Why You Need College Applications Help

Webinar Transcription

2024-05-23 – Why You Need College Applications Help

Anna: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our webinar on, “Why You Need College Application Help.” My name is Anna Vande Velde. I’ll be your moderator today. I’m also senior advisor here at CollegeAdvisor, and they’ve asked me to share just a bit about my background with you. I’ve been with the company for about three years now.

In addition to advising students, I’m a co-captain on our essay review team. For my undergrad, I studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon. I thought I was going to be a clinical psychologist, but I ended up at Harvard Law School where I graduated a couple years back. So in addition to my work with CollegeAdvisor, I’m a non profit defense attorney, and I live in Ottawa, Ontario.

To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’re going to start off with a presentation, then answer your questions in a live Q& A. On the sidebar, you can download our slides and you can start submitting your questions in the Q& A tab at any point, so please don’t feel the need to wait until the end in the Q& A session.

Keep the questions coming and we’ll get to them, as many of them at the end as we can. Now it’s my pleasure to turn it over to Uh, to our presenter to introduce himself.

Ferrell: Thanks, Anna. Um, well, thank you so much everyone for being here this evening. My name is Farrell Armstrong, and I am a former admissions officer from both Vanderbilt University and the University of Georgia.

But the vast majority of my time was at Vanderbilt, where I was the assistant director of admission and the chief international admissions officer. As well as a member of the admissions committee, so excited to kind of sit down this evening and kind of talk through. Um, why, you know, it’s important to be getting assistance in this process and highlight a lot of the things that I think schools are not being as transparent about, uh, so that you’re more aware and can make a more informed decision about what your needs might be in the future.

Anna: Thanks, Farrell. We are really lucky to have you here, um, to truly get the insider scoop. Before I turn it over to you for your presentation, I thought it’d be helpful to get a sense of who’s in the room with us. So folks who are listening in, if you could please let us know what grade you’re in. If you’re here as a parent, educator, support person, feel free to select other, just to give us a sense of who’s here.

And while you do that, Ferrell, I was wondering if I could put you on the spot and ask, knowing everything you know now, with your extensive experience in admissions, Is there anything you would do differently if you had to redo your college admissions process?

Ferrell: That’s actually ironically a question I’ve never gotten and I’ve done this for 16 years.

Um, you know, I, I think one thing I would do is I would, I personally, I know I started the process too late having worked in the industry as long as I did. Um, or have and do to this day. Um, I would start putting my school list together no later than sophomore year. I mean, sincerely start sophomore year.

Um, I didn’t even know I should be submitting applications. And it was September, my senior year, when I realized the applications were open because I did not have a, a really good college advising, um, staff at my high school. And I went to the number one public school in the state of Tennessee. Uh, and yet still did not have any solid advice or guidance.

So yeah, definitely, you know, hindsight 2020, knowing what I know now, trying to spread this process out and give myself as much time as possible.

Anna: I would also start earlier if I had to review. And the one piece of advice I hope students learn from my experience is don’t be like me and sign up for every single club because you think that’s what colleges are looking for.

Farrell’s going to get into this I’m sure and I’m sure extracurriculars will come up in the Q& A as well, but don’t just sign up for things because you think it’ll look good to college. Follow your genuine interests, be engaged, join activities, but Don’t sign up for everything.

Ferrell: We are definitely going to talk about that tonight. That’s for sure.

Anna: I had a feeling, uh, just so you know, for all in the room, we have, uh, about three quarters are in 11th grade and one quarter in 10th grade.

Ferrell: Okay. All right. Well, let’s do it.

Anna: Let’s do it. I’m handing it over to you.

Ferrell: Great. Well, I think it’s important to kind of talk about a few key things this evening, and I’m going to try to approach this in, in each slide is kind of going to be its own unique part in the process.

Um, but I think it is incredibly important that we talk about the, your need to understand, um, That this process is is more than just essays and it’s more than just GPA and test score. This process is about the whole person and it’s about the needs of a school at the timeline that you’re applying. So in order to understand that, the proper time to start preparing for this is now.

And if You are a junior for those of you that are juniors with 75 percent of you being here this evening. Um, I mean, you should be as far as you should already be writing your essays at this stage of the game for the sophomores that are here this evening, you should be, you know, developing school list.

You should have a pretty decent school list already as we are ending the sophomore year currently in May. Um, and you need to obviously, you know, be getting ready to start your essays and, you know, the late fall as you enter junior, excuse me, junior year next year. So the appropriate time is no matter what year in school you are, you should be in some way, shape or form starting the process or already, you know, in the process.

But I think starting to develop a school list is one of the earlier things that you should be doing. And therefore that will allow you to eventually develop a specific application strategy. To the schools that you hold interest in. And so with that being the case, individualizing this process is going to be kind of like the topic of conversation for this evening, everything should be unique to you and yet everything that you’re eventually submitting to a school should be unique to what that school wants.

Um, so in starting about talking about yourself. What is it that’s important to you and how are you going to go about making your list? Well, it’s answering the first question. You need to understand what you place value on. Do you want to be in a larger environment? Do you want to be a smaller environment?

Do you want to be in, you know, mountainous terrain? I’m thinking, you know, schools in Colorado, you see Boulder. Uh, do you want to be in an urban, you know, area? Could you, you know, see yourself at Penn? Could you see yourself at Columbia or Fordham, NYU even? What type of actual Academic environment. Do you want to be a part of?

Do you, do you want to be in a more collaborative, you know, academic environment like a Vanderbilt or I previously worked? Or do you want to be in an aggressively competitive academic environment like University of Chicago? These are the types of things that you need to start developing an idea of. And there’s Never, you know, really a time too early to start because the more time you give yourself, the more you’re going to learn about where you properly, you know, need to be in your own opinion for yourself.

Um, also things like weather patterns. I think that’s important. You know, a lot of times I’ll speak with families and, and the students telling me that they can’t do another day of snow and they’re in Boston and they want to go to school in Florida. That’s fine. Okay. That, that should also influence your list.

Um, but I think there’s some outside factors that most families avoid or maybe don’t think of. And. Such as like, what are your hobbies? You know, I am a practitioner, excuse me, a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And if I was a 17 year old or a 16 year old starting to explore the idea of potential schools for myself.

I would want to know if there was a way for me to continue practicing that martial art in a decent, you know, distance from campus, nothing too far, maybe 10 to 15 minutes away at maximum. And so if you have hobbies or interests that you enjoy, you should be thinking about ways that you can continue taking part in those when you transition into college and university, it doesn’t need to be something that you have to give up just to go to a school.

If you’re not happy with your personal life, I guarantee you your academic life isn’t going to be as high of a performing level as it needs to be. So you’re really looking to create balance on both sides of the spectrum per se. Now, in order to start narrowing your list down, I think I would recommend personally that you look at about 40 schools.

And I’m not saying that you should apply to 40 schools. I think you should look at 40 schools, explore 40 schools, and slowly narrow that list down to a final application list of a minimum of 12. Upwards of 20. And there’s a couple of factors there, you know, in the last three years, there has been a near 90%, excuse me, there has been over a 90 percent increase in applications.

Uh, and this is all a direct result of test optional admissions. And so with these tests, optional admissions policies, Schools have been inundated with more applications than they have the staff to support. And many schools have had to default to increasing the reliance on algorithms and other automotive tools to speed up the review.

But unfortunately, that’s leading to them spending less time physically reviewing your application and it’s dehumanizing the process, which leads to a lower chance of admission when combined. Therefore, you want to have additional schools than what someone, you know, four or five years ago may have applied to.

Um, you know, currently the average student applies to eight schools. We would suggest nothing less than 12. It is a mistake to have anything less than four additional schools than the average applicant. Okay, so hold to at least 12. I personally do more like 15, okay? Um, now, why do you want to look at 40 to narrow it down to there?

Well, you, eventually you need to categorize your list. You need public and private schools. You know, a lot of families avoid private schools because at the surface level, they’re more expensive. But surprisingly, you are significantly more likely to get scholarship by going with a private school or than a public school.

Uh, in many cases, a private school can be cheaper than an in state public option for yourself. So don’t ignore private schools because in the surface level, they are advertised as being more expensive. You’ll be pleasantly surprised in many cases. Also, you need to be developing your list into three categories of, you know, reach, target, and safety.

Understanding that diversifying your list in that manner is going to give you a greater balance and a greater chance of enrollment, a greater chance of admission, I should say. And the reason for that is, too many families today are making their school list, Too many schools that are too similar in nature, right?

And so they’re making similar admissions decisions. And when you have a bunch of schools that are, you know, within, you know, one to three points of, you know, admissions rate together. And that’s, you know, all of your school list. That’s a problem. You’re making your you’re putting yourself at risk for being denied every single school you apply to.

So if we were just to go off of a minimum of 12 schools, I would suggest that five of those schools be reach schools. A reach school is any school that has an acceptance rate of 30 percent or less. It doesn’t matter your opinion of the school. It doesn’t matter, you know, your thoughts on how good enough you are or maybe how you aren’t.

If it’s a 30 percent acceptance rate or less, it’s a reach school for anybody. I would then suggest that you have four target schools. A target school has an acceptance rate of 55 percent or greater. And then you need at least three safety schools. Safety schools have an acceptance rate of 85 percent or greater.

Now, by diversifying your list, as I’ve already said, you’re going to increase your chance of admission, but it’s also going to increase your chance of scholarship. Because when you have multiple offers of admission and even multiple scholarship offers, you can leverage those against one another. And sometimes schools will, in fact, raise their initial offer and potentially give you a better deal.

Um, that’s not something that every family experiences, but it is something that you can experience, but you won’t know about it unless you give yourself the proper setting for it. To find out and having a developed school list and balanced school list. Of, you know, at least 12, it is going to be more likely to provide that opportunity to you.

Um, so understanding those types of schools now, understanding, uh, you know, what it’s going to take to, you know, make your decision of if it’s the right place for you or not, that all takes time. So getting some insight into that and really understanding the scope of each school is a reason to start, you know, getting help in this, and it’s a reason to start this process sooner rather than later, but I think a deeper piece here I I’m making a number of my head here, but I would say that 98 percent of all applicants, all famous that I personally talked to are completely oblivious to is the enrollment management system.

Enrollment management is an actual data science. Uh, it’s a graduate field of study. Uh, and you can go to school and get a master’s or a PhD in the field. And that is what we utilize at the leadership level of these university admissions departments. To make an informed decision of which students we’re admitting and why, well, that’s going to shape everything that a school does.

So the more that you can understand that, the more you can make an informed decision of how you should approach each school and be developing a plan of action for how you’re going to get yourself into that school. And frankly, One of the better ways that you can be determining that for yourself is to be using data.

Schools do have to publish their common data sets. And so by being able to analyze these different, you know, data sets from schools, you can start to identify which application type will eventually be your greatest chance of admission. Based upon your own personal profile. And so what I mean by application types are the three things that you see listed in our bottom bullet point, early decision, early action, and regular decision, early decision is a contractually binding agreement.

If you sign that contract as a family, you, the student are bound to enroll at that school, if they accept you. Now there’s probably less than 90 schools that still offer early decision today. Um, but for those schools that still offer it. It is always going to be your greatest chance of admission because you’re signing a contractually binding agreement, but most of your applications won’t be that way because again, only about 90 or less, 90 schools or less offer early decision.

The majority of your schools are going to go, excuse me, are going to be offering early action or regular decision. And unfortunately, one of the longest standing rumors in college admissions exists right here. And that rumor is that early action is always better than regular decision. And that’s completely false.

There are many circumstances where your personal application might be better in regular decision at one school, but yes, better early action over another school, the case I’m trying to make is that it is variable by each school and you need to know the difference. And if you don’t, you’re simply applying blind and that’s not worth doing with your education outcome opportunity.

Um, so being able to analyze data, understanding what schools have done historically can allow you to make a more accurate prediction of which application type is going to increase your overall chance of selection.

The deeper piece of this that I want families to start looking at the process. Like is you’re developing a brand for yourself as an applicant. Your admissions application is nothing more than the medium that you are using to convey an idea and an image of who you are to the schools that you are applying to.

I want someone to get done reviewing your application and being able to define you just as much as just as quickly as you can probably define Michael Jordan. If I said Michael Jordan right now, as I’ve already said twice, you’re immediately thinking of probably basketball player, personal opinion, the greatest basketball player of all time.

If you’re a LeBron and Kobe fan, we’ll argue all set. But the point here is that you probably immediately went to basketball. If I said something like. Coca Cola, you thought of soft drink or soda. If I said Toyota, you said, you know, car. And if I think of a student, when I get done reviewing your application, I want to be able to associate you with something like I can associate those three examples I just gave you.

And I want to be able to do it so quickly when I’m done reviewing your application. The way I can do that is by what you start to build for yourself as a student. And so by starting to understand as soon as possible what your academic interests are and starting to find activities that, you know, align with those, you’re really starting to develop a more unique profile that is kind of telling us what you’re in pursuit of.

Right? You’re starting to develop a historical profile for yourself, which we’ll talk about later. And that being the case, that’s going to allow you to start developing a resume or a personal profile, not only of your achievements, but what you can bring to a school. Keep in mind that, and we’ll talk about extracurriculars here in one second on the next slide, but it’s not just about what you’ve done.

Starting to kind of identify what you’re in pursuit of and building a connection to it also tells us what you can add to the conversation within our community. And that’s certainly a part of your personal narrative, and that’s going to influence, in my opinion, it’s going to be a better influence and help you get admitted.

And so, when you’re able to start understanding what you find yourself enjoying more academically, and starting to connect both your academic involvements with your extracurricular involvements, now you’re creating significant value. In your application because you’re giving schools a deeper understanding of reason to admit you And it’s telling them not only what you’re applying for It’s telling them what your goals are and how they can help you reach them Which thus explains why you are applying to that school and most applicants today Fail at explaining why they are applying to that school specifically.

They can tell us what they want to you know study But they can’t get us to understand why our school by developing a personal brand You’re able to get a school to understand that because the more unique and specific your brand is The more we can understand how perhaps our particular resources at one school are more aligned with your pathway than another one of our competitors might be able to offer.

Anna: Great advice. Thank you, Farrell. We’re going to give you a slight break here. Um, So we can pull the room again just to see where folks are in the application process. So if you could please let us know if you haven’t started yet, if you’re researching schools, working on essays, getting materials together.

Um, I’m going to open that poll and while the answers come in, Ferrell, I’m going to put you on the spot again. I am noticing in my students, I think a lot of them fairly have to speculate on what admissions officers and admissions offices are like. So could you maybe share what a typical day in the life of an admissions officer is like, maybe particularly during application season?

Yeah.

Ferrell: Yeah. So, I mean. Kind of two quick answers here. So one application season and recruitment season do overlap. And so, um, you know, towards, towards the end of October, we start to wrap up our physical, you know, recruitment travel or, you know, physically visiting high schools, doing college fairs. I was flying all over the world and visiting schools abroad.

Um, and as we start to cycle back into the office, we, everyone goes through, you know, refresher training and we, we do multiple, what we call reader trainings throughout the year. Um, but that reader training serves to get everybody kind of, you know, on the same page on par, as we like to call it for how our ranking system works and how we should be rating each applicant.

But then when it becomes application review season, I’m working, you know, five days a week. Three, you know, at least at Vanderbilt, I was working three days from home completely undisturbed reading at, you know, 20 to 30 applications a day, right? Um, when I was at Georgia, we, we worked five days a week reading 30 applications a day.

And, um, we definitely got more applications at Vanderbilt than Georgia. Uh, but applications are different, different essay requirements. And so there’s, it can be more time at one place. One application versus the other. But the point is, is that our time becomes dedicated to reading those applications. And quickly, once we finalize the review of the applications, we start to reach the committee stage where applications that were rated highly enough go in for final consideration by the leadership team.

The admissions committee like myself, and then we’re using not only the, you know, the admissions officer that reviewed the applicant to describe, you know, their thoughts and why or why not they should be admitted or not admitted. Um, but we’re also leveraging data to determine university needs to influence our final decision, and that lasts all the way through typically.

Anna: So they keep you busy. It sounds like for sure.

Ferrell: Yeah, you could say that.

Anna: Thank you. Um, just so you know, the folks with us, about 70 percent are researching schools and 30 percent haven’t started, but I would argue they have started in so far as that they’re here. They are putting in their time and energy to learning more about science.

The college application process. So kudos to everyone for being here. And for us, back to you.

Ferrell: Yeah. So, you know, we talked about extracurriculars and building into that with our last slide. Here’s the impact moment, right? And this is something that Anna was talking about at the start of our time together this evening.

This idea of being involved in so many things, right? Taking on too much. And that stems from the idea of you need to be well rounded. Well, I’m going to say it here and now. You need to let that idea go. Well rounded applicants are not the preferred applicants of schools. Thank you. Schools want more defined and specific applicants for something in particular.

I would much rather see an applicant with five or six activities listed on their resume and three or four of those directly relate to your intended major versus you being involved in 10 or 12 things. That’s a simple fact. And that’s because your historical experience provides proof and proof is something that no one will devalue.

And the reality here today is that the, you know, number one applicant to college is undecided. And it’s kind of funny because undecided applicants, That’s a rumor I’ve been hearing so much about lately is that they are, it’s the best way to apply right now. And I’ve never heard that rumor before except for the last six months.

And I’m hearing it from multiple families that being an undecided applicant is the best way to apply. I’m here to tell you that that’s the biggest mistake you can make. Undecided applicants are the weakest applicant because they are the most vulnerable. Common applicant. Therefore, the more specific you can be, the more purpose you can give a school for taking you, the better off you’re going to be.

So it’s natural selection here. When you’re being reviewed, who do you think an admissions department is going to favor? A student that is indicating that they perhaps want to try a major or a student that can show us by having two, three, four activities on the resume that they’re already taking part in things that do relate to your major.

We’re naturally going to admit the student that has multiple experiences that relate to the major before we take the kid that has zero experience that relates to the major. And that’s because we’re putting You know, trust in historical experience and admissions departments. Our jobs are secure when we continuously enroll, or I should say, re enroll the university each year and create a balanced enrollment for the university.

If we get that wrong, our jobs are at risk, and so we’re always going to default to students that have historical experience relative to the major before anybody else. So, the way to go about doing that is aligning yourself with the proper types of activities. These can be clubs, sports, internships, uh, passion projects, and you see community service being listed there.

Um, I will say that community service has a much less of an impact than what families think. You know, back when I was in high school, which I’m getting up there now, um, you know, I used to hear all the time, you got to get your community service hours. I cannot tell you a single school that requires community service hours as part of their application.

And I’ve worked in this industry for 16 years. Um, so, community service does not need to be your priority focus. Now, I’m a huge believer in community service, and I’m not saying not to take part in that. I’m just saying that, from a strategic perspective, it should not be the dominant factor. Uh, of your, or the dominant, you know, piece of your extracurricular list.

Um, that being the case, one thing we should also touch on. Sports are awesome. I was a collegiate athlete until my shoulder surgeries ended my swimming career. Um, but what I will tell you is this. If you’re not being recruited to compete for a school, sports don’t really add to your profile. They’re a nice piece.

They show good time management. Um, you may have a leadership role in them. That’s great, but don’t take part in sports just because you think it’s going to increase your chance of admission to a college. It’s not. Okay. You have to be an elite level athlete for that to make a difference. Uh, and yeah, I was not an elite level athlete.

My story was I was a solid academic and a decent point score on a relay team. And that’s what allowed me to get the opportunity to swim in college. So it didn’t help me get into school. It really, what got me into school was my academics more so than my swimming, but I was a decent enough swimmer to be able to still compete.

Um, so with that being the case, We should also talk about leadership and how it’s defined. Most people today will define leadership by title, president, captain, vice president, secretary, historian, right? These are all, you know, titles, uh, that, you know, we used to define leadership, but I think that’s where something is lost in the process.

Leadership is not just based upon your title. It’s also in our opinion, as admissions departments and admissions officers, we determine leadership through letters of recommendation. Just as much as we determine it through actual titles that you might list within your activities. And that’s because we value the individual you are both within the classroom, in the school community, and your greater community.

So by understanding, or I should say, by learning about your actions in the classroom, you know, can the teacher rely upon you to help others when, you know, he or she may be busy helping other students. Can they rely upon you to help others that may be struggling? Can you set that example? Do they look to you to set the example for the class to follow?

Those are all other formats of demonstrating leadership. And it’s something that doesn’t get talked about, you know, enough in this process. So don’t put all of your focus on becoming, you know, the captain or the president of an organization or team or club, make sure you’re doing your best. In other ways and setting an example for others to follow all of that will still come out and mean be noticed By the individuals that are writing your letters recommendation future now I think the most important thing I can say here about extracurriculars is And first off, they are the second most important part of your admissions decision.

Essays are the most important part, and we’ll come to that last. Uh, but your extracurriculars are the second most important part. Because we use your extracurriculars to qualify you for the major you are applying for. Hence why you should be more defined, not well angled. Or sorry, not well rounded.

However, none of it matters if you cannot describe these activities appropriately. So, unfortunately today, what most families are unaware of is that schools, as they review your application, You’re being rated. You’re being graded. And different schools have their own different review process. Some schools award you points.

Some schools rate you. Some schools rank you. They all have their own individual systems, but the point is they all have standards that they’re operating off of. And most schools will use a combination of things like leadership activities. Your school fit, like the fit that they think you’re going to have within their particular community and culture.

Um, they’ll also look at your academic performance and then your, your personality type. Uh, those are the five, you know, core ones I’ve encountered, both of the schools I worked at and schools I’ve consulted with over the years. Um, and certainly there are schools that, you know, offer or review you on more than those five areas.

Uh, but those are the five most common ones that I’ve encountered. That being the case, you’re essentially being, you know, rated across those five categories throughout the review. And the higher that you’re ranked or the more points that you acquire across those five categories, the more likely you are to be admitted.

Well, the thing is what gets you ranked and rated higher is how you describe those activities. It’s also about what you say in your essays, right? So understanding that there are different words and phrases that are going to create more value for you is a huge deal. And it’s something that families are not aware of because schools don’t really share it with you.

And so understanding that you may need to tweak an activity description, um, based upon how one school might take it versus another is a huge, huge deal. And you see the example there is the NASA example. So when I was still at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt. Uh, we actually had a young man that applied with a 1570 on his SAT.

So 30 points short of a perfect score. He applied for mechanical and civil engineering. He had an AP curriculum and I want to say he was right around a 4.0. It’s been a few years, but 3. totally academically qualified. And the highlight of his application is that he was selected for NASA’s summer internship.

And the significance there is that, um, the NASA summer internship, they have well over 200,000 kids that apply each year. I, I think they’re actually over 300,000 now. Um, and they only take 25 kids per year. That’s it. So this student has one of the most rare, you know, internships available across the world.

And we, we denied him. We flat out denied him. Didn’t even wait list him. And the whole reason he ended up getting denied is when the admissions officer reviewed his application. Um, they never found any of the words or phrases that we created more value on or placed more value on. So that student did not collect as many points in the review process.

And because he didn’t collect enough points, he didn’t move on to the next round, the next stage of review. And all of that comes. Out based upon the fact that he did not use certain words or phrases that we don’t go share with the general public. So you need to understand what those are. You need to get help in determining how you should be properly packaging and sharing these activity descriptions.

Because different schools want to see different things. Um, he was later, I found out he was later accepted to both MIT and Michigan. Um, because I received a very frustrated phone call from his high school counselor trying to figure out why we denied him. Uh, and that’s another conversation for another day.

But the point here is that your activity descriptions. Um, they are unique, they are a huge influence to your decision and they are gonna need to be changed up for each individual school in certain circumstances.

And I think the final thing we should focus on is the most important part of the physical application and that’s your essays. You know, the essays, straight up, they’re the most important part because it’s the only time we get to hear your voice and hear directly from you. And it’s arguably the most stressful part of the application from what families tell us about.

And that can be for a number of reasons. Um, you know, a lot of students just don’t like to write. opening up. Um, we’ve also seen a major uptick in issues with essays during, um, the COVID pandemic, because a lot of students, um, that cycle through the system, I shouldn’t say the system, but cycle through the admissions process this year did not get freshman English in person.

And so there was, um, a very big difference in students ability this year to write, you know, self, you know, self promotive essays. So with that being the case, um, Spreading these essays out over a longer period of time allows you to have a more thorough sense of self to make sure you’re putting as much of yourself in these essays as possible and being as revealing as possible about you.

And the thing here is that most kids today, where they’re having trouble in their essays, it’s not because they don’t know how to write. It’s because they don’t know how to write. Honestly, based upon a lot of the morals and values that they have. I think a lot of families today and families, I would say the most, most of them always encountered have been very polite, very welcoming, but also very humble and there’s nothing wrong with any of those three things.

I’m certainly. Trying to do the, you know, those, you’re trying to raise my children with those same, you know, merit. Uh, but in saying that a lot of times when these families are raising their children to be humble, students are not as likely to promote themselves and share about themselves. And then you add on to the fact that a lot of these students have not had.

As much writing guidance in high school because the pandemic it leads to students not being revealing enough and not providing enough information for schools to take action with in these essays. So understanding just how far to take these essays is something that I would encourage everyone to get assistance with because I think you’ll be surprised to learn that most students don’t go far enough.

Most students in my career actually left me wanting to know more about them. I did not feel fully convinced with most of the kids that I reviewed. And that, again, it typically comes back down to the morals and values that you’re raised with and understanding that in this situation. It is okay to promote yourself.

It is okay to share a little bit more than what you think is normal because this is a competition. And if you don’t put it out there, you’re not going to stand out enough to win the process. And that’s what this is about winning the process and getting admitted. So as long as you’re using proper language and tone, no one will ever think that you’re overconfident.

No one will think that you’re rude or arrogant. You’re simply representing yourself in a highly competitive process, which is what you’re being asked to do. So, When you add on the fact that this is the core piece of your personal narrative, there is no better reason to get assistance with this.

Understanding what needs to be shared, why a school wants to hear it, how far to take it, is all going to be helpful in getting you to a higher chance of admission to your schools of choice. The last thing I’ll leave you with before we transition to our final slide tonight, is that the essays do need to be changed up for different schools.

Your personal statement, it’ll go to every school you apply to, but the, probably the second largest mistake, or if not the largest mistake. students are making today is that they are reusing their supplemental essays or straight up copying and pasting their supplemental essays and they’re trying to reduce their amount of work.

Nothing could be a bigger mistake. You should be able to tailor each essay to the school it’s going to by incorporating your knowledge of its community and culture into your response. What better way to get assistance in knowing what that school is looking to hear, you know, about themselves from someone that’s worked at that school.

That’s why you need to be getting help in this process. So how can we do that for you? Well, one of the biggest things obviously, is that getting assistance is going to simplify the process, right? Since we’ve worked at these schools, we’ve frankly created a lot of these policies. We understand these procedures.

We can make the process go not only a lot more efficient for you, But really take the stress out of it. I think it’s also important for you to understand that being able to use data and the experience that we have at these schools, we can make, you know, your application much more unique to you and help you tailor to what that school is looking for out of their applicants that they’re going to prioritize for admission.

Anyone that we support here at CollegeAdvisor, we work with you on a private basis. So you’re not working in a group environment with other students. It’s just going to be you and your advisor like Anna. And then of course, you know, we’re going to work on things, not just building a school list and not just helping you with essays.

We’re going to help you be planning out the right extracurriculars. We’re going to help you develop the proper school list for you. We can break that down by, you know, your financial comfort zones, uh, or ranges, excuse me. We can break that down by location. We can even, you know, help you develop that personal brand, so that you stand out, you know, to your schools for a very particular reason.

And we can cap all that off with help with things like interview prep, by even putting you through mock interviews. At the end of the day, this process does not need to be making your child, your son or daughter, feel as if they have to be 45 years old when they’re 16 and 17. The earlier you start this, the more time you give them to spread this out, the less stress they will experience, the less stress you as parents and guardians will experience, and the better your outcome will be.

We’re ready to help you do that.

Anna: Yes, thank you. We are so ready to help you do that. Um, and toward that end, we’d like to offer the rest of our time to answer any questions you might have. So please feel free and submit those in the Q and a tab on your screen. Um, Also, just so you know, you will be able to download the slides that Farrell went through in the handouts tab on the side of your screen, which should be next to the Q& A tab.

So I’ve been reading through the questions you submitted ahead of time, and also as we’ve been listening to the presentation. As we get to each one, I will paste it into the public chat so you can see it. I’ll read it out loud, and then I’ll give Farrell time to answer. As a heads up, if your Q& A tab is not letting you submit questions, just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

So you might need to log out and log back in from your email. Alright, I think that’s all the housekeeping I have to go through, so I’m going to jump into the questions. The first one I thought was fitting, especially given the topic of tonight, Will colleges know if a student received help on their application?

Will they know if it’s help from a paid advisor? And does that impact admissions chances in a positive way in a negative way? What are your thoughts?

Ferrell: So first off, uh, no schools are not going to know if you’ve received assistance Um, and schools are actually, in many cases, encouraging third party assistance.

Um, food, uh, food for thought, uh, actual data, 43 percent of all applicants to college use a third party, uh, advising service, uh, currently. And, and that is actual data you can find by just searching for it. Um, I’ll, I’ll tell you a quick backstory. So, a, a lot of families do ask this question. They, they think that it’s going to hurt their opportunities, and it’s not.

Uh, most schools across the country have, uh, a counselor program that they do where, Every year, they’ll fly in counselors from across the country, even across the world to stay up to date on that particular school’s admissions process. So, you know, we’ve done it at every school I’ve worked out in, I mean, thousands of schools do this.

And so what we do in those events, we, we bring these high school counselors in for two to three days and we let them not only see the school, but get a deeper understanding of how we make our final decisions. Well, everywhere I’ve worked and everywhere that I’ve consulted in these 16 years, what I can tell you is that every single school not only invites actual high school counselors, most of them are also inviting in third party private counselors like we are here at CollegeAdvisor.

To keep them up to date because they realize a lot of students today don’t even have a dedicated college counselor at their school and many that do their college counseling staff, you know, has 23400 students per counselor and they simply don’t have the time to work individually, you know, on a one on one level like we can here and so schools understand the value in it and in no way shape or form. Can it hurt you or will it hurt you?

Anna: Thank you. Good advice. Um, Someone is asking about the extracurricular list, and they’re curious, so they spend a lot of time on what they’re calling a hobby. Is that something students can include on the extracurricular list? What should they be thinking about in the description if they do? Just like general thoughts on that topic.

Ferrell: Yeah, I mean, it’s certainly part of your story. And that’s the number one thing here. We’re trying to share who you are as a person, right? So it’s definitely part of your story. But to go a little deeper here, I think what it comes down to is where do we place it in your activity list? Because as Anna can tell you, even the order that you list your different activities in will actually have an impact on your admissions decision.

Um, and so we have to think about not just what to share, but what order and then how to describe them. But certainly something You know, something like bodybuilding, uh, is more than valid to be shared. It’s definitely part of your story. We just have to be, you know, peculiar about where we place it and what we say about it.

And then how we relate that back to, you know, going along with the story that you’re conveying about yourself in your essays.

Anna: I agree. And I always encourage my students early. So there’s sophomores and juniors here. If you haven’t done this yet, I encourage you To, um, you can create a common application profile, and then you can see on the extracurricular list, or frankly, you can Google it, um, There is a drop down where you need to categorize that particular activity and I encourage students to look at it because it’s really broad.

So, I often have students who say, like, I don’t have any extracurriculars or I’m not, like, I don’t have anything for the activities list and then we go through and they see religions on there. So, if they’re involved in their religious community. If they have a job, that’s something you should include. If they have family responsibilities, that’s something to include.

So, it’s a really all encompassing, I think, list. Um, colleges, I think, want to know when you’re not at school, where you’re legally obligated to be, and when you are not watching TV on the couch, What are you doing? Like when you are meaningfully engaged in your community, what are you doing?

Ferrell: And

Anna: I think thinking about it that way helps students find that maybe they have more activities to include than they originally thought.

Ferrell: Yeah. And I think from admissions perspective, it’s giving me comfort, right? Because look, I don’t want this to sound rude by any shape or form, but schools are not looking for the kid that just wants to stay in the library all day or the laboratory all day. They’re, they’re looking for a social academic community.

Right? So by demonstrating and sharing other areas that you’re involved with. I loved work experience, by the way, loved it. Actually, I gave students bonus points anytime I saw a job on an app. But it shows me that you’re going to be involved. That makes me more excited by you. It makes me more convinced that we’re doing the right thing by admitting, right?

So always, always, always share those things because they do matter.

Anna: Absolutely. Um, I think you said earlier that. The essay is the most important or one of the most important parts of the application. I totally agree. Um, how, how would you say it compares to standardized test scores, GPAs? Like, if essays are the most important, how, how important are grades?

Ferrell: I mean, your grades are still important, but keep in mind GPA and test score at this stage in the game, they only determine if we open up and review your application. That’s just tell me if I’m going to spend any time on you and don’t take that the wrong way. Okay. It’s you have to understand these schools are dealing with 60, 000, a hundred thousand UCLA had a hundred, I think 70, 000 last year.

Um, and so when you look at it in the scope of what these admissions officers are dealing with, it’s, GPA and test score just start the ballgame. What gets you in, number one in your essays, number two, your activities and how they relate to your major, and also reveal the person you’re going to be, and number three, your letters of recommendation.

And then number four, going back to what I talked about in our session this evening, it’s the needs of the university at the current time. Right? Uh, but GPA and test score, they start the conversation. Now, that normally is going to lead to another question, so I’ll go ahead and answer it. Should you submit a test score?

Yeah, you should. Because when you don’t submit a test score, your essays and your activity section are, are weighted more than normal. Most schools will say they’ll, they’ll weight your essays and activities two to three times more than normal if you submit test optional. So as long as your score is a decent score for that school, it’s typically in your interest to submit the test score.

Um, now again, I said for that school, so you might submit to some schools and you might not submit to other schools and that’s just how you have to play the system. Um, but you have to learn the system, right. To make yourself, to give yourself, I should say the best chance possible.

Anna: Absolutely. We had a followup question about grades.

Um, which is how closely do colleges look at things like A versus A

Ferrell: In my experience, it’s, it’s, it’s not a detrimental thing, right? Like, obviously, you want to do the best possible. Listen, where we’re seeing like, you know, differences is like A to B minus, right? Um, even A to B, depending upon the school.

And at some schools, I mean, you, you can’t have a bunch of B pluses. Like, if you want to go to a top 50, top 60 school, you really need to be A’s and a minuses, you know, a B plus or two here and there, but like you don’t need to be having, you know, saturation of B’s and C’s. You really do need to be an A and a minus range.

If you’re looking at, you know, top 50, 60, and even top 100 schools.

Anna: Very helpful insider insight. I’m going to give you a little break now, Pharrell, so I can talk for a bit about CollegeAdvisor. For those in the room who are not already working with us, We know just how overwhelming the admissions process can be.

CollegeAdvisors team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts is ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process in one on one advising sessions. We’ve already helped over 6, thousand clients in their college journeys, and I’m really excited to share that we recently did some data analysis and found that from 2021 to 2023, CollegeAdvisor students were 3.

6 times more likely to get into Stanford, 4. 1 times more likely to get into Vanderbilt, and 2. 7 times more likely to get into Harvard. So as Ferrell mentioned earlier, having an advisor helps. Increase your odds, take the next step in your college admissions journey, and sign up for a free 45 to 60 minute strategy session with an admissions specialist on our team.

You can do that by scanning the QR code on the screen, and please remember that these slides are available to download, so you could scan this code for free. Later as well, uh, during that meeting, which again is free, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile along with some initial recommendations.

At the end, you’ll also learn more about the premium packages we offer that pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essay, strategizing your extracurriculars, everything we’ve talked about, and much more. So for the rest of our time, we’re going to go back to the Q& A, but that QR code is going to stay on the screen.

So please do go ahead and scan it. Sign up. It’s a free session. And while you’re scanning that, Farah, I will send you another question. How does the financial aid application intersect with the admissions process, particularly for need blind versus need aware institutions? And maybe, maybe if you don’t mind defining need blind and need aware.

Ferrell: Yeah, so some big things here, right? So need blind schools, Are schools that will not take your financial need whether you need financial assistance or don’t need financial assistance They will not take that into account whatsoever when making a decision on your application Need aware schools will be taking your financial situation into account when deciding if they’re going to admit you or not.

So, you may need a certain amount of money to go to school per year. They’re going to have to make a decision if they feel confident enough that they can provide that to you. Or, frankly, if they want to provide that to you. Keep in mind that just because you qualify for financial aid, that doesn’t mean the school has to give it to you at all.

Um, they can give you some of it, none of it. It’s up to the school and what their ability. Uh, so with that being the case, to answer your question, most schools today, there’s a growing number of schools that are need aware. Okay. Only about 30, maybe 40 schools are need blind. And there’s plenty of schools that are need neutral, but there’s a growing number of schools that are need.

And if you need financial aid that needs to affect, um, your, your, your school list, it needs to, I should say it needs to influence your school list. Excuse me, because I have actually seen families that apply to nothing but need aware schools and they didn’t realize that all their schools were need aware And then have been denied to every single school they applied to because they, the schools didn’t feel confident they could provide it.

So it is something that you need to make a part of your conversation with these schools and press these admissions departments on and get a straight answer for them on if they do practice need aware admissions or if they don’t. And if they do, you need to then be selective of which of those schools you choose to apply to.

Personal rule, again, not a CollegeAdvisor rule. If it’s just my personal rule, if you’re applying to, you know, the schools, uh, if you’re, when you’re applying to your schools, whatever link, however many schools you’re applying to, I personally would never let more than a third to half of my list be need aware schools, nothing more than that.

Anna: Thank you. I do think that’s one piece of this process that folks don’t always even know to ask about. Correct. So really appreciate that. Um, what about, you mentioned earlier, early decision, regular decision, when should a student apply early, early action, regular decision, um, and again, in case I’m using terms that folks don’t understand.

Haven’t heard yet, if you don’t mind briefly explaining those as well.

Ferrell: Yeah, so early decision again, is a contractually binding agreement. Um, all parties of the family. So if it’s a student and two parents, both parents have to sign it. The student has to sign the contract. If it’s a single parent household.

If parent and the student have to sign the contract, if it’s guardians, the guardian, the students have to sign the contract. If you sign that contract, you are gonna be held accountable to enrolling in that school if they accept you, regardless of financial aid and scholarship. Okay. So never sign that contract unless you’re comfortable potentially paying for that school out of pocket.

Okay. Um, but early decisions, your best way to apply, um, early action, no contract. You can apply to as many schools as you want. We’re early decision. You can only do one school through early decision, regular decision, no contract applied as many schools as you want now to your first part of your question, what are the, what are the deadlines and dates of all that historically?

Okay. Going back over the last 20 years, early decision was always due on November 1st. And then you would get a decision typically by the 15th of December. And then, uh, early action was due on the 15th of November. And you would typically get a decision within, uh, the official policy of schools was within the first week of January, most schools would try to give it to you after Christmas, but before new year’s and then regular decision historically was either varies on the school, but most schools were.

The 1st, 5th, or 15th of January. There’s a few schools that bleed all the way into February. Um, and then you’ll get your decision by April the 1st. Most schools try to give you the regular decision, um, outcome by mid March. They don’t really want to give it to you on April Fool’s Day, but April 1st, April Fool’s Day is the actual last day that schools can notify you.

And because it’s April Fool’s Day, they choose to avoid it. And I can tell you a lot of stories about that. I’m not kidding. Now, um, I said, historically, those are the due dates due to the 90 percent increase that we’ve seen, you know, occurring over the last three years, and I got a question of, well, how that happened because there’s been over 30 percent increase each of the last three years.

So we’re over 90 percent increase in three years. Many schools have had to move their deadlines up. And so there are some schools that now have early action deadlines as early as October 1st. Um, the University of California, previously until this year, you could not submit your application until November 1st, and you had to get it submitted by November 30th.

This year, first year ever, they started accepting applications starting October 1st, right? So everything is moving up because of this increasing number of applications. Um, so you need to, if you’re a parent that’s gone through this once or twice before, It’s a whole new ballgame. You need to be doing your research and double checking the dates and times of all these individual schools.

Cause it’s not the same.

Anna: Thank you. Helpful. Um, how you said you’ve been doing this 16 years. So

Ferrell: yeah, it’s painful to say.

Anna: So you’ve probably seen some of this impact. How has the role of social media presence. Involved in the admissions process, should students be mindful about what they’re, they’re posting on their social media accounts?

Ferrell: Yeah. In most cases, I mean, you should always be mindful of what’s on your social media account. Okay. I don’t care if you’re five years old, you shouldn’t have social media at five years old. Let’s be clear. Uh, but no matter what age you are, personal opinion, I think everyone should be mindful. Uh, but that’s a personal opinion, not a CollegeAdvisor opinion.

Um, I will say this. Most schools aren’t going to have the time to check on your social media links, okay? Um, I hate to say this to you, but a lot of families, you know, they’ll submit the books that their kids have, you know, written, and they’ll, like, mail them in, they go right into the recycling bin, okay?

Uh, your YouTube links hardly ever clicked on, right? Like, very rare. Um, we just don’t have the time. I mean, Food for thought. Four years ago, five years ago, the average review time per applicant was 12 to 14 minutes. That’s what it had been for, you know, my entire career, right? And I was always just around the 13 minute mark.

I was always 12. 55, 12. 57 per applicant, okay? Now, it’s four minutes. So that the national average applicant review is four minutes. Harvard has publicly come out and said they’re around two minutes. Okay, and they’ve said that over a year ago, okay, and so they don’t, it’s this fast guys, they don’t have the time, and so very rarely do they look at it.

Now, some schools will, right, and um, some schools that don’t have as high as an application load and they’re, They’re very selective of the environment they’re trying to create. Yeah. They will look into you. Um, so I would always suggest no matter who you are, always be mindful of what you’re putting on the internet, just from a safety perspective, let alone a college admissions perspective.

But again, that’s a personal opinion.

Anna: I share that opinion as a human. It’s good to be thoughtful about what you’re posting for everyone to see. Um, what advice do you have, Farrell, for students? Who are maybe on the fence about applying to their dream school, uh, based out of a fear of rejection.

Ferrell: Okay. So I’m, I, I will, let me, let me sugarcoat this initially and then be kind of hardcore on the end of it.

Um, I kind of try to practice stoicism as I’ve gotten older and I was the guy that was afraid of rejection when I was younger. Okay. At the end of the day, I’m starting to sound like a dad now cause I am one. Um, the worst, the absolute worst thing. And I, I promise you, I genuinely believe this in my heart.

If you didn’t, if they deny you, it’s just not where you ended up, you know, needing to be right. I genuinely believe you’re going to end up where you need to be. If you approach this process wholeheartedly and you give yourself to this process and put your best effort for it. Now you may put your best effort forward and get denied your dream school.

That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have a great experience elsewhere. Fear of rejection should never cause you to not apply what I don’t want anyone to worry about. Is down the road, having regrets and wondering what could have been, at least you will have known that you tried. I never want you to regret things based upon not trying.

Anna: Totally agree. And I’m remembering what you said earlier about the number of colleges students should apply to. So if you feel like you have a couple of colleges on your list that are. a reach and you’re worried about that. Maybe you can comfort yourself by adding just a couple more target or safety schools to your list.

They truly would hate for anyone to not apply just because they’re worried they won’t get it.

Ferrell: It’s never let that. And again, personal opinion. And I, I really am a big teddy bear, but it just, Maybe you can’t self describe yourself that way. I don’t know. But the point here is I never want anyone not to see what happens.

You’re never going to know unless you put it out there and see. Um, but I’m the type of person that looking back, I know personally, I would regret not having tried something cause I would always be wondering what could have been, and I don’t want that for anybody because that that’s the kind of regret that never goes away.

Right. So put it out there. As long as you’re giving your best effort, you’re going to know that you gave it your best effort and be confident with that.

Anna: Absolutely. Agreed. and sign up for a free session with CollegeAdvisors. We can hopefully help you work through all of those decisions. Thank you so much, Farrell, for your time and your wisdom tonight.

Thank you everyone who came to join us. We have so Reached the end of our time together, but please know that we have a couple more webinars this month So one next week about extracurriculars how to you know, solidify your list a Particular panel on Johns Hopkins and then I know they’re already working on a whole slate of webinars for the month of June So stay tuned.

Keep checking our website. Um, scan that code, sign up for your free session, and we look forward to working with you all. Thanks again, Farrell. Thank you, everyone. Have a great night.