For some majors, this is straightforward, even if it isn’t necessarily easy. There are many research programs for students interested in medicine, competitions for students passionate about engineering. For students interested in business, however, things are trickier. There are far fewer easy pathways to get involved at the high school level, and far fewer simple ways to demonstrate their passion.

In this article, we’re going to explore how high school students can build their profile to apply to business programs at top colleges. We’ll look at what extracurriculars they should pursue, how they should spend their summers, and what these universities are looking for specifically. Let’s jump right in!

What a Good Business Profile Looks Like

Admissions officers are looking for certain things from applicants. Some of these are general; all applicants should have strong grades and high standardized test scores. Others, however, are more specific. Top colleges want to see that you were passionate about something in particular. If you are applying to a competitive major (such as business) that passion should be tied to your intended major. 

We also want to note that many top colleges don’t have official business majors; out of the Ivy League, only Cornell and Penn do. This advice holds true for students interested in studying economics, applied math, or statistics with an eventual interest in a career in the business world as well. 

For any students in this position, here is what top colleges expect to see when they examine your application: 

• High grades. They are particularly looking at your math scores. You should take calculus in high school; you can take statistics as well, but if you have to choose one, take calculus. 
• Test scores. These are a standard requirement for these schools. Exceptional scores won’t get you in, but they are expected for all serious applicants. 
• Essays. You should be able to clearly articulate your passion for a certain field, and be able to show (with examples and evidence) how you have engaged with it in the past. Colleges do not care about your future dreams of being a business leader, they want to know why you want to learn these principles now.
• Extracurriculars. Admissions officers want to see how you have actively pursued your passions in high school, through whatever opportunities are available to you, and the values you have developed by doing so. 

The last of these is the most difficult, and this is what we are going to spend most of the rest of this article discussing. 

High School Extracurriculars for Business Students

There is no singular correct extracurricular you can take part in to wow admissions officers and secure your place as a business major. We will go through some of the options available, and detail what each of them requires, so you can see which most appeals to you. Note that unlike many other potential fields of study, there are far fewer preset options for business students, and pursuing these will often take far more work and creativity on your part. 

High School Clubs

Joining or starting a high school club related to business is a good low-level commitment, a way to dip your toes in the water and see if this is the kind of thing which interests you. This is a good way to build community in your high school, and can lead to interesting opportunities, such as hosting speakers or networking events, or leading seminars for your fellow students. As far as activities go, this is a good way to show community commitment, and is a good choice for freshmen to get involved with.

Stock Trading

Trading in stocks as an amateur has a much lower barrier of entry than it used to, but this isn’t necessarily a good idea for a budding entrepreneur. We advise simulations first, and learning all you can about the market, before jumping in without knowing what you are doing. 

There are a number of online courses you can take on stock trading; we advise focusing on those offered by universities on reputable platforms, such as or . There are many self-proclaimed gurus on Youtube and elsewhere who claim to have mastered the secrets of the market, but their advice is rarely worth much. 

Building and maintaining a small portfolio of stocks over time can be impressive if managed well. The goal here is to show your interest in understanding the market and the deeper principles at play. Making money is good as well, but that serves mostly as a demonstration of competence, an external validation of what you have learned. 

Competitions

There are a small and limited number of business competitions available, and these are much less impressive than their counterparts in the sciences or engineering. You can partake in these, and they add a nice note to a profile, but they are not where you should focus your main efforts, for they are not terribly impressive for universities. We discuss a number of business-related competitions here. 

Internships

Internships are one of the best ways to build a business profile for college admissions; the trick is finding a good one. You can read our general guide to finding an internship here, but we want to elaborate on what makes one particularly suitable to build the profile of a business student. 

You do not specifically need to be working in finance or accounting or other strictly market-focused fields in your internship. Working at a startup or in an industry you find interesting works just as well. What’s really important is what you learn from doing so, the soft and hard skills you acquire. You should also be able to show off your contributions to the company, how things there were meaningfully improved by your presence and efforts. 

Quality internships can be hard to find; these are generally set up through personal connections and networking. Standardized internship pathways generally only exist for college students, with little available for high schoolers. This is part of what makes a significant internship so impressive to colleges, for they know the work required to land one. You can pursue an internship during the school year or the summer, but longer term commitments do more to raise your profile. You should aim for an accomplishment of this caliber by the summer after your junior year.

Starting a Business

Starting a business is hard, but if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, it can be a great way to demonstrate your drive and passion to admissions officers. Starting a full business can be a complicated affair, and we don’t suggest going into this blindly; begin with a concept, plan carefully, and get advice and input from your parents. You don’t want to waste your time or money, or worse yet, end up on the wrong side of the IRS.

Starting a business is impressive because it is a practical thing, and often teaches you many lessons outside of what you can expect. Hard work and resilience are traits colleges look for in students, along with the drive to create something new. Most students will struggle with this, but if you have a solid idea and can make a good business plan, this can be something worth pursuing. 

Doing Research

This is more applicable to students who are interested in economics, but it is a good way to showcase your intellectual vitality to colleges, your desire to pursue knowledge for its own sake. Economics is a particularly tricky discipline for high school students to enter, even amongst the other social sciences, but publishing your work in a high school journal still shows a depth of understanding and commitment. 

Working

Having a job isn’t usually thought of as an ideal way to impress colleges (though many do appreciate students who have done an honest day’s work), but it is particularly useful for students interested in business. After all, what better way to understand how a business operates than by being inside one as it operates, what better way to understand the value of money than by working for it?

The benefits come regardless of the work you do; waiting tables and flipping burgers can give you valuable insights. This is particularly true because high school students generally can’t get hired to do accounting or manage sales; if you get an internship covering those topics, excellent, but otherwise, a simple job can grant many of the same benefits. 

A Note on Hospitality

As a final note, if you are looking at a program which focuses on hospitality management (notably, Cornell’s ), then your profile will need to include experience in hospitality specifically. This generally takes the form of working experience, though internships are also common. 

The summer after your junior year is often the best time to pursue these opportunities; child labor laws make doing so earlier in high school quite difficult. This is something you should think about when deciding on your future goals in business. Note that working in hospitality does prepare you for other business-related majors, but the reverse is not true. 

Final Thoughts

There is no single ”right” profile to have as a student interested in applying for a business major, but many different pieces you can put together into a unified whole. You can and should have extracurriculars outside of business as well, but we hope this article has given you insight into what admissions officers expect to see from competitive applicants, and how best you can give that to them. 

If you’re looking for help finding the right activities for you to pursue in high school, or aren’t sure how to get started on your path to a business degree, łÔąĎąŮÍř can make your life easier. Our mentors are experts at every aspect of the admissions process, from finding the best activities to crafting the best essays to tell your story. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you.

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But how does this impact your odds of admission? What do admissions officers think, reading dozens of applications from the same high school? Will you be compared to your classmates, weighed and judged relative to them? These are common and understandable concerns, and in this article, we’re going to address them. Our goal is to help you understand how colleges handle students from the same high school, and how it does (and doesn’t) matter for you.

Colleges Do Not Directly Compare Students

This is the first and most important point, since it informs all the ones which follow. When colleges read your application, they are evaluating it on its strengths and merits alone. You aren’t compared to your classmates, your neighbors, whoever’s application was in the stack next to yours; you are judged as yourself alone. 

This does not mean that your highschool doesn’t impact your chances of college admissions, nor does it mean that this impact will differ if there are many or few applicants from your school. What it does mean is that you won’t be admitted and another student from your school cut, or your application binned because they liked someone more from your school. 

Now, you will not be compared to individual students, but admissions officers are people, not machines, and so your application will be read in context. If your essays sound exactly like everyone else’s, they are more likely to be forgotten. If your activities have nothing that stands out, they won’t be remembered. This, however, is true regardless of whether other applicants are from your school or not. 

In some ways, this is very liberating. You are not directly in competition with anyone, you simply need to be the best student possible. This brings things back full circle, with a lot of pressure on you to present yourself to colleges well. If you want any specific advice on that, łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. 

How Multiple Students From a School Does Impact Admissions

Now that we’ve covered the most important disclaimer, we can dive into how admissions officers actually view and evaluate multiple students who come to them from the same high school. There are several ways this impacts applications; none of which inherently make you more or less likely to get admitted, but which can impact how you should approach your applications. 

School Reports and Familiarity

Top colleges try to evaluate students in context. This means your grades and test scores are evaluated in large part based on the school you attended. Students who attend schools with fewer resources and opportunities are judged based on that, not directly compared to students who attended a well-resourced school. 

The way admissions officers do this is by reviewing school profiles; these are compiled and sent by a school’s guidance counselor. These cover what courses your school offers, and the average performance of students at the school on everything from AP tests and SATs to graduation rates and college attendance. 

A single admissions officer generally reads for a region; the more students from your school who apply, the more that admissions officer will see that profile, and the more familiar with your school they’ll be. This can be both good and bad, but is generally a good thing. The admissions officer will fully understand the context of your school if many students apply, and be able to judge you accordingly. All you have to do is stand out as exceptional within that context. 

If your school is less well represented, then the admissions officer will still do their best to evaluate you in proper context, but this can be more difficult for them. You can always ask your guidance counselor what your school’s profile looks like, and add any information you think is pertinent to your additional information section. 

Letters of Recommendation

If multiple students are applying from your school, then admissions officers are probably going to be reading letters from a small group of teachers. This is not bad necessarily, admissions officers will still only care what your teachers say about you, but they will notice if they’re reading letters from the same teachers over and over again.

This is especially true because many teachers will evaluate students in comparative terms. Only one student each year can be the best, or their favorite. You don’t have to suck up to teachers, or be the star pupil in every class, but you should be sure to get letters from teachers who like you, where you served as a positive presence in their classroom. 

You also don’t want teachers to praise you falsely. Admissions officers have noticed that some teachers (especially at private schools) will go over the top with superlatives. When a teacher has named four students over the past four years as “the best student they’ve ever seen,” that phrase loses some of its impact. Familiarity with your teachers can be helpful, but only if they can write letters that genuinely speak to your abilities and presence in the classroom. 

Test Scores

Colleges evaluate your standardized test scores in the context of your high school. The choice of whether or not you should apply test optional depends much more on how your scores look compared to your high school’s averages than compared to what the college’s average rates are. (This does depend a bit on the college. This holds true for Harvard, while Texas A&M generally only looks at raw scores).

This is true regardless of how many students from your school who apply. This also means there can be a disconnect between a student’s test scores and their admissions outcome, especially if they used test optional policies at some colleges strategically. You should try to determine the average test scores at your school; if all else fails, your guidance counselors should know. 

What All of This Means for Your Applications

When you are deciding where to apply to college, where everyone else in your high school is applying shouldn’t be a major factor in your decision. It is possibly something to take into account, another piece of strategic information, but it should not make or break your choice of where to apply. 

Colleges do not have quotas from particular schools, but there is often a limit to how many students from a school get admitted. This is because colleges want a bit of geographic diversity in each class. Rice loves students from Texas, but they do want to admit students from Florida and Vermont too. Your high school isn’t the determining factor here, but your state or town can be. 

What colleges are looking for varies with each student, and here too you want to be careful when comparing yourself to other students from your high school. Doing the most activities, winning the most awards, won’t automatically get you in, and risks burnout. 

Colleges want unique specialists, so even looking at students from your school who got in in previous years won’t give you an automatic path to follow. After all, they already have a student like that, why would they want to admit one who’s exactly the same. This can be overwhelming, but the truth is if you focus on yourself, on developing your interests and passions, on following those to the highest possible level, you’ll become the kind of student and scholar colleges love to admit. 

Final Thoughts

We hope this article has helped answer your questions on this. The high school you attend very much matters when it comes to college admissions, but not always in the ways you think. From the classes you can take to the clubs you can join, high school is often fundamental to forming who you are as a person, and sets you up for your whole future. Just remember you aren’t competing directly with your peers in college admissions, that will make the whole thing a little bit less stressful.

If you’re looking for help choosing the right high school to support your needs, or want advice on how to make sure your application stands out and is memorable amidst the crowd of thousands, łÔąĎąŮÍř is here for you. Our mentors are experts on every aspect of the admissions process, and we love helping students tell their unique stories, showing off their strengths to colleges. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you.

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We’ve discussed the best classes to take before, but recent research has made this point even more clearly. A has revealed that calculus alone acts as a major gate for college admissions: students who do not take calculus in high school have admissions chances 16.4% lower than their peers who do. 

This is a remarkable claim, and has serious implications for high school students who are considering applying to college. In this article, we’re going to look at what this paper is actually saying, and what it means for you, especially if you’re at a high school which doesn’t offer calculus. 

What Does the Paper Say łÔąĎąŮÍř Calculus and Admissions?

The author of the paper sought out to determine two different but related points: 

1. Whether or not calculus specifically mattered for admissions decisions for STEM majors, and if not taking calculus would hurt a student’s chance of acceptance.
2. Whether or not any effect calculus has was more pronounced among Asian applicants.

In order to test this, they submitted simulated applications to a large number of current and former admissions officers who agreed to take part in the study. These applications varied in three ways: 

• Whether the applicants took calculus in high school, or if they did not because it wasn’t offered.
• Whether the applicant was white or Asian American.
• Whether the applicant submitted SAT scores. 

Now, top colleges look at more aspects than this when making an admissions decision; the other aspects of the application were varied to make sure they were in line with what the target university would expect. The admissions officers then judged whether or not the student’s academic profile (and only the academic profile), would cause them to offer the student acceptance, waitlisting, or rejection. All of the applicants were noted as applying for undecided engineering majors, again for consistency. 

The author of the study admits that this experiment is limited compared to real world data; many things are factored into an admissions decision besides academic readiness. That said, the importance of academic readiness for top institutions is well known, and this does serve as a good proxy to test how these specific variables can impact how a student is viewed and weighed. 

The main finding of the study was that students who did not take calculus, despite taking all other math and science courses at their school and their school not offering calculus, were 16.4% less likely to be admitted to any given college. The study found no difference between white and Asian applicants in this; both groups were equally penalized for a failure to take calculus. 

Interestingly, the study found that this held true regardless of who the admissions officer was or where they worked. At both highly competitive schools and ones with higher admission rates, calculus was a major point of consideration when deciding whether to admit a student. 

What Does This Paper Mean for You?

The paper spells it out quite clearly in its own conclusions, and the data is clear to anyone who reads it. If you want to be a competitive applicant for a STEM major, then you need to take calculus in high school. It doesn’t matter who you are or which school you’re applying to; calculus is simply something that all students are expected to have, and you will be penalized if you don’t. 

On some level this makes sense. Every STEM degree requires at least some knowledge of calculus; it is a baseline of math competency you need to have in order to actually do the work in most of these fields. You can take calculus at college, but it will make schedules tighter, and put off your entry into other required courses for your degree. Colleges want to be sure students are on track to graduate in four years, which means that they want to limit the amount of catch-up students have to do.

The most surprising part of the findings is that this impact is so severe when the study specifically looks at students who were unable to take calculus because their schools don’t offer it. One thing many colleges say is that you won’t be penalized for not taking courses that aren’t available to you; this data shows that that isn’t necessarily true. 

Now, this is simulated data rather than looking at actual applicants, but the implications are still quite clear. The issue that arises for many students is that not all high schools offer calculus; indeed, around half the high schools in the US simply don’t have calculus as a course available to students. 

If your high school does offer calculus, and you intend on majoring in a STEM field, you should take it. Even if you don’t intend to major in STEM, calculus is heavily used in the social sciences as well; it may not hurt your chances as much, but we do advise all students to take calculus if possible. If it isn’t possible, then it may be time to examine other options available to you. 

What to do if Your High School Doesn’t Offer Calculus

If your high school doesn’t offer calculus now, there is likely little chance you will be able to change that. Adding a new course is an ordeal, one which takes a long time to resolve at the administrative level. This may be worth advocating for to help future students, but may not be a timely option for you. 

In this section we’re going to go through a variety of potential options. Not all of these may be feasible for you, but we hope that amongst them you will find something which will work with your circumstances. We will lay out what each requires, and potential downsides or pitfalls. 

Dual Enrollment Courses

When dual enrollment courses first started, it was to offer the most advanced students coursework options beyond what their high school could provide. It has expanded significantly since that point, but this is still a feature for many dual enrollment programs. If your school doesn’t offer calculus, you can see if they have a dual enrollment program.

Now, this program may itself not offer calculus, but getting this added as a dual enrollment course option is going to be much easier for the high school than offering the course natively, and you are more likely to be able to get in as a one-off or exception through a dual enrollment course. 

The one potential downside of this option is that these are college-level courses. Especially if this isn’t a standard offering, you will be joining a course full of college students and expected to perform at their level. The instructor is there to help you, but not coddle you, and you will need to be willing to buckle down and work very hard. Calculus is hard in all cases, but here specifically you may end up in over your head. 

Online Coursework

There are many websites which offer coursework in calculus, including online high schools, some of which are even run by state governments. The big thing here is making sure whatever courses you find are accredited, and being sure you will earn course credit from them. If the calculus course doesn’t show up on your transcript, then colleges won’t consider it (and may not even know you took it). 

Online courses are often asynchronous, and you will submit and complete work on a set schedule, but on your own pace within that schedule. These courses generally have less support available in terms of tutoring and teacher attention than courses in your high school. If you plan on pursuing calculus through primarily online coursework, you will need to be motivated and prepared to learn on your own. 

Non-Accredited Online Coursework

Sites like Khan Academy and Coursera, amongst several others, also offer Calculus coursework. This can range from full courses to bite-sized morsels explaining a particular subject. These are a very useful resource, but cannot take the place of a full calculus course.

These courses can teach you all you need to know of the subject of calculus, but they do not show up on a transcript, nor do they offer you credit. Coursera and similar sites can offer documentation of completion, but this is not equivalent, and should not be taken as such. We advise making use of these sites as a supplement to a more regular method for learning calculus.

The AP Test

It is possible to sign up for AP tests without ever having officially taken an AP course. This is an option you can consider if you are taking calculus in a nonstandard way, but doing so will generally not help your admissions chances. AP tests are administered in the Spring, and if you are taking calculus your senior year, as many students do, this will come too late to impact admissions decisions.

This can still be worthwhile in order to earn college credit for your work, or to serve as a placement for college calculus courses. If you are confident of your math skills, and you can afford the registration fee, then taking the AP calculus exam can be beneficial for you. 

Changing Schools

The last and most drastic option is to change high schools. We don’t advise this generally; it is logistically difficult, and may not even be possible depending on where you live. Especially if you are already in junior year, then changing schools just for senior year will create more problems than it solves. 

If you are just now considering which high schools are best for you, and college is on the distant horizon in your plans, then whether or not a particular high school offers calculus is something you should consider. It shouldn’t be the only thing you factor into your deliberations, but given how impactful calculus has proven to be for college admissions, we strongly advise taking it into account.

Final Thoughts

Each high school has their own distinct course offerings, the ones they think best serve their students. This research suggests that what high schools think is best and what colleges expect may differ however, especially where calculus is concerned. Around half of all US high schools do not offer calculus, and yet in spite of this, colleges very much do expect all students to take it.

We hope that this article has given you insight into what admissions officers expect, and helped you determine what options are available in your own pursuits of higher order math. Colleges can be quite opaque about what they really want from students, but research like this helps elucidate things. If you’re looking for help showing off your strengths to top colleges, or have more questions about what admissions officers want to see, then schedule a free consultation with us today, we’re always happy to hear from you.

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The New York Times recently published a piece on the ; click bait in part, but also an interesting examination of a significant amount of data. In this article, we’re going to look at that same data and the New York Times’s conclusions with a more critical eye, to try and formulate the best advice for students and parents trying to decide on the right college education to invest in.

What Does the New York Times Say?

The New York Times is itself analyzing and reporting on data from the , an organization which does statistical research into higher education. The point of their research was to compare the average earning from majors at colleges with benchmarks set out by the Department of Education. These benchmarks are meant to ensure a reasonable rate of return; that is that graduates from programs earn a reasonable amount. 

The HEA Group’s findings are quite positive; almost all college programs (~98%) meet the set benchmarks; almost all majors at almost all colleges outearn their high school graduate peers. Approximately 14% of programs perform exceptionally well, outearning their high school peers by at least $50,000 annually. 

This data is all in a very large excel file; what the New York Times did is make it much more easily searchable, so that you can check out the average salary for a particular major at a particular college. This is a useful tool, though there are some limitations in the data. 

The largest is the limit of sample size. The data only comes from students who graduated in 2017-18 and 2018-19; this is a snapshot, not a long-term trend chart. The data also only comes from students who received financial aid form the federal government; thus the wealthiest students and international students aren’t represented in these datasets at all. In spite of this, the data is quite useful, as is the New York Times’ tool for exploring it more granularly. 

What Does the Data Say łÔąĎąŮÍř College Majors?

Some of the data is completely unsurprising. If you simply sort the universities by which schools have the top earners, institutions like Caltech, UCLA, Duke, MIT, and Harvard top the list. Indeed, all of the top ranked universities in the US do quite well in terms of the average salary of graduates. 

The top earning majors list is also full of the usual suspects. Computer science, mathematics, and electrical engineering hold the top spots. Math may surprise some people, but recent trends in hiring show that firms on Wall Street prefer math majors over business or economics majors. The more quantitative the field of finance becomes, the more valuable a deep understanding of math is. 

Some fields are harder to parse; any major with fewer than 15 graduates from a school is not included in order to preserve student anonymity, so less-subscribed fields like languages and area studies are harder to gauge. Other fields, like biology, may lead to high paying fields for doctors eventually, but that won’t be shown in this data because those one-day doctors are still in medical school, not yet earning. 

The New York Times has also helpfully provided a full list of the majors and institutions with the highest overall average salaries. These are: 

1. Mathematics, Duke University: $297,029
2. Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, $268,121
3. Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, $250,168
4. Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, $241,380
5. Statistics, Harvard University, $230,867
6. Computer Engineering, UCLA, $228,705
7. Computer Science, MIT, $225,141
8. Computer Science, Cornell University, $223,309
9. Computer Science, Princeton University, $217,973
10. Computer Science, Pomona College, $217,051

Again, this is merely a snapshot, but the pattern in the data is hard to miss. Going to college generally does offer students good earning, but some majors and schools do far better than good, while a few schools and majors underperform expectations. The most surprising of these are music; even top ranked music schools often have remarkably poor earnings. Several of these are even at risk of running afoul of the new Department of Education rules.

What This Data Means for College Applicants

We do want to caution against using this data to decide what you want to major in. This is employment data from only two years of graduates, and reflects a very particular market trend; computer science majors graduating in 2018-19 were entering right into the start of the AI boom, and an incredible windfall for many Silicon Valley companies.

It is impossible to predict what the financial or jobs market will look like four years from now when you are graduating college, or if you’ll be entering into a boom or bust cycle for any particular field. There are some overall trends which are more useful to consider however, and which we do think students should look at. 

The first is the relative value of different colleges. Top colleges are more costly (though often not by much), and offer generally higher salaries across the board; the highest earners from top ranked colleges outearn their peers, and even in less popular or well-paid majors students who attend higher ranked colleges still have higher average salaries. 

The next tier of colleges for earning tend to be the top performing state schools. They don’t always have the same prestige, but graduates from UT Austin, Michigan, UIUC, and Purdue all do quite well in terms of their earnings. They tend to be a bit more lopsided; certain programs at these schools do better than others, but they do a solid job preparing students for successful careers. 

What this data doesn’t factor in, and what should be a major part of your own considerations, is the cost of attending these colleges. College is an incredibly expensive investment; this data shows that it often pays off quite nicely, but you still want to be cognizant of how much you’re investing and what you’re getting for that. 

How to Make College Pay Off for You

So how should you apply all of this data to your own college applications? We recommend factoring it in most when building your college list, considering not just the price of schools, but how much attending a particular school is likely to benefit you. Here’s some key tips for doing so.

Always Consider Top Schools

Not every student is qualified for, or wants to attend, Harvard. That said, if you have the kind of application profile that makes you a legitimate contender for top universities, then you should consider applying to them. Colleges claim they aren’t job training centers, but top rated schools are consistently the best at this thing they claim not to do. 

Top universities often also have the most generous need-based aid, so even middle class and upper middle class students can get a better deal on college tuition at these schools than at other institutions. This makes them even better as an investment, since you will be paying less and likely earning more. 

Public Colleges Offer Good Returns for In-State Students

Public colleges may not top the list of top earning alumni, but many of them aren’t that far behind the top private universities in how much their students earn. More appealingly, many of them have far lower tuition costs for in-state students. While they tend to have less generous financial aid, the overall cost for many students is low, and acceptance rates are more forgiving than top private schools. 

For out of state colleges, however, the tradeoff is often far worse. Out of state public colleges often charge nearly as much as private universities, acceptance rates for students are lower, and there is far less financial aid available. In certain cases, this can still be a good idea, but this should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 

Lower Ranked Private Universities

There are many private universities which are lower ranked. These are still good schools, and you will get a good education from them, but they often have worse financial aid. The pay rates for alumni at these schools are somewhat lower on average than top schools, but not by much, and getting a degree from them will still lead to good career outcomes for most students. 

Instead, what you need to be aware of for these schools is how much you’re paying. These schools often have high tuitions and far less financial aid available, as they do not have the large endowments many top universities enjoy. These can be fine schools to have on your list, but you should consider cost when deciding where to attend. 

Choice of Major

Almost across the board, students who attend college outearn their peers who don’t. Your choice of major does matter, but we caution you against choosing a major based solely on this data. Many students don’t end up working in the field they major in, and many different major paths can lead to gainful and enjoyable employment. Your choice of major should reflect your profile, in order to maximize your chances of admission to these schools. 

Final Thoughts

Students and parents are rightfully concerned about the rising costs of college tuition, and want to be sure that they pick a college to attend that will be a good investment, and set them up for the future. The article by the New York Times provides some helpful data, but that data only tells part of the story. We hope that this article has helped you understand some of the nuances of choosing a college, and how the right choice can help set you up for success in the future. 

If you’re looking for advice building your college list, or finding the best schools to prepare you for the future, łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors specialize in helping students find schools that will support them, and in guiding you through the overly complex application process. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you.

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For public universities, these requirements can be influenced by the state government. This is why all students at Texas universities have always needed to study at least some Texan history. A passed in Texas has dramatically shifted core requirements for the first time in decades; mandating updated core course requirements by 2027. 

In this article, we’re going to look out how that law is playing out at the top public university in Texas: UT Austin. UT has indeed , and have a very positive announcement about it. In this article, we’re going to break down what these changes are, what they mean for students planning to attend UT Austin, and how much any of this should matter to you.

How Has UT Austin’s Core Curriculum Changed?

The new law in Texas did not change the actual course requirements in terms of the knowledge presented. Students must still fulfill the same 42 credit hours of coursework in fundamental fields. Instead, it requires colleges to review and prune the lists of courses which qualify for meeting these requirements, only keeping those deemed foundational, civic focused, and necessary for the workforce. 

UT Austin is rolling this out in stages, with their full new core curriculum detailed . The first change is structural, from ten different areas of concentration to three pillars: Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM. This reshuffle doesn’t really change anything, but does make it conceptually easier to discuss. 

The biggest change is which courses are counted for the core. A great many courses in history and social science have been removed. Faculty can , but these must meet the new requirements. In general the new core is significantly more foundational, with fewer options for specialized courses in American history or the social sciences.

The credit requirements for the new core are: 

• 15 credits in Arts and Humanities, with courses covering Culture and the Arts, Great Questions of Fundamental Life, Masterworks of Literature, US History, and Western Civilization
• 9 credits in Social Sciences, with courses covering Principles of American Politics, World Politics and Cultures, and Foundations of Social Science
• 12 credits in STEM, with courses covering Great Ideas in Science, Natural Science & Engineering, Math, Statistics, & Data Science, and Computer Science & AI
  
  

There are four new core classes which all students will have to take, though there will be flexibility in the other requirements. The required courses are: Great Questions in Human Life, Principles of American Politics, Great Ideas in Science, and Computer Science & AI. Students will need to take these courses at UT Austin, and won’t be able to meet the requirements through transfer credits (though they can meet other core requirements through transfer credits). 

The goal is to have all core classes be relatively small, with many sections offered. Thai will let students learn more closely from their teachers, and foster group discussions; this is the ideal at least. This plan still needs to be reviewed for compliance with the new law, but signs point to it meeting the goals with flying colors, and to likely being a benchmark for how other universities in Texas implement changes to their own core curricula. 

The Broader Impacts of the New Core Curriculum for Students

This new core curriculum is fine, it covers plenty of topics students should learn about, and has clear and understandable goals. We aren’t sure it’s an upgrade for students however, and in some ways it does feel like a downgrade from past offerings. In this section, we’re going to run through how this changes things for students, and what impacts you may see from it. 

Fewer Course Options

This is the biggest downside to the new system. The more focused coursework and more narrowly defined core means there are going to be fewer options for students to explore, especially in the social sciences and humanities. On the one hand, it’s good for students in the US to understand US history and politics. That said, most students already cover this material in high school.

While high schools will not cover this in the same detail and rigor as a college course, many students can gain more by focusing on details they had not heard before, aspects that may have eluded them. By having a broad range of options, students are more likely to find a subject that unexpectedly appeals to them, or something that sparks a new passion. We understand why UT Austin did this, but it is going to limit students’ experiences. 

Smaller Departments

Many departments see most of their classes full due to core requirements. Not a lot of students take higher level languages, or upper level history, but schools still need large departments in many of these fields to teach the broad array of core and introductory courses. When these are no longer options for these departments, they will see enrollment numbers fall. 

There are arguments for and against the inclusion of various departments, but the broad range of subjects covered by universities, the plurality of majors, means that some will always be undersubscribed. As these departments downsize, students will be left with fewer options, especially for those students who want to major in them. This is going to be felt most strongly in the humanities and social sciences.  

UT Austin’s New Core Curriculum and You

If you live in Texas and are planning on applying to one of the public universities in the state, then UT’s core curriculum should matter to you, at least a little bit. It shows how things are going to change, both at UT Austin itself, and at many other schools which are now making the same kinds of adjustments to their core curricula, likely following in UT Austin’s footsteps 

This doesn’t mean you should pursue an education outside of Texas; UT Austin was a great university before this change, and it will continue being one after. Texas A&M isn’t going to drop in rankings or prestige due to alterations to its core curriculum. It is something to keep in mind however, especially when building a college list and planning for the future. 

The first consideration is your intended major. Many will be unimpacted, but if you are planning on majoring in lesser-subscribed areas of the social sciences or humanities, you may benefit from looking at more schools outside of Texas. These departments are going to be impacted most heavily by these changes, and are likely to have less resources and options for students going forward. 

Especially if you intend to major in something politically sensitive, area studies, gender studies, or the like, then the current moves by Texas may make this less tenable in the future. The state government doesn’t have total control over university policies and offerings, but they are exercising what control they do have, and moves like this one are a sign they will continue to interfere going forward. 

The other consideration is where you want to live in the future. A majority of college graduates end up living quite close to where they graduated from college. Texas is a lovely state (perhaps a bit hot in the summer), but you may decide that you prefer somewhere else due to legislative choices like that. You may also think this is exactly what you want in a state. Either way, it is something to consider when deciding where you wish to apply to college.

Final Thoughts

The core courses you will be required to take are a very small consideration amidst the mountain of other things you must take into account when applying to college, but they are worth being aware of and considering. At many schools, they will form a central part of your experience, and help you become an educated and informed citizen. We hope this article has helped you understand the changes that are being made to UT Austin’s core curriculum, and how those may impact you. 

UT Austin is growing more competitive each year, both for general admission and for their most popular majors, with more and more students in Texas choosing to stick with the school. If you are concerned about your chances of admission to UT Austin, and are looking for help with your application and essays, then łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors have a deep experience guiding students through every aspect of the admissions process. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you.

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In this article, we’re going to run through the mechanics of podcasts, and how they relate to high school students. We’ll begin by looking at what potential benefits may come from starting a podcast, and whether or not doing so is a good idea for you. Then we’ll look at the mechanics of actually doing so. There are many possible ways you can impress a college; let’s see if this is one which speaks to you!

Starting a Podcast for College Admissions

All activities in high school serve a dual purpose. They should be things you actually enjoy, passions you like exploring and enjoyable ways to spend your time, but they should also serve to impress colleges. Colleges don’t like this sort of cynical approach, but they themselves are the cause of it. The ideal activity is one which does both, letting you explore your interests while also letting you show off your talents and abilities to admissions officers.

A podcast can theoretically do both, though this is not guaranteed. Podcasts are very flexible things; they can be on almost any subject, and allow you to dive deep into any one of your passions. That said, they require a very specific kind of personality and set of interests to pull off well.

Podcasts are a performance, one where you are either alone and narrating to a microphone without an audience, or playing off of a guest. This sounds easier than it is, and isn’t something everyone is suited for, nor interested in. There is no shame in not having these talents, and there are plenty of other ways to explore and share your interests if you so desire. 

Podcasts are also a heavily saturated field. Here was a time when you could make one and expect to gain listeners through novelty, but that has passed. Now, you must have a plan, a niche, and something interesting to say. We will cover how to make all of these in later sections, but if this isn’t something you are truly interested in or passionate about, there are better ways to spend your time. 

The Logistics of Starting a Podcast as a High School Student

There are many component steps to starting and running a successful podcast. We’re going to run through the ones relevant to high school students in the order you should complete them, and give advice as to how best to approach each step in the sequence. 

Choosing a Topic and Format

Your podcast has to be about something. This will shape all other decisions, from who your listeners are to how you prepare for each episode. The ideal subject is something that you both know a lot about, and are eager to explore in even greater depth. It should also be something that you are passionate about sharing with others. 

You then need to choose the goal of the podcast in relation to the topic. Is it meant to be merely educational, introducing audiences who may have an interest in a thing to the deeper nuances of it? Are you looking to be primarily entertaining? Is there a call to action, trying to get listeners more engaged with their mental health approach or to take action regarding the environment? 

Finally, you need to choose the format for your podcast. What is each episode going to look like; will it just be you speaking into a microphone? Will you have a cohost or a rotating panel? Will you be inviting in guests, experts who can share their expertise?

There is no single right format for a podcast, and no single correct topic for it to focus on, but you do need to have a clear understanding of both. This will help you plan out and organize your production, and help audiences identify what you are offering, and if it’s something they would be interested in. 

Choosing an Audience

Who you are aiming your podcast at will change how you create and present it. Material for high school students is very different from material for adults, and different once again from material for middle schoolers. You can make podcasts with broad or narrow appeal, but you need to decide this ahead of time, to determine how to shape the tone and tempo of each episode.

Technical Requirements

You will need certain pieces of equipment and software in order to actually create a podcast. These do not need to be extremely fancy or high-end, but they do need to be functional. Here are the basic components you will need: 

• A computer, where you can edit the various recordings you make.
• Microphones. Generally the ones you have in your computer will suffice.
• Editing software. This doesn’t need to be high end or professional, but you will need to stitch composite clips together, Programs like Audacity are free, and used by many amateurs. 
• Interview Software. If you are interviewing guests remotely, you will need some way to record the conversation, either through Zoom or other video conferencing tools, or through dedicated software like Squadcast.

You will need a stable internet connection, both to interview people remotely and to upload your podcast episodes. You will not need to invest a lot of money into starting a podcast, there are many free pieces of open-source software out there to use, but you will need to invest the time needed to learn how to use it. Make sure you understand your interview software fully before you begin interviewing guests for your show. 

Hosting a Podcast

Podcasts need to be stored somewhere so that people can see them. A dedicated hosting service is preferred, even if you plan on linking them on a personal webpage. Even if you plan on making a video version of your podcast and uploading it to Youtube, we recommend having an audio-only version on a dedicated podcast platform. That’s how most listeners engage with the media, and how you’re most likely to draw in new audiences. 

Some hosting services are free for students, notably Spotify, which is also one of the most popular platforms. A paid service may be preferable if you’re looking for something more professional, but many of the services they offer are less relevant to students just getting started podcasting. 

You will need the following in order to upload podcasts to a hosting site: 

• A logo. This doesn’t need to be professionally designed or overly flashy, but should be distinctive enough to help distinguish your show.
• A name for your podcast.
• Titles and descriptions for each individual episode.
• A tagline for the podcast itself.
• Season numbers.

Once your podcast is hosted, you can connect it to directories. Apple Podcasts is the most important, and most smaller directories automatically clone every show that is uploaded to Apple Podcasts. Still, for completeness, you should also connect your RSS feed to Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music (the hosting service will include instructions on how to do this).

Running a Podcast

Now that we’ve gone through the technical side, we’ll give you a bit more advice on the process of creating and running a podcast. First, you’re going to need to decide what episodes of your podcast are going to look like, and how the show as a whole will run. Consider the following questions:

• How long will each episode be? Generally, you should aim for them being similar lengths. Both long and short podcasts have their niche, but appeal to different audiences. 
• How frequently will you upload episodes? It is best to keep a consistent schedule, but you should figure out how much time and effort goes into creating an episode before setting one.

We recommend planning out, scripting, and creating the first three episodes of your podcast before you upload anything. This will give you a sense of how much effort it takes to create an episode, and what a reasonable production schedule looks like for you. 

Finding Content

One thing you need to plan out well ahead of time is the content for each episode. You must source guests if you are doing interviews, or prepare notes or things to discuss if you are presenting on various subjects. You should try and create a broad plan for a whole season before you begin creating and uploading interviews. 

When finding guests, you should begin with your personal network. People you or your friends know, or people who your parents can put you in contact with. This may be more feasible for some subjects than others; if your well of potential guests runs dry, then you will need to start doing outreach. 

You should always research any potential guests carefully before reaching out, then establish contact individually. This should be done with personalized emails; introduce yourself, what you are doing, and politely request to interview them. You will experience some rejection while doing this, but many experts are happy to speak with respectful and enthusiastic students about their areas of expertise. 

If you have already begun publishing episodes, you should include a link back to your podcast when reaching out. This will let potential guests take stock of what you’re asking, and what they can expect. When preparing to interview a guest, always do your background reading on their area of expertise, and have a list of questions worked out ahead of time. Your job as host is to facilitate an interesting discussion.

Final Thoughts

There are many possible ways to explore and share your interests as a high school student. Creating a podcast may not be the right one for you, but if you have the gift of gab and a flair for the theatrical, it could be worth investigating. We hope that this article has given you insight into what this process may entail, and whether or not it’s something for you to invest your time in.

It can be hard to explore your passions as a high school student, and to do so in a way that will impress the most competitive colleges. That’s where łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors have a long experience guiding students to explore their passions, and connecting them with opportunities that let them take those passions to new heights. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you. 

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But how dangerous are college campuses really? Violent crimes and sensationalized stories grab the headlines regularly because they drive attention, but those don’t provide a full picture. In this article we’re going to cover campus safety at top colleges, including a safety rating based on reported crime incidents. We’re going to cover how concerned you should be, and how this may impact your college choices. Let’s dive in.

How Much Crime Takes Place at College

Overall, the number of crimes committed on college campuses has been steadily declining for years, mirroring broader societal trends. You can see this in the data collected by the US Department of Education, which collects these statistics nationwide:

This table does not differentiate crimes by source, but if you want to investigate their data further, you can find it . Generally, crime has been declining across all categories over the period surveyed. This includes violent crimes such as assault, and property crimes such as burglary and robbery. 

This does not mean all colleges are created equal, and some situations are worse than others. Generally, crimes on college campuses fall into two distinct categories, with different risk factors. 

Neighborhood Crimes

These often grab headlines, and are a major cause of concern. It is true that some colleges are in less savory neighborhoods; we’ve all heard of Yale and UChicago and how they need many campus police to help protect students from the neighborhood the schools are situated in. These are the crimes which vary most by college, and which you can best control for through college choice. 

On-Campus Crimes

These are crimes perpetrated by students themselves, from the drunken antics of overexcited sports fans to more serious crimes, up to and including sexual violence. The neighborhood around colleges matters less for these crimes, as the students themselves are the source of trouble. This does not mean that college students are all criminals, far from it, but there are bad actors in any population, and students themselves do make an impact on reported crimes. 

Ranking Campus Safety

How then should we rank campus safety? In this case, we are primarily evaluating the neighborhoods colleges are situated in, though crimes reported on campus factor in as well. Note, however, that high reports of on campus crime do not mean necessarily that more crime occurs there, but merely that a college may have a better and more supportive reporting infrastructure. 

Our grades for safety are based off of FBI . This is for the city surrounding the college, not just the college itself. The crime as percent of undergrad is the approximate proportion of undergraduate students at a university who are impacted by crime each year. 

So What Does This Mean?

The first thing to note is that the safety of a college’s environs doesn’t correlate much at all with how safe it is for students. Nor can we see much of a pattern in what kind of environs they are, and how safe it is for students on campus. College towns, big cities, and rural areas are all very different environments, but one is not inherently safer than another for college students.

In some ways, this is quite reassuring; even schools that are in less savory areas are still quite safe for their students to attend. It also shows how hard it is to draw conclusions about safety just from where a school is located. 

A final note is that the size and prestige of a school don’t correlate with safety much at all from what we’ve seen. A school with more resources may be able to invest more in safety, but this does not always pay dividends. Note also that some schools crack down on and criminalize behaviour that others punish. Harvard does not condone underage drinking of course, but they may turn a blind eye to it, while there are some schools which crack down much harder, and thus generate far more criminal incidents involving students.

What this data tells us more generally is that college is always going to be less than perfectly safe. Colleges invest a lot of money into security and policies to protect students, but the world is an imperfect and dangerous place, and for many students college is their first real taste of this phenomenon. 

Colleges give safety presentations to students during orientation, to let them know what supports and services are available, and preparing for the neighborhood around a college is part of the transition. This can be something of a culture shock, especially when students want to move out of on-campus housing. However, college is still in general a secure environment, and universities want students to feel safe during their four years on and around campus. 

Should This Impact Your College List?

Safety is a concern for parents and students alike, but whether or not safety concerns should impact where you decide to apply or attend is up to you. Safety is merely another factor to take into consideration when deciding which college and campus will fit you best, and best serve your needs. 

Students mature at different rates, and have differing abilities to handle themselves. Some graduate high school full of personal and situational awareness, and able to navigate the world around them with open eyes. Others may need a few more years to get the full measure of the world, and participate in it safely. 

There is no shame in being somewhat naive about the world as a high school graduate; indeed, it means your parents did a good job in raising you, and helped you avoid many of the struggles of life. It can make for a rough transition to college in some cases, especially when the college in question is rougher around the edges than the high school environment you are used to. 

In these cases, smaller and more suburban and rural colleges can be a better choice. College towns are not definitively safer than major cities, but their problems tend to be more self-contained within the student body itself, as the school and town are close to one and the same. This allows students to step outside the safe boundaries of their former environment, without straying too far from what they have known. 

Final Thoughts

Safety on campus is just one of many concerns parents have about sending their students off to college, and it’s one we find ourselves discussing regularly. We hope that this article has proven enlightening, showing that colleges are, on the whole, quite safe, and just how seriously they take the safety of their students. 

Of course, safety is just one factor among many to consider when researching and evaluating colleges. Doing this for a full college list can be quite difficult, especially with all the other demands students have on their time. If you are looking for help with this research, or with building the right college list for you, schedule a free consultation with us today. We have a long experience working with students to make their lives easier, and are always happy to hear from you. 

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The real answer, however, is somewhat underwhelming: there is no “right” club to join to get into a top college.

That doesn’t mean all clubs are created equal however, nor that all extracurricular involvements are on a level field. In this article, we’ll go into what the best way to involve yourself in high school extracurriculars are, and how certain activities can prepare you better or worse for college admissions. There’s a lot of nuance in this, but everyone loves that, so let’s get started!

Why Colleges Care łÔąĎąŮÍř High School Clubs

We are going to be focusing on high school clubs specifically in this article, rather than extracurriculars as a whole (though some of the things we say and conclude will apply to both). High school clubs are the most accessible extracurriculars for most students, and often the most misunderstood, so we wanted to focus on them for this article. 

The first thing to note is that colleges don’t generally distinguish between kinds of extracurriculars, at least in terms of how you got involved with them. Playing club soccer or playing for your high school team are equivalent in theory. There are certain extracurriculars which only occur through high school (like student government), but the most important takeaway from this article is this: there is no single extracurricular you can take part in that will, on its own, increase your chances of getting into college.

Admissions officers don’t use checklists, going down your application to see how many clubs you joined, how many varsity teams you participated in, and giving points based on the clubs themselves or how many you signed up for. The clubs you join are instead used as proxies, ways for colleges to try and measure the actual things they do care about. These are: 

• Passion. They want students who care about things, and who have taken the time to pursue those things they care about.
• Leadership: They want students who have shown initiative and stepped up to take on responsibilities. 
• Community. They want students who can work well with others, who can join a group larger than themselves and contribute meaningfully to it.
  

High school clubs give you one of your best opportunities to demonstrate all three. In the rest of this article, we’re going to explain how, and how certain clubs can help, or hinder, your efforts. 

Demonstrating Passion Through High School Clubs

Simply joining a club which is related to a subject you are interested in can indicate passion, but it doesn’t do much if that’s all you do. The trick is to find the things you care about, the things that excite you, and then apply yourself to them fully. As an example of how this looks to admissions officers, here’s two students, both of whom want to study engineering: 

1. Student A joined the robotics club, the computer science club, and the rocketry club at their school, and went to meetings for all three each week.
2. Student B joined the robotics team for their school. They sought out competitions for the team to participate in, helped the team fundraise, participated in every step of the design process, actively recruited new students, and was the lead programmer for their robot. 
   

Based on just these descriptions, which student seems more passionate about robotics? Which one seems to care more? This is a somewhat extreme example, but this is also pretty much all the data an admissions officer has to go on. They don’t get to meet you, talk with you, they only see what you have done, and read the essays you send them. Student B shows off passion; student A might have it, but they don’t show it, even though they have joined more clubs related to their passion on paper. 

Your passions can be related to the major you intend to pursue, but they do not have to be. That said, certain competitive majors do benefit from showing interest early. If you intend to study computer science, and have never once tried to learn a programming language in high school, colleges may question your passion for the field. The general rule is that the more opportunities there are to get involved with an activity you might want to major in, the more expectations colleges have. Students interested in computer science need to show that; students interested in archaeology have a little bit more leeway. 

Demonstrating Leadership Through High School Clubs

Colleges want leaders; that is students who have displayed qualities of leadership. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have been in charge of everything you’ve been a part of, but that you have shown that you’re willing to step up and take responsibility, that you show initiative, and that you work well without needing constant outside reinforcement. 

Colleges look for this as a sign of maturity, that you will be able to handle both the rigors and the freedoms present on a college campus. AT college, you will be in charge of your own schedule, and will need to hold yourself responsible for getting your work done. The best way to show you have done this is demonstrating that you have done equivalent things before.

This is a measure of quality, not quantity. Just as passion is not demonstrated through the sheer number of clubs you join, neither is responsibility indicated by becoming president of every club. You can take on leadership roles in multiple organizations and ways, but these can vary in appearance and commitments. 

You can also show leadership without being the president of a club, or even an officer. Here are the best ways to show leadership through the clubs you join:

• Assume responsibility. Whether it’s for a single event, a component of a larger project, or the official responsibility of running the thing, show that you are willing to step up and handle something solid and real. This means taking the initiative to get things done, and knowing when to stop and ask for help.
• Acknowledge failures. You may be lucky and have everything go well, but if things do go wrong, acknowledge your own part in what happened, and reflect on what you learned from it. This demonstrates emotional maturity and depth. 
• Create lasting change. The best leadership roles are ones that change things in the long term. If a club flourishes while you are present but dries up once you leave, then you are not as effective as you could be as a leader. Show how you took steps to nurture the next generation in the organizations you are part of.
  

This can be done in any student club or organization you join. Every organization needs people who are willing to step up and work, and those are the kinds of people colleges are looking for. Even if you don’t have a solid leadership position to describe on your activities list, this is still something to explore in your essays.

Demonstrating Community Through Your High School Clubs

Admissions officers are trying to build communities, groups of people who will work and thrive together on campus. There is a stereotype of academics and scientists working alone in labs, cackling as lightning flashes and discoveries are made, but almost all academic work takes place in groups, and life on campus is communal. Thus, admissions officers want students who will contribute positively to their shared community. 

The most common way students try to demonstrate this is through volunteering; this is an excellent approach, but you can do the same through your high school clubs.This is true regardless of what the club is; while some allow you to involve yourself more in the affairs of the school community as a whole, all clubs are communities unto themselves. 

How you go about doing this, what it looks like, depends on both the club you are a member of and your own personal talents. Not everyone builds community in the same way, or has the same skills, and that’s okay; colleges look for these distinctions and unique talents. 

When describing your activity in your clubs, however, there are some things you should pay attention to, and try to discuss, if only in passing: 

• How you were able to work with others in the club, serving as part of a team working towards a common goal. Colleges want leaders, but they also need people who can unite as part of a common vision.
• How you were able to handle conflict and disagreement. People argue; that’s a normal and healthy part of any relationship or group. What matters is how you handled it, and found common ground with your chosen community.
• How you specifically contributed to the group. You want to show both what you were able to do, your own strengths and values, and why contributing is important to you, why you want to help make the places and groups you are part of better. 
  

This is easiest to show through your essays. That you were part of a group is clear from your activity list, but how you contributed, what kind of member you were, is what top colleges want to see. Again, being a quality member of a few clubs matters more than dallying in a great number. 

Thoughts on Specific High School Clubs

We cannot cover every high school club and activity, but we will discuss some of the most popular, and some broad categories of clubs. None of these are inherently better or worse for your application, but we will point out some ways you can make sure you are making the most of the clubs which appeal to you. 

Student Government

Whether you’re on student council or in charge of the whole thing, student government is a popular way to contribute to a school community. Be wary of the problem of all politicians, over-promising and under-delivering. When writing about your accomplishments in government, you want to show genuine care for the school community, and use hard numbers to demonstrate how you tried to make it better. Here, more than most clubs, you can impact the school as a whole; there is a lot of potential to do good here. 

Sports

High school sports may be the most popular set of extracurriculars as a whole. At the high end, the very best athletes will get some admissions boost to some schools. For most high school athletes however, they won’t get this boost, and should instead treat them as any other club, focusing on leadership and community. We advise always having some extracurricular involvement beyond sports, unless you know you are one of those rare talents who coaches will actively recruit.

Academic Teams

From quiz bowl to debate to chess club to the various academic olympiads (and beyond), these are a great way to show off your passion for various academic subjects. Placing very well in these competitions can meaningfully impact your chances of admission, but even if you don’t reach those lofty heights you can still contribute to the environment of the clubs. 

Art and Music

A lot of high school students participate in art and music and dance without intending to major in any of those fields. This is fine; there are great ways to demonstrate your maturity, your willingness to work hard towards a distant goal through these engagements. It is easier to showcase many of these values through something like orchestra or a stage production than a more solo pursuit of art, but you still can and should try to engage with the broader artistic community at your school, whatever your involvement with it is. 

Interest and Social Groups

This is the broadest category, and these are often the clubs which require the least active involvement, which can easily fall by the wayside, especially if you join a lot of them. When joining these clubs, do so intentionally, with the desire to find and build a community. You don’t have to devote all your time to them, but don’t just join a bunch of these clubs so you can check off a few more boxes on an activities list. Pick a handful, and do something meaningful within them.

Final Thoughts

There are many many clubs you can join in high school, and any of them can set you on the path to getting into a top college. There is no one “right club” or “right sport” or “best extracurricular”; there is no hidden secret to find the key to what admissions officers want. We hope that this article has helped you understand what admissions officers look for from high school clubs, and how you can demonstrate it yourself. 

If you are looking for advice exploring your own passions, or taking your extracurricular involvement to the next level, then łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors are experts at every aspect of the admissions process, and love helping young students explore and discover their passions. Schedule a free consultation today to learn how we can set you on the path to collegiate success; we’re always happy to hear from you.

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We understand that this process can be difficult and annoying, even painful, and you may be tempted to take shortcuts, or even skip out on editing altogether. We understand the impulse, but we’re here to offer you a better way: a series of tips and strategies to make the editing process (relatively) easy and painless. It still requires work, but our goal is to make your life simpler, and the process easier to manage. Let’s jump right in!

Tip 1: Don’t Begin Editing Immediately

We can understand the impulse to finish writing an essay and then immediately set to editing it; you want to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. There are two main flaws with this approach however: 

1. The longer you look at the same piece of writing, the more your eyes just glide over errors in it, your brain automatically correcting typos or awkward phrasing.
2. The longer you work on one thing in a sitting, the more you risk burn out, or cease to care about it at all.

Our first tip is to let an essay sit and breathe for a short spell before returning to edit it. This doesn’t mean you can just forget it forever, but leaving a week between writing an essay and editing it for the first time lets you look at it with fresh eyes and perspective, and keeps the amount of time you spend working on it in short and manageable chunks. 

This does mean you will need to start your essays a reasonable amount of time before the deadline, but we recommend doing this for all of your college application work. College applications are very stressful, and trying to get them all done against the ticking clock doesn’t help reduce that pressure. The regular decision deadline is in January, but if you start the essays and editing now, your holidays will have much less stress for you. 

Tip 2: Edit By Order of Magnitude

There is no set term for what we mean by this, but the goal is simple: to never do any editing work you don’t have to do. This means your edits should start large, and then become small. If you’re going to remove a paragraph entirely and replace it with something else, then it’s not worth your time to stress over the grammar or phrasing in that paragraph. 

Here is our order of operations when we work with students to edit their essays: 

1. Conceptual edits. These change the core concept of the essay, or some piece of it, and require a large portion to need to be rewritten. For example, changing an anecdote about learning to drive to one about fishing with your grandfather. This generally involves recreating large portions of an essay, and so should always be done first. 
2. Structural edits. These change the overall layout of the essay, without changing the core topic. Conceptual edits rework the whole, these rework a single paragraph or section. For example, if you are writing about learning to fish, a structural edit may cut a paragraph of set up to add more room to talk about the values you learned from fishing.
3. Line edits. These are changes to individual sentences, where you look at how each contributes to the meaning of the paragraph. Only move to these once you are certain the overall shape of the essay is in place.
4. Grammar edits. These are the simplest edits, and should be done last. Missed commas, word choice, typos; fix these things only once you are done with major rewrites of the essay, so you aren’t faced with doing this again and again.

We know editing isn’t fun, and by approaching it in this way, you minimize the actual amount of editing you have to do. You do still have to go through every step, but working from the big edits down to the small ones streamlines the entire process, and won’t see you sweating over the same paragraph repeatedly. 

Tip 3: Phone a Friend

All of the writing you do on your college essays must be your own, but you are allowed (and encouraged) to get help during the editing process. You must be careful to preserve your voice, but asking others for help will let you catch things you may have missed, and make sure the values you are trying to portray actually come through when someone new reads your essay. 

There are plenty of options here, but these are the most common we see students take advantage of: 

• English teachers (or other teachers). Many schools assign a draft of the personal statement in English class, but even if they don’t, you can often ask your English teacher to do you a favor. This is extra work they don’t have to do, so ask politely, and make sure to thank them after. The better student you are in their class, the more likely they are to say yes, but this is one of the best ways to get advice on revising a college essay.
• School counselors. Depending on your high school, there may be one or more counselors whose sole job is to help students with college admissions. While they have a lot of students to attend to, they can usually do an editing pass on your essays. 
• Independent counselors. You can always hire an independent counseling company to help you with your essays; we’re quite good at that, for example. 
• Parents. Your parents may not always be stellar writers, but they can offer useful feedback, especially on whether your essay is doing a good job conveying the message you want it to.
• Friends. Getting together with a group of friends and trading your essays around to edit each others may not be the most exciting hangout activity, but can get you a bunch of extra eyes on your essay.

When asking others for editing help, you want to be sure that the voice and message of your essays is still uniquely your own. After all, colleges are looking to admit you, not your parents, not your teachers, and not your friends. Many students are uncomfortable with their voice, but this is exactly what colleges want from essays. Your writing should be as good as you make it, but it should be yours. 

Thus you should listen to suggestions and edits when asking others for editing help, and add them in when you can see how they will improve and strengthen your essay. For larger edits, editors shouldn’t suggest full rewrites, but different framings or concepts that may work better, such as removing unnecessary details, or diving deeper into the details of what you have done. 

A Note on AI Editing Help

You will notice that we did not include AI editing tools in the list of options for places to seek editing help. This is for two reasons. The first is that many colleges forbid the use of AI editing tools for anything except grammatical edits; you can use a spellchecker, basically, but nothing more than that.

This does work on the honor system, but colleges have been looking more closely at student essays for use of AI, and we suspect students who are obvious in their use of it will see their essays severely penalized. 

The other problem with AI editing is that, especially if it is proposing major structural or phrasing edits, is that it sands down the originality of your essay. What colleges want to see is your unique voice, and many AI edits remove that. The essay may be more polished, but it is also going to sound more alike to every other essay a student polished with AI help. When your goal in the admissions process is to stand out from a crowd of thousands, that is non-ideal, to say the least. 

You can use AI for a grammar and spelling check, but most writing programs have one of those built in already. In general, there isn’t much reason to use an AI tool when trying to edit an essay, especially when there are much better options available. 

Tip 4: Know When to Stop

You will need to do more than one editing pass, but there is a time when editing ends and you must submit. The real trick is knowing when an essay is good enough; the prose polished, the transitions fluid. This can be hard to judge on your own; there is a temptation to stop too early to avoid extra work, or to keep going past the point of madness in a quest for perfection. 

There is no singular rule for how many rounds of edits an essay needs before it is done. Once you can show it to someone else, and they come away with the message you want them to get from the essay, and you’ve worked the phrasing and structure as well as you can manage, we advise ending the editing process. 

We wish we had a more set rule we could use, but each essay is unique, as is the voice of each student. We use our expertise to judge when an essay has reached its final form and is ready to submit, but this is something we have gained through long years of practice in the business of writing essays. You can and should ask your high school teachers or counselors for advice on your own essays. 

Final Thoughts

College essays are always going to be stressful to write. They are very important and completely unlike any essays you’ve been asked to write before, and this confluence of factors inevitably leads to stress in how to manage them. We hope that this article has helped you understand one facet of approaching these essays, and given you strategies to approach them that will let you keep your own stress levels down somewhere reasonable. 

College admissions is often a terrible time for students, but it doesn’t have to be. Like with all confusing and difficult tasks, it is easier with a guide, and expert who can help you past pitfalls and show you a sure path towards your goals. That’s where łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. If you’re looking for guidance on writing your own essays, or advice on strategies to apply to top colleges, then schedule a free consultation with us today, we’re always happy to speak with you.

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This is only heightened in the age of artificial intelligence, with countless services and applications promising to help you create the perfect applications without effort, all while colleges grow increasingly strict about not wanting any applicants to use AI in their submissions. In this article, we’re going to break down AI policies at top colleges, and explain what admissions officers actually want to see from your application. 

What are AI Policies for Admission to Top Colleges?

Every college sets their own policy; these are developed independently, but these colleges are able to see what their fellows do, and they do exist in the same environment, with many of the same perspectives and concerns. Thus, these policies often have quite a bit in common. We aren’t going to be able to list out every college’s policy, but here’s a chart featuring the policies of top schools in the US for use of AI in admissions: 

What we can see here is that most schools have policies, and these policies generally ban the use of AI in any substantial way. There are some differences; some schools may be okay with the use of AI in brainstorming while others are not, but no schools with AI policies are okay with students using AI tools to write their essays, in whole or in part. 

That some schools do not have written AI policies does not mean those schools are okay with you using AI to write their essays either. rules do not apply in this situation. We are not sure why some schools have not yet created written policies on the use of AI, but those that do have a remarkable consensus: admissions officers don’t want to see it in your essays. 

What Admissions Officers Really Want, and Why AI Can’t Do That

Admissions officers want to understand who you are as a person and student. The reason they ask for all those supplemental essays is to better understand who you are. It may surprise you, but they aren’t just trying to stress you out and give you more work to do; they really do care about your answers to these questions, and they read them carefully to gain insights into the kind of person you are, and how you think about the world. 

Coming at it from this perspective, it makes much more sense why admissions officers don’t appreciate the use of AI in essays. AI tools can create polished writing, but they do not understand nor speak for you. They don’t know your wants or passions, they have no sense of your inner life or desires, and they cannot impart who you are or what really matters to you. 

In addition to this, AI writing is often quite bland. It has a degree of polish, but it is all glitter and no substance, as satisfying as a meal of painted cardboard. When admissions officers have to read thousands or tens of thousands of essays each season, they can become quite tired of this boring sameness. If you cannot find it worth doing to write an essay, admissions officers may question how much you really care about their school.

What This Means for Your Applications

We always advise students to avoid using AI in their applications, and reading what colleges think about the use of generative AI helps show why. While not every school has an official policy on the use of AI, from conversations with admissions officers, and what they’ve expressed in webinars and Q&A sessions, none of them enjoy reading AI generated essays. 

The easy takeaway for your applications then is that you probably shouldn’t use AI, not for drafting or editing your essays, not for activities lists, not for ideas on application strategy. This seems self-evident, but is also quite difficult for many students to implement, since these tools are becoming so pervasive. 

To help you implement this in your own essay writing, here are places where students often seek to rely on AI (which colleges specifically dislike when they see), and how you can approach them instead:

Brainstorming

Picking an essay topic is hard, one we spend a lot of time working on with students. It is tempting to ask AI for help, but the issue is that if every student asks AI, it will generate the same or similar responses for all students, thus leading to your essay being quite similar to those written by other applicants. 

Instead, when you are looking at essay topics, you should make lists of your activities and passions, and then a list of your core values. Draw connections between these, and look for unusual connections. Maybe football taught you discipline and teamwork, or maybe it taught you creativity or gave you a respect for environmentalism. How? That’s a good question, and answering it makes for an interesting essay.

Essay Writing

This is the core thing every college with an AI policy bans, and which even colleges without an explicit AI policy forbid through anti-plagiarism rules. There is no easy work around for this, you actually have to sit down and write the essays for yourself. This can be hard, but that’s rather the point. 

The best trick is that an essay does not have to be perfect to start with. A first draft is almost always bad, and that’s okay. Create an outline, write it out, and see where you stand. It won’t be perfect, you won’t have showcased your ideas fully, and that’s okay. The only way to become better at writing is to do it, there are sadly no shortcuts to this, but the experience of doing it will help with future writing projects.

Editing Your Essays

Colleges are generally okay with using AI for baseline edits, but these are the same edits proposed by any good spell-checker. The issue with major AI edits, rephrasing and restructuring and rewording, is that it removes you from what is supposed to be your essay. The traces of personality and individuality are what flavor these essays, what makes them interesting and worth reading. 

Instead, we advise asking a third party to look over your essay and give feedback. Your
English teacher, your counselor, your peers, your parents, all can give you advice on how to improve your essay, without overwriting what makes it really yours. Just remember that these people shouldn’t write your essay for you; the whole of it must be your own. 

Final Thoughts

Technology changes, and so does college admissions, but what colleges have been looking for from students has been remarkably consistent over the past decade or so. The individual details change; the standards they have, the kinds of projects which impress them best, but what they want are bright and passionate students, ones who love learning for its own sake, and who will contribute meaningfully to the campus community if they are accepted.

We hope that this article has given you useful insight into how admissions officers approach applications, and why they don’t like seeing students use AI. If you want help crafting your own essays with the help of experts, and creating the best work that you are capable of, then łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors are masters of the admissions process, and are highly skilled at helping students show off their best traits to admissions officers. Schedule a free consultation today to learn how we can help you on your admissions journey.

The post What Admissions Officers Want in the Age of AI appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

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