How to Get into Top-25 Ranked Schools

Webinar Transcription

2026-9-17-How to Get Into Top-25 Ranked Schools

Anesha: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. My name is Anesha Grant. I am a senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor, and I will be your moderator for today’s webinar. Today’s webinar is, “How to Get into Top-25 Ranked Schools.” Before we get started, just to orient everyone with the webinar timing, uh, we will take a quick poll to see who’s in the room with us.

Anesha: We’ll hear from our great presenter, and then we’ll open up the floor to, uh, for a live Q&A. On the sidebar, you can start submitting your questions under the Q&A tab. Please make sure your questions are relevant to today’s topic, and we cannot do a personal evaluation of your specific profile. Um, so please keep that in mind as you’re putting in questions.

Anesha: The slides are available under the Handouts tab, and we’re gonna meet our presenter, Stacey Tuttle. Hey, Stacey. How are you doing?

Stacey: Hi, Anesha. Thank you for that intro. I’m really excited to be here, everyone. I’m Stacey Tuttle. I am a former admissions officer for the Yale University School of Public Health.

Stacey: I’m still at Yale today. Um, Yale’s also my alma mater. Um, and so been at [00:01:00] Yale for a very long time. Um, I’m coming to you today with the perspective of a former admissions officer, talking to you about how to get into those top institutions. Um, and I’m really excited to be here.

Anesha: Awesome. I looked over your presentation, so I know it’s gonna be great.

Anesha: Um, before we let you get started, though, we’re gonna take a quick poll of who is in the room with us. Um, if you’re a parent or a teacher, you can go ahead and select Other, but otherwise, let us know what grade level you are calling or Zooming or however you are, um, in today. Um, and as we’re waiting for some responses to come in, I will say, I think, Stacey, if you, if you could change one thing about Yale, what would it be?

Stacey: Ooh, you’re gonna come in hitting with the hard questions. Is that what this is about today? Okay. I was kidding. Um, you know, that, that is a really tough question. Um, hmm. If I could change one thing about Yale [00:02:00] Um, I think right now, like, something that’s really interesting is there’s been a shift, not just at Yale, but in general in advising, um, since I think the pandemic years, where, you know-

Stacey: first years are sort of separated from campus or in registration, and, um, they may not… Academic advising isn’t really what it used to be- Yeah … at, at the early stage. And I think it’s really valuable to form that mentorship and that bond early in your educational career. Um, but you know, different universities have different models.

Stacey: So I would say, like-… I miss that from my time at Yale, and I know that, that, that we’ve gone in a different direction, um, recently, uh, when it came to, to first year advising. So I, I don’t know. That academic advising- advisor relationship is just so important. Yeah. And it’s not just important in, you know, junior, senior year.

Anesha: But I think that’s when it makes sense. But any- anyway, this is the be- we are talking to high school students.

Stacey: Yeah, I was… I, I was gonna- We’re gonna talk the, uh, the hard topics today. I

Anesha: know. Sorry, sorry. I don’t, I don’t… I felt like that was an [00:03:00] easy question, but you have a great answer. Um, and it’s a good thing to keep in mind.

Anesha: Academic advising is very important once you get into college spaces, and so I appreciate you introducing the topic. All right. But we will… I will stop talking and let us get into our actual topic after we close our poll real quick. So we have a pretty g- big group. We have about 260 people in the room.

Anesha: Only about, um, 195 of them were able to answer. Uh, we have two eighth graders. Welcome. Being on top of it. Um, we have nine ninth graders, 19 10th graders, about 50 11th graders with us, the b- biggest group being our seniors, so we have about 62 of them, and then 54 parents and teachers. So a big group spread across all of the age ranges, um, and more people coming in.

Anesha: So I think it’ll be a good session. And again, a reminder, you can start submitting your questions under the Q&A tab whenever you get ready. All right. Thanks. I will hand it over to you, Stacey.

Stacey: Thank you so much. All right, so let’s get into [00:04:00] the topic of the day. What is the US News and World Report’s top college ranking, right?

Stacey: So you see these rankings, you see these numbers, but what does it mean? What is the, what is the evaluation behind the metric? Who’s making those decisions? How are those rankings coming to be? So the US News and World Report’s top college ranking is an annual set of rankings, um, released, as you can imagine, every year, um, based on an evaluation of a set of colleges and universities.

Stacey: But not just every college and university can be evaluated. They do need to meet a set of criteria before they qualify for that evaluative component, and those, um, criteria include things like, uh, regional accreditation, um, have offering bachelor’s degrees, um, having first… Or sorry, um, six-year graduation rates for their bachelor- at least one bachelor’s degree-granting, um, program.

Stacey: Uh, enrolling a minimum number of undergraduates [00:05:00] in a bachelor’s degree program. I believe that number is around 100. So there’s an, there’s a few, uh, things that, criteria that each institution does have to meet at minimum before qualifying for the evaluative component of the ranking. And so, um, once that is determined, uh, the US News and World Report will pull together the qualified institutions.

Stacey: This past iteration, I believe that was around 1,700 institutions, so colleges and universities in the US. Um, and they evaluated those schools based on 17 metrics. Um, and those metrics included some of these, uh, pieces that I’ve highlighted here. So let me talk about a, a few of these. This is not every one of them, right?

Stacey: But just a few that may sound interesting and familiar and give you more context. So the first being academic programs. So what are these institutions offering, um, compared to their peers? Graduation rates. Of the students who enroll in complete programs, [00:06:00] um, how many are actually graduating from those programs?

Stacey: First year retention rates of the students who matriculate, so they enroll in year one, how many are staying with that program and continuing onward? First-generation graduation rates. So not just graduation rates for their whole, um, student body, but of specifically the first-generation students who enroll in their institution.

Stacey: How many students in that population are graduating successfully? Borrower debt. This is really important. You know, how much, um, debt are these students coming out of their degrees with? Peer assessment. What do other institutions think of your institution, right? How are your peers assessing you?

Stacey: Student-to-faculty ratio. How many students per faculty member are seen on your campus? So are you, um, a lot of faculty members, um, and a lot of students, um, and so the ratio is fairly one-to-one? Um, a few faculty and a few students, again, one-to-one, but smaller campus. What does that look like, um, [00:07:00] in the grand scheme of your, um, your resources, um, I would say for students?

Stacey: Standardized testing. How are your students, um, comparing to students at other institutions on standardized tests? And again, there, there are many more criteria. You can look at those online. Um, but ultimately, more than half of these, uh, these criteria have to do with the institution enrolling, retaining, and graduating their students successfully with min- manageable, I would say, post-graduate debt and Reasonable postgraduate success, right?

Stacey: Career-wise. So ultimately, why am I telling you this? Understanding what drives the ranking, what information is putting these schools at one, two, three, four, fi- five, six spots in the rankings this year, um, can help you understand w- how valuable that number is to your [00:08:00] understanding of that institution and how it fits in with your list.

Stacey: So what is valuable to you in your search, and how do these criteria align with those values? Um, you know, in terms of your investment in the education you’re going to get, what is the return on that investment that you’re going to get from these institutions? That is what the ranking is telling you at the end of the day.

Stacey: Now, um, I will say that is just one component again of your search. So you wanna use these rankings to guide your understanding of a school’s resources, their graduate outcomes. You know, you wanna select and compare schools too. They have great, uh, resources on their website to allow you to do that to re- to, you know, compare the schools on, um, these metrics that they’ve set forth.

Stacey: Um, and so you can see, you know, what are those student and faculty ratios at each institution. Does that matter to me? Does that make sense to me? Um, how many students are they graduating? How many first-generation students are they graduating? What are the academic programs that they’re offering? You can compare [00:09:00] from school to school, and that might be really helpful to you in narrowing down your search and understanding, is the number one or number two or number three school a good fit for me?

Stacey: Um, beyond that though, I would fully expect you all to do additional research beyond the ranking. You do need to dive deeper. Your search is your search, and it is a personal one, so you’re going to wanna have Additional discussions with people who know you well, like your counselors, your family, who may be able to give you insight into what they think you would help you in your career and educational goals, and what would make sense for you in terms of your interests, your personality, whatever that may be.

Stacey: But you also could talk to alumni, people who have lived the experience themselves, and current students, people who are in the middle of that experience right now, and they can give you the unadulterated scoop, right? You know, there’s a lot of great information online, but these people know what’s happening.

Stacey: They’re in it now, and they can tell you what they think. Um, you can [00:10:00] also research into school websites, including their course catalogs. I often flag this in a lot of my presentations, um, about kind of researching your college lists and understanding the colleges and the resources available to you with those institutions.

Stacey: I used to love going on… This makes me sound so, uh, nerdy, I guess. Um, I love higher ed, so and that’s very clear based on my past experiences researching schools. I used to love going to their course catalogs and seeing, okay, what majors do you have available at your institution, and like, what classes can I take because you have those majors?

Stacey: What classes would be expected of me if I, if I were to pursue those majors? Um, and I highly encourage you or your student to do this in their research. If they’re saying, “I really want to attend XYZ schools,” have them go to those schools’ websites and look to see which programs are available at those institutions, and [00:11:00] which, um, dive deeper beyond just like which programs, but also what opportunities are related to those programs.

Stacey: Are there study abroad opportunities? Are there internship opportunities? And what does the coursework look like? Is that coursework exciting to them? This is all research that will be helpful, um, in the grand scheme of understanding is that ranking helpful, yes. But what step further do I need to go to really understand that the school is a good fit for me?

Stacey: You, and you can also go in person, right? Um, to take campus tours, to visit the campus, to get a, a good sense of the feel of the university. Um, I always suggest at the very least taking this step, um, during admitted students days. So even if you didn’t have a chance to go to the university in person before you were admitted, I absolutely suggest that you do so before you commit, if that’s possible.

Stacey: Because you may go to a campus and realize this isn’t really, you know, what I expected, and it’s hard to know until you’ve gone. [00:12:00] Remember ultimately that the best university will look different for everyone. My list is not gonna be your list, is not gonna be somebody else’s list. It would be a very boring application process and a very boring world, um, if everybody’s list was the top f- 25 universities, right, based on the US News and World Ranking Report.

Stacey: Um, so just be sure that you are actually making informed decisions, um, beyond the rankings, but definitely use those rankings to start that decision-making and that research. Uh, and you can also even use the US News and World Report, uh, website to narrow down further within a specialization. So if you really know what you wanna study, you can look at ranks within the specializations as well So let’s talk about the application and what these top 25 schools are going to be looking at.

Stacey: Academically, they’re going to be looking for rigorous coursework on your transcript. So this includes AP, um, so Advanced Placement, [00:13:00] IB, um, maybe even dual enrollment or, um, you know, if you’re taking courses at local colleges or community colleges through a partnership program, they’re going to be looking for this advanced level coursework.

Stacey: Now, I came from an institution … Sorry, I sh- I should say, I’m so used to talking about colleges, I should say a high school, um, where I did not have all of the AP scores or Advanced Placement classes available to me under the sun. But my school is a public school. I had limited resources. I tried to take them when they were available to me, and I didn’t even take all of them when they were available to me.

Stacey: So I really had to understand, okay, what do I have capacity for in the grand scheme of my educational path? What are my competing commitments, my extracurriculars, my social life? How can I maintain my best GPA while also pursuing rigorous coursework and also maintaining that social and extracurricular life?

Stacey: And that is the right balance at that point, right? [00:14:00] But you, do push yourself if you’re able to do so, if you’re able to take that advanced coursework, particularly in your areas of interest. That will be really helpful to see on a transcript. Test scores is also something that many institutions are requiring again.

Stacey: In the pa- And I’ll talk a little bit more about this on, on a future slide, but in the past, test scores were optional. So I’m talking SAT, ACT. We’ll get into that a little bit deeper in a few. Essays. Personal statement tends to be the anchor of your application. Um, this is the, the big essay that you’ll be writing that most of the institutions you’re applying to will see.

Stacey: It’s a longer essay, and I often, um … You know, students don’t usually know where to start. This is a, maybe a daunting essay because it feels like so, so, um, weighty at that point. And so I often start with my students saying, you know, “If you were to be caught in an elevator with an admissions officer and you [00:15:00] had that elevator speech to give, right, and you had to tell them three things about yourself quickly, what are those three things that would, are things you would want to get across in your application to express to an admissions officer, ‘This is why you should admit me’?”

Stacey: And then we unpack that, right? We under- unpack what those things were. Why did you say this thing first? Is that the most important thing to you? Um, what moments in your life have led those things to be true? So maybe you’ve had a moment in time where you have, um, realized that you like thinking about the world in a certain way, or this is a path of interest that you really would like to pursue, or this is how, um, I’ve changed or grown personally, and it’s led you to this point where these things are true about yourself.

Stacey: That’s what the personal statement is really about. How are, how are, um, these facts about who you are now intrinsic to why somebody should admit you to their campus and ultimately allow you to continue to grow on, [00:16:00] at their university? Supplemental questions, um, meanwhile, are exactly that. They supplement that main essay.

Stacey: They supplement the information that you’re providing to the admissions officer on your application, and they range. They very much vary. They could be long, short. There could be a few of them or a lot of them. Um, and it’s your opportunity to fill in more blanks. So whatever you couldn’t say in your personal statement or maybe elsewhere in your application, this is the time to Write more about other interests, other things you’d like admissions officers to know about you, or to double down on what you’ve already presented.

Stacey: So yes, you’ve done this extracurricular work. Is there a really important, um, experience that you had that you wanna talk about relevant to that, that extracurricular work that you would like to elaborate now on in an essay? So supplemental questions really give you an opportunity to talk more about yourself, but also often about why you’re interested in going to that specific institution.

Stacey: Activities is another section that you’ll see very [00:17:00] commonly on applications. Um, usually there’s a limit to the number of activities that you can include, and I mention this because high-achieving students tend to like to commit, over commit themselves to extracurriculars, right? And so I’m looking at all of you in the room who are early on in your high school careers.

Stacey: Know that you will not be able to list every activity under the sun on your application. There is a limit for most of those applications. For example, the Common App is, I believe, a limit of 10. And you also within that don’t have all the writing in the world to explain what you did for the activity. You will have a character count limit, so you can’t just write everything you know.

Stacey: You’ll have to be very concise. Um, and so really think about those activities that you have in your life that are meaningful to you, that are, um, sustainable long-term commitments that you’ve really enjoyed, and continue committing to those. Um, continue pursuing those. But don’t feel like you have to do every single activity in order [00:18:00] to get into college.

Stacey: That is simply not true. But definitely focus on those things that are important to you. Letters of recommendation is a, a final component of the application that will be very important. Um, my biggest piece of advice here is choose individuals who know you well, somebody you know that, um, will write down, um, meaningful information about you.

Stacey: It’s very clear to admissions officers when we’re reviewing applications that a letter has been written by somebody who sort of used a canned response or maybe has lukewarm feelings about the student. They don’t really know them well. Um, they know they got a really great grade in their class but maybe did not, uh, know them beyond the grade.

Stacey: And I would s- I would really encourage you to choose people who you can have that conversation with. Say, “This is why I’m applying to college. Here’s my personal statement. This is what I need you to know about me.” Or maybe you’ve already had those conversations with them. Those are the people that you should be choosing to write your letters because they will be able to [00:19:00] make, um, to write letters that are truly informed about you as the applicant Well, so I promised I’d talk about standardized tests.

Stacey: So SAT and ACT are the, the two main flavors here. Um, and I do often suggest that students take practice tests for both to understand how they’re scoring on both before they commit to one or the other. I don’t … Sorry, excuse me. I don’t suggest taking multiple of each. I normally say take a practice test or two of both, decide which one is the one you’re more comfortable with, and then continue on pursuing that test specifically as you start to pursue a final true score, not a practice score.

Stacey: So the SAT has two sections. It’s the math section, max of 800 points, and then the evidence-based reading and writing, max of 800 points. ACT meanwhile is split between English, math, and reading, and a fourth science section that is optional, and the s- final score is a composite, [00:20:00] um, that averages the four scores of the, the four sections.

Stacey: And so, uh, a little anecdotally, I had a student one year who was convinced, you know, he was gonna take the SAT. He was taking practice T- SATs, and he couldn’t, in his practice test, he could not break a 14 … I wanna say it was like a 1440. He wanted to get higher. Um, and just h- the needle wasn’t moving. So I suggested to him, “Go ahead and take a practice ACT.

Stacey: See how you

Stacey: do.” And he got a really great score. I think the first time it was 34 or 35, and then when he finally took the ACT he got a perfect score of 36. So that’s just an example. I’m, I’m not saying that you need to get a perfect score to get into this top- the top 25 colleges. But it is helpful to compare how you’re doing across tests to see if you might be doing slightly better in one or the other, and then commit to that choice.

Stacey: Um, and then, you know, practice, practice, prac- practice. It’s helpful to, um, take practice tests [00:21:00] leading up to the main tests, and then study in the sections that you feel are your weak points. And then ultimately, I would suggest taking the test no more than two to three times at most, um, the main test, um, because at some point, y- it- it’s not a good use of time to continue pursuing test after test after test, and you just

Stacey: You don’t have all the time in the world to do that. Um, as you get your test scores back, you’re gonna want your, to compare your test scores against the average or range of scores for admitted students to the schools on your list, right? So are you scoring below what the average student, um, who is admitted to that school usually scores?

Stacey: Are you scoring about the same as students who are typically admitted to these schools, or are you scoring higher? And that will tell you sort of if a school is what we say, um, is a safety school, so a school that you’re very likely to get into because you are, um, a, um, more competitive applicant [00:22:00] than their average admitted student.

Stacey: Um, maybe, um, a match school, so a school where your score is really on par with the admitted student population’s average score, or a reach school where perhaps your score is lower than, um, the average admitted student to that institution. And now I wanna clarify, reach schools, so these are top 25 institutions, uh, they are reaches for all students in, in many cases because they’re receiving such a high volume of applicants that even a school, a student with a perfect score may not get into that institution because the, these institutions have the luxury, given the high volume of very qualified applicants, to make decisions not necessarily based on test score and GPA.

Stacey: Those things are important, right? But so many students have great GPAs, so many students have great test scores. What other factors [00:23:00] can they consider to really create a diverse and, um, and, um, highly engaged campus for the incoming class? And so they make decisions based on things that may be completely out of your control at that point.

Stacey: Maybe it’s department demographics, or maybe it’s geography, or maybe it’s, um, music inclinations. There’s so many reasons why, um, they might be admitting students. Test scores are an important part of that, um, but for … I, I just wanna clarify that even if you have a really great test score, that institution may still be a reach because they are receiving such a high volume of qualified high-scoring students And then of course, if any schools on your list are test optional this is a really great time for you to assess whether or not you even submit a score for the test optional schools.

Stacey: So if you’re not really scoring at or above where their average admitted student is scoring you may wanna have a, a [00:24:00] chat with your advisor or somebody, a counselor, somebody close to you to decide, should I submit my test? Is that actually in my best interest for a test optional institution? If you don’t emit, uh, submit your test score, then just know that all other components of your application, including your transcript and your, your grades, will be weighed more heavily in the absence of that score.

Stacey: Speaking of transcripts, GPA. What role does the GPA play in the application process to top schools? So there’s different flavors of GPA, just like test score. There’s unweighted GPA, usually between one and four. All ca- classes are contributing equally in that GPA. The weighted GPA, meanwhile, is between 1.0 and 5.0, um, and these are typically the more challenging classes that have, uh, um, a greater impact on that GPA.

Stacey: So if you can take the more challenging classes, the AP, the AP classes, the honors classes, those tend to impact the GPA such that it is higher as a result. Um, and every high school is a little different. [00:25:00] Some might have weighted, some may have unweighted, and the, um, admissions officers will have that context when reviewing your transcript.

Stacey: Um, the GPA requirements and averages, uh, will vary depending on the school, but there’s usually not a published minimum, right, for these institutions. They’re not saying, you know, if you don’t reach this threshold of a GPA, we are not gonna review your application at all. That is not what’s published.

Stacey: That’s not what out– what’s out there. Um, however, you could usually find data on the average statistics associated with their admitted students in recent classes, so the average GPA of the last admitted student class, and you can even ask the admissions officers for this data, um, if they don’t have it published already.

Stacey: This could give you a great point of reference to decide, okay, where’s my GPA? Similar to the test sc-score discussion, where does my GPA fall in the grand scheme of their admitted student population? Is it [00:26:00] below, about the same, or higher? Where– What does that look like? Um, average GPA could be helpful because it’s the average, uh, score obtained by a successful applicant, but you can also use that GPA range of admitted students to inform where you’re falling as well.

Stacey: Are you at the bottom, the middle or the bot– um, the top of that range? And again, there’s the safety, match, and reach schools considerations to continue making. What is the key to writing a standout personal statement and supplemental essays? So I’m gonna give you some tips and tricks here, um, at a high level that I hope will be helpful.

Stacey: Let’s talk about the dos. First of all, I know this seems very obvious, but answer the prompt. Um, it is so easy to get caught up in the narrative that you’re writing or the story that you’re telling, and at the end of the day, you don’t actually answer the question, and that is not a successful essay as a result.

Stacey: So I would recommend, um, you know, pausing and making sure [00:27:00] you’re returning back to the prompt in your wri- during your writing process such that you are continuing to answer those questions appropriately. Also paint a pic- picture. Be descriptive. Show, don’t just tell. So don’t tell me, you know, you went, um, hiking and this, you saw this great animal, and then you had this experience where you got lost, like, whatever that looked like.

Stacey: Don’t just tell me. Show me. Paint the picture. You know, tell me what the trees looked like in the sky, and how are you feeling, and why did this matter? Um, it- all of this is really important to the writing process and will captivate the reader. Be also concise, clear, and specific. Every sentence you write should advance your narrative.

Stacey: Um, and keep in mind that you don’t have all the texts in the world to answer the question, and admissions officers don’t have all the time in the world to read your essays, to try to parse through what you’re trying to say. So if you’re not being clear, an [00:28:00] admissions officer’s not gonna be able to reread your essay over and over to try to figure out what you’re saying.

Stacey: You need to be clear from the first go, um, such that they understand what you’re saying from the first go. Being concise is also really helpful because then they understand the point you’re trying to make. There’s not a lot of fluff going on, um, and that’s helpful to their review process. Um, and then again, the specific piece, just making sure you’re painting that picture.

Stacey: I talked earlier about reflecting and discussing your personal growth. So a lot of these essays, um, what w- I often see as a key mistake in the writing process is students telling me, you know, “I did this, I did that,” while they’re writing. “I, I committed to this extracurricular. This is something I was interested in, so I did this.”

Stacey: And that’s great, but it’s not telling me more about you You should take a, a moment, um, in your writing process to look inward, self-reflect, and ask yourself, “What were my points of growth, uh, up until this point?” W- again, I mentioned earlier, where have you been? [00:29:00] Where are you now, and where are you going?

Stacey: And what parts of that journey are things that you wanna talk about in these essays? Um, think about the turning point, that moment in time where maybe you changed a perspective, or you changed– you realized you were interested in something. Or maybe you thought about, um, a process in a different way, or you decided to take a different path.

Stacey: Think about those turning points and how those might inform your essays or even help you in your writing of those essays. Ultimately, be authentic and true to your passions. It is very obvious to admissions officers when, um, people are writing about things that they really don’t understand, or maybe, you know, they’re, they’re writing what they think an admissions officer wants them to say.

Stacey: Um, I used to read a lot of master’s of public health applications, um, and we would often have students who were actually interested in master of science, um, apply to that, that program, and they had no idea what public health was. They were just trying to [00:30:00] get into the institution and didn’t really care about the program.

Stacey: And so it’s really important that you are writing informed and passionate es-essays. And if you’re not, then really think, think, um, through whether or not that institution is actually a good fit for you. Are you actually interested in going there if you’re not, um, feeling passionate about their programs, what you’re writing about, et cetera?

Stacey: And proofread. Please, please, please, please pr-proofread your essays. It’s really, really important. Typos are not going to, um, make for a successful essay. Now, don’t just regurgitate your information from your activities section, so your extracurriculars. Don’t just laundry list those extracurriculars. We already have that information.

Stacey: We do not need it. You can talk about your extracurriculars. You can describe them. You can relate an experience from an extracurricular, a turning point, if you will, a reflective point. But you should not just write about your activities with no real additional information. I often pu-push my [00:31:00] students to ask themselves after writing an essay, “So what?

Stacey: What did this mean for the admissions officer in the grand scheme of my application? Did I give them more information about who I was that als-elsewhere wasn’t included? Did I further inform them about something I’ve done that also wasn’t included elsewhere in my application? Did it give them more insight into who I am as a person?

Stacey: What was the point of me writing that essay?” Um, also try not to focus on other people. Um, I know this is really hard when you have a prompt that asks you to talk about an influential person in your life or somebody who’s really important to you, because that’s the whole prompt, right, is asking you to talk about somebody else, and that’s, that is how you should start, right?

Stacey: You have to talk about this other person, but ultimately, you need to bring it back to you. Why is that person important to you? Not just the other per- uh, talking about the other person, but why does that matter to you and your application to my school? Keep it in the context of your application and what you are trying to tell the admissions officer about [00:32:00] you.

Stacey: Um, also, don’t submit your application without a second review from a trusted source. These include, of course, advisors, counselors, parents. Um, definitely get another set of eyes on your, your essays. I do think there’s a point at which your voice could get lost if you are including too ma- many editors on your essay, so just a word of caution.

Stacey: Try to keep it within a reasonable scope. Don’t ask everybody under the sun to review your essays. Um, that will not ultimately be helpful in the long run. And then try not to name a specific school. I say this because it is very easy to copy and paste an essay between school applications and therefore make an error where you’re talking about Harvard when you meant to talk about Yale.

Stacey: And so to… the best, um, tact to avoid that would to be avoid naming a specific school unless it, the essay prompt is asking you to talk about why are you applying to that school, so why Yale, why Harvard or [00:33:00] Princeton, why Brown, whatever the institution is. Um, you can certainly talk about the institution’s name in those essays, but try not to talk about a specific school elsewhere in more general essays.

Stacey: How can I best showcase my extracurriculars on my application? So you can highlight your extracurriculars in many places. We’ve talked about that a little bit across these slides, and that’s not just the activity section. So places where those can be highlighted include your essays, of course, both the supplemental and the personal statement, but also your recommendations.

Stacey: Your recommendations can certainly talk about your extracurricular work. And then in the activity section itself of an application, make sure you’re using action verbs similar to a resume. You may even be asked to upload your resume on some applications, so I would suggest preparing a resume if you don’t already have one, and continuing to keep up with that during your high school career.

Stacey: Be concise, clear, and specific. Again, you do not have all the words in the world in that section of the [00:34:00] application, so you’re going to need to be concise, clear, and specific. Consider, um, things that can be included elsewhere in the application to cut down on the word count, because again, not a lot of words.

Stacey: So can you include things from your activity section maybe in the honor section if there is one, or the award section, or maybe you can include them in essays someplace, um, so that you can include more information about yourself if it’s important to you. Consider order of importance. So you w- you want to place the highest imp- um, the item of highest importance at the top of the activities list, and y- you’re gonna wanna think about how you’re gonna highlight your leadership.

Stacey: So do not sleep on the leadership opportunities that you have capitalized on in each of your activities. Make sure you’re highlighting that in the description, um, so that admissions officer is clear that you were a c- not just a committee member, but maybe a chair or a co-chair or a president or whatever that role you played.

Stacey: Be sure to highlight that even in, in the most minor of [00:35:00] ways How can I best showcase my extracurriculars in my application, uh, continued here? So I talked a little bit about doing that in the essays, paint that picture, be descriptive, um, you know, talk about what you’ve learned from your activities, what moments have changed how you think about yourself and the people around you and the world around you.

Stacey: Think about how your activities have changed how you approach the world, or how you approach other people, or how you learn. What is your learning style? Um, have you learned that you have preferences for, um, an, or an affinity for, for certain kind of work, like service work or communication? What have you learned from your activities, and why is that important to your application to college now?

Stacey: Uh, again, just don’t forget that “so what?” So what? Why am I describing this to admissions officers right now? And then in the letter, letters of recommendation, um, you can ask your letters of reference to mention your leadership if they’ve seen you [00:36:00] demonstrate leadership skills with them during maybe class, or maybe you, uh, interact with them outside of class in an extracurricular of some kind.

Stacey: Um, and ask maybe for them to highlight qualities that you’ve brought forward in those activities, um, such as your compassion or your creative thinking or critical thinking skills. They can directly speak to that because they’ve witnessed it firsthand Um, interviews. So interviews are really interesting because they do not play as much of a role as they have in the past.

Stacey: Um, so there’s two different flavors. I, I’ve said that I think three times now in this presentation, so, um, let’s continue the th- the trend. Uh, informational versus evaluative. So informational interviews is exactly how they sound. These do not usually play an evaluative component of your application, into an evaluative component of your application.

Stacey: They’re informational. They’re solely for your information about the [00:37:00] institution versus the evaluative in- interview, which I’m sure is the one you all would like to learn more about. Um, that evaluative interview is not always required of every institution, so do not panic if you don’t get an interview request from an institution.

Stacey: It might be that they don’t require them, or they just simply are not in need of one from you. Um, but for those who do reach out to you, the interviews are usually with a representative of the school and not always an admissions officer. Um, even during my time years ago, a current student interviewed me for my interview, and I’ll never forget it.

Stacey: I felt like that was a very important component of my application experience. Um, you might also be interviewed by alumni. I acted as an alumni, um, interviewer for Yale College for a long time. And so, um, those are the types of people you may see, uh, conducting your interview, and the style of these is usually conversational.

Stacey: It’s not supposed to necessarily be like a f- [00:38:00] a firing of questions at you and hoping that you, you know, slip up, right? So don’t think that way going into the process. Think of it as a conversation you’re gonna have with somebody who just wants to know more about you, right, and how you might fit in to their campus culture, their campus life, their institution.

Stacey: Um, and so you can talk about things like your academic interests, your extracurriculars, your career goals, but ultimately, this is also a chance to pr- showcase your personality, right? Who are you as a person? Because while they review your application, and your voice may come through in your essays, for example, that voice becomes even more clearer when they meet you in person, and so I definitely recommend letting your personality come through in those discussions.

Stacey: Tips for preparing: practice, practice, practice. So there’s often, you know… It, it’s very easy to find a set of sample questions to practice. You don’t necessarily need to [00:39:00] know the exact questions you’re going to be asked, right? But you do need to prepare for an environment where you’re going to be asked anything.

Stacey: Um, and so having that practice, um, of answering a number of different questions, um, over time with different people, try to, try to conduct interviews maybe by yourself, um, rehearsing your responses back to yourself. You can video your responses back to yourself, or you can rehearse with somebody else. Um, I would definitely encourage you to focus on being specific in your answers.

Stacey: You know, generalities doesn’t tell us very much about a person, so be very specific about your interests, your responses, your needs. Um, and if it’s helpful, really think about the strengths you have and the weaknesses you have, the values, the interests, the goals you have, and write those things down and reflect back on them the day before the interview.

Stacey: Um, it will help kind of, [00:40:00] i- i- I would say, give you a foundation of, like, core information that you would like to bring forth in that interview, regardless of what the question is. I mean, you’ll never be able to prepare for what s- what pasta would you be if you had to pick one, right? Like, that’s a question that nobody necessarily anticipates, but maybe you get that question and you’re like, “Okay, what is

Stacey: What do I know about myself? What are those things I wrote down about myself, and how can I relate that to a type of pasta?” Right? So it’s a reverse engineering process. Um, be also prepared to talk about a specific college or university. Um, if you are interviewing with a specific college or university, they’re gonna wanna hear why you’re choosing them.

Stacey: Do not sleep on that research. And always send a thank you email. It means a lot in the interview process, and in some cases, an interviewer might rank you poorly if you do not send that thank you email, so please be sure to do so. Okay, wrapping up. So financial options available at [00:41:00] top-ranked schools. Top 25 institutions are often focused on need-based aid rather than merit-based aid, and there’s a few reasons for this.

Stacey: One, um, these institutions tend to be very well-endowed, um, and so they have a lot of institutional funding that they can use to attract top candidates, and so that merit-based aid, uh, tends to be less important than the need-based aid component Um, but also they’re receiving top candidates from all over the country and world.

Stacey: Um, and so merit evaluations tend to be a lot harder in that scope, right? Versus the need-based aid evaluations. Um, many do guarantee that they will meet full financial need due to their financial resources at hand. I know that’s one of the top reasons why I chose my institution. It was a … I feel very lucky that I had that opportunity.

Stacey: Um, so need-based aid, just for full clarity, is aid awarded based on financial need. That’s usually demonstrated through financial documentation like the FAFSA and/or your CSS profile, [00:42:00] um, which is documentation that you’ll put together usually with your guardians, um, to demonstrate your financial need through a set of financial questions and documents.

Stacey: Um, and a merit-based aid is usually awarded based on the merit of the student rather than that need that you demonstrated through your financial profile. And there may be other documentation needed depending on the institution. Types of aid you’ll see, um, grants and scholarships. These don’t need to be repaid.

Stacey: Federal student loans and private educational loans must be repaid. They are loans, so they do need to be paid back. And then you might see federal work study or student employment options. This is essentially an option where a student can pursue work on campus to obtain funds to pay, um, back their institution.

Stacey: And then you can always apply for outside scholarships that are not offered at the institution. There’s tons of outside scholarships out there. Final advice. Use rankings as one tool in your toolkit for your college research. Rankings are really helpful in understanding the value of [00:43:00] the education you’ll obtain and the return on the investment that you’re making in that institution.

Stacey: The best school for someone else may not be the best school for you, and please, please, please internalize this. This is very important. Um, you do not wanna just apply to a school because they’re a top-ranking institution. You wanna be fully informed about what that means for you. Prioritize schools that meet your ac- academic and extracurricular interests, goals, and financial needs.

Stacey: Um, be strategic when evaluating the average applicant profile, right? So look at the average applicant and admitted student profile and ask yourself, “Where do I fall in terms of test scores, GPA? What does that look like?” If top-ranking schools, um, are on your list, please be sure to balance those, quote-unquote, “reach schools” with the match and safety options that are attractive to you and meet your needs as well, and don’t submit your application without another pair of eyes.

Stacey: It’s really important to not also submit an application cold, and so give yourself time [00:44:00] to make edits as needed.

Anesha: Okay. Thank you so much, Stacey. We’ve gotten a lot of questions as you were going, and so we’ll have a robust discussion in our Q&A section. Uh, so we are gonna open the live Q&A. The way that it will work, I will read the questions that you submitted.

Anesha: I am skipping some questions intentionally ’cause I cannot get to all of them. Also, I’ll remind folks that please do not put, put your stats in. If I see questions that say, “My GPA is this, my SAT scores are this,” I’m going to ignore it. We cannot answer that question. Um, okay. Uh, so put your questions in the chat.

Anesha: I’ll read them aloud, give Stacey an opportunity to answer them, and paste them in the public chat so that others can see them. If your Q&A is not allowing you to submit questions, double-check that you joined the webinar through your custom link in your email and not from our webinar landing page. You may have to log back out, log back in in order to ask your question.

Anesha: As a reminder, the webinar is being recorded, so you can view it at a later time. And the handouts, all of Stacey’s, uh, presentations are available under the Handouts tab. Okay. My first question for [00:45:00] you Um, is, it’s questions are, are ranging, so I, I’m not sure where to start, but I’ll start here. Um, someone asks if the criteria for ranking puts large public universities at a, at a disadvantage.

Anesha: I’m not sure if you know the answer to that, Laurel.

Stacey: You, you know, that’s a really great question, and, uh, while I don’t have metrics that can inform my answer fully, right, um, I do think large public institutions have the advantage of, um, additional factors that are attractive to students. So for example, um, I can speak personally, anecdotally, I definitely applied to, um, large public institutions when I was applying to college, um, for a number of reasons, including, um, convenience, financial aid packages.

Stacey: Um, you know, in-state aid often looks really positive for students within that state, and so there are a number of other factors that are playing in favor. But I mean, in general, I, I do think, um, that every institution will [00:46:00] have different means of attracting their students and, um, conveying how, what their value is to students, even if they aren’t in the top 25, say, of the US College of News report.

Anesha: Uh, all right, thank you. We’ve gotten a few questions about GPAs and how to do the calculations. I’ve tried to tell people that stop doing the math, your math doesn’t matter.

Stacey: It doesn’t matter.

Anesha: So, um- Or you- So if you can explain unweighted versus weighted GPAs, and how actually GPAs are dealt with when, um, they reach the college’s doors.

Stacey: Yeah, so every institution’s gonna do this differently. Um, admissions officers… And I, I, um, I didn’t go into this in any great detail, but, um, there is, during the evaluative component of an application read, um, there’s usually a set of, uh, you know, metrics and algorithms and calculations that are done to help admissions officers compare realistically apples to oranges, right?

Stacey: Like, not every s- high school is created [00:47:00] equal. Not every student’s gonna have the same opportunities. And so there’s a level of evaluating that is being done based on what was available at the student’s high school, what was the GPA range that was available to them, what courses were being a- uh, were available to them.

Stacey: And so while there’s not a direct, you know, calculation I can share for any one institution, um, just know that that is a factor that’s being evaluated by the admissions officer within the scope, within the context of your high school. Um, and that even further within the context of the region in which the student went to school.

Stacey: Um, and so, yeah, it does look a little bit different, but, um, I wouldn’t stress about the number itself coming off of your, um, application in terms of, like, how it could be recalculated by an admissions officer. I- there’s no usefulness in that exercise. I would focus instead for your student on making sure they’re enrolling in classes that are really interesting to them and challenging them to enroll in [00:48:00] rigorous coursework, in particular in the subjects that are really interesting to them.

Stacey: Um, and that will make them a more competitive applicant, not only because hopefully their GPA will reflect positively as a result, but also because, um, other parts of their application will be better informed because they did that

Anesha: Okay. Um, sorry, I’m going through all the questions, so I’m not- Yeah

Anesha: engaging directly with your responses. I apologize. I’m normally-

Stacey: No, you’re… Uh, you know what? I, I think I went lengthy in my presentation, so apologies, Ania- Anesha.

Anesha: No worries. Um, someone asked, “How does my geography accept my acceptance rate?” Affect my acceptance rate,

Stacey: sorry. I was gonna accept my acceptance rate.

Stacey: Um, that is another great question, and it is usually highly specific to the institution. So each university is going to have a different set of needs, um, and they may be evaluating demographic data to determine, you know, how many students they’re admitting from, say, a state or a region or a part of the world, um, in order to create a campus, [00:49:00] right?

Stacey: And so, um, a- and just being completely realistic, they might say, “You know, we want two students from, I don’t know, Wyoming and four from Colorado,” and that’s not always true from year to year. That might change from year to year, and so the university is setting those goals internally for themselves and, and that’s not something the applicant can control, unfortunately.

Anesha: Uh, a few questions about A and I. So someone asked about A and I. Gosh. Um, about AI. How does AI affect the weight of the essay in the application process? And then someone asked, what do admissions officers think about using AI for essay/applications or applications being checked for AI use?

Stacey: Yeah. So I, I…

Stacey: and I, I hate to keep saying this, but it is really varying from institution to institution right now because AI is relatively so new. So institutions are, like, forming their AI policies as it relates to admissions process. They’re, uh, trying to understand what tools they [00:50:00] have available to them to evaluate essays for AI usage and how they’re going to flag essays for AI usage.

Stacey: And so this is really a developing conversation. I would, um, as an advisor, I would discourage students from writing, um… I, and I should clarify, from using AI to write their essays, right? You don’t wanna use AI’s- AI to write your essays. Um, you can use it as a brainstorming tool at times, but it shouldn’t be your whole essay-writing option, right?

Stacey: It should be… Your essay should be in your voice. Um, and I would flag also, you know, in a world where it’s going to become increasingly easy to identify, um, when essays are AI-generated, um, you do wanna avoid that ding on your application. It could significantly impact your application if that’s viewed negatively at any point.

Stacey: So you… I, I think it’s a disservice to the student, um, to use AI [00:51:00] because it’s not your authentic self, um, and it could pose downstream issues for you if it is something that is flagged by the admissions committee.

Anesha: Okay. Just looking at where we are in time, and before we wrap up, I’m gonna take a quick moment to tell you all about, um, who we are, because everything we talked about tonight is exactly what our team thinks about and helps with every day.

Anesha: CollegeAdvisor has guided more than 10,000 families through the college admissions process. Our team is made up of over 200 admissions experts and former admissions officers like Stacey, so our team knows what it actually takes to get that acceptance letter. In the class of 2026 alone, one in three Ivy League applicants were admitted to at least one Ivy on their list, and two in three applicants applying to top-25 schools were accepted to one or more of those schools.

Anesha: To learn more about CollegeAdvisor and how you can get started, you can scan the QR code, uh, to sign up for a free 60-minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team. All right, we’re gonna go back to our Q&A, but we’ll remai- but the [00:52:00] QR code will stay on the screen for those who haven’t had a chance to scan it and who are interested in continuing to work with us.

Anesha: Uh, okay. My next question for you- Um, someone asked, “For a 10th grader, how can I set myself up well for good letters of recommendations in the future?”

Stacey: Ooh, that’s a really good question. Um, so foster relationships early and consistently, right? So if you have a teacher who you really like, maybe it’s somebody who’s gonna be teaching classes later that you’re gonna be taking in junior or senior year, um, start fostering that relationship now, having conversations.

Stacey: You know, stay behind or s- come into class early to ask meaningful questions about the subject matter. Um, ask meaningful questions about the work that the instructor might have been doing relevant to the course content. Um, it’s also possible that you might engage with, uh, your teachers in your extracurricular work [00:53:00] because they’re, they may be advising a club or help…

Stacey: Maybe you want to start a club, and you think one of your teachers would be a great advisor for that. Um, there’s a lot of opportunity to network with individuals at any point in your high school career, and it’s a good idea to start cultivating those relationships early. Um, now, keep in mind you may cultivate new relationships later, in junior year, for example, and that’s okay, too, but it is a really great idea to start those conversations early and building those relationships, not just for your application, but ultimately for the sake of your high school career and having that support system.

Anesha: Um, someone asked about… So it’s a complicated question about interviews, but I’ll ask both. Someone asked, “Are interviews most frequently requested of candidates who make, who are on the cusp of admission or of candidates about whom the admissions committee is uncertain?” So who gets invited to interview?

Anesha: And then someone asked, “How much does the interview matter?”

Stacey: Yeah. Uh, again, something [00:54:00] that will vary from institution to institution. Um, I do think that because the resources available for interviewing are fewer, um, in recent years and the, the demand for applications, um, is higher, that institutions are more s- being more selective about when they are asking students to interview.

Stacey: And yes, I do think it’s strategically most important for them to be, uh, interviewing those students who may be on the cusp or they’re unsure about. Um, but I also think it’s very common for institutions to interview students who they have strong feelings about, and so therefore are extending the interview.

Stacey: That may be a practice that a particular institution could have. Um, but it is most common if their lim- their resources are limited to extend to students that maybe they’re unsure about or maybe they’re, they’re sure but they just want that extra evaluative component. Um, and then again, each institution is a little different in terms of how they’re weighting each of the application components.

Stacey: [00:55:00] So, you know, let’s say, um, an institution is evaluating academics versus, um, extracurricular life versus major interests versus the interview. Like, I- I’m just making this up, but, like, let’s say that those are the four criteria. They may weigh all four of those things equally. They may weigh w- uh, the first two, uh, w- are weightier than the, the last two components, and then maybe they bring that all together for a final decision.

Stacey: Um, but again, this will vary from institution to institution. Um, and so I would prepare for your interview as if it’s going to matter quite a bit in the downstream decision-making process, because you just don’t know how an admissions team is going to be weighting that in their final decision-making process.

Anesha: And it also depends on if you interview after you’ve applied. ‘Cause I know, I mean, I have a lot of students who interview before they even submit an application.

Stacey: Yes, that is true.

Anesha: Um, so yeah, yeah, sorry. M- [00:56:00] just more so pointing out the, the specifics of it depends on the university. Yeah. Um, someone asked, uh, this will be my second to last question if we can do it.

Anesha: Um, how does being homeschooled change how I apply to schools?

Stacey: Yeah, so there’s, there’s going to be a number of different ways you’re going to need to approach the application process, such as your transcript reporting. You know, test scores should be the same for you. Um, you’re gonna be using the same application systems.

Stacey: Um, but I think mainly the transcript and the academic work that you need to enter and share, um, will look a little bit different because of the homeschooling circumstances. Um, and then, uh, you know, really the approach to all other parts of your application should be about the same. Um, although it may be really informed by your homeschool Um, experience as well, your essays, your letters.

Stacey: Um, I do think regardless of a homeschooling scenario, they will be looking for letters of recommendation beyond, um, your, [00:57:00] what you’ve experienced at home. So you do wanna think about cultivating relationships for those outside of your home. Um, and then of course, extracurriculars, you will wanna engage extracurricularly in your community.

Stacey: So you may not have, say, a high school club or, um, uh, the same, you know, associations and such that you would’ve been involved in if you were a, a traditional high school. Um, so you’ll want to make sure you have extracurriculars and other meaningful ways, um, to complete the extracurricular activity components of your application.

Stacey: And then of course, your essays will need to be just as, uh, strong and meaningful and reflective, um, in regardless of where you went to school. Yeah.

Anesha: Someone asked how long ago was it since we applied, and I want to give context that we’re not talking about our personal application processes as much as us advising students who are currently applying to school.

Anesha: Yeah. Um, so that is the perspective we’re coming from and not necessarily using our own personal experience. Um, someone asked, and this will be our last question, can [00:58:00] you please talk about a passion project/initiative from an admissions officer’s perspective?

Stacey: Yeah. So, um, passion project, you’re gonna hear the phrase passion project tossed around a lot.

Stacey: Um, this is essentially a scenario where a student has, um, identified a personal passion that is not immediately translated to through a club or an opportunity that is in their daily life, and/or they’ve identified maybe an opportunity or gap in their community that they would like to now fill, right?

Stacey: And so there’s a number of ways that, um, a student may manifest a personal project that they’ve decided to delve into themselves, that it has not, no formal structure or necessarily support. And so a couple of examples that, um, I can give as quickly, um, I had a student have their own jewelry making business.

Stacey: I had a student who had a public health podcast. I had a student who, um, decided to give a nutrition seminar at her local library. [00:59:00] These are all passion projects, and I wouldn’t… I do think that they’re viewed favorably on in the application process. It is great content for essay writing as well. Um, but don’t feel like you need to have one.

Stacey: Having a passion project is not a requirement to admission to top institutions. Um, but if your student is thinking about one, definitely encourage them, um, and support them in whatever direction they’re choosing to, um, choose your, their extracurricular outlets.

Anesha: Okay. All right. We will have to leave it there right on the dot.

Anesha: Thank you for all the great questions. A lot of good questions. I hope folks come back to future sessions so we can try to answer them. Um, thank you to Stacey for answering the questions, for a great presentation. Uh, we hope that you all gained some strategies for your applications to top 25 ranked colleges and university, universities.

Anesha: We also hope that you’ll join us for our future webinars, but until next time, take care, and have a great evening, everybody.

Stacey: Thank you.

Anesha: Thanks, [01:00:00] Stacey.