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So You Have Been Deferred…
What to do when you have been deferred from your ED or EA college?
First, let’s talk about deferrals. Some colleges like Harvard and MIT defer the majority of students who apply. Harvard deferred 78% of the students who applied, and MIT deferred 68%. They will take very few of those students in the regular round. MIT said around 2%. Other colleges like Brown, Yale, and Northwestern defer a much smaller percentage of students. Brown will release their decisions tonight, and they have only deferred 19% of students. So while deciding what you want to do, keep in mind the number of students who have been deferred versus the number of students who will ultimately be offered admission.
Next, if you found out in December, take a couple of weeks to think about whether this is still a college you would like to attend. (Please note if you were deferred by Clemson, they would like materials by January 2nd.) If you find out in late January or February, please email them back asap, as you will not have much time before they consider you in the regular admissions round. If you have already found out and you take a couple of weeks, this will give you time to get over the disappointment of not getting accepted outright, and it also gives you a few weeks to think about why this college is still right for you. Maybe since you applied a couple of months ago, you have been accepted somewhere else you prefer? If you are NOT still interested in attending the college you have been deferred at, then send a letter to your admissions rep and ask them to please withdraw your application. If you are still interested, then it is best to follow instructions on what the college has asked you to do to show this. Usually, they would like you to add some information to their school portal like first semester grades and any new test scores. I like all of my students to also send their admissions rep a letter of continued interest (LOCI). The best thing is to email this letter to your admissions rep and also upload it to your admissions portal. There are some colleges, like the University of Georgia, that specifically ask you NOT to send them a LOCI, so please pay attention first to what a college asks for. Most colleges, though, will like you to write a LOCI.
So what should be in this letter:
1) I like you to start with that you have taken some time to think about being deferred from X college and that you are more convinced than ever that X college is still your number-one choice or, in the case of EA, a top choice.
a) go to a college’s mission statement, if you have not done this in the original application, for why you and X college are a great fit.
2) Make sure to have your high school send your first semester grades. If you don’t have the official GPA transcript yet, that’s ok. Tell them what you think your semester grades will be in a few weeks and that your high school will send them when they are official. Make sure to tell them this is your guesstimate of what your grades will be.
3) Provide admissions with any new information, and if you really do not have any, highlight some recent academic work, especially if it pertains to what you want to study at X college. This is very important. You should try to include new academic information and also any new information about your extracurriculars. In the words of my colleague Evan Forrester, this is the “heart of the email.”
4) If you are not doing anything new, maybe now is the time to start, and then you have something to talk about.
5) In the final paragraph, ask if you can do anything to further support your candidacy for admissions.
6) Thank the admissions rep for taking the time to read your email at such a busy time of the year.
7) Last and very important, reiterate how much you would like to attend X college. If it is your first choice, make sure to repeat that emphatically with a “, and if I am accepted, I will attend!”
Now what are some additional things you can do to bolster your chance of admission:
1) If a college will allow it, send in an academic paper from first semester.
2) If the college will allow it, send an additional recommendation. Maybe you have a teacher who can highlight a new side of who you are. For example, a few years ago, we had a top student who was applying to study Economics. He also happened to be one of the best writers I have ever worked with. He realized through the college process just how much he enjoyed his writing and said as much to his ED college, where he has been deferred. He got a new recommendation from his English teacher and added that to his admissions portal. Not saying it was the additional recc, but he was accepted in the regular round.
3) If you can visit the college you have been deferred at, even if you have visited before, VISIT! We realize during COVID, this might not be possible or even without COVID feasible, but it is a very effective way of showing how interested you are. Make sure to let your regional admissions rep know you are visiting and ask if you can see them to introduce yourself in person quickly. If you can not do an in-person visit, try and do some more virtual visits, make sure to follow them on social media, and make sure to click through often to their website. Getting deferred from EA, especially, is often all about yield (who will actually accept a college’s offer of acceptance). Getting accepted in the regular round is also often about yield, so showing as much demonstrated interest as you can is VERY IMPORTANT.
The last thing is to get excited about some of your other colleges. Remember, love the ones who love you!
What To Do When You Have Been Accepted To Your ED College
Congratulations! You have been accepted to your Early Decision college!! We are so happy for you. We are, and you should be, so proud of all the hard work you have done to get to this point!
What should you do now?
1) Celebrate - a lot!!
2) Next, you must remember that this offer is binding. You have committed to attending this college if you were accepted. So first, you must triple make sure you can afford it. If you have applied for financial aid, please check your offer before you accept your spot. Finances are the only reason you can get out of an early decision acceptance. If a financial offer is not what you expected, please get in touch with the college’s admissions office before accepting your spot. Maybe something can be done to make this college affordable for you.
3) You should officially accept your spot in the Class of 2027. Read your acceptance letter for how to do this for each individual college, but usually, it is done through your application portal and involves submitting a deposit. Please do not wait to read the acceptance letter, and be sure to look for deadlines, as they are likely to be coming up soon.
4) You now must withdraw all your other outstanding applications. We understand it can be tempting to know where else you are accepted, but you have made a promise to attend your ED college. You must withdraw your other applications. Look at it this way, it is also the “right" thing to do. You know you are not going to accept a spot at those colleges. Someone else is waiting on a decision from there. It can be their dream, and by withdrawing your application, you might be clearing the way toward their acceptance. So how do you withdraw your other applications? Many colleges will let you do this right in your application portal. If they do not, you should send a short email to your admissions representative and cc the admissions office general email. The email should look something like this…
Subject: Wonder Woman application withdrawal
Dear Mr. Awesome Admissions Rep,
My name is Wonder Woman, and I applied to the Marvelous Marvels University regular decision. I am writing to you to please withdraw my admissions application. I have been accepted to another university (you do not have to tell them where you are going unless you want to) early decision. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Wonder Women
Application Number 11111
5) Please let your school counselor know that you have been admitted ED, that you withdrew your other applications, and that you have deposited and accepted your spot at X University.
6) Please let your teachers and other recommenders know that you have been accepted and thank them one more time for their efforts on your behalf.
7) KEEP YOUR GRADES UP!! Acceptances are usually conditional on keeping your grades at a level commensurate with where they were when you applied.
8) Keep checking your email. Your new college will send you lots of communication in the next few months. There will be deadlines that need to be adhered to.
9) Lastly, join a Facebook group for your new university Class of 2027. Start meeting your future classmates. Parents: there are usually Facebook groups for you too, and they can be a great source of information and camaraderie for you as well.
10) Back to Celebrate!! Buy a t-shirt, a baseball hat, a sticker for your mom’s car, or your grandpa a sweatshirt. It is a gift to be done with this process in time to have a truly Happy New Year.
Grade Inflation is Real, and Some Colleges are Returning to Requiring Testing - Sharpen Your Pencils
Grade Inflation is Real, and Some Colleges are Returning to Requiring Testing.
High school grades have been on a steady march upward throughout most of our lifetimes. In recent years, though, grade inflation has reached a tipping point where the reality is that even an A average is not a differentiating factor. Grade inflation is real. According to the Higher Education Research Institute’s Freshman Survey in 2020, 68.10% of first-year students at 4-year universities had an A or A- average in high school.
I suspect the pandemic has only made grade inflation worse. My colleague Brian Eufinger of Edison Prep just recorded a great podcast with Lisa Marker Robbins of Flourish Coaching, “Will Grade Inflation Hurt Your Teen?” Try to listen if you can.
Earlier this month, when we were at the IECA National Fall Conference, many admissions directors confirmed that grade inflation is real.
The director of admissions at Cal Tech mentioned that today’s 4.0 GPA is not the same as a Pre-Covid 4.0. This has made the school profile (which high school counselors should attach to every submitted college application) all the more critical. You can usually find your child’s school profile on the high school’s counseling page or by Googling it.
The admissions directors also mentioned that students have some fundamental gaps in their learning. Check out this article from the New York Times. This is going to be affecting our students for a long time. The University of San Diego (who is test blind) has expanded tutoring services and invited all first-year students to campus a week early, at the college’s expense, for Science Lab boot camps because the students probably missed that in high school.
Colleges have COVID grade inflation too, and although students have learned less these past few years, retention rates have not dropped. Many students are staying in college, and most colleges are doing their best to support them as they recover what they have lost during COVID.
So how are colleges supposed to make admissions decisions in the world of A averages, test-optional, or test-free admissions?
Again at our conference, we heard about how test-free has produced some great results in terms of equity.
The UC system had also seen an increase in underrepresented groups and the quality of their applicants when they went test-free. In California, you are considered ELC if you are in the top 9% of your class. When the UCs went test-free, the rate of growth of ELC applicants outpaced the overall growth of applicants.
Places like the University of San Diego have seen a 25% surge in applications of Black and Hispanic students for first-year admission.
This is not across the board at all institutions. Overall, in many ways, it is still just advantaging the advantaged. It is easier to evaluate a test-free applicant from a top-tier high school than from an under-resourced one. Colleges are trying to be very cognizant of NOT doing this.
Many other colleges might be thinking of returning to requiring test scores. MIT made this decision last spring. Stuart Schmill, the Dean of Admissions and Student Financial Services at MIT, did a Q&A on MIT’s decision to reinstate their SAT/ACT requirement. Here is an interesting excerpt, which is long but worth reading.
Q: What do you say to those who argue the tests create structural barriers for socioeconomically disadvantaged and/or underrepresented students?
A: I appreciate this question, which we have kept foremost in our minds as we reviewed our research and policies. MIT Admissions has a strong commitment to diversity, and it is important to us that we minimize unfair barriers to our applicants wherever possible.
However, what we have found is that the way we use the SAT/ACT increases access to MIT for students from these groups relative to other things we can consider. The reason for this is that educational inequality impacts all aspects of a prospective student’s preparation and application, not just test-taking. As I wrote, low-income students, underrepresented students of color, and other disadvantaged populations often do not attend schools that offer advanced coursework (and if they do, they are less likely to be able to take it). They often cannot afford expensive enrichment opportunities, cannot expect lengthy letters of recommendation from their overburdened teachers, or cannot otherwise benefit from this kind of educational capital. Meanwhile, we know that the pandemic was most disruptive to our least-resourced students, who may have had no consistent coursework or grading for nearly two years now.
I realize this argument may sound counterintuitive to some who have heard that the SAT/ACT exams raise barriers for access, and I don’t want to ignore the challenges with, or limits of, the tests. They are just one tool among many that we use. However, what I think many people outside our profession don’t understand is how unfortunately unequal all aspects of secondary education are in this country. And unlike some other inequalities — like access to fancy internships or expensive extracurriculars — our empirical research shows the SAT/ACT actually do help us figure out if someone will do well at MIT.
MIT’s explanation goes on and is worth reading in full. A lot of what is being said resonates with me. I do not have the answers, but I keep hearing more rumblings and rumors that some other highly selective colleges will start requiring test scores next year. I am also sure many others will remain test-optional, and they are GREAT options for students. Many admissions directors have told us that their colleges have been tracking their test-optional student's performance in their classes and are holding off making permanent decisions on this issue until they have more data. Also, keep in mind that many universities were test-optional before the pandemic started, and they might be more genuine about not caring if students have test scores. Yesterday, Purdue announced that they will require test scores for the 2023/24 admissions cycle. We appreciate their transparency and the fact that they are telling students within enough time for them to prepare for and plan to take tests.
Our advice is always for students to ask themselves as they navigate the college admissions process: is what I am doing opening doors or closing them? Except at test-blind colleges and especially at highly selective colleges, a high test score keeps more doors open for you. Our recommendation to all juniors and younger students is to PREPARE for and take the SAT or ACT. Even better if you can take it twice since most colleges will allow you to superscore your exams. And by prepare, we mean really prep because next year, test-optional might not be an option at the college you want.
What Does Unhooked Mean In Admissions?
In his latest blog, Rick Clarke, the Director of Admission at GA Tech, says, "When you hear admission reps say, 'We are looking for a well-rounded class…' they mean they want choices and options...decisions are based on goals and mission."
This makes us ask:
1) What exactly is a “hook” in college admissions parlance?
2) Why do institutional priorities carry so much weight in admissions?
3) Are hooks the same from one college to another?
4) Is there really anything like a completely unhooked student?
5) How can an unhooked applicant improve their odds of being accepted?
I answered these questions in a recent conversation with Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin of Tests and the Rest.
https://sites.gatech.edu/admission-blog/2022/11/15/what-do-colleges-want/
https://gettestbright.com/what-does-unhooked-mean-in-admissions/?fbclid=IwAR3LuM8mFXIWGmvo_jJD7jeKTNaV0_YXLERrAnUJiPf-zlFSD-kFoCWcqTA
The Mental Health of Our Students Must be Our Top Priority
As I write this I am reeling trying to comprehend how 7 students lost their lives on the UVA and U Idaho campuses last Sunday evening. It is just too much. My heart is with these families and campuses.
I just returned from our national organization IECA’s fall conference in San Diego. When a group of admissions directors was asked who are the highest-risk students, the answer was ALL OF THEM!
The Director of Admissions at Claremont McKenna College asked parents to please look at their children and ask themselves, “are they ready for a high-risk community?
On the college side, most places are now talking about how they have expanded mental health services on campus. The University of San Diego has brought in an outside, 24-hour telehealth counseling service to help. In addition to their existing wellness center, they also set up pop-up wellness centers around campus during particularly stressful times.
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Last Friday, this article came out in the Washington Post. It makes you question whether you want to attend a college like Yale. A similar report came out about Dartmouth earlier this fall. Last year Brown settled with the DOJ after they wrongfully denied readmissions to students on mental health leave. Maybe a question everyone should be asking is, what is the policy on mental health withdrawals at the campuses you are looking at? We will certainly add this to our question list as we are visiting colleges. Or more importantly what support is on these campuses so our young people do not feel the need to withdraw?
When this Yale article came out on Friday morning, we were riding the bus to the University of Redlands. A colleague spoke about his brilliant student who accepted her spot at Yale, only not to make it through the first year because the atmosphere was too intensely pressured. She is currently not attending college. When we visited the Claremont Colleges, a student tour guide explained the different campuses to me in this context. “We have the best lives at Scripps and Pitzer. CMC, their life is ok, Pomona is very stressful, and the Harvey Mudd kids have no life and do not sleep.” Coincidentally while all of these colleges are very selective, this is also almost the reverse order of how selective these colleges are. Scripps's 2002 acceptance rate was 30%, and Pomona and Harvey Mudd’s are in the single digits, with Pitzer and CMC in the middle. Are these super-selective colleges and the Ivy League really a golden ticket? Maybe yes, still for the student who thrives in an uber-competitive environment, but this decision NEEDS to be about FIT.
As a parent, the mental health stuff is so real that everyone, myself included, sometimes gets paralyzed by the fear of making a mistake. We often become afraid to push our kids. That fear is real, rational, and scary. It takes away or modifies our ability to parent. That worries me, but at the same time, it also serves as a reminder to all of us that home should be a safe haven.
Please check out this short podcast from Kelly Corrigan on why she wishes she had not said the word college to her kids so much.
A Plea
As I sit outside I am trying to reconcile this gorgeous fall day with the text message a colleague just sent me. Another young person committed suicide this week on a college campus. Depression and anxiety among teens and young people is at an all-time high. Last year, I felt like it was an almost daily or weekly occurrence that I was hearing about some beautiful young person’s decision to end their life. Our local high schools have had multiple suicides, and small colleges with only a few thousand students had more than one death. This is beyond horrifying and we are not talking about it enough. In an article, in The Atlantic, last spring Why are American Teens so Sad? the author, Derek Thompson, attributes this to 4 main reasons: social media use; sociality is down; the world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors; and modern parenting strategies. This same article in the Atlantic says:
In the past 40 years, American parents—especially those with a college degree—have nearly doubled the amount of time they spend coaching, chauffeuring, tutoring, and otherwise helping their teenage children. The economist Valerie Ramey has labeled this the “rug rat race.” High-income parents in particular are spending much more time preparing their kids for a competitive college admissions process. When I interviewed Ramey about her work in 2019, she told me that she “couldn’t believe the amount of pressure our friends were putting on their kids to get ready for college.
I cannot comment on all of these things, but I am the parent of three sons, and I speak to a lot of parents. I also work with students and their parents during one of the most stressful times of their young lives, applying to college. I see this pressure every day in large and small ways. My boys are older now, with our youngest set to graduate in the spring, but I am guilty of unconsciously putting that same pressure on our children. I try very hard not to add to the stress on our students. We focus much more on “fit’ than prestige or selectivity. With that said, I am writing with a plea. PLEASE, parents, get your children out now to visit some of their likely (likely to get into) colleges in person. Put effort and energy into exploring this college. Book a great place to stay, plan a fun activity and eat breakfast at the place where all the students go. Go out of your way to try the special ice cream store or donut shop. Get CURIOUS; this blog post from UIUC Admissions has some great questions to ask. Get EXCITED about this college and try to help your child get EXCITED about this college too. I visit a LOT of colleges, some highly rejective and some highly acceptant. I promise you that all have pros and cons, and I fall in love with each and every one of them. You and your children will too.
I am not saying students should not take their shot at some harder to get into colleges. They should, but EVERY acceptance should be celebrated. So go off and enjoy the gorgeous weather. Book some college tours, maybe up north, where you can see the beautiful fall foliage. Just remember, as my colleague and friend Meg Joyce says, “LEAD WITH YOUR LIKELIES!’
Scattergrams Need to Scram
It is human nature to want to know how you stack up against others. Most students and families can not wait to get a look at their high school scattergrams. This need to compare can get so tricky that some high schools do not release scattergrams to their families. I love data and different ways to look at it, and it used to bother me that I could not see this data for specific high schools. I no longer rely on scattergrams for any information. Today families can NOT look at their high school scattergrams and see which colleges are appropriate for their child. First, for those who do not know what I am talking about, Naviance and Scoir are different software platforms high schools use to help their students with college applications. Both of these platforms provide users scattergrams for each college, which give you data on the students from their high school that have applied and been accepted, rejected, or waitlisted there in the last five years. These scattergrams look exactly like they sound, a bunch of circles scattered on a page where each student represents a certain GPA and test score.
So why are Scattergrams useless these days?
I) The college admissions landscape has changed so dramatically in the past three years that looking at who was accepted five years ago does not tell you who might be accepted today. Many selective colleges have become WAY more selective than they were pre-pandemic. Why is that?
A) For the class of 2025, the pandemic and the move to test-optional increased the number of applications at many selective colleges. Many students also took a Gap year because of the pandemic, so colleges took fewer students to the Class of 2025 to make room for the 2024s. We have covered what happened to highly selective college admissions for the class of 2025 in this past blog, but suffice it to say, many admissions rates dropped by a ton in 2025.
B) So what happened to the Class of 2026? Application numbers continued to jump up just about everywhere. The Ivies and other top-tier institutions’ acceptance rates had all fallen solidly into the single digits. This put pressure on the colleges that are one rung down in terms of selectivity, and many of those colleges have acceptance rates that also fell to the single digits. We have roughly 20 colleges in the US that now have acceptance rates in the single digits. See this past blog for some of those numbers and examples. Why did that happen?
1. The lower acceptance rates everywhere mean many colleges are also seeing higher yield rates than ever before. (The yield rate is the percentage of students a college accepts that choose to attend)
a) This is causing lower acceptance rates not just at colleges that did receive more applications but also at colleges that did not. For example, Villanova received a few hundred fewer applications than last year at just under 24,000, but they admitted slightly fewer students this year because their yield rate has risen to 32%. Many colleges talk about how their enrollment tactics change when their yield rate is higher than their acceptance rate. Villanova’s acceptance rate was 23% this year.
b) Many colleges overenrolled last year because they did not expect their yield to be as high, and many have done it again this year. This caused many colleges to become even more selective and some colleges to become highly selective that never were previously. Two examples of this would be Boston University and the University of Tampa which had a 26% acceptance rate this year compared to 54% for the Class of 2025.
II) Now that most colleges have gone test-optional, we have no idea if students submitted the test scores that appear on their Scattergrams or not.
III) Students are just dots on a Scattergram. There is no context regarding how each student fits a college's institutional priorities. These dots don’t tell us if a student is a legacy. They do not tell us if a student is a recruited athlete or if they are full-pay or full-need. Or if a student is from an underserved population. Or if a student plays the tuba and that college needed a tuba player. Please see this past blog for more on how these institutional priorities can affect college decisions often more than the students’ exact stats.
IV) Dots on a scattergram do not tell you what major a student applied to at those colleges. At most universities, specific majors are often significantly harder to get into, and students must apply directly to those programs. Nursing, Engineering, and Computer Science are some of these programs. This article is old but shows that even in 2019 before things got significantly more competitive, CS admissions were often way harder than general admissions to the same university. For example, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019, the overall acceptance rate was 62%, but the Computer Science acceptance rate was 15%.
V) Scattergrams do not tell us what kind of course rigor a student has taken. First, if the GPA is unweighted, as it is at our local high school, there is no way to tell if that dot represents the highest course rigor or no course rigor at all. Even with weighted GPAs, one can not possibly know if a future engineer has taken AP Calculus or, for that matter, if it was AP Calc AB or BC. Did the future engineer take Physics or AP Physics? The questions are endless, and the answers often determine whether a student is an admit or deny.
VI) Dots on the scattergrams can not possibly tell us what extracurricular activities a student has been involved in. At the very top universities, most of the applicants are highly qualified with excellent GPAs and test scores. It is often what a student has done outside of the classroom that distinguishes them in college admissions.
VII) Many high schools do not keep their Naviance current. They do not update individual students’ data regularly, and they even leave off some students altogether.
Naviance scattergrams do not tell you how appropriate this college is for your child. They do not even attempt to do that. They just try to tell you how hard or easy acceptance at this college might be for your child. Finding appropriate colleges for a student or, as I like to say, right fit colleges, is about helping that student figure out what they want in a college and researching to find it. Rick Clark, the Director of Admissions at Georgia Tech, just wrote a brilliant blog post where he said, Clarifying your requirements will be far more valuable than obsessing about admit rates, rankings, number of benches, or squirrel/deer to student ratio.
So while we all can’t help ourselves and want to check our high school’s scattergrams to see where that blue circle that represents you falls in the sea of dots, please try and refrain. Peering at these gives students and families false hope and heightens everyone’s anxiety. Focus instead on your wants and needs for your college experience. Scattergrams need to scram!
Dream Crusher
This has been a rough few weeks. I have had many difficult conversations with students, parents, and families. I feel like my new name should be “dream crusher.” I am not trying to be funny because it is not funny. The current college admissions landscape for selective colleges is very, very tough. For many years running, admit rates have gone way down. In the last two years, they have gone down even more significantly.
One of my colleagues, Kate Sonnenberg, gave some succinct examples in her recent blog post; in fact, the admit rate is so low that some colleges, among them Princeton and Stanford, have decided not to disclose the number. Three universities – Harvard, Columbia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)- had admit rates under 4%. Sixteen colleges and universities had admit rates under 10%. Just as notable, some universities saw significant drops in their admit rate from only one year earlier – New York University, for example, went from a 21% acceptance rate in 2021 to a 12.2% admit rate in 2022.
For many reasons we have covered in a past blog, applications to many colleges have significantly increased in the last two years, causing acceptance rates to drop dramatically. We focus on the highly selective colleges because what happens at these colleges trickles down to affect all colleges. We used the year 2019 to start because the pandemic already caused a skew in the numbers for 2020. This is just a small sampling of colleges.
Many of the parents I speak to went to highly selective colleges themselves. They see their kids have straight As and assume they can also attend highly selective colleges. The landscape is so different from what it was a few years ago. Another colleague Bari Norman held a virtual presentation this week in which she brilliantly compared admissions rates at all 8 of the Ivy Leagues in 1992 to today’s admissions rates and the equivalent colleges.
Kids have worked super hard for over three years now. When they hear how difficult it is to get into many highly selective colleges, they can often feel like, what was it all for? I promise each and every one of these students it is because you are going to go to a GREAT college. It might not be the one you first thought of, but if you do your “homework,” it will be a GREAT COLLEGE FOR YOU. Finding the right college is about finding the colleges that fit; a college the student can be proud to attend, and that parents would be happy to invest in, and moreover, one where the student can be successful. So why do I feel like I am constantly crushing dreams? I am trying to get students to stop focusing on prestige or only colleges they have heard of so they can start focusing on THEIR colleges. Sadly these days, this is a time-sensitive issue like never before. There is WAY more pressure on students to apply early. If a student spends too much time focused on a college that might not ever happen, they might miss the opportunity to get into their perfect match.
So how does one do that? It is summer, and the entire world is having a heat wave. The last thing rising seniors want to be doing is researching colleges, writing essays, or even worse, studying to take the ACT or SAT again.
Let’s pull that apart a bit. Researching colleges is not as much fun as it should be. One of the pandemic's silver linings is that colleges now have lots of virtual tours and information sessions. One of the worst things about the pandemic is that now most colleges offer great ways to explore them virtually. Let’s face it, seeing a college in person is way more entertaining. Students often get to explore a new city or town, eat at a favorite college student hang-out spot, and meet people. Parents get real quality time with their kids. Now that virtual options are so good and admit rates so low, many families are waiting to visit many of the colleges on their list until they know if their child has been accepted. This right of passage of traditional college visits is not as prevalent as it used to be. While it is great that people have saved money by avoiding these trips, it has changed the experience and not necessarily for the better. So while you can find many ways to research colleges virtually in our past blogs here, I encourage you to get out and do some live visits with your family. Look for open houses and days where you might be able to see more of the current students. Maybe set some time aside in August, when college students have returned to campus, but you have not started school yet.
Next, let’s discuss the dreaded application writing and essays. This is just plain hard. It is not too much fun. The only consolation I can provide is that I promise you it is better to get as much of this work done this summer as possible. Senior fall is the busiest time students will ever have in high school. They are probably taking the most challenging classes they have ever taken, have leadership roles in their activities, might also be interviewing at various colleges, and some are still preparing for and taking standardized tests. It is all truly too much, but thankfully it goes by quickly.
This brings me to my next grouchy point—the dreaded SAT and ACT. In my opinion, for many students, the new landscape of test-optional has not made things easier on students it has made it way more confusing. Many students have not put in the same effort they might have to prepare for these tests because they figure, hey, most colleges are test-optional, and I can just not submit my score if it is not what I want it to be. They are correct, but what they don’t realize is that at many colleges, they will have a higher percentage chance of acceptance with a good test score. The next thing is that the test range scores for most colleges have gone way up in the last two years. This means that there is WAY more pressure on test scores in many ways than ever before. Please read this very comprehensive report by Compass Prep for details and graphs confirming this.
Grade inflation in this country has been very real, especially during the pandemic. I can quote many articles I put at the bottom of this blog post, but here are just two points. First, from Compass Prep, The College Board reported that over 60% of college applicants in the class of 2021 obtained a 4.0 or better. Teachers may have awarded higher grades to compensate for instructional challenges during the pandemic. Second, from ACT’s blog A new report from ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the ACT college readiness exam, finds evidence of grade inflation in high school seniors’ GPAs between 2010 and 2021. The average high school GPA increased 0.19 grade points, from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021, with the greatest grade inflation occurring between 2018 and 2021.
The fact that so many more students have high GPAs puts more and more pressure on colleges to try and quantify what each student’s GPA really means. How will they do that? They will look at a school’s profile to try and determine where students rank in their class. Maybe not an exact spot, but is this student top 5%, 10%, or 50%? They will try and understand what kind of course rigor the student has taken. They will look at that in the context of what a high school offers. One of the ways they might want to quantify this will be to look at how many AP classes a student has or has not taken. If they have taken APs, seeing a student's test scores also gives a college context and a way to compare you to others. Suppose you have all excellent AP scores, yay for you. Most students do not. So that begs the conversation, what to disclose and what not to? This gets complicated and will be left for another time. I bring up AP scores because if you don’t have great ones, it might put pressure on you to quantify your GPA with good ACT or SAT scores.
So back to me, I don’t want to be a dream crusher. I want to help students find their dream colleges. I am amazed every day by the brilliance and spirit of the students I am lucky enough to work with. They are truly incredible, and I want all of them and you too to realize that there is an incredible depth and breadth of fantastic institutions out there. Please get to work finding yours.
Links to articles on Grade Inflation:
Course Rigor Matters
I returned a couple of weeks ago from the IECA National Conference. I attended some great break-out sessions. One session was with admissions officers from the University of Rochester, University of Delaware, and Ohio Wesleyan. They were discussing how they make admissions decisions when they do not have a test score, i.e., in the land of test optional. One of the questions was how do you possibly discern a 4.0 from student A from a 4.0 from student B. Well, first of all, let’s discuss how many students now have a 4.0 or close to it. The answer is often surprising for parents, but the answer is a LOT. Grade inflation in this country is real. Here is an article from Education Week in which they state the pandemic simply accelerated the pace at which high school grades are being inflated. Grade inflation is also not limited to high school. Here is an article from The Brown Daily Herald that talks about grade inflation at Brown University and other Ivy League colleges. Brown’s Senior Lecturer in Political Science Nina Tannenwald says it best, “The rapid increase over the last two years surely reflects leniency on grading during COVID,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.“ But it exacerbates a trend that has been underway for a while.” The reality is grade inflation is very real at all stages of education and the pandemic has only made it worse. I have digressed. The real question I was trying to answer was how do you possibly discern one student’s 4.0 GPA from another? The answer is course rigor. A 4.0 transcript with 14 APs is clearly different than the 4.0 transcript with no APs. Other things are more nuanced. To get an idea of what classes you could be taking in high school for selective college admissions listen to this podcast I just recorded with Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin from Tests and the Rest.
It Takes A Village
We are so proud of our students. Here are the acceptances for the class of 2026.
IT'S NOT YOU, IT’S THEM
At this time of year, social media is filled with posts of X kid with XY stats who did not get into Z college. Ivy day is a blood bath because, hello, the HUGE majority of kids do not get accepted to these colleges. Harvard’s acceptance rate this year was 3% and I can list over a dozen colleges off the top of my head that have acceptance rates that are in the single digits. Kids are asking, “What more could I have done?”. I have spent a lot of time talking about all the things students can do to help their chance of admission to highly selective colleges. Today we are going to say after you have done all of those things, studied hard in rigorous courses, participated in activities you felt passionate about, worked to be helpful to others you care about, spent time preparing good applications, studying for, and excelling at your standardized tests, the answer is NOTHING. Yes, I said nothing. It is time to cut yourself a break and realize this is not all about you. It is about these colleges and their institutional priorities. Colleges are businesses and operate like such. They are concerned about putting together a whole class. Highly selective colleges are filled with tons of qualified applicants and can literally fill their classes ten times over with incredibly accomplished, amazingly smart, and wonderful students. At colleges like Harvard, the majority of applicants often have perfect test scores and grades. This is the part of the process that makes so many students and families crazy. This is not a simple equation of hard work = reward. So what does this all mean? What are often some institutional priorities?
A) Colleges need to manage their enrollment.
Um…colleges might have had a huge spike in application numbers due to some crazy unpredictable event like a pandemic and the world shifting to test optional. Many colleges have gotten 25% more selective than they were 2 two years ago.
Colleges might have over-enrolled or under-enrolled last year or for more than one year. So they need to overall take fewer or more students this year. Many colleges over-enrolled last year so they took fewer students this year. An example of that this year would be Boston University.
A college is yielding more of its accepted students. A good example of this is Tulane University. In 2016 their yield rate was 26% and in 2021 it is 45%. They simply need to accept fewer students because more of the students they are accepting are enrolling.
Other things can come into play when a college over-enrolls - a college might not have adequate housing for so many students. A good example of this is the University of Tampa last year which did not have enough housing for the students it admitted. That could not have been good for business.
To control enrollment a college might enroll a large percentage of their class ED I or ED II. Bates took over 80% of their class in their two rounds of ED last year. Washington University in St. Louis and Tufts University are two I often think of that take somewhere between half and two-thirds of their class in their two ED rounds. It simply becomes way harder to get into regular decision.
Colleges must balance their budgets.
Some colleges may need to accept more full pay students.
Some colleges are prioritizing letting in Pell eligible students.
Some colleges prioritize letting in the majority of students with some type of tuition discount. This is the very concept of merit aid. An example of this is Lake Forest College which offers 100% of applicants merit aid.
Some public colleges must prioritize letting in state students. For example, the state of North Carolina mandates that any UNC campus can only have a maximum of 18% of its incoming class coming from out of state.
Some public colleges may need out-of-state students or, moreover, need the money from out-of-state student tuition.
Some colleges prioritize certain groups like military families with things like yellow ribbon benefits and children of academic employees with tuition exchange programs.
Colleges will often accept students with connections to VIPs or Development.
Some colleges will prioritize Legacy students.
B) Colleges have athletic teams, school bands, school choirs, debate teams and theater productions.
Colleges might need to fill an athletic spot.
Colleges might need a student who plays an obscure instrument.
College might need a student for all sorts of special talent.
C) Colleges want students in all of their different majors.
This might mean that certain popular majors are much harder to get into than others. For example Computer Science is one of the hardest majors in the country right now.
Some colleges might need to consider that a department is understaffed or unprepared to take students at this specific time.
Some colleges will prioritize certain genders or cultural groups for certain majors. For example male students might have a strong advantage in fine arts and fashion and Black and Latina women might have an advantage in STEM.
D) Most colleges want to have a diversified class of students.
Colleges want students with diversified interest in and out of the classroom.
Some colleges will prioritize ethnically underrepresented groups. Nine states currently ban affirmative action: : California (1996), Washington (1998), Florida (1999), Michigan (2006), Nebraska (2008), Arizona (2010), New Hampshire (2012), Oklahoma (2012), and Idaho (2020).
Some colleges want a regionally diverse group from all 50 states and multiple international locations. Colleges might be trying to expand their footprint regionally, nationally or internationally. They might prioritize one location over another. Every time I am on a college tour, I laugh at the requests for students from the Dakotas.
Some colleges want a good gender balance and prioritize men over women or vise versa.
Some colleges want a class that is diversified in sexual orientation, again they might prioritize underrepresented groups like LGBTQ students.
Some colleges prioritize first generation students or students who are re-entering college. The UCs are a good example of this.
Some colleges, especially religious ones, may want a certain percentage of their students from their specific denomination/churches.
Some colleges prioritize students who were in the military.
E) Some colleges prioritize their relationships with certain high schools.
F) Some colleges are prioritizing rankings and making decisions to try and maximize their place on US News and World Report. This is part of a larger conversation and probably best left for another day but when you have time look into how US News and World Report ranks colleges. A lot of that data can be manipulated through enrollment tactics, including yield protection.
The true trick to acceptance for many students is when they fulfill multiple priorities of a college. For now maybe when you start looking at colleges you can also consider their institutional priorities. First, do those values line up with your own? Check out a college’s mission statement, does it resonate with you? If you think a college’s priorities align with yours, maybe you are a good fit. If so, then yes please do apply. Spend time on your applications and essays. Put your best foot forward, but realize you can only worry about what you can control. A college will consider the whole class. If the decision is no, remember it is often not you, it is them!
It Is A Beautiful Time Of Year For A College Campus Visit.
It is starting to look like spring. The first daffodils are popping up, and high school juniors are really starting to think about applying to college next year. Many juniors are starting to visit some college campuses. Here are some things to be aware of when planning your visits:
1) Always try and book an official tour and information session.
2) Schedule an interview time if you want to interview in person. These days many colleges are interviewing virtually. I prefer our students to interview virtually in the fall because at that point they have written their applications and really have their “elevator pitches” down pat. That said, some students are more comfortable in person so if that is you, book your interview to save you from having to return in the fall. Not all colleges will offer interviews, but if they do, you need to interview. I say "need" even if it is not required because it shows great demonstrated interest. If you do an interview please prepare beforehand. Practice with your parents or a friend. Also, have some questions ready to ask your interviewer.
3) If you do not have an interview scheduled, try and reach out to your admissions rep to tell them you are coming to campus. Ask if they possibly have a few minutes to speak with you and answer some questions. Then come up with some appropriate questions. Write them down so you do not get nervous and forget them. Establishing a relationship with your admissions rep is a GREAT way to show demonstrated interest. If you do not connect with your rep or do not get an official tour or information session but still decide to visit somewhere, please at a minimum stop by the admissions office and sign in. It is important for a college to know that you have made the effort to visit.
4) Is there a particular major or extracurricular that you are interested in? Reach out to a professor for a certain class or the head of the club you like. Maybe you can meet with them or sit in on a class while you are on campus. Maybe you like a certain sport and have time to watch a game. If food is very important to you, maybe the college allows outsiders to eat in the dining hall. It is a great way to check out current students and see how good the food is.
5) Don’t be afraid to stop and ask current students questions. Mom and Dad, sometimes it is helpful if you do this for your child. I know it is not always “cool”, but it is usually a very valuable way to get information. Is the food good? Are the dorms nice? How hard is it to get the classes you want? Is the campus overcrowded? Are students living in triples and are students waiting in line, for an excessively long time, to eat in the dining hall? Let the conversation take you anywhere. Asking for directions is always a great way to start a conversation.
6) Make sure to explore not just the campus, but the surrounding community as well. Check out College Scoops and College Trips and Tips for ideas on what to see and where to eat.
7) Take out time to explore any other colleges that might be close by. You never know when you will like something totally different than what you expected.
8) Most importantly take notes on every college you see. Keep your top priority questions in mind when you do this. You do not have to write things down while you are in the middle of your tour but when you sit down for lunch or get back in your car jot down a few notes on your phone. It will help you to remember what you liked and did not like about each college. You will also really appreciate having those notes when you have to write your “why us?” supplement for that college.
What Classes Should I Take Next Year
What classes should I sign up for next year?
Now is the time of year many high school students are deciding which classes to take next year. What classes a student takes is often a big factor in college admissions decisions.
1. All students should take a challenging course load. This is especially important to do in subjects you are considering pursuing in college. While colleges like students to take rigorous courses they also want you to show maturity and not take on more than you can handle. In general, challenge but do not overwhelm yourself. Take classes where you can get a B or higher.
2. Colleges like you to continue to take classes in all 5 core subjects all 4 years. English, Math, Science, History, and Foreign Language. Highly selective colleges expect you will take all 5 subjects all 4 years. These days they want poets to be physicists and engineers to write poetry, even better if they write poetry in a foreign language.
3. Take classes in subjects that interest you. Colleges like to see you dive deep into areas of interest, especially if you are considering them as a course of study in college. Also you will always have better results in classes you want to take.
4. This is a general guide and you should adapt this as it is right for you.
So what does this really all mean:
Most colleges would prefer to see a B in an AP or Honors class versus an A in an easier class.
The more selective the college, the more rigorous your course load should be when applying. For example, highly selective colleges like to see students with at least AP Calculus AB and Physics, even those students not studying STEM fields. Business Schools want students to have taken Calculus and Statistics.
Highly selective and selective colleges expect students to take the most rigorous course load their high school offers. That means a lot of APs if they are offered at your high school. Colleges usually get a school profile from your high school and they will realize if your high school limits how many APs a student can take and when they take them. Or for that matter if your high school does not even have APs. That said, to give you an idea, the middle 50% of accepted students at the University of Georgia have taken 7-12 APs. We have heard at some even more selective colleges the average number of APs for accepted students is even higher.
Foreign language is better if it is the same language all 4 years. For highly selective colleges it is good if you can get to at least the AP level of your foreign language.
Sciences with a lab component are more rigorous than Sciences without.
If you really hate language and are terrible at it, most colleges only require 2 or 3 years of a language.
The last thing to keep in mind is that classes you decide to take earlier in high school, often determine what courses you will take as you progress through the years. It is hard to jump from all regular classes freshman year to all AP courses senior year. Try and think of your long term goals at the beginning of high school and plan accordingly.
Please reach out with any questions.
It Takes A Village
We are so proud of our students. Here are early acceptances for our class of 2022 so far.
So You have been Deferred…
What to do when you have been deferred from your ED or EA college?
First, if you found out in December, take a couple of weeks to think about whether this is still a college you would like to attend. If you find out in late January or February, please email them back asap, as you will not have much time before they consider you in the regular admissions round. If you have already found out and take a couple of weeks, this will give you time to get over the disappointment of not getting accepted outright, and it also gives you a few weeks to think about why this college is still right for you. Maybe you have been accepted somewhere else you prefer since you applied a couple of months ago? If you are NOT still interested in attending the college, you have been deferred to, send a letter to your admissions rep and ask them to please withdraw your application. If you are still interested, then it is best to follow instructions on what the college has asked you to do to show this. Usually, they would like you to add some information to their school portals like first semester grades and any new test scores. I like all of my students to also send their admissions rep a letter of continued interest (LOCI). The best thing is to email this letter to your admissions rep and also upload it to your admissions portal. Some colleges, like the University of Georgia, specifically ask you NOT to send them a LOCI, so please pay attention first to what a college asks for. Most colleges, though, will like you to write a LOCI.
So what should be in this letter:
1) I like you to start with that you have taken some time to think about being deferred from X college and that you are more convinced than ever that X college is still your number-one choice or, in the case of EA, a top choice.
a) Go to a college’s mission statement, if you have not done this in the original application, for why you and X college are a great fit.
2) Make sure to have your high school send your first semester grades. If you don’t have the official GPA transcript yet, that’s ok. Tell them what you think your semester grades will be in a few weeks and that your high school will send them when they are official. Make sure to tell them this is your guesstimate of what your grades will be.
3) Provide admissions with any new information. If you do not have any, highlight some recent academic work, especially if it pertains to what you want to study at X college. This is very important. You should try to include new academic information and also any new information about your extracurriculars. In the words of my colleague Evan Forrester, this is the “heart of the email.”
4) If you are not doing anything new, maybe now is the time to start, and then you have something to talk about.
5) In the final paragraph, ask if you can do anything to further support your candidacy for admissions.
6) Thank the admissions rep for taking the time to read your email at such a busy time of the year.
7) Last and very important, reiterate how much you would like to attend X college. If it is your first choice, repeat that emphatically with a “and if I am accepted, I will attend!”
Now what are some additional things you can do to bolster your chance of admission:
1) If a college will allow it, send in an academic paper from the first semester.
2) If the college will allow it, send an additional recommendation. Maybe you have a teacher who can highlight a new side of you. For example, last year, we had a top student applying to study Economics. He also happened to be one of the best writers I have ever worked with. He realized through the college process just how much he enjoyed his writing and said as much to his ED college, where he has been deferred. He got a new recommendation from his English teacher and added that to his admissions portal. Not saying it was the additional rec, but he was accepted in the regular round.
3) If you can visit the college you have been deferred at, even if you have visited before, VISIT! We realize during COVID this might not be possible or even without COVID feasible, but it is a very effective way of showing how interested you are. Make sure to let your regional admissions rep know you are visiting and ask if you can see them to introduce yourself in person quickly. If you can not do an in-person visit, try and do some more virtual visits; make sure to follow them on social media and make sure to click through often to their website. Getting deferred from EA especially is often all about yield (who will actually accept a college’s offer of acceptance). Getting accepted in the regular round is also often about yield, so showing as much demonstrated interest as possible is VERY IMPORTANT.
What To Do When You Have Been Accepted to Your ED College.
Congratulations! You have been accepted to your Early Decision college!! We are happy for you. You should be so proud of all your hard work to get to this point!
What should you do now?
1) Celebrate - a lot!!
2) Next, you must remember that this offer is binding. You have committed to attending this college if you are accepted. So first, you must triple make sure you can afford it. If you have applied for financial aid, please check your offer before taking your spot. Finances would be the only reason you might be able to get out of an early decision acceptance. If a financial offer is not what you expected, please reach out to the college’s admissions office before accepting your spot. Maybe there is something that can be done to make this college affordable for you.
3) You should officially accept your spot in the Class of 2026. Read your acceptance letter for how to do this for each college, but it is usually done through your application portal and involves submitting a deposit.
4) You now must withdraw all your other outstanding applications. We understand it can be tempting to know where else you are accepted, but you have promised to attend your ED college. You must withdraw your other applications. Look at it this way; it is also the “right" thing. You know you are not going to accept a spot at those colleges. Someone else is waiting on a decision from there. It can be their dream, and by withdrawing your application, you might be clearing the way toward their acceptance. So how do you withdraw your other applications? Many colleges will let you do this right in your application portal. If they do not, you should send a short email to your admissions representative and cc the general email to the admissions office. The email should look something like this…
Subject: Wonder Woman application withdrawal
Dear Mr. Awesome Admissions Rep,
My name is Wonder Woman, and I applied to the Marvelous Marvels University regular decision. I am writing to you to please withdraw my admissions application. I have been accepted to another university (you do not have to tell them where you are going unless you want to) early decision. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Wonder Women
Application Number 11111
5) Please let your school counselor know that you have been admitted ED, withdrew your other applications and deposited and accepted your spot at X University.
6) Please let your teachers and other recommenders know that you have been accepted and thank them one more time for all of their efforts on your behalf.
7) KEEP YOUR GRADES UP!! Acceptances are usually conditional on keeping your grades commensurate with where they were when you applied.
8) Keep checking your email. Your new college will be sending you lots of communication in the next few months. There will be deadlines that need to be adhered to.
9. Lastly, join a Facebook group for your new university Class of 2026. Start meeting your future classmates. Parents: there are usually Facebook groups for you too, and they can be a great source of information and camaraderie for you.
10) Back to Celebrate!! Buy a t-shirt, a baseball hat, a sticker for your mom’s car, or your grandpa a sweatshirt. It is a gift to be done with this process in time to have a truly Happy New Year!!
Tests and the Rest IEC Profile
Thank you, Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin, for featuring me on your "Tests and the Rest" podcast. It is always great to speak with you both.
FAFSA VS CSS PROFILE
Federal Methodology, as expressed in the form “FAFSA,” is used for awarding federal student aid. Any student who wants to be considered for federal aid must complete a FAFSA form. Applying to FAFSA is free. The FAFSA looks at students’ and parents’ (if a student is a dependent) financial information to determine what they can afford to pay, the EFC (Expected Family Contribution). They consider income, taxable and non-taxable, and assets for both students and parents and use that information to award federal and sometimes state grants and loans. This form is directed at students even when parents also fill it out. They provide some allowances for parents and students based on things like federal and state taxes paid and how many children are currently in college. There are some adjustments, but things are not dollar for dollar. FAFSA excludes many significant assets from their calculations, including but not limited to retirement accounts, equity in a primary home, and equity in a business that has less than 100 employees. FAFSA is for US Citizens or eligible non-citizens.
Institutional Methodology is calculated using the CSS Profile. About 170 institutions require the CSS Profile. The list of institutions is here, but it is always best to verify with the institution: profile.collegeboard.org/profile/ppi/. It costs $25 for the first school it is used for and $16 for each additional school unless a student qualifies for a fee waiver. It is directed at parents. It was created and is processed by the College Board. CSS Profile is used to determine what families can afford to contribute to their child’s college costs, EFC. This will not be the same EFC number arrived at by FAFSA as the two methodologies have some very different ways of calculating results. It will also consider income taxable and non-taxable assets for both students and parents and use that information to award institutional aid. It is how income and assets are considered where these two methodologies come up with different results. The CSS Profile, first of all, expects students to contribute to their education. Not only do students lose the $6,840 income allowance that FAFSA provides them, CSS Profile expects them to contribute $2,000 a year to their education. CSS Profile also gets much more into the parent’s finances. They consider equity in their primary home, annuities, and equity in a business with less than 100 employees to be assets important in calculating EFC. CSS also considers the financial information of both parents and potentially four parents in cases where a child’s parents are divorced and remarried. FAFSA only considers financial information from a student’s primary parent. Generally, the CSS Profile wants more information than FAFSA on what is your family’s financial considerations. This can both work for and against you in seeking financial aid. It can work for you in cases where the CSS profile will also consider if your family has had extenuating financial expenses. For example, loss of employment and extensive medical or dental expenses, or some schools will also consider if a family has a younger child in private school. Both CSS and FAFSA consider if a family has other children in college. Just a head’s up, but that is due to change for FAFSA next year. CSS Profile can get filed by anyone looking to become a student at a school that uses it, including international students at most schools. CSS Profile often looks at a family's savings and equity in their home and expects them to contribute a huge amount to their children’s education. It makes private college unaffordable for many families unless their student also receives some merit aid.
Lastly, both FAFSA and CSS Profile are open for filing as early as October 1st, but they have different deadlines that they must be filed by. FAFSA must be filed by June 30, and CSS Profile has different deadlines in line with each school.
Show me the Money
It is almost October 1st which in college admissions means it is nearly time to start filling out any financial aid forms you need. For those less familiar with the financial aid process, October 1 is the first-day families can access, complete, and submit the 2022-2023 FAFSA (The Federal Application for Free Student Aid) and CSS Profile. Anyone logging in sooner will be completing forms for the wrong school year.
If you are applying for need-based financial aid, you will need to fill out a FAFSA and possibly a CSS Profile for all schools where your child is applying. Please complete the FAFSA as close to that time as possible. From the official blog of Ed.gov:
If you want to get the most financial aid possible, fill out the FAFSA form ASAP. Some financial aid is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, and some states and colleges run out of money early. Even if it seems like your school’s deadline is far off in the future, get your FAFSA form done ASAP. The 2022–23 FAFSA form requires 2020 tax information, which you should already have—so there’s no excuse to wait!
Let’s start with what you will need for FAFSA. In most families that we deal with, children are dependents of their parents. We will assume you are, too, and if you are not reaching out, we can discuss how the process will change for you.
Let’s gather what we need. You and your parents will need your SSN, your Driver’s License, and your current list of schools that you are applying to. Put every school that you think you are applying to at this point. If you do not end up applying to a school on the list, it is not a problem. It is also possible to add a school later, but it is easier to put all of them now rather than add. Colleges do not see any other schools you put on the list.
Parents and Students, please sit together to fill out the FAFSA, and please set aside about an hour. In cases of separation, divorce, and non-traditional families, it may be unclear who should be listed as the parent on the FAFSA. Here are the rules: studentaid.gov/resources/fafsa-parent-text
Go to https://studentaid.gov/fsa-id/create-account/account-info. To log in, student and parent must each create their FAFSA IDs. Students must create their accounts first. These IDs will consist of usernames and passwords that you use to log onto all Federal Student Aid websites like FAFSA or StudentLoans.gov. They will also serve as your legal electronic signature. They also allow you to save the FASFA and log in and out as many times as you want. Please keep your FAFSA IDs safe, private, and accessible.
Once you have a Parent FAFSA ID and a Student FASFA ID you can go to the FAFSA website (https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa) and click Start Here.
At this point, BOTH parents and students need to fill out the FAFSA.
The forms are similar and will consist of these parts: Student Demographics, School Selection; Dependency Status; Parent Demographics, and Financial Information. For Financial Information, it is easiest and fastest to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. This will automatically populate many of the FAFSA's questions directly from the federal tax returns, making completion more straightforward. Under recent Department of Education guidelines, these populated fields are shielded from the filer, though the financial aid offices will be able to view the numbers. If the DRT is not selected, financial aid offices will most likely request further verification from the filer that the numbers they have entered agree with their tax returns. In certain circumstances, a filer will be ineligible to select the DRT. Here are the rules: studentaid.gov/help/irs-drt-eligibility
Next, you must sign the forms and submit them. Remember your FAFSA ID serves are your legal electronic signature. You will receive an electronic confirmation.
Usually, within a few hours of submitting the FAFSA, the student will receive an email that it has been successfully processed. Within a few days after that, they will receive another email containing instructions on accessing their Student Aid Report (SAR). The SAR has a crucially essential number-the Expected Family Contribution(EFC). Parents overseeing the process should tell their children to forward all Department of Education emails to them, which may also include requests for further verification and documentation.
Here are a couple of other things to know.
For families who do not want to apply for need-based aid but want to use the federal student loan program, the FAFSA will need to be submitted. My recommendation for these families is to check "no" on the college application, asking if the student expects to apply for need-based aid, to deposit at the school of their choice by May 1, and then submit the FAFSA letting the financial aid office know that it was submitted for federal student loans only. This way, there is no confusion over whether the student is or is not applying for need-based aid.
For families applying for need-based financial aid, the annual limit of federal student loans is usually included in the financial aid award. However, a few schools have replaced these with additional institutional grants. For dependent undergraduate students, these limits are $5,500 for first-year students, $6,500 for sophomores, $7,500 for juniors, and $7,500 for seniors. For those taking longer than four years, this $27,000 4-year total undergraduate loan limit increases to $31,000. For those borrowing for the current school year, the interest rate is 2.75%, and the fee is about 1%, making this a top choice for those who want to borrow.
If you are interested in merit aid, a few institutions require the FAFSA and possibly the CSS Profile to be considered. There is no reliable list of these schools. It is the student's responsibility to learn from the school's website or directly from the admission office if they require any additional forms for merit aid consideration.
Lastly and very important. Students must check financial aid deadlines at all the colleges where they are applying. It is crucial that they are submitted before the earliest financial aid deadline. If a student is applying in the early decision or early action round, that could be as soon as October 15th. Missing a financial aid deadline can seriously jeopardize a student's eligibility for aid.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Financial Aid blog on the differences between FAFSA and CSS Profile.
Senior Check List
School is starting; YAY!
For this year’s seniors, school starting means it is almost time to start applying to college.
School is starting, OMG!
Here is a senior checklist of what you all should be doing.
1) Most important - stay on top of all of your classes and focus on getting the best grades you can. Senior fall grades are very important to colleges. First quarter grades, at a minimum, will be sent even to colleges where you are applying early.
2) Make sure you have asked two teachers for recommendations and that you have provided them and your guidance counselor additional information to make sure your reccs are super strong. Please read here for more details. It is VERY IMPORTANT to make sure your recommenders and your guidance counselor are aware of your earliest application deadlines. Typically high schools need to know a minimum of 2 weeks before any application deadline but check with your high school guidance counselor as they all have their system.
3) Whatever system your high school uses, Naviance, SCOIR, or College Kickstart, please stay on top of communication from your high school to make sure you do not miss any deadlines.
4) Now is the time to finalize your college list. We realize this year, with COVID, many of you are still visiting colleges. Now is the time to make your decisions.
5) At this point, you should be getting close to done or done with the main parts of your Common App. We recommend working on your activities and essay in a Google Doc and then moving them over to the Common App when you have a final version. Of particular note is to make sure your Common App Activities are in order of what is most important to you.
6) It is time to create a Common App account if you have not already done so. It is easy and does not take long. Start putting all of your colleges into your account. This is the best, most accurate place to see what application deadlines a college has and what supplementary essays they have if any.
7) Once you have entered your colleges into the Common App, you should create two Google Docs. The first should have all of your colleges and their application deadlines. The second should have all of the supplementary essays you will need to write. Look over all of your supplemental essays. You can often rework more than one of your topics to answer multiple questions. IMPORTANT: If a college has an EA deadline and you can get the application done in time, you should be applying EA. It is typically, not always, easier in the EA round, and it is always easier to get money in the early rounds.
8) Now is the time to decide if you want to ED to a college. This is a binding option. You need to be sure it is your first choice. You should not only love it but also be sure it is affordable. Many colleges will offer a financial pre-read for ED applicants. Reach out to your regional admissions rep to see if that is possible.
9) It is time to go through your college list and see which colleges interview. Here is a list, but it is always best to double-check on a college’s website. If the college interviews, you should try and interview. Interviews can be evaluative or informational; either way, they are important. If your Common App is done and you are pretty far along with your supplements, you can start setting up interview times as soon as you can get them while still allowing time for a prep session. Always book your interviews, to begin with, at a college you care a little less about. It is good practice for the colleges you like more. If you are not as far along with your Common App, also book interview appointments, but set them up for a time in the future when you feel your application will be complete. For example, if you are applying to a college with an EA deadline of November 1st, set up an interview sometime between October 15th-November 15th. It is essential to book interviews now because these times fill up at many colleges. Interviews these days are easily done virtually. Ask someone you trust to help you prepare for your interview. Do your research on the college. Even the most personable of students can use a little preparation.
8) Testing -some of you are still taking the SAT or ACT. Please stay focused and put in your best effort.
9) Parents FASFA and CSS Profile will be opening for this application season on October 1st. I will be writing a blog soon specifically about this. If you are filing financial aid forms, please make sure you and your child set aside some time to get this done at the beginning of October.
10) DEMONSTRATED INTEREST - showing demonstrated interest is important for many colleges. Here is a good list of which colleges use demonstrated interest as part of their evaluation of your application. Again it is always best to check information like this directly on a college’s website. I know everyone is super busy at this time, but here are some ways to show demonstrated interest.
You can “visit” them virtually or live by attending an information session and tour.
You can sign up on their website to receive more information.
You can follow them on social media.
You can reach out to your admissions representative.
You must open and read all emails from them.
You can sign up for an interview.
You can write great “Why Us” supplemental essays.
You can apply early.
All of these are FANTASTIC ways to show a college you are interested in them. Many students do not take advantage of one of the easiest ways to let a college know they are interested. That is when a college’s regional admissions representative “visits” their school. This year those visits will probably be taking place virtually. You MUST try very hard to attend when a college "visits" your high school. This is even more important in the world of virtual visits as there are usually very few reasons you can not be available. Many of these are after school hours, nights, weekends, etc. Also, please be PREPARED. Show you have done your homework and ask thoughtful questions. By thoughtful, I mean something that can not be easily found on a school’s website.
Good luck, everyone!