What Top Colleges Look for in Pre-Med Applicants

Webinar Transcription

2026-04-07 – What Top Colleges Look for in Pre-Med Applicants

Anna: Hello everyone. Good evening or afternoon or morning, whatever time it is from wherever in the world you’re joining us. We are so happy you’re here for our webinar on, “What Top Colleges Look for in Pre-Med Applicants.” My name is Anna Vande Velde and I’ll be your moderator today. I’m a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor, have been with the company for almost five years now.

In addition to working with students one-on-one, I’m a co-captain of our essay review team. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’re gonna start off with a presentation and then answer your questions in a live q and a on the sidebar. You can download our slides and you can start submitting questions in the q and a tab anytime.

Please note though that super specific questions like, should I take X, y, or Z class, um, are not gonna be the most appropriate for today’s format, just ’cause those require a dialogue. Uh, but later on we’ll discuss a free opportunity to meet with us one-on-one to ask those specific questions. So for now, as you’re putting questions in the q and a to the best of your ability, try and focus on questions that you think would be helpful to other students as well, and we’ll get to as many of them as we can after the presentation.

This is being recorded, it will be emailed to everyone who registered afterwards. I think that’s all of my housekeeping. So, uh, I’m excited to get to this next part, which is introducing you to your presenter tonight. Stacey Tuttle. Um, you are lucky to have such, uh. An expert with you. Stacey, could you share a bit about your background?

Stacey: Sure. Uh, thank you. I’m also very lucky to be in your wonderful moderating hands this evening where I am. Um, and, and I’m so excited that I, I’m back doing these webinars with College Advisor. I took a little hiatus for a, a little while for family reasons, and so I’m really excited to kick off with you all.

Um, my background as it notes here on the slide is that I’m a former admissions officer for the Yale University School of Public Health. Um, and so my background very much is in pre-health, um, admissions, and I also have a Master’s of public health in my background. So I myself was pre-health at one point, and I, my alma mater is Yale University.

Um, so I did go to, uh, to achieve my bachelor’s degree at Yale at that time. So you can say I’ve kind of lived at Yale my entire life. Um, and I’m just really excited to share my insight.

Anna: Very qualified person to have with us for this topic. Stacey, before I turn it over to you for your presentation, thought it might be helpful for us to get a sense of who’s in the room with us.

So I’m gonna open this poll. Please let us know what grade you are in. If you’re here as the support person, you can select other. And while we’re waiting for your results to come in, Stacey, I’m gonna put you on the spot and ask you, knowing everything you know now about college admissions, what is one thing you would do differently if you had to apply to college today?

Stacey: Great question and a big one at that. Um, I wish, and this is part of the reason why I, um, love working with college advisors. It’s one of the reasons why I began working with college advisor, um, is I wish I could go back in time and have somebody like an advisor from the college advisor team. Tell me what was important and what was important for me to look for in the application process.

I didn’t know it at the time. I was sort of doing it organically, um, figuring out on my own. I was first generation, so I wasn’t really sure what to look for outside of, you know, apply to, you know, the top rated institutions. And I probably place less emphasis on, you know, majors and programs at those institutions and, and put more emphasis on the name brand of the institution itself.

Um, and yes, you know, it’s great to have, um, a top rated institution because they have wonderful resources to share with their students. Um, but that isn’t the be all, end all of your college search. And so if I could go back in time, I would ask, you know, myself to place less emphasis on that in my search.

Um, and put maybe more emphasis on kind of the programmatic. The academic offerings of the institutions at hand to ensure that, you know, I had a breadth of options that were of interest to me. Um, I ended up at Yale, which was great, but it’s definitely still something I think about, you know, that I didn’t place that in the right priority.

Anna: That is such good advice. It’s not just the college you’re applying to, it’s what you want to study there and what resources they have available in those programs. Um, it looks like most people have answered. So Stacey, just so you know, we have almost 40%, uh, in eighth and ninth grade. 30% I know. Starting early.

Love it. 30% in 10th grade, 20% in 11th grade. And then we have a few seniors and some said others. So, parents, educators, guardians. Uh, thank you all for completing that poll. I’m gonna close it now. And finally I will turn it over to Stacey for her presentation.

Stacey: Thank you so much. So let’s dive in. Um, what does it mean to be pre-med?

So some of you are really strongly considering medical school in your future. Uh. Misconception is that you will ultimately apply to an undergraduate institution as a pre-med student or to be in a pre-med major. And that is not the case. 99.9% of the time you’re really truly applying to an undergraduate institution to pursue an undergraduate major at that institution.

And then later we’ll be applying to medical school. In most cases. This, the exception to this would be BS MD or BAMD programs. Um, and I’ll talk about those a little bit more later, where you’re applying to both the medical school and the undergraduate institution at the same time. Um, but for most of you, you’ll be applying to undergraduate institutions and there won’t be a pre-med major to select, right?

So you really have to think about this as two entirely separate processes. You’re applying to an undergraduate institution as a pre-med. Individual and you wanna convey that to the undergraduate institution in your application because it’s part of your narrative, it’s part of your vision for your future.

But the major you’re selecting, um, could be anything from what you would expect of a pre-med major like biology and chemistry to English, to art, to computer science. Um, I had, uh, uh, quite a few pre-med, uh, colleagues who chose majors that I never would’ve thought would align with a pre-med, um, pursuit.

While it’s true that if you choose more, you know, traditional science tracks, the core coursework that you would take toward your pre-med requirements are sort of baked into a lot of those science majors as opposed to picking something like a humanities or a social science major. Um. But it’s, it’s still very possible to pick something that is kind of outside of the box.

And in some cases, I would absolutely encourage that of you who have diverse, um, interests. Um, and so to go back to the original question too, to punctuate that slide, being pre-med means that, um, you are taking a set of coursework and pursuing a set of, um, extracurricular activities, taking the MCAT during your undergrad years in the hopes of applying and getting accepted to med school at a later date.

And so, um, and I I also wanna clarify, I say at a later date, because not everybody does apply to medical school during their undergraduate years. Some will take a year off and then apply during that year off, et cetera. So it could be at any time during your undergraduate years or beyond. So what is the expected academic profile of pre-med applicants?

Um, of course, when it comes to your grades, we’re, they’re going to be looking for high achieving students, students who take challenging courses, particularly AP, um, or other advanced courses that you might have available at your school. Um, some examples of courses, and I’ll talk about this a little bit more on the next slide, um, that you might wanna look into, are those science APs, um, particularly biology, chemistry, physics, if that’s available now.

A question I often receive is, what if my school doesn’t offer AP classes or the like? Um, and it is true, there are many high schools that don’t offer any AP classes, or maybe they all only offer a subset of AP classes. So, for example, I went to a public school, um, in high school, uh, and there was a limited set of AP classes available to me.

And it was sort of a given that if you were a, a student who was high achieving and really wanted to take those challenging courses, you were going to take all of the AP courses that were available because there weren’t that many. Um, and I didn’t have, for example, AP physics available. I didn’t have all of the AP courses under the sun.

Whereas there’s some schools that offer many of these courses, what I will say is admissions officers will understand that in light of the school, um, that you come from, that you’re obtaining your high school education in, um, they will understand and take into account that you did not have those courses necessarily available to you.

Um, so at that point, we’ll assess, did you take the highest level courses available to you and what else did you do outside of your traditional coursework that may have allowed you to enhance your academic experience? Um, so for example, there may be opportunities to take courses at community colleges, um, or opportunities to enroll in dual enrollment courses.

Um, so an opportunity to take a course at a local college while also enrolled. At your high school. And so if you could take advantage of those opportunities when available, that will also reflect positively on your application, despite not having those AP courses available to you. Um, SAT scores also are relevant.

Again, um, for a while there it wasn’t a requirement for many institutions. Now the SAT score, um, is becoming increasingly important again, as a metric by which admissions officers are determining your academic ability, um, your ability to succeed when you enter their campus. And so it’s important that you are, um, studying for that test and preparing for that accordingly.

And in general, I would say, and this is sort of related to, um, the tangent I went off on, on the first slide. Just because you’re a pre-med student doesn’t mean that it’s not important to show interest in other subjects, right? Um, you. Aren’t going to necessarily be biology, chemistry, everything in all of all walks of your life, right?

You have diverse interests, you have other things that you might want to study, and that is okay. And it’s okay to emphasize that because again, you’re not applying to medical school at this point necessarily. You’re applying to an undergraduate institution and they want to see that you’re gonna come to their campus and contribute to their diverse student life in many different ways, not just as a pre-med student.

So what high school coursework best prepares students for pre-med pathways? I mentioned advanced science courses like biochem and physics, math, I would say through at least pre-calc or calculus. I would say stats might also be of interest to you as well. I’m sorry, one second. I just have to take a sip of water.

So stats might also be of interest to you? I would say when I got to high, uh, college, I actually emailed my AP stats professor to thank him for all of the help that he gave me in high school and how much he prepared me for my courses at the college level. So it’s really, really helpful, um, not just as a pre-med applicant to demonstrate your ability, but it will also help you later on to have that coursework in your background, um, to prepare you for the pre-med coursework that you’ll be taking at the college level.

AP or IB courses are also really helpful in general to show college level readiness and ion writing classes are helpful in terms of demonstrating strong communication skills and you might consider pursuing health related electives or dual enrollment science classes if available. Um. Anna, I’m just gonna take one second.

I’m so sorry. I have, um, a cough. I’m just trying to shake one, one moment.

Anna: No worries, Stacey.

Stacey: Thanks everybody. Sorry for that pause. So the health related electives, you might have some available at your high school that are not necessarily advanced level courses. Don’t shy away from those classes. So for example, a class in nutrition might be available at your high school and you might be really interested in that.

Um, and so I would say don’t, like I said, shy away from that course just because it’s not AP level. It might be really helpful to have that in your background as you apply to schools. Uh, again, SAT and acts are back. They’re, um, becoming increasingly important to your application. So oftentimes when colleges are screening applications, test scores and grades are kind of the first layer to that review process so that they can understand if you can handle the academic rigor, um, that are, is going to be presented to you on their campus when you, when you take their classes.

And so, um, I would say don’t shy away from studying early and preparing early. Um, I would advocate for taking both a, a a, maybe a pre-assessment for both, um, so that you engage whether ACT versus SAT will be the better choice for you in the long term. Um, some students test really well on the ACT versus the SAT.

I had a student who was really struggling to break a score that he was getting on the SAT that he wanted to obtain, and I encouraged him to take the ACT instead. He ended up getting a perfect score on the ACT in the long run. So it doesn’t matter which one you take, I would encourage you to lean toward the one that’s the better fit for you.

AP exams, I’m so sorry everybody. I do not know why I cannot shake this. Um, I’m just gonna keep drinking water and hope we’re the best. Um, AP exams, um, they can help you stand up ’cause they are standardized. Um, so it allows an admissions officer to see how you would compare to other students across the nation who are taking similar exams.

But I wanna flag, just because you take an AP exam and you get a good AP score, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll graduate early from the college that you’re applying to. A lot of colleges will, um, take that score into consideration in accepting you and ultimately placing you in freshman year courses, but it might not accelerate your time in their programs.

Okay. So what extracurricular activities should students seek out and highlight on their applications? This is a very, very popular question, and for many of you, you are in the early stages of your high school career or even pre-high school for the eighth graders, uh, in the room. And so I would say starting early is definitely a good thing when it comes to your ECU extracurricular profile.

One thing admissions officers will be looking for is sustained interest and long term commitments. So there will always be kind of the shorter term fleeting opportunities that are perhaps application based things that have, you know, finite periods of time, summer opportunities, things like that. But showing that you have a consistent and dedicated interest to a particular activity will be behoove you on your applications In the long run.

It’ll show maturity and like I said, dedication to that particular interest. So some options, um, include volunteering at local hospitals, clinics, or other healthcare settings, um, per potentially checking out their websites, seeing what they have available. Some have formal volunteer programs. I would also suggest reaching out to see if you can shadow doctors, nurses, or other healthcare professionals that might be of interest to you in your local community.

Um, again, you can check out hospital websites, might have formal programs for this, um, or local practices. I would also emphasize not shying away from, um, your, your networks, your personal networks. So if you know of somebody who works in a healthcare setting. And you would like to shadow that individual, um, ask them or reach out to the family friend who might be able to have, make that connection for you.

So don’t shy away, um, from leveraging that because that’s available to you and you’re looking to learn and experience, excuse me. And then also build that extracurricular profile. Um, research experience, especially in science or health fields, um, will also look really great on an application. That said, research experiences are really hard to come by at a young age.

So for those of you who are not 16 yet, a lot of these formal research opportunities that are out there, these formal programs require you to be of a certain age when you apply, um, the ones I’m talking about, um, usually have applications open in maybe November or December. Something to look out for in junior or even senior year.

Um. And their application deadlines are typically January, February, and flagging that timeline so that you kind of start to look on websites and, and do research around the programs available in your area. Um, because those opportunities typically have very tight application windows and are quite competitive, you wanna prepare and know in advance what to look for.

Excuse me. Um, I am so sorry everybody. This is, uh, the aftermath of a cult for sure. Um, leadership roles in clubs like HOSA, um, science Olympiad or student government are really, really helpful, um, in demonstrating that you can be a pillar in your community, someone who your peers look to for leadership.

And I would emphasize also in this bullet point that, um. You don’t have to focus on just health opportunities, health related opportunities, um, to emphasize your character through your extracurriculars. Um, qualities that you wanna put forward in your application could be transferrable easily to a healthcare career from things like sports leadership or even debate with your communication skills.

There are are many, many extracurriculars that you can, um, put forward on your application that would look really favorable. I would emphasize here that you should pick things that are true passions of yours, because those will be easier to sustain in a long-term commitment over time. And honestly, you’ll enjoy your extracurriculars a lot more if you actually like what you’re doing.

So I would definitely encourage you to entertain diverse options in terms of your school related extracurriculars, um, clubs, things of that nature. Um, also community service or advocacy related extracurriculars look really good on a healthcare app related application. Um, just some examples from my own experience working with students, I had a student, um, with a podcast, um, who focused on bringing awareness to certain STEM areas that were less popular, um, in kind of the the age group he was in.

Um, I had another student who was really passionate about bringing nutrition seminars to her community. So she organized a formal seminar series through her local library. Um, and so there’s a number of ways that you can kind of look into your community and see is there a gap? Um, and can I help to meet the need that that gap is existing as a result of, um.

And to that end, this last bullet, creating your own opportunity is always an option. So again, kind of thinking about what you’re passionate about, what you’re interested in, and maybe looking around and asking yourself, what does my community need? And finding a way to, uh, mobilize or formalize, um, resources, education, um, or a group, you know, to bring people together in a, a setting that they can work together and share toward a common goal.

Um, one another example, I had a student who created a rock climbing group because he had peers who were interested in that. He, he was really passionate about it, and so he created that at his local high school. And so I had another student who started her own jewelry making business because that was something she was really passionate about.

So, you know, those are just a few examples. Um, but if you’re following what you’re interested in, um, you are on the right path.

Excuse me. What role do personal statements and supplemental as essays play? So, um, personal statement, I wanna pause here for a moment to talk about the big essay specifically because med, med, pre-med students, I will say often feel, um, pressure to emphasize their interest in medicine in the personal statement to the detriment of that essay.

Meaning that they kind of fo they pull in all of these kind of, um, superficial statements about their extracurriculars. They try to really hammer home, um, that they’re interested in healthcare and medicine. And, and as a result, the essay is not a really good essay. It’s, it’s not providing the depth that you would expect from a quality applicant.

And so what I would encourage you to do instead, um, is really think about your own journey to this point in your application process. Where have you been? Where are you now and where do you hope to go? IE medical school. Um, and what have been the formative experiences that have led you to this point, right?

What is, what are the things that have really moved you or changed you? And so formatting that essay, um, in a particular way that is not necessarily I’m interested in medicine. Here are the things I’ve done and the reasons why. And also I’m interested in medicine at the very end. More so, you know, this is where I started.

This is where my journey began. Here’s this kind of turning point for me, um, in terms of a lesson I learned or of self, uh, a way I changed and how I view the world, or, um, an interest that I gained as a result of this experience. And then here’s my conclusion. Here’s my wrap up and why I wanna study at your institution.

Um, and so the personal statements are really important. Why? Because it’s the one that most schools are going to see. Um, supplemental essays. Meanwhile, are these kind of opportunities to highlight other pieces of your brand, your your, your unique identity that you’re putting forth to the admissions team.

And so, um, some highlighted points here. Um, you’ll want to showcase your personal motivation for applying, um, your interest in medicine and your passion for healthcare careers. You’ll wanna highlight any unique experience that you’ve had beyond your grades and your test scores. So I’m an admissions officer.

I’m reviewing your application. I see you have these test scores. I see you have these grades. I see you have these extracurriculars. I can draw a lot of conclusions about this information, but your essays give you the one opportunity beyond maybe your letters of recommendation, which are written by other people to have your own voice, um, demonstrated as a part of the application.

And for you to fill in sort of blanks for the admissions officer about what your interests are and who you are as a person. Feel free to, you know, employ some humor, if that makes sense for you and your personality. Feel free to, um, highlight, uh, an experience that is nowhere else on your application, but is really important to you and who you are as an individual.

This is your opportunity. Um, you’ll also wanna demonstrate your writing skills here, right? Um, and your ability to communicate clearly. This is, again, a thematic part of, um, this presentation, that communication skills are really important as a pre-med app, uh, applicant. Um, again, the essays allow the, the admissions officer to really see more about who you are as a person, including your character, your resiliency, your maturity.

Oftentimes as an admissions officer, if I’m reading an essay. And I’m gathering that there might be some immaturity, um, on the part of the applicant, or maybe the applicant doesn’t seem to have their priorities, um, really in alignment with what they’re articulating as their goal. So for example, if a student is saying, I’m interested in medicine, but then they’re not really making a good argument, um, and building up a, a picture for me about why they’re interested in medicine and what they’re gonna do in medicine, that’s not gonna be a strong essay.

Um, and actually I would say, you know, if there’s another approach you might take that doesn’t focus so much on medicine, but really hammers home your own focus and your own passion, that might be the better avenue. Um, and talking to um, counselors, people who can read your essays will be really helpful in making that determination in the long term.

Um, and I, on that note, I would say never, you know, submit an essay cold, always make sure you’re, you’re getting a couple of, of eyes on, on that essay to get feedback and, and incorporate that so that you’re not, you know, um, submitting it without additional feedback. Um, and ultimately your essays will help differentiate you from other applicants in a competitive admissions process.

And so, um, I talked a little bit about structure. Um, keep in mind that these essays are only so long, so you really need to use every word to the best of your ability, um, and ensure that whatever you’re writing is, it’s advancing the narrative that you’re putting forth to the admissions officers. So if you’re reading a sentence and it sort of feels like it doesn’t belong or it’s not really connecting.

Your thoughts clearly remove that sentence. Or maybe you’re reading a sentence and you’re like, this is really, really long. Maybe I don’t need this many words to convey this idea. Cut down that sentence. Um, and you’re going to need to probably do this out of sheer necessity because the essays usually have word limits.

The, the personal statement is much longer than, um, the supplemental essays typically, but that’s not always true across the universities that you’re applying to. But you’re going to wanna pay attention to those word, word limits, excuse me. And ensure that you, um, are trying to, are being as concise and clear as possible.

Um, the last thing you want for an admissions officer to do is to read an essay and then come outta an essay and not really understand the point you were trying to make, or understand how that narrative fits in with the bigger picture of your application. You wanna make sure, um, whatever you’re putting forth in those essays aligns with a bigger narrative that you’re trying to, to convey to the reader.

Um, what factors make a great essay? Uh, again, I talked about this a lot, um, on the fir the earlier slide a few slides ago. Um, an element to consider here is the element of surprise. So a comment I’ve made throughout my career when it come, when I’m reading an essay is, you know, this one has really surprised me.

This one really sticks with me. And it’s, it’s not something that, you know, every, every essay does, and not every essay surprises me. And that doesn’t mean the student’s not admitted. But if you can take kind of a, a novel approach to a topic, um, or make somebody think differently. About the topic that you’re writing about, you’ve achieved something really beautiful there.

And so, um, something to consider is how you might surprise the reader and how you’re approaching your narrative or the topic at hand, particularly on the supplemental essays. Also, again, every word matters, so just make sure you’re being as clear and concise as possible. How can I demonstrate my interest and passion for medicine through my essays?

Um, you can absolutely include your experience with healthcare in your essays themselves. Again, I wanna emphasize that you don’t need to have every part of your application scream medicine. You are not applying to medical school necessarily in your applications. You’re applying as a pre-med student. And so pre-med students will have a variety.

Of interests and formative experiences in their background that you can talk about in your essays. If you are writing an essay, and what I’m reading in your essay is regurgitating what you already have elsewhere in your extracurriculars or, um, on your transcripts, um, then you’re not really adding value to your application in the essay that you’re writing.

Give the admissions officer more whenever possible, you know, fill in the blanks. Think of it, your application as a puzzle. And you know, they have the, the courses that you’ve taken and they have the extracurriculars that you’ve pursued. Maybe they have, you know, your letters of reference from folks that can really speak to the qualities you have.

Now you’re writing these essays, what’s missing? What are the puzzle pieces that they need to put it all together and know, okay, this is the applicant. Do I want them to join us on my campus? And that I think will produce the most meaningful essays, um, for the admissions officer to read in the long run.

Um, so for, I talked about earlier, um, BSMD program, so programs where students can apply to both the medical school and the undergraduate program at the same time. These do exist. Um, they are, they’re few in number, but, um, students can’t apply to them. I will say that, um, the admissions, uh, percentages for these schools are in the single digits.

Um, so these schools, in terms of, um, where they fall on your list are, are always going to be reached goals for any student because their admissions numbers are very, very, very small. So it’s very competitive. And as a result, I, I hear kind of, um, advice on both sides of the fence on this, but some will say, apply to as many as you can.

I say just because the admissions rates are low, I say apply to one or two. Um, and the reason for this is admissions rates are very low. So even if you are the, you know, the highest quality candidate that they see in their applicant pool, at the end of the day, they can’t admit every high quality candidate.

Right? It’s going to, um, fall, uh, come down to somewhat subjective, um, determinations at that stage and you could put the best application forward that you possibly could and still not get into that institution just because it is a numbers game at that point. Um, and so I tend to lean toward apply to a few as you would any reach school.

Um, I also advise that because the applications are very cumbersome, they often have a lot of requirements and a lot of essays. So, um, they take a lot of time and you can’t apply to a thousand schools during an admission cycle. So you want to make sure you’re balancing your college list with these kind of reach opportunities.

And also target and safety, um, schools on that list. So this is just good application practice in the grand scheme of things. Um, also prepare for long and hard interviews. You know, the, this whole application process for BSMD programs is intense. Um, and there can be a number of different styles for that interview process.

So it could be a personal interview as you would expect it to be, but it could also be, um, what they call, um, MMI. So multiple mini interviews where you have kind of quick rounds of interviews to assess, um, various comp qualities that you have, including communication skills. So going into the process.

Prepare practice, um, you know, practice with yourself, practice on video, practice with other people. The more you practice, the more prepared you will feel. Um, and please, please, please do fill out that common app ahead of time. Um, because if you have that done, BSMD programs have these extra essays, um, that might pop up and you do want to be prepared and have time to tackle that.

So, final words of advice. Um, start exploring early to find the best fit for your goals. Um, I cannot say enough, you know, and I mentioned this when Anna asked, uh, earlier about what I would tell young Stacey, um, about her application process. Um, really think about the fit with the institution you’re applying for, um, or to, and understand what they have to offer to you.

So if you’re pre-med applicant. You want to do research on the institution and understand, are they going to be able to support you in your pre-med goals? Do they have pre-med advising, robust, robust pre-med advising opportunities? Check out their website, see what’s available there. Do they have pre-med groups that you can join or, um, pre-med, um, networks, um, that are available online?

And I would even go a step further and maybe see if you could be connected with a pre-med student at that school to gain an, uh, a sense of what that experience is like. Um, and then even further than that, they likely have data around what their typical pre-med applicant, um, does in terms of their MCAT scores and their success in applying to medical school.

What are those numbers looking like? Um, how successful are their students? Um, and where do they go if they do get into medical school? You can ask all of these questions on your journey. And you should, if it’s something that’s, that the pre-med is really important to you, um, stay curious and proactive in gaining your healthcare experiences.

Healthcare is so many things, right? Um, there are so many opportunities to work in healthcare that are beyond just medical school. Medical school is obviously a really wonderful pathway. Um, but just keep an open mind. Um, and especially going into undergrad, you know, uh, you might start pre-med and you might find that there’s another avenue that is more attracted to you in the healthcare field that is not necessarily medical school.

So just continue to gain that experience, um, and be open-minded. Balance your academics with those meaningful extracurriculars and self-care. Um, I know we emphasize earlier, taking challenging coursework. Um, I would tell you that I, I would make sure that you are doing that to a limit. Um, you know, you know yourself, you know what you can achieve in a given timeframe.

There’s only so many hours in a day. Um, and so if it means taking one less AP class so you can focus more on that extracurricular, that’s really meaningful to you and get sleep and lower your stress levels, um, you know, I would advocate doing cutting out an AP class if you needed to do that. Um, it’s not going to benefit you to take all of the AP classes that are available, but then have no extracurriculars and no sleep.

Uh, and so just make sure you’re balancing, uh, um, at the end of the day. I think this is probably the most important takeaway is be authentic in your application, in your interviews. If you are inauthentic at any stage in the process, it, it does come through and it might not seem that way to you, but it’s very obvious to admissions officers when the pieces, that puzzle is not coming in into place and in your interviews when you’re not able to really articulate.

Why you’re going in this direction, really do some self-reflection. I think the application process is so beautiful in so many ways because it allows the individual to look inward and decide, um, or, you know, try to figure out how to outwardly articulate what they’re really interested in. And so it’s going to be a very interesting journey, um, as you apply and go along and remember, persistence and passion are key to success.

So if it’s something you love to do, it’s something you wanna do. Um, keep on pushing. Um, and thank you all. I think that is the last slide before our q and a. Um, and apologies again for that coughing fit earlier. Oh, definitely the tail end of cold season for me. So thanks for bearing with me.

Anna: No worries, Stacey.

Hope you’re feeling a little better. Um, thank you for all of that information. We hope you found it helpful. A reminder that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab and that this is being recorded and it will be emailed to everyone who registered and also will be available on our website.

Moving on to the live q and a, as I get to each one, I will read it out loud and paste it into the public chat so everyone can both see and hear them. Um, before Stacey responds, as a heads up, if your q and a tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you join the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

Alright, Stacey, here’s the first question. What is the common app and how, how does it work? How does it help you apply to colleges?

Stacey: Sure. Um, so the common app is a central application system. Um, it is. Great in many ways because it allows students to go to one place to apply to many institutions. And you want to clarify that not every institution is in the common app.

So for example, if you’re applying to the University of California systems, or MIT, they have separate applications for those institutions, um, that require kind of separate procedures. Um, but the common app, you’ll find many institutions live in that application. And so you’ll fill out a set of questions and pull in your transcript and, and, um, test scores into one central, um, application system.

And then the schools that you’re applying to may have a subset of what we called supplemental questions, um, and or essays that you’ll need to complete for those schools specifically. Um, there will also be one per large personal statement as part of that application process. And did I, there was a second part to the question, Anna.

Anna: I think you, you answered it, which was just how does it help you apply to colleges? Sure. Um, you mentioned that it doesn’t matter, like there’s no preference for the ACT or the SAT. So how should students decide which one to take?

Stacey: Yeah, and that’s a great question. So this was, uh, I maybe didn’t elaborate as much on this as I would’ve normally because of my coughing.

I’m so sorry. Um, the ACT, um, and SAT have some kind of key differences between them. Um, one being that the ACT has a science section, so I find that pre-med students sometimes do really well on the ACT because there is a science section. It, it’s sort of, kind of, um. Their area of comfort. Um, there’s also a difference in terms of whether you have a calculator available or not on each of these tests.

So something to consider is kinda where you’re thriving. Granted, if you have a calculator available, usually there’s less time for the questions. Um, but some thrive more in one situation versus the, they’re kind of doing the manual math versus in a, a longer timeframe versus the calculated calculator math in a, a shorter timeframe.

Um, and I think, you know, sitting time might be slightly different. Um, but overall the experiences are, are, are slightly different between the two tests. And, and therefore I do think it, it benefits anyone to take a pre SAT and a pre ACT. Um, so you can see how you score on both. And then if you do well more, um, kind of if it’s a wash between the two, pick the one that.

Um, feels like the test that you feel more confident in personally. If you’re scoring clearly better on one versus the other, I would say pick the one that you’re scoring better on and really focus on that. Don’t study for two different tests. That’s going to not be a great use of time, um, study for one or the other once you make that determination.

Anna: Thank you. And sticking with the SAT/ACT topic for a bit, we got at least three of these questions. What score should students get? And I’m gonna take a bet here, Stacey, that you’re not gonna give them an actual number.

Stacey: I think you would win that bet. Um, so you mo many schools will publish admission statistics about the most recent incoming class.

And so, um, you can, you can generally look this information up, see if it’s available, maybe inquire with institutions to see if that information’s available. And the question that you’re really asking here is, what is the average SAT or ACT score from the previously admitted class? Um, and this will give you a barometer, a kind of, uh, a metric by which you can measure, okay, is the school within, um, the target range for me?

Like, is my score sort of at where their, their average for their admitted class is? Or is it a reach for me because that score is higher than what I’m currently achieving? Or, um, the counterpoint is it lower, um, than what I’m achieving? So the school is more of a safety for me. Um, so that’s something you can really do actively in your research, but it’s not, it’s an average.

It’s not one size fit, all fits all. So we can’t say, you know, you have to have a minimum of this score, or you’re not gonna get into any of your top school. That’s not it at all. Most admissions officers are going through a holistic application review process, and the test score is only one component of their whole review of your application.

Um, and so maybe you have a lower test score, um, but you have an amazing personal statement and you have great letters of recommendation and you did really well in your coursework, and so maybe they weigh that test score less heavily as a result of the other components.

Anna: Thanks so much. Stacey, I’m gonna give you a break.

You’ve been going strong for 40 minutes. If you need to grab a cough, drop or drink a water, that’s fine. Um, so I can talk for a bit about CollegeAdvisor. So for those in the room who are not already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be. CollegeAdvisor has a team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in a one-on-one advising sessions and essay editing.

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

At the end. You’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer that pair you an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and so much more. We are here for the whole process. Um, so give that QR code a scan. If you can’t do it right now, remember you can download the slides, um, whenever you scan it, please do.

That’s a free hour with us. It’s a. Great time to ask the questions you have that I mentioned at the start. That might be too specific for us tonight. That meeting’s just you and someone on our team, a great place to ask your questions and learn more about how you can get connected with CollegeAdvisor.

We’re gonna go back to the q and a for the rest of our time, but I’ll leave that QR code on the screen. Uh, so please do go ahead and scan it and sign up for that free session. And my screen just freaked out. Okay, here we go. Back to the questions. Stacey. Uh, where could students find research and shadowing opportunities?

Stacey: Yeah, great question. So, um, there’s an, uh, let’s start with research. So, research opportunities are fewer and far between, farther between for high school level students than they would be once you hit under your undergraduate career. That said. There are a number of formalized research programs out there.

Um, I mentioned earlier in the slides that you can usually find these opportunities by searching online. Um, they may have deadlines in January or even as early as December, actually, maybe as late as February. And then they typically open around, I would say, November, December-ish. Um, so these are tight timelines, very competitive research opportunities usually, um, that you can apply for, uh, during your high school career.

Usually they also do have age or grade minimums associated with those. Um, and likewise, if you find formal research opportunities outside of these, um, kind of research program option, there usually is an age, um, expectation of at least 16. Um, so just keep that in mind if you’re, you know, a freshman or, or.

Um, a sophomore. You may not have these opportunities necessarily available this early. Um, I would also say, again, you can leverage your networks. If you are familiar with somebody doing research in your area or at a local university, maybe you can, um, inquire if they’re in need of, you know, an unpaid research intern or, um, if you could shadow a researcher for a day, um, or even just have an informational interview to understand what their experiences are like and what they’re doing.

Um, I would also say talk to your teachers at your high school. There could be opportunities to research within your school, um, that you did not realize existed without approaching those individuals in your life. Um, and so shadowing opportunities similarly, um, you would want to leverage those networks.

Um, see if. You have somebody in your life who is doing work that you would want to shadow, um, ask them. Don’t be ashamed to ask them. Um, you, that is an advantage you have in knowing somebody who’s doing the work currently and that you could readily shadow. I did that a number of times in high school and even in my early undergraduate career, just to understand what a day in the life would be like for myself.

Um, and so you can ask through your networks, but you can also check out, um, websites for hospitals and local practices to see if they have formal shadowing opportunities for students and what those requirements are, what the age limits and such are as a result.

Anna: Stacey, thank you. We’re getting a lot of questions that are structured, such as, would it be better if I did this or that volunteer or internship, this or that.

Am I correct that? What matters most is, one, do what’s accessible to you because not everyone can access all of those things, do what’s accessible to you, and then follow your interests and what fits in with your life.

Stacey: Yeah, I, I a hundred percent you think, I think you hit the nail on the head with that.

Um, I also really appreciate that you highlighted first accessibility because we do need to acknowledge that not all of the same resources are available in every part of the country to every person. Um, and so I would, you know, capitalize on what you’re interested in, um, based on what is currently available to you.

Um, as Anna just said, and I would not shy away from the created opportunity, the passion project, if you will, you might have heard this phrase thrown around a number of times. Passion projects could seem daunting. Um, as a, as a topic in general. Um. But if you are really interested in a topic, if you’re really interested in kind of creating a resource or a group or an opportunity or an educational, um, resource for your community, if you are passionate, um, it’s worth pursuing.

Uh, because otherwise, you know, that resource or that club or whatever that might be, may never exist. Um, and it could really benefit not just you, but other people. And I do think creative opportunities like those would look really good on an application. And so if you don’t, if you don’t have access to a resource or a group or an opportunity, um, really think about how you can meet that need and maybe how you can bring forth that opportunity.

So, um, I mentioned Jose like a club earlier in the, um, side deck. There are a lot, a lot of high schools that don’t have a chapter of hosa and you could, um, inquire with your high school, get a certain number of signatures, get an advisor and create a chapter, um, as one opportunity for kind of creating, um, something for yourself and for other people.

So just an example.

Anna: Thank you so much. Do you recommend that high school students engage with college admissions officer, particularly the ones in their region? And if your answer is yes, how can they do that without being annoying? Like how do they find the right balance out?

Stacey: Excellent question. Um, first I think any engagement you have should be genuine.

Um. Go on the college tour, um, attend an information session, go to a college fair. Those are all genuine demonstrations of engagement, right? And, um, not every institution, but some institutions will track that engagement and under understand what that your, try to, um, kind of connect that in the grand scheme of your application review.

Um, with what we call yield, you know, your likeliness to come to the institution. It’s a good demonstration of yield if you’re engaging with the institution on all of these levels. Um, what I would not suggest doing is emailing questions to an admissions inbox or an inquiry form, um, that could be answered on with a quick Google search.

It’s not going to look good. Um, I don’t think those are tracked in the quite the same way as they would those more meaningful engagement opportunities. That said, if you do have a question and it’s not answered online. And it’s not been answered in your information sessions, feel free to reach out with that genuine question.

Um, but again, I, I don’t think that’s tracked in quite the same way.

Anna: Thank you so much. Um, we were talking about, you know, the different types of programs available to students and some are noting in the chat that there are some pretty expensive programs out there, particularly summer programs. Do you think the pay to play opportunities and the ones that are at like reputable, uh, institutions, is that worth it?

Are they worth the money?

Stacey: That, that’s another you, you all are coming forth with some really good ones. Um, this evening? I, I think this goes back to our conversation about accessibility, right? Um, and so just because these are, these opportunities are available, doesn’t mean they’re accessible to everyone.

Not everybody has the financial resources to engage with. The formal programs that require some kind of tuition or fee. Um, and so I wouldn’t, um, put pressure on yourself to engage with that opportunity if that’s not feasible or it’s financially a deterrent for you. That said, um, if you do decide to pursue it, I, I’m sure you would gain, um, great experiences and maybe some academic, um, training, um, in, in those opportunities that you pursue it.

It’s not that it wouldn’t be helpful for you in terms of your overall journey, um, but I don’t want students to feel pressure to engage with those, given the financial burden that it may pose. And I will, I will tell you as somebody who grew up in a situation where I applied for scholarships for everything, I was not paying for things out of pocket if I didn’t have to.

Um. I didn’t have all of the financial resources available to me to do whatever I wanted to do at that time. Um, and I was still a successful applicant to the undergraduate institutions that I applied to. What’s more important is that you’re picking activities in your extracurricular life that are meaningful to you and that you can connect that into the bigger picture of your application for the admissions officers.

Anna: Yeah, and something I tell my students who do go to those prestigious programs, uh, expensive programs, is that it’s not listing it on the application even that, that really is that impressive. Mm-hmm. It’s how you talk about your time there. So whether it’s a program that you family has paid money for or one you haven’t paid for, I think the way to really emphasize your what you got out of it is to.

To describe in an essay and as much as you can in the description, your impact and, and its impact on you, what you learned, how you grew through it. Do you agree with that, Stacey?

Stacey: A hundred percent. And I, I will tell you, as somebody who’s read, you know, hundreds, thousands of applications, sometimes in one season, um, there’s only so much one person can absorb.

There’s often only so much time I can spend on your application. And so sometimes these, these programs that you have pursued that may have been very costly, are a moment in time, a second in time, and really don’t have that much impact on the grand scheme of your final admissions decision. And that’s because we are looking at the bigger picture of who you are, um, given what you’ve done, but also how you’re articulating that in your essays and how other people are speaking about you in your letters and how.

You’ve, um, aligned that with your academic coursework and things of that nature. One program, and I’ll be in these cases, expensive programs, is not going to make or break an application.

Anna: Thank you. I think we have time for maybe one or two more questions. Um, any tips on finalizing a student’s college list?

Stacey: Yeah, this is also a really good one. Um, so I mentioned earlier that it’s really important to balance your college list. Um, and when I say balance, I mean having a nice distribution and what we call reach schools, target schools and safety schools. So reach schools are schools that when you look at their average admitted student, um, your academic, um, and I think overall profile.

Um, falls, you know, at, um, around that, that marker. But the admissions rates for those programs or those institutions are so low that only a certain number of students are going to get in anyway. And so, um, these schools are, are reached for anyone just because, um, the, the admissions rates are so low that even the highest quality candidates are, are maybe not getting into those institutions.

Um, target schools are those that your profile is again, at their, um, they’re sort of average admitted student level, but their admissions rates are, um, more in that kind of middle tier range. And so your chances of getting into those institutions, given that you kind of meet their target applicant profile and their admissions rates are in that kind of middle tier of values.

Your chances of getting in are, um, much more likely. And then safety schools are those where your applicant profile exceeds that of what they would expect for an average student. And their admissions rates are usually, um, much higher. And so I would encourage balancing across the board. Um, it, it really depends on the student, but I would say maybe two to three in each category, maybe a few more in the target category than in the safety or the reach.

Um, but you do, you don’t wanna apply to all reach schools. If you apply to all of the Ivy League or top 20 institutions, um, your chances of getting into, into schools is going to be a lot lower. Um, there was recently a very popular TV show where a student did just that, and she got into absolutely none of her schools, um, even though she was an excellent student.

And that is a possibility. So you wanna make sure you are balancing your application as a result or your applications to schools as a result.

Anna: Yes, be strategic. Don’t stretch yourself too thin. We are at time. Thank you so much, Stacey, for sharing your expertise tonight. Thanks for everyone for joining. If you haven’t been able to scan the QR code and schedule your free assessment with us, just keep your browser open until the webinar officially ends and you, you’ll be redirected to the booking page.

That is the end of the webinar. We hope you’re able to sign up for your free meeting with us. We had a great time talking about pre-med programs and thank you to everyone for joining us. Take good care.

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