According to this recent article in US News & World Report, and absolutely from our team’s experience, college applications to the most selective universities are on the rise. The question is, how should soon-to-be-college applicants approach the changing landscape of college admissions? The best way to handle the very rapid changes we’ve seen is … Read more
Wondering how college admissions works these days? This webinar gives you the basic information you’ll want to know if you have a high school student approaching their college search and application process. If you’d like to learn about the college admissions process in more depth, we’d love for you to take our FREE, self-paced College … Read more
We know you don’t believe us. You’ve come to our presentations, and we’ve met privately with your family. You’ve heard us say it on webinars, multiple times: that Harvard rejects 80% of the valedictorians who apply each year; that Stanford rejects 70% of the applicants with perfect SAT and ACT scores. That Yale could fill … Read more
Your college list may the be the single most important part of your college admission process! The magic, we always say, is in the list. Your college list will determine how successful you will be, how many actual college choices you’ll have, and how you will feel at the end. When all of your college … Read more
The courses students take in high school and the grades they receive are the two most important things colleges consider when making admission decisions. Let me say that in a different way: the courses you take and the grades you get are more important than any other part of your college applications. So as … Read more
In order to understand why colleges consider what we call “demonstrated interest,” you’ll need to take a big step from a few beliefs you probably hold. You may think that colleges admit the “best,” or the “top” students out of the pool of applicants. This is incorrect. Colleges admit the students they think will be … Read more
So you built an awesome (and balanced!) college list. You worked on essays before school started! You applied to a few schools before the Early Action (or Early Decision – what’s the difference again?) deadline. NOW WHAT? Check your e-mail, and open your portals. After you submit your college applications, you need to keep an … Read more
In our recent post, California Conundrum, we shared some bad news: there are more graduating high school seniors in California each year than seats in the freshman classes of all 9 UC undergraduate campuses and all 23 California State University campuses COMBINED. Sadly (and frustratingly) for those of us who have been paying property … Read more
The first part of this post gives you details about how and why colleges ask for letters of recommendation as part of your college application process. How many letters of recommendation should I have? Not all colleges require letters of recommendation. Colleges also vary in the number and type of recommendation. In general, the more … Read more
This two-part post will help you understand more about how colleges use teacher and counselor letters of recommendation in the college admission process. In Part 1 we’ll give you some details about how letters of recommendation work; Part 2 addresses frequently asked questions about letters of recommendation in college applications. Colleges have changed the … Read more