1st, but we wait a week before, you know, we, uh… Letters can be submitted up to a week, you know, after that deadline.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So check with the university. You just wanna make sure you give them at least three weeks to write that letter. If you are last minute and then you start hounding and harassing your teachers, they will not be pleased, right? So you wanna write the best letter. So I think if you talk to your teachers your junior year in the spring and say, “Hey, I would like to you to…

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Like for you to write a letter for me in the fall,” I think that’s a really great strategy. Just know you might not get that letter until mid-September, and that’s perfectly fine, too.

Lonnie: Great, great. Okay, so we’re gonna just take a short pause from our questions and answers, and I would love to share more about who we are, because everything that we have talked about tonight is [00:46:00] exactly what our team thinks about and helps with every day.

Lonnie: CollegeAdvisor.com has been guiding more than 10,000 families through the college admissions process. Our team of over 200 plus admissions experts and former admission officers, so our team knows what it actually takes to receive that acceptance letter. In the… for the class of 2026 alone, one in three Ivy League applicants were admitted to at least one Ivy League school, and two out of the three applicants applying to a top 25 school were admitted to at least one or more.

Lonnie: To learn more about who we are and how you can get started with CollegeAdvisor, scan the QR code that is on your [00:47:00] screen to sign up for a free 60-minute strategy session with an admissions specialist on our team. During this meeting, you will receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out.

Lonnie: At the end, you’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer that will pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and much, much more. We are here for the whole process. So now we’re gonna move back into our Q&A. I’m gonna leave the QR code on the screen in case you have not had the chance to scan it.

Lonnie: And with that said, I’m gonna now go ahead and read the next question, and it says: What is the hardest part for an admission officer [00:48:00] when determining if they would accept or reject?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Hmm. Hardest part when deciding whether they’re gonna accept or reject? I’m trying to understand that, that question I, I felt like in my experience it was less about accepting and rejecting. Those actually tend to be quite clear. It was the middle of the road students that, the students you wanted to know if there were more discussion, or the students you, uh, wait listed, or the students we deferred.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Georgetown, we deferred students, um, because they were strong but, like, right in the middle. So often the accept and rejections are quite clear. It’s almost, it’s everyone else in the middle where there’s, you have to have a discussion or grapple with things. So that would be my response to that question.

Lonnie: Okay. Um, and then about how long does it generally take for an admission officer to review an [00:49:00] application?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Yeah. This has been a, a conversation I’ve talked to my colleagues about as of yesterday. It, it… Again, it depends because if you are a automatic admit student, as I mentioned earlier, they’ll get through your application faster.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Mm-hmm. Because it’ll be like, all A, high SAT scores, great extracurriculars, strong letters of, you know, essays are well-written. Bam, bam, bam. Those are faster, you know, actually. It takes longer to reject a student, and the ones in the middle to kind of justify. Um, so it could be, sometimes it could be 12 minutes if we’re a m- you know, if you’re advanced.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: If you are admissions officer who’s been reading a lot, you kinda know what to look for. Bam, bam, bam. Um, and then the students who just have more pieces of information, students might have added extra context, there might have been an extra letter. If a student was a part of a nonprofit, the nonprofit might write a letter.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: That could be 20 minutes. It could be 25 minutes. But definitely I say on average, you know, you’re probably getting t- 12 minutes [00:50:00] max because there’s so many applications.

Lonnie: Hmm. Nice. Okay. Um, do early admission cycles have higher acceptance rates due to legacy/athletes, or is it really worth applying early?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: This is a, a yes and question. So, um, universities, uh, will encourage student athletes and, um, kind of other kinda priority student groups, if you will, to a- apply early. However, early action and early decision are different. So as we know, early decision, that’s the binding decision. You get accepted, you’re saying, “I’m going to come there.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, those students tend to have higher academic profiles. If you are prepared enough to apply early decision to say, “I’m gonna go there,” you tend to have more money and tend to be a wealthier student. That’s what the data says. Um, and you tend to be more prepared because you have a, y- your first three years of high school you knocked it out of the park, which is why you can apply early.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: [00:51:00] So those students tend to have higher profiles, and the applicant pool is smaller. So you’re seeing the higher acceptance rates because you’re competing, instead of competing against 100 students, you’re competing against 50. So that increases your chances of getting in. So that’s often why you see that decision.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: I do s- encourage students to apply early action if they can to everywhere that they can. You know, if your application is ready by November 1st, apply early action. The only thing you lose is that fall, I’m s- uh, the fall of senior year. Um, and then maybe you need to take the SAT again or something. But if that’s not you, apply early action.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You get that decision in December, maybe January, and then you get to wait until May 1st like everybody else to make the decision, and it can really take a lot of stress off your plate. So I always encourage students to apply early action to everywhere they can.

Lonnie: Great. Great. Uh, let’s see. How do admission officers know the financial status of the applicant/family?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: They usually don’t, unless it is a [00:52:00] need, uh, aware institution. Um, they often are quite separate, and when I worked in admissions, I did not see anybody’s financial aid information because I worked for an institution that was need-blind. So if it’s need-blind, they don’t see it. And also when it’s need aware, it usually is not a part of the first read in- either.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: It, it, it comes later in the stage where they’re making final admissions decisions. But oftentimes the university, excuse me, the admissions officers when they’re evaluating are not staring at your financial, um, your FAFSA. That’s often in the office of financial aid, which tends to be separate, particularly for a lot of holistically, uh, s- schools that h- uh, admit holistically

Lonnie: Do schools value having participated in summer program run through pre-collegiate study groups?

Lonnie: Also, do they value having visited the school in person

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: I’ll start with the second part. Sure, I mean, I think students [00:53:00] who have visited the schools, and especially if they, you know, took notes and interacted with folks, they can talk about those experiences in their essays, especially in their college-specific essays, the supplements or the supplemental essays.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So I think that adds value and richness to the application because you can talk about walking on the campus. You could talk about that professor you might have met. You could talk about their student tour guide with a let- level of specificity. Um, so I do think that’s valuable. Also, some schools, um, track demonstrated interest.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Demonstrated interest is for universities who actually look at all your touchpoints with university to signal how serious you are, uh, a- a- about coming, and they actually make… That is factored into their admissions decision. Those are schools that track interest. Demonstrated interest is what it’s called.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So visiting campus on, you know, in person will look good. Also, emailing them, check. Virtual tour, check. You know, talking to the alumni, check. So that’s for demonstrated interest. And the first part of the question was do schools value s- uh, pre-college [00:54:00] programs?

Lonnie: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Yeah, so I… You might be talking about those programs that exist on the campus, and I, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those programs, particularly if you have to pay, um, are, are what we call pay-to-play programs.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And universities know that students with more means and resources tend to participate in them, so they’re not viewed as the same way as a program that you had to apply, you were selected, and they were free. It was com- you know, com- merit-based, as opposed to programs that you just have to pay money to attend.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So I think it’s valuable for the student in a lot of ways. Again, staying on a college campus, the dorm life, the experience, the, the courses you might take, it could be edifying. But please don’t participate in those programs thinking it’s gonna give, give you a leg up in the review process because most often it does not.

Lonnie: Right. Right. Okay. Um, the activities section has about 10 slots to fill out. Would you recommend trying to fill out all of those slots, or only put the, put those that are the strongest [00:55:00] activities that you participated in?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: If you have 10 activities that you can talk about thoughtfully, put all 10. Um, if you do not have 10 activities to include, do not make things up.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Do not lie. Do not embellish. Um, so if you only have seven, put those seven in there. If you have 10 and two of them you’re like, “Eh,” like, “Eh,” it’s… Make the judgment call yourself. But you are not, uh, you know, they’re not gonna just take off points ’cause you didn’t use all 10 slots, especially if they’re not thoughtful, if it’s not robust.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: ‘Cause you can tell when someone is just trying to stretch it out. You can read it. It’s like, eh, they coulda left that out. And based on, you know, some schools, I can’t say for certain which ones, but I know some schools also are not probably reading all 10. They might focus on the first five. So you wanna put strong, um- Activities and you want to order them on your application in the way you want them to be read as well, because think about the time that they- they’re [00:56:00] taking.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: So they may not even reach activity number nine anyway. So, um, fret not, don’t make up things. If you have a strong 10, put them. If you only have seven, put that down as well. But make sure the order reflects the order you want the admissions officers to read them, because that actually is quite important

Lonnie: Okay, this question, or the next series of questions are about the SAT or, and the ACT, actually.

Lonnie: Mm-hmm. Um, so one, is there, is the SAT or the ACT more desirable? You know, like should I take the SAT over the ACT? And then the second part is, um, will the college automatically see all the tests that I have taken, or can I choose which score to submit?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You can choose which score to submit. Um, some schools, I think Georgetown might still do this, they require you to submit all the scores from all the exams you ever took.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, but that’s not the case for the majority of the schools. Um, so you often can submit, uh, decide which ones you submit. There is no preference [00:57:00] between the SAT or ACT. They’re, they’re seen the same. So some students do much better on the ACT. Growing up, Michigan was a ACT state, so that’s what I took and that’s what I submitted to college.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Now we’re a SAT state. If you’re in the West Coast, you might be SAT. Some places like Georgia, they might be ACT. So there’s no, no preference for that.

Lonnie: Great. Great. Okay, let’s move on. Let me clear that. Uh-oh.

Lonnie: Okay. What, uh… Sorry, there’s a lot of questions that are coming up.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: I know. Great- I know, the questions are coming so fast, people, too, ’cause I know there’s a lot- Great,

Lonnie: great questions. But, um, you know, we had one of our 10th grade, uh, students ask, like, you know, “What should I be doing now to, to set myself up for success with the college application process?”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Yeah, if you’re a 10th grader, I want you to focus on earning the best grades you can, and I want you to b- to develop a love for [00:58:00] reading books, physical books, ph- physical, hard copy books. Reading is one of the most important skills right now that we are underestimating with the use of AI technologies, and I, I will tell everyone to make sure you are reading books early and often.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: And if you’re a 10th grader, continue to, um, discover what you like, what your passions are, and, and challenge yourself in the classroom. But focus on those grades, focus on enjoying your high school, and make sure you’re reading books

Lonnie: Okay. Um, someone wanted to, to clarify, what did you mean by application strategy and data?

Lonnie: Do you recall?

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Um, earlier in the conversation we talked about student application strategy. Oh, so, oh, admit- so, okay, a few things. Application strategy, it was on the last slide. What I mean by that is strategizing, uh, what schools you apply to and what cycles. So whether, decide, your strategy can say, “I need to make sure those fall [00:59:00] grades are included on my transcript, so I’m only gonna apply regular decision.”

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: That means in January, so I could have that fall semester. So that’s strategy. Uh, and data, there’s something called a common data set. So you can Google common data set, insert, you know, Stanford University, and it gives you some of the data points that universities have reported to show what percentage of, you know, the class had a ACT over fif- you know, over 32 or whatever.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: You know, so just looking at the admissions data can help you also make decisions about when you should apply, if you should apply, the likelihood, as much as they can, you know, determine, you’ll, you know, the likelihood of admittance based on your grades and test scores, et cetera. So that’s what I meant by, by that.

Lonnie: Great. Great. All righty. And with that said, that took us to our final question for our webinar. Thank you, Dr. Aya, for sharing all of this great information with our audience. And Dr. Aya is, uh, one of [01:00:00] our popular, um, uh, facilitators for our presentation, so webinar, so please check her out again.

Lonnie: I’m sure we’ll have her in another webinar presenting. Thank you all so much for joining us, and we hope to see you in upcoming webinar. Thank you, everyone. Good night.

Dr. Aya Waller-Bey: Bye, everyone. Best of luck. You got this.

Lonnie: Yes. Bye.