Get the College List Right: How to Choose a College
Amy Shapiro, Director of College Advising at International College Counselors, offers advice on narrowing down a student’s college list. Learn how to get your student’s shortlist down by discussing academics, extracurriculars, campus culture, financial concerns, and more.
Webinar transcript
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Hello. My name is Amy Shapiro and I am Director of College Advising at International College Counselors. And I will be speaking tonight on creating a college list and finding the right fit. So just little bit about International College Counselors and me. We help students from all over the world with everything related to educational planning and guidance. We help with college and graduate school planning and guidance, school list, and school selection, extracurricular and academic interest refinement. We help with essay editing,
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application review, we actually do a double review with other colleagues so that it’s not just a one-on-one, one person looking at the application. It’s more than that.
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We do interview preparation when necessary. We offer guidance with expert advisors. And I’d say most relevant, we help our families stay on top of all of the changes in admissions and we help keep families informed.
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I’ve been with ICC for actually almost over three years now. Wow. I was a college advisor at Gulliver Prep for many years and also Coral Reef High School, both in Miami. I have my undergrad from Tulane and I have a master’s from NYU and a certificate from the Harvard Summer Institute on college admissions.
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So before we talk about the list, I want to talk a little bit about finding the right fit. College is a match to be made not necessarily a prize to be won. We hope, of course, that we go away from this with all of our children feeling like they won a prize by getting into their school, but ultimately it’s about that match that you feel between yourself and the college. And is it a good fit?
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The ideal school is different for every student. And I always urge my families to keep that in mind. I know it’s hard sometimes when we’re at a cocktail party and you’re talking to one parent and they say this is a good school and then someone else says, no, that’s a terrible school.
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It’s really hard sometimes to be objective and to not feed into every little bit of information from everyone.
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But that’s where ICC comes in and your counselor can come in and kind of give you all of the true background on all of the schools. The student’s individual academic, social, and aspirational needs and goals should always be considered when you’re going through and formulating a list. And ultimately, the best school is a place where the student will thrive and be happy.
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It’s not where you go, it’s what you do. So the top six college experiences that correlate to student success later on are taking a course with a professor who makes learning exciting.
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Number two is working with professors who care about students personally. Finding an encouraging mentor, working on a long-term project has actually shown really high studies of correlation later on to other job opportunities and prospects. Participating in an internship in college is a really great way to figure out what you want to do. And being active in extracurricular activities within your school or within the location of where your college is.
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So we talk a lot about creating this balanced list and what does that really mean? Well, there’s over 2000 four-year colleges and universities in the US, as well as international universities. So do targeted research by applying specific criteria. Create that balanced list of colleges that your student should be excited about going to. I never want one of my students to say, oh, I’m just going to apply to XYZ school because I’ll get in, but I don’t really want to go there.
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There’s too many schools to be to do that. We really should be able to find 10 schools at least that your student should be excited about going to, maybe some more than others, and that’s fine. But all of them should be places that your student wants to go. But know about the different college and finding the best fit will be easier when you do your research. We help students create that personalized balanced college list for each student. I really do pride myself on getting to know each of my students so that I can figure out what is important to them and their family.
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So, step one, know thyself. Start with self-reflection. What are your academic interests? What are your social values? Do you know what you want to major in? Sometimes kids say, I have no idea what I want to major in. I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. And they think that that means they can’t, you know, they don’t know what to do for college.
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Well, to me, even if you don’t know what you want to major in.
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You definitely know what You don’t want to be trained. So sometimes what happens is I’ll say, well, what do you like? What do you not like? Usually, students have likes and dislikes. So they’ll say, well, I know that I really love math and that I can’t stand writing. Okay, so that means we don’t need to find a school that has a great creative writing program. We can find a school that maybe has more STEM and science related majors or a school that has lots of different options. Do you know what career you’re interested in? These are all questions. Not every student, of course, knows what they want to do, but you probably know what you don’t want to do.
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What kind of student are you? What is your personality type? Do you like to be in a school where there’s a lot of collaboration or do you want to be somewhere where you’re working more individually?
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What do you like to do outside of class? That’s a really important part of the piece to find what your interests would be if you weren’t just in the classroom itself.
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Define your college criteria. So we start with writing down the top three to five things that your college must have. So deal breakers. One of these deal breakers could be your major, but again, you may not know your major.
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And then write down three to five things you would like your college to have. You can help narrow down your list by doing these things, but don’t eliminate schools in the very early stages. Sometimes what happens, especially in the 10th grade, I always have this happen, where students come to me and we’ll kind of start talking about schools and they’ll make a proclamation, like, I definitely don’t want to go to …. And they’ll pick a school.
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And I’ll say, well, why? What do you think is not great about that place? And the reason will be, oh, because My friend’s mother said that she went there for a tour and that the tour guide was terrible and it was a horrible experience and don’t ever go there. It’s a terrible school.
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Maybe that one interaction with that one tour guide that’s kind of not just secondhand information, but kind of third or fourth hand information is not the best way to cross off a college from a list.
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So always keep it broad in 10th grade. And then as you move towards 11th grade, you can start narrowing it down more. But some of the things you can think about, majors, what they have there, athletics, reputation, and what that means to you, because everyone has a different idea as to what a good school or the reputation is. Location and campus
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Cost is a big factor. Campus life, activities, and diversity. And again, that means something different for all of us.
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Step two, get familiar with the colleges. Do research, talk to people. There’s a great book that I always recommend getting. It’s called The Fisk Guide to Colleges.
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And it’s a literal book. They do, I think, have some online platform, but I really do prefer the book because you can flip through and it’s real knowledge from not just the admissions office, which is what they want you to know, but real students who go there and the professors who really teach there.
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So it’s a great resource. Also, your high school has resources so every high school has something a little bit different, but some of these programs you may recognize like Naviance or SCORE or Maya Learning, there’s Cello or Cello. I never know how to pronounce it. But use what your high school is giving you because sometimes you can even see the statistics based on what your high school has. Where kids are going.
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There’s college podcasts like College Admissions Insider and Future You, as well as other ways to learn about colleges. Well, the best resource, if you’re really looking for statistics directly from the source is going to that college’s website.
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Really important. Sometimes students will come to me and say, I heard that there was a student who got into Northeastern with, they submitted scores and they had an 1100 and they had a 2.3.
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Well, where did you hear that? That sounds pretty fishy. Oh, well, I Googled it and it was on Reddit. Well, probably not the greatest source of information. Go to the college’s websites. See what information is available in terms of what their average SAT is, what their testing policy is, all of that.
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Colleges also spend a lot of time on their social media accounts.
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So a college specific Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, that can kind of give you a flavor of the school. It’s really interesting for me. I follow like every single college. That’s like my whole Instagram feed is colleges basically at this point. And, it’s interesting to see the flavor of the school and what they’re promoting and how they want to be seen by the public. So that’s a great way.
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College fairs. College fairs can be amazing if you go in with a targeted list of the schools that you want to visit and you have specific questions and you know a little bit about the school before you just dive in and say hello. Do your research before. College fairs, if you just walk in and you’re in this sea of booths and colleges, it can be very overwhelming.
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So make sure you go in with a plan. There’s also great virtual college information sessions and webinars. Every single college has these. All you do is Google the college’s name and then virtual tour or virtual info session and you can sign up.
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Sometimes they’re interactive, sometimes they’re just webinars, but you don’t have to fly somewhere to get a little bit more of a taste of the college.
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There’s also high school reps that will go to your high school. Admissions reps from the colleges will go to your high school in 11th and 12th grade and they’ll talk to students. That is a great way to connect with a college because sometimes these are the reps who are actually reading your application.
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So 11th and 12th graders, I hope you take advantage of these admissions representatives who are on your high school campuses. They’re just such a great resource.
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Talk to people. Your school counselor is a great resource. I say that as a former school counselor. They are the ones writing your letter of recommendation. They do that for everyone. Well, every school is a little bit different, but typically, it’s your school counselor. So be nice to them. Make sure that you’re getting to know them a little bit.
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Teachers are great resources, and so are older students. Relatives can go either way. I think sometimes well-meaning relatives can say things that are outdated, especially in the past 15 years the admissions process has changed so much that sometimes a lot of what our relatives say are a little outdated. So just be careful of that one.
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And get on a colleges mailing list. If you’re interested in a college, you 100% should be on their mailing list so that you’re getting the mailings.
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Sometimes it can get overwhelming if you’re signed up for too many, but I still like it because then you see the events that are coming to your neighborhood. You’ll be on a local list.
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Definitely do that. And then visit colleges. Take the time to go to these schools.
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Like I said, you don’t have to visit every single college, but definitely if you’re thinking about doing an early decision or anything like that you should really visit and see what’s out there.
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We actually have graphs and insider knowledge of hundreds of colleges. So if a student says to me, what are my chances at Emory University? I can pull them up on a graph and I can show them where they kind of sit in terms of what our students have done in the past and where they are now.
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And that’s part of how we strategize and figure out what schools fit into what type of categories.
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Visiting colleges, like I said. It’s the best way to learn when you’re physically there. You can go on a college tour with your high school, your house of worship, your family.
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Excuse me. Talking too much today.
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You can visit schools that are close to your home. I cannot tell you how much this can help. Especially for a student who is worried about going on a college visit and making a good impression.
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A great thing to do is to pick a school that’s nearby that maybe you don’t necessarily want to apply to. Do a tour and use it as a practice run. I think a lot of times for whatever reason, kids get nervous. What am I going to say on the tour? What’s it going to be like? If you’re one of those people, do a practice run at a local school. Again, it doesn’t have to be somewhere that you’re necessarily going to apply.
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Keep an open mind. Write down what you like, what you don’t like about every school. I will tell you, if you visit more than one school in a day, the two schools are going to get confused. So I highly recommend keeping some sort of either journal or something on your phone in the notes section. A lot of my students do that.
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And if you can’t visit in person, you can sign up for one of those virtual visits or information sessions or webinars that I spoke about from the last slide.
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There’s also campusreal.org, which are real tours filmed by students. A lot of my students like that.
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We can give you suggestions where to visit, what to see. Also, we have a whole list of questions on what types of things you should be asking, what you should be looking for when you’re going on these tours.
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Step three, do a college search. So think about location, region of the country or state, city, urban. Do you want suburban? Do you want rural? City access versus college town. Think about safety and security and whatever that means to you. I think I told this story in one of my last webinars, but I had a student a few years ago who she was a runner and it was very, very important to her to find a school where she felt safe running really early in the morning or really late at night.
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And that was a major consideration. And we found the school that was perfect for her. But think about weather and climate and the related activities that go around weather and climate. Are you from South Florida where a lot of my students are from? And are you going to be okay having four seasons, or just having winter and darkness and all of that. Sometimes, yes, sometimes no.
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Transportation, proximity to the airport. These are things sometimes people don’t really think about. I had a family once and they were really, oh, she’s going to California. We love it there. We visit all the time. This is great.
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As we continued the college process and they went out there a few times, they realized, I mean, the plane flight. They were delayed multiple times and the time change was a big deal so these are things that they hadn’t necessarily weighed in on when they were first forming their list. So we had to pivot a little bit.
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Think about proximity to family and that can mean something different for everyone, but it’s just something to think about.
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Access to amenities, to restaurants, culture, entertainment. And what types of things would you want to be doing when you’re in college for four years?
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Think about the size and the vibe of the school. So a small school is between 2,000 and 5,000 students.
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Medium is considered about 5,000 to 15,000. Large is 15,000 to 30,000.
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Massive is really anything over 30,000. Some schools are 60,000 or more.
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Think about the vibe of the school. Do you want there to be that competitive vibe? Or are you looking for more collaborative? Basically, a lot of these schools, research focused versus liberal arts. A lot of these you’ll find things in between.
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So, it’s not so black and white, but athletic versus non-sports centered, conservative versus liberal versus moderate. These are all things to really start thinking about.
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As you build your list. Think about the academics. So if your intended major is STEM or art or music, are there facilities that are sufficient to you? That’s a pretty basic one. But just make sure that your interests are supported wherever you’re going.
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And can I get in? Will I fit academically? Where do I stand really? Sometimes the hardest part for me as a counselor is having a student who has no idea where they stand in their high school class.
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And I have to explain and we have to figure out together kind of what their standing is. So, that’s something that we do privately at ICC and we can give you, obviously we’re always completely honest and we will give you the truth about what we think your chances are. But I always think it’s better to be honest so we can ove forward. Think about average class size. Think about accessibility to professors.
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A great way to figure that out is to ask other students who are there. What’s the ability to get into classes that you need to graduate on time?
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This question, by the way, some colleges, if you asked this question, they would look at you like you were crazy. What do you mean? Of course you can get into all of your classes.
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Of course. And then other schools, it’s a real struggle to make sure that you register for your classes within the specific window that you get so that you can actually graduate on time.
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So these are all questions you should be thinking about and asking.
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And what type of person are you? Are you going to procrastinate? So you would miss your window and not get the classes that you need? Or are you on it? Do you like that?
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Ability to conduct research as an undergrad has been a hot topic.
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Internship opportunities, which I said a little bit before, it seems to be very important when you’re in college. Job placement after college, you can ask directly how many students after graduation have job offers, how many are going to graduate school, and what does that look like? And, of course, graduation rates. You want to go to a school that has a good graduation rate because your goal is to graduate.
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Social fit. How do students spend their free time? Again, going back to that activities outside of campus or on campus, student organizations and clubs.
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Over the weekend, do students stay on campus or do they go home?
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Greek life, if that’s something you’re looking for, if that’s something you’re not looking for, athletic events, and what types of sports. Because every school is a little bit different in terms of what sport is most popular.
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School spirit and what does that look like on campus? Because it looks very different at Rice University versus UNC Chapel Hill. Totally different vibe, both with incredible school spirit.
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Traditions, what are those traditions look like at each of the schools and cultural activities.
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Finances. So really important to look at the full cost. Sometimes people just see the tuition and they think that, oh, that’s the end. Well, unfortunately, it’s tuition plus the room and board. Plus, there’s always extra fees for books and other things. Personal expenses and your travel fees too. So make sure that you’re looking at the real number.
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There’s always, not always, there’s lots of times merit-based scholarships that you can get. And again, that’s something at ICC, we always let our students know how to apply for these, if it’s separate from the original application, which sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not.
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And then there’s need-based financial aid through the FAFSA and the CSS profile which is based on your income and it’s federal money from the government.
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My biggest advice takeaway about any need-based financial aid, apply early because sometimes what happens is the college will run out And if you don’t qualify for a work study, which is through the need-based financial aid, are there jobs available near campus that maybe you could look into too
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Something that we’ve been talking about a lot is having that financial safety school because you want to be honest with your family and your children to make sure that whatever it is, you are covered financially later on. You can make good decisions.
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Step four, creating the college list, what we are here for. So by the end, you should have about 10 schools. Sometimes that’s six, sometimes it’s 12.
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When you get more than 15, I think… things start to water down. But this is an individual process and there may be a really good reason to have a certain number.
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The first part of this list, you should have your first choice school or schools plural.
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You should think about doing an early decision commitment if you have that dream school. And sometimes that dream school is very hard to get into. It’s a very selective school. And sometimes it’s within your range. So that’s something that we would discuss in the college process, how we would do this strategy.
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And then all the others really are match schools. You’d be very happy there. It meets your criteria. You fall well within or above the average GPA and test scores.
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And then, of course, what I spoke about before, the financial safety school if necessary.
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Great. So getting to know what the colleges want. This is actually a big one. The requirements.
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Find out the minimum course requirements. I have a student from Texas who’s in 10th grade right now. She’s finishing up her 10th grade year and in her high school, she only needed two years of foreign language to graduate. Now she is just unbelievable kid. She’s like way high on everything. She’s in crazy math in 10th grade.
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And she took Spanish one in ninth grade and she took Spanish two in 10th. And she said, Amy, next year, I am not taking any more Spanish.
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I hate taking Spanish. I’m doing these extra science classes and that’s what I’m doing. And I said hold up. I hear you but I don’t think you can do that if you want to get into a lot of the schools on your list.
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And we went through all of her schools that she was interested in. It’s a very preliminary list because she’s only in 10th grade.
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And four or five of them, I think it was actually five of them, well, actually three of them. Three of them had that they required three years of a foreign language and they recommended four.
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Okay. And then the others said they required two, but recommended three.
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Now, we all know what recommended means. Recommended means you should probably do it if you want to get in. Not to mention, this girl had room in her schedule. It wasn’t such a big deal.
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It would have just been Spanish three. Anyway, long story short, she’s going to continue, but it’s really important early on to know what requirements are for the types of schools that you’re looking at.
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Standardized test scores, so SAT, ACT, and the CLT, which is that new classical learning test that you can use for a lot of schools now.
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Essays, what are their essay requirements and letters of recommendation. Some schools do not want letters of recommendation. They say not only are they not required, but we don’t want them.
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If a school says do not send us recommendations, do not send them recommendations. It will raise a red flag, it will hold your application up. Trust me, I have seen it happen. Take a look at the averages. What’s their median GPA? What’s their median SAT? Do they super score?
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Or do they want to see all of your test scores? And along those lines, if a school says we want to see all your test scores, it doesn’t mean you need to worry. It just means they want to see the pattern of who you are and how you got to the score you got to. It’s just part of the story.
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So don’t stress if you’ve taken it four times and you’re worried that the college is going to think, oh, she took it four times. It’s not going to affect the big picture. They’re not looking at it like that. They’re really looking at it just to see the history. And of course, deadlines.
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We keep track of deadlines at ICC for our students. We actually have earlier internal deadlines. It’s critical to make sure that you get everything in on time with early decision, early action, early decision 2
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We take great pride in just having knowledge of all of the school requirements and the strategic advice on when to submit a test score, when not to. And we also help our students organize all of the deadlines so that nobody misses anything and everyone’s happy.
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Step five, apply early. This is now the norm applying early. And when I say apply early, I don’t mean apply early decision, which is that’s great. But if a school has an early action opportunity, you should be taking it. There’s really no reason not to.
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Some colleges admit large percentages of their incoming class through early decision or early action.
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And doing a regular decision at some schools can actually reduce a student’s chances of admission. And these are just three examples, but like for Tulane, my alma mater, they took 68% of their class through early decision. Early action was 17%.
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Regular decision, look how hard it was: 3% of their class was from regular decision. That is very difficult.
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They are expecting you to at least apply early action, if not early decision. And that’s actually how they get so many students that are happy there because they know if you’re applying early decision it means that it’s your first choice. So they want to take a lot of kids who it’s their first choice.
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Emory, same thing. A little bit lower in the numbers, but same story. Early decision is 31% of their class. Their regular decision is 10 to 15% of their class.
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But they actually don’t have an early action. So that’s why that’s maybe a little bit higher than other schools. Bu, you can see their early decision was 58% and their regular was 14%. So all of these, and actually many more have kind of a similar story. The earlier you apply, the better. It will increase your chances.
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We really analyze these early round benefits and we help build these admissions timelines that will work for any family.
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Final thoughts. Selecting a college, it’s one of the biggest decisions a student will make or have to make up until that point. What’s good for one student may not be good for another. So I urge you, when you hear these discussions in your social circles.
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Think about who’s saying it. Think about their background. Think about who your child is and who you are. Dream big, be open to possibilities, and you may be pleasantly surprised if you open your mind. I absolutely love what I do. And I hope you can tell through the screen. So if you would like to schedule a free consultation, if you have questions, I’m happy to take any questions over email at [email protected]
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I appreciate all of you coming out. We actually had a very big group tonight.
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Doesn’t look like any questions. Wonderful.
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Great. Again, if you would like to schedule a free consultation, or if you have questions contact me at [email protected]
Have a fantastic rest of your night!