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.Ěý
• 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.Ěý
• 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.Ěý

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.

The post How to Build Your Profile to Study Business at Top Universities appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post How to Build Your Profile to Study Business at Top Universities appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

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.

The post Should You Worry łÔąĎąŮÍř Other Students from Your School Applying to the Same Colleges as You? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post Should You Worry łÔąĎąŮÍř Other Students from Your School Applying to the Same Colleges as You? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

You can see an example of this kind of list from , one of the most-cited college ranking organizations. This is just another ranking amongst dozens they offer, but is quite relevant to many students, and sees some colleges ranked quite highly that otherwise do not on these lists. In this article, we’re going to look at what social mobility rankings mean, how they’re calculated, and whether or not this should impact where you apply to college.

What is a Social Mobility Ranking?

We’re going to begin by defining social mobility in terms of college education. This is the function where a college takes in a student of a low socio-economic background, and thanks to the education and opportunities they receive at the college, they are able to enter a higher socio-economic tier. This doesn’t mean that everyone who attends the college immediately becomes a millionaire; these are aggregated scores, looking at the whole population of students. 

Thus these rankings are calculated by looking at where students are when they come in, and comparing it to how they fare after graduation. US News conveniently publishes their behind their college rankings, allowing us to look at this in more detail.

Note that this ranking specifically looks at how students improve due to attending a college. If a college attracts a significant portion of students who are already from a high socio-economic background, then it doesn’t get any points if they remain such after they graduate. This can cause many top colleges to have lower ranks in this category; while top colleges do seek to serve all students, many of them have a high population of students from . 

These rankings are also major and field of study blind. There are separate investigations which look at how well certain majors at a university prepare students for a career (And how well those careers pay), but that isn’t covered by social mobility rankings. The expectation for these rankings is that regardless of what a student majors in, the university should give them the resources and connections needed to see success. 

Finally, as with all college rankings, these should be taken with a major grain of salt. Rankings do not, and cannot, capture every nuance of what a college offers, nor do they offer advice specific to your situation. They may give you a place to begin looking, but they can only ever be a starting point for more in-depth investigations. 

What Are the Best Colleges for Social Mobility?

The top ranked universities for social mobility vary by who’s doing the ranking, so here’s the list from US News as a starting point. You can see their full list , but here are their top five schools for social mobility in 2027: 

1. Florida International University
2. UC Riverside
3. Oakland City University
4. UC Merced
5. Rutgers University

None of these are bad schools, and you can get a great education at most of them. They are not, however, synonymous with excellence; none of them are in the top fifty, and the highest rated overall (Again by US News) is UC Merced at 69th. We’ve criticized college rankings plenty, but why is there such a gap between what schools rank well overall and which rank highly for social mobility.

To drive this point home, here are some of the top ranked colleges, and where they list on this social mobility ranking: 

• MIT: #81 Social Mobility (#1 Overall)
• Princeton: #40 Social Mobility (#2 Overall)
• Harvard: #68 Social Mobility (#3 Overall)
• Yale: #68 Social Mobility (#4 Overall)
• Caltech: #123 Social Mobility (#5 Overall)
  

So what gives? Are these top schools actually terrible at helping students from less-advantaged backgrounds gain success? Not quite; the disconnect stems from how social mobility rankings are calculated.Ěý

These rankings are looking at how good the university is overall at helping students advance their social standing, and this is based on the percentage of students who attend who do so. A plurality of students entering Harvard, or Yale, or Princeton, or indeed most top-rated colleges already come from well-off backgrounds. Not all students, certainly, but a significant and high percentage of them. 

Thus these rankings always rate top universities quite low. They simply do not help many students from less well-off backgrounds advance than some of their peers, either in terms of strict numbers, or as a percentage of attendees. 

Social Mobility vs Return on Investment

An alternate, and perhaps more useful metric to use when evaluating these colleges is return on investment. Top colleges are expensive (though often not as much as they appear), and so a better thing for many students to look at is what return on investment they’ll get from attending a particular school. 

US News and others often rank Return on Investment using terms like “Best Value Schools”, the colleges that give you the best value for your dollar. For many top universities, this is a far better measure of how well they will do at helping you advance your condition than their ranking on social mobility.

Most top colleges do a better job at helping any individual student from a low socio-economic background enter a higher one than schools which may have a much higher social mobility ranking. While top colleges are better at serving individual students, the schools that rank highly do a better job at improving the lot of larger numbers of students. 

What Does This Mean for You?

The first and most important thing to be aware of when considering a college’s potential impact on your future is that attending and graduating from an accredited college, regardless of degree, has a significant positive impact on your future earnings. This does not mean that all degrees are equal, but college itself, the credentials it gives you and the doors it opens, is often the most important part. 

What you should be looking for, if you are concerned about your future prospects, are schools that will best support your opportunities, and set you up for success. These are the factors we look at with students, especially those who are most concerned with social mobility. 

Overall Cost

The most important factor to consider is the overall cost of a university. Note that this isn’t the same as their listed tuition, especially for top schools; this is how much you end up paying after financial aid, but while including things like housing and supplies. The less you spend on college, and the less debt you have when you graduate, the more of a leg up you have afterwards. 

This metric generally makes top colleges more appealing. While they have much higher tuition costs, they also have far more generous need based aid, and often cover non-tuition costs with this aid. This will depend on you and your situation; we advise using tuition calculators to get estimates of how much each college will really cost you. 

Networking and Connections

There is a very old cliche about who you know being more important than what you know. This isn’t entirely true; you do need some baseline qualifications to get any job. Many jobs, however, are easier to get with connections, and when choosing between two candidates, one with a networked “in” most often lands on top.

You can do networking at all colleges, but top ranked colleges often have more (and more prestigious) industry contacts, alumni networks with more connections, and more opportunities for students to find internships and job placements through campus. When it comes to finding a job after graduation, these connections can help as much if not more than the degree you hold. 

Final Thoughts

Colleges are one of the best ways to improve your future prospects, to open up new career pathways, and to expand your options. We hope that this article has helped you understand how a college can boost your own prospects, and why social mobility rankings may not be the best measure to use. 

These are an important measure, and top colleges certainly could do more to help an increased number of students, but as the metrics exist now, social mobility tells you more about a college’s impacts societally than on an individual basis. As always, however, which college is right for you is a fully individual determination, for each student and situation is different. 

If you are looking for advice specific to your situation, or want help finding the college which will give you the best return on your investment, łÔąĎąŮÍř is here for you. Our mentors are skilled at every aspect of the admissions process, and specializing in assisting students in finding the universities which best align with their goals and needs. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more; we’re always happy to hear from you. 

The post What do Social Mobility Scores for Colleges Mean? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post What do Social Mobility Scores for Colleges Mean? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

One issue many students have is how to refine their lists, especially when they come to us in September, and that is what we’re going to discuss in this article. Students either have a few core schools they know they want, but are uncertain how to expand their list, or have too many schools they’re interested in, and need to refine it slightly. In this article, we’ll discuss how to refine and balance your college list, to make sure you have the best possible chance of getting into a school that will meet your needs. 

How to Expand Your College List

When students come to us, they usually have some idea of colleges they want to apply to. Places where their siblings or cousins attend, the local state school, their parent’s alma maters; these are schools they are well familiar with and like the sound of. Where they get stuck most often is in adding additional schools to the list, going beyond the bounds of what they have already heard of. 

This trepidation is understandable. Most high school students, and indeed most people generally, have little reason to interact with or hear about colleges. You’ll see a headline about some breakthrough discovery or political kerfuffle, but for the most part, colleges are a world unto themselves, insulated from the rest of what you hear about and focus on. 

Here are the steps we take with students to understand, refine, and expand their college lists:

Evaluate Existing Schools

You won’t know what to add until you’re certain what’s already on the list. Do you have enough safety and target schools? What are your odds of getting into each school on your list? Do you have a clear favorite already that you want to apply to Early Decision, or are they all fairly equivalent in your estimation? What is each school asking for already in terms of essays?

By answering these, you can understand where you need to focus your efforts. A student with Rice, Yale, UT Austin, USC, and Vanderbilt on their list should add at least one or two safety schools, a few more targets, and consider adding more reach schools, for example. Once you know where you stand, you can move on to the next phase. 

Deciding What You Want in a College

Your existing list, in many cases, is schools you are already somewhat familiar with. Maybe you’ve been to visit, or watched their football games, or heard stories from parents or siblings. To expand your list, you must decide what key traits, besides familiarity, you want from a college.

These can be as important as what majors they offer, to as petty as what the weather is like. You will be spending four years at a school, so it’s fine to have requirements to make sure it’s a place you’re going to enjoy being. We recommend visiting a local college or two during one of your weekends; not necessarily to apply to there, but to see what aspects of campus atmosphere and culture you like, and which you might want from a future school. 

Research Potential Colleges

Now that you have a list of criteria in hand, you can begin looking for colleges that match them. Target your efforts specifically to the holes you identified on your list. We will note that safety schools are going to be difficult to find that precisely match your desires; that’s normal. 

You should spend most of your effort researching potential reach and target colleges. These are the schools which require the most effort to apply to, and which are the most competitive. You want to give yourself a variety of options, but don’t add any schools to your list you wouldn’t be willing to attend if admitted; that’s just adding work to your plate for no reason. 

The total number of schools you want on your list will vary based on your college goals, but for most students aiming to attend a top-tier university, we recommend they apply to 15-20 colleges in total. This is a lot of work, but with acceptance rates at historic lows, and showing no signs of improving, you want to give yourself the best chance possible to get in. 

How to Trim Down a College List

This is a much rarer problem to have; especially as acceptance rates decline, applying to an ever-growing number of schools is increasingly popular for students. Too much of a good thing is, however, still an issue to consider here. Having too many schools on your list, especially too many schools of the wrong type, can leave you doing extra work for no purpose. 

Having Too Many Safety Schools

Generally you only need one or two safety schools on a college list. Much like a net under a tightrope, you only really need one sure thing to catch if things go wrong. Having too many more is unlikely to add too much work, but you can only apply to twenty colleges through the Common App, and this can impact which schools you can add through there. 

One exception is if you are applying to schools that would normally be safeties in order to pursue honors colleges or prestigious merit scholarships. Many less competitive schools try to draw in impressive students through merit awards, and we have worked with many students who have pursued these. If this is your intention, we commend it; just make sure you are doing so intentionally. 

Having Too Many Reach Schools

What counts as too many reach schools is a relative term. We have wired with students who have chosen to apply to thirty colleges or more, but these are by far the exception. Doing so is a lot of work, and requires a lot of organization. For most students and circumstances, twenty colleges suffices. Here are the most common cases where a student wants to apply to more than the average number of reach schools: 

• The student is aiming for the very competitive BS/MD programs, and also wants to apply to a number of top-rated pre-med programs
• A student wants to maximize their chances of getting into a top college

The second motivation is more common, but here too most students will do fine with 10-15 reach schools on their list. If you have more than this, it may be worth pruning. These schools often have a lot of prompts, and even with cross-application, it can be a lot of work to write and edit all the needed essays.

The best way to trim this down is to do more research on all of the schools on your list and decide how much you would like attending them. While the term “top colleges” can make the group feel like a monolith, there are vast differences between them. Some students may thrive at both Brown and Caltech, but they are very different schools, with very different cultures. Decide which of these you would really be interested in spending four years at. Any school where you wouldn’t want to spend four years studying there shouldn’t be on your list. 

Having Too Many Target Schools

This is generally not a problem. At most, the balance of your list may be off, but how many target schools vs reach schools you want to apply to depends on how much risk you’re willing to accept in your application strategy. In general, we advise students to aim for five or so target schools, but if you would rather take a more cautious approach, you can increase this number. 

If you are only applying to target schools, rather than reach, then we do advise a rebalance. Having a few reach schools on your list will lead to a bit of extra work, but we frequently encourage students to dream big.

Final Thoughts

Building a balanced college list, like many other aspects of college admissions, is hard. It’s completely unlike anything you’ve had to do before, and there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. We hope that this article helped clarify things, and showed you some common missteps that students make along the way. Our goal is to make your path to college easier and less stressful. 

If you have questions about your specific college list, or about other aspects of the application process, then we can help. Our mentors excel in helping each student find the right university to support their needs and circumstances, and advising you on how best to approach your college journey. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you. 

The post How to Refine Your College List appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post How to Refine Your College List appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

A Brief Note on Early Decision

Before we dive into the details of how particular programs work, we’re going to give a brief overview of how the Early Decision process works generally, so you can see how it can differ slightly for these special programs.

When you apply ED, you make a binding commitment to attend a particular college if you are accepted. You can only apply to a single college ED; colleges share with each other lists of who has applied ED, and if you apply to more than one in this way, they will all summarily reject you. 

Applying ED significantly increases your chances of acceptance to a school. You must still be qualified, but there is less competition for spots, and colleges like admitting people they know are eager to attend, and who have committed to doing so. This is because yield, the percentage of admitted students who attend, is one factor used to determine a college’s ranking. 

Some, but not all, colleges also offer ED II, a second round of Early Decision admissions with a deadline equivalent to that of the regular decision deadline. This functions the same as ED, but offers a slightly lower boost to admissions chances. If you applied to one college ED and got rejected, you may apply to a different college ED II. 

The one legitimate way to get out of attending a school you have applied to ED is if they do not offer you sufficient financial aid for you to attend. You can also simply not go, but this is considered bad form. There aren’t any real penalties for just not going, but it is considered rude. 

Applying to Special Programs Early Decision

Now that we’ve covered the basics of how ED applications work, we’ll look at the nuances of how applying to special programs works when you apply early decision. We’ll go through different classes of special programs separately, as they all tend to work similarly. 

Applying to BS/MD Programs Early Decision

There are three BS/MD programs with attached undergraduate programs good enough that students ask us about applying to them ED on a regular basis: , , and the . All three of these programs have a similar approach: you may apply to the BS/MD program ED, but if you do, if you are admitted to the university ED but not to the special program, you are still committed to attend the university. 

For all three, applying ED does grant a boost to getting into the university proper, but it is unclear if it gives a similar boost to gaining entry to the BS/MD program. These programs are hypercompetitive even by the standards of Ivy League admissions, admitting a scant handful of students each year. 

These are all great schools, and if you think you would like to attend one for undergraduate regardless of whether or not you got into their BS/MD program, then applying ED may be a good choice. If, however, your primary goal is to take part in a BS/MD program, then we recommend not applying to one of these schools ED. If they and a different BS/MD program both let you in, you would be stuck attending an undergraduate program without the attached medical degree. Still at a great school, but not in one of the programs you were looking for. 

Applying to Joint Degree Programs Early Decision

Unlike BS/MD programs, joint degree programs are far more varied. First, of course, not every school offering a joint degree program offers ED applications at all; Berkeley’s can only be applied to through the UC App, which does not have an ED option at all. Therefore, we’re going to go through these programs in a table, linking to them and letting you know if you can apply ED, and what caveats there are. 

Special programs do tend to follow similar structures within a university, but vary widely between schools. All of the special programs at UPenn, for example, can be applied to ED to the program alone, or ED to the program and to a single degree within Penn. Other schools have you solely apply ED to the program in question, while certain programs don’t allow for ED applications at all, either because of the structure of the program, or because the college in question does not participate in ED admissions.

In general, if one of these programs is a clear top choice for you, and they offer the option to apply ED, then we advise doing it. Applying ED to these programs tends to provide a small boost to your admissions chances; not a guarantee of getting in, but a bit of assistance in a very competitive field. 

For UPenn specifically, whether or not you apply to a single degree program as well when applying ED depends on how much you like UPenn specifically, and how much you’re just interested in a dual degree program. These programs are more competitive than UPenn as a whole, so if attending the school at all is a priority, we advise applying to both ED. 

Applying to Honors Colleges Early Decision

Honors colleges exist at both public and private universities, but are far more common at public ones. While these public colleges sometimes offer Early Decision, most do not, and honors colleges follow the same admissions pathways as the broader schools they are part of. In most cases, therefore, it isn’t possible to apply to honors colleges Early Decision at all. 

While there are some universities with honors colleges that offer an ED path, at these schools you must generally apply to the college as a whole before you gain access to an honors college application. Indeed, this is how applying to honors colleges generally works. For this reason, there is generally no way to apply to an honors college itself ED, and no way to turn down an acceptance if you don’t get in to an honors college. 

There are a number of excellent honors colleges, many of which offer benefits akin to what you find at top universities. We advise, however, not applying to the attached schools ED, even if they do offer it. If an honors college is your top choice, we do advise not applying to other schools ED, as those might draw you away from it. 

Applying to Five-Year Programs Early Decision

There are two common types of five-year programs that our students are interested in applying to: 

• Fifth-year master’s programs: These are programs where you complete both an undergraduate and a master’s degree program at a single university in five years.
• 3+2 Programs: These are programs where you begin a degree at one college and end at another, generally so students can earn an engineering degree in combination with a liberal arts degree while beginning their education at a college which doesn’t offer an engineering option.

For both of these programs, you cannot apply to the full program until you are an enrolled student, and often not until your second year of undergrad. There isn’t a way to apply to these programs ED at all. You can apply to the college which offers the program ED; this improves your chance of getting into that school, but has no impact on whether or not you eventually get into the desired program. 

If a school is your top choice beyond the five year program, then applying ED is often a very good choice. That said, you do need to have a backup plan in case you can’t manage to get into the five-year program; though these are often very good schools which will do a good job setting you up to succeed regardless. 

Final Thoughts

Applying Early Decision is one of the best ways to improve your chances of getting into a top college, but it isn’t a miracle, nor is it the right choice for every student and every situation. We hope that this article has given you insight into some of the nuances that surround ED applications, and whether or not applying ED is the right choice for your collegiate plan.

If you are looking for help understanding some of the nuances and quirks of your own admissions pathway, or advice on crafting your ED application, then łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors are skilled at guiding students through every step of the admissions process, and have the depth of knowledge needed to help you understand what options are best suited to your goals. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more, we’re always happy to hear from you. 

The post Can You Apply to Special Programs at Colleges Early Decision? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post Can You Apply to Special Programs at Colleges Early Decision? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

It is tempting to just delete all of these emails as spam (trust me, I get it, I did plenty of that when I was applying to colleges), but attending these webinars can be quite beneficial, for any number of reasons. They can also be a bit intimidating, especially the first time, but there’s nothing to worry about. In this article, we’re going to break down how webinars work, and exactly how you can use them to your benefit. 

The Structure of a College Webinar

College webinars come in two formats: 

• General: these are an introduction to the college and the admissions process as a whole, with a brief overview of many different topics. The goal fo these si to give students some advice on applying, and highlight features of the college that may appeal to them.
  
• Specific: These webinars cover one or a few topics within the college or admissions; looking at their essays, talking about testing requirements, or highlighting a particular college within a university. They do usually still contain some general application advice, but they are more focused on a single admissions area. 

Admissions offices schedule these regularly through the Spring, Summer, and early Fall; once they actually start reviewing applications they’re far too busy, but until then, Webinars are a common way for them to reach out to students. These grew more popular during the pandemic, but have remained due to the flexibility they offer to both colleges and students.Ěý

These tend to be offered in the evenings, often late by Eastern Time standards, so students on the West coast can tune in as well. They’re usually around an hour in length, the first 45 minutes or so devoted to the actual subject of the presentation, with the remaining time allotted so that students can ask questions.

Admissions officers have a presentation prepared for these, and a list of talking points. These usually aren’t the most exciting presentations, but they do have a lot of useful information, and admissions officers try to keep them fun. The overall structure varies little between colleges, even if the information presented might. 

The Benefits of Attending College Webinars

There are some obvious benefits to these things, but this is still worth going into, so you can weigh what’s on offer, and whether or not this is a good use of an evening or two for you. We’ll go through each potential benefit in turn, so we can discuss it in some detail. 

Learning łÔąĎąŮÍř the Admissions Process

Admissions officers are always going to be more vague in their discussion of the admissions process and how it works than students like, but this is still the best way to hear directly from admissions officers at a school what they’re looking for from applicants, and how they judge applications. 

Now, they won’t tell you everything. These sessions won’t set out a list you can follow by points, “do this and get accepted.” That is, sadly enough, not how admissions works. You can, however, learn what they specifically don’t want or aren’t looking for, and clear up any confusion you do have through the questions section. We’ll return to that later, but the ability to ask questions is the most valuable part of these webinars.

Demonstrating Interest

Many (though not all) colleges factor in demonstrated interest when making admissions decisions. These schools prefer to admit students that they know want to be there. They measure this in various ways, but interacting with the school; visiting campus, signing up for admissions events, opening their emails; is one they use often. Simply going to a webinar won’t get you admitted, but it is a good way to begin indicating your interest to a particular school. 

Learning łÔąĎąŮÍř Colleges

These webinars are going to be a biased source of information; after all, the point is to convince you that you should apply. That said, they are still a convenient way to learn more about colleges you may be considering adding to your list. Attending a webinar is significantly easier than visiting, and more informative than reading a Wikipedia article or browsing a website. It won’t tell you everything, but it will let you know if it’s worth your time to dig deeper. 

How to Make the Most From College Webinars

The benefits of attending are clear, so now the trick is making sure you maximize them. Here are the steps you should follow to find and prepare for these webinars, and how to follow up if need be. 

Find the Right Webinars

There are too many colleges out there for you to attend webinars from all of them, it simply isn’t feasible. We advise attending webinars from two groups of colleges: those you are potentially interested in, and want to learn more about, and those you are definitely interested in, and want to demonstrate that interest to. Make a list of these schools before going looking for webinars; we advise not attending more than eight or so. A few are useful, more become repetitive and annoying. 

Scheduling

You have to register for these webinars in advance so you can get the link to join. Colleges do offer many of these, but they are still limited in when they are offered. Make sure you schedule at times when you are sure to be free, and try not to schedule more than one of these per week. We advise front-loading these for your college application journey, doing most of them in the Spring or Summer before you start the real work of filling out your applications. 

Preparing for a Webinar

In general, you don’t need to do that much prep work for a webinar, unlike a college visit. These are meant mostly as a palace for students to listen. They do offer a chance to ask questions however, and we recommend preparing a list of these ahead of time. Focus on questions you can’t find the answers to online or on a college’s website, things you can only get by asking an admissions officer directly. Some of these may be answered in the presentation itself, while others you can ask at the end. 

You may only be able to ask one or two, but we have seen webinars where very few students showed up, especially for smaller liberal arts colleges. In these cases, you can ask any questions which come to mind. They won’t give you steps to how to get admitted, but they can tell you what kinds of students they’re looking for, and the qualities they like to see. 

After a Webinar

After a webinar, in light of what you’ve heard, you should decide if a particular college and its offerings are a good fit for you and your interests. You may not have fully made up your mind, but if the best a college can offer (which is what they try to present in a webinar) doesn’t sway you, then it may not be the right choice for you. Conversely, if you did like the webinar, then you can try applying what you learned to your application.

These webinars won’t say: “do these activities and get these grades and we’ll admit you.” They will, however, give you clues as to how to approach a school’s essays, let you know what kind of values they look for in students, and offer a base on which you can build your application. As the essays are often the most challenging (and most impactful) part of an application, this can be a significant help to making sure you’re on the right track.

Final Thoughts

Colleges want to make it easy and not terribly stressful for students to apply. They’re not good at managing either of those things, but they do get points for trying. We hope that this article has given you insight into one of the ways they try to reach out to students, and given you actionable tips on how to make the best use of this valuable resource. 

If you’re struggling with your college applications, or want your questions answered, then łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors are experts in the admissions process, and are skilled at helping you understand what colleges are actually looking for from applicants. Schedule a free consultation today to learn how we can make your application journey smoother. We’re always happy to hear from you.

The post How to Benefit From College Admissions Webinars appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post How to Benefit From College Admissions Webinars appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

How College Admissions Chances Work

To help you understand this process, we’re going to explain the various factors which are considered when admissions officers review an application. We’ll go through these in sequence, since what calculating admissions chances really means is trying to divine what admissions officers will think of your application. While there is no way to be certain, we will lead you through our logic.

Your High School Grades

Having high grades does not increase your chances of admission. Having spotty grades, or holes in your transcript, decreases your chances of admission. Now, there are some occasional exceptions to this; recruited athletes sometimes get a pass, and colleges do consider extenuating circumstances which have impacted your academic progress. If your grades are at or above the average for admitted students, then you’re doing okay.

Your Test Scores

While some colleges remain test-optional, many more have returned to requiring test scores. These operate much like grades; for the most part having very high test scores won’t get you into a school, especially for top schools. At best, they can add another point to confirming you are qualified and prepared for the school’s workload. If your test scores are at or above average for a particular school, then they won’t hurt your chances of admission. If a school is test optional, then having low scores also won’t hurt your chances of admission.

Your Extracurriculars

There are no extracurriculars which guarantee you get into a top college. Instead, what we look for is how well your extracurriculars show off your intellectual vitality and dedication to your community, and how well they align with any major you are considering pursuing. What makes activities good is how they contribute to your particular narrative.

This is very subjective, and based in large part on the college you are applying to, and the major within that college. Applying to computer science without any coding experience is much harder than applying to be an archaeology major without dig experience. Colleges do consider extenuating circumstances here as well, such as if you had to care for siblings or work to support your family. 

Your Letters of Recommendation

You won’t be able to read these letters of course, but they should come from teachers who know you well, and who can speak to your aptitude and attitude as a student. If you don’t have any classes where you are performing well and trying your best, that will hurt your letters of recommendation. This is one of the harder aspects of an application to suss out online. In general, great letters of recommendation may move the needle slightly, but bad ones can hurt your application.

Now, teachers won’t write negative letters, but if they are unable to speak highly of you, then it is possible for the letters to be terse, brief, and say much with implication. There is no way to know what these letters say, but you do know how you’ve performed in class, and what there is for your teachers to say about you. 

Demographic Information

Due to the Supreme Court, colleges are not allowed to consider your race or ethnicity in college admissions. That said, other aspects of your demographic information can be considered. One incredibly important consideration is gender. Many top colleges are trying to maintain some semblance of a gender balance, which is difficult, as more women than men are applying, and female applicants have higher average grades and test scores than their male counterparts. Now, these rates can and do change between majors, but female applicants often face a more difficult path to admission than their male peers. 

The other important piece of demographic information is where you’re from. State schools advantage in-state students, international students always face additional challenges, and while you aren’t directly compared to other students, your application is read in the context of your region. Top colleges especially like to brag about having students from every state, so there is going to be more competition if you’re from California or Texas than Delaware or North Dakota. 

Your Essays

These are not always included in online posts asking about chances, and even then are often described in only vague terms. This makes them hard to evaluate; what you write about is far less important and impactful than how your essay is constructed. Essays are also one of the most important factors in the final admissions decision; while they don’t automatically get you in, they are how admissions officers get to know you, and without reading them, it can be quite hard to have a sense of what your chances actually are.

We have several times worked with students with absolutely stellar accomplishments and resumes, but with ill conceived and poorly crafted essays. They will come to us after getting rejected early decision, and we will help them tell their stories in ways that colleges like to hear, fully showing what they are capable of. Their profiles didn’t change a hair, but their chances of actually getting in went up significantly.

Application Hooks 

There are finally some specific situations which can improve your odds of acceptance at given colleges. If you are a legacy student or a recruited athlete, if your parents work for the school, or if you have exceptionally wealthy or famous parents, then you have a much better chance of acceptance than your stats may indicate, and higher stats are far more of a force multiplier. These are very rare, but are incredibly impactful.

Determining Your Own Admissions Chances

Evaluating your admissions chances means reading your application the way admissions officers would, and trying to put yourself in their shoes. This is quite difficult to do, and one of the reasons that most attempts to do this online lead to naught but stressing you out more. If you do want to evaluate your chances, based on the criteria we have set out above, here is our process for doing so.

Go through your application, and compare your stats to a particular school, answering the following questions: 

• Are your grades and test scores within or above the middle quartile for the school?
• Do you have any particular hooks to connect you with the school?
• Which major are you applying to within the school, and how competitive is that major?
• How well do your extracurriculars highlight your interest in and readiness for the particular major you are interested in?
• Are you applying for the school early decision (if they offer it)?
• Do you have financial need, and are you applying for financial aid?

Even when you answer all these questions, you can only dial in on a range of possibilities for admission. There is never a sure thing, unless a school has automatic admissions thresholds, like UT Austin (and even then, there are no guarantees of getting the major you want). We realize this may not be the answer you want, but that’s the unfortunate state of college admissions; nothing is truly certain, and there’s no way to know if a college will admit you besides to apply.

Final Thoughts

The biggest challenge when it comes to determining your chances of admission is that applications do not exist in a vacuum. You are not compared directly to other applicants, but your application is read as part of a larger pool. If there are many applicants to the major you’ve selected, or your particular achievements are equaled by many other applicants, then you may get lost in the sea. Alternatively, some aspect of your application may match something they’re specifically looking for this year. There’s no real way to know.

We do understand the urge to ask what your chances are, the driving intensity and anxiety that students feel as they see acceptance rates drop and they sweat over their essays. We don’t blame you for asking these questions, we just want to caution you on who you trust to answer them accurately. If you want to hear from our experts on what your chances are, or want to maximize the potential impact of your essays, then schedule a free consultation with us today, we’re always happy to hear from you.

The post How to Calculate Your College Admission Chances appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post How to Calculate Your College Admission Chances appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

Australia has many things to recommend it to students from the US, such as a shared language, similar culture, and universities which are well regarded internationally. In this article, we’re going to cover how admissions to Australian universities works as an international student, and whether you should consider applying to one of these schools. This is going to be written from a primarily American perspective, but we will put in helpful notes for international students generally. 

How Australian Universities Work

While universities are more or less the same in purpose the world over, they function in different ways. We aren’t going to cover the totality of Australian universities in this article, but we want to cover enough of the basics for you to understand what you’re getting into. 

First, most of the universities in Australia are public, funded by the government, though they are generally self governing. 37 of the 43 total universities in Australia are public, and all of the highest ranked ones are. Organizationally, these universities are much closer to the British model than the American one. You apply for a specific course of study, admissions requirements are determined by that course of study, and you focus on that specific field for your time at university. 

There are many supports for university education for domestic students; these are not available to international students. International students pay increased fees, and none of the universities in Australia have scholarship programs fro these students. Various stipends and government health insurance for students are also only available for domestic students. 

Australian universities are quite popular with international students, with around a quarter of the entire undergraduate student population being international students. Very few of these students come from the US comparatively, but there are well-established pathways for international students to use when applying. 

How Admissions Works for International Students

For domestic students, admissions is determined by the (ATAR). Students who are not from Australia or New Zealand must instead apply to each university directly, and are given a rank based on their academic accomplishments and preparation. 

Note that students who have completed an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, whether domestic or international, must instead apply to the (ACTAC). This organization translates your IB results into a combined rank, which is used as an equivalency to an ATAR. This doesn’t necessarily make it easier to get admitted as a student who has taken an IB curriculum, but it can be easier to evaluate your chances of admission.

Most universities in Australia have strict ATAR cutoffs for admitting students. These vary by both year and course, but are designed to make sure the process is transparent and that popular courses don’t become overwhelmed with students. This makes it relatively straightforward for domestic students to make their college choices, but means international students are generally flying blind. 

Because international students must apply directly to specific universities, there is going to be a lot of repeated paperwork for you to complete. While universities differ slightly in what they ask for, they generally require the same things. We’ll go through each component of a standard international application here. 

Transcripts

The lays this out well; students must have certain academic qualifications to prove that they are academically qualified to enroll in their university. For US students specifically, they want a high school diploma, and scores from the ACT or SAT (though they also accept scores from AP exams). There is no provision for homeschooled students. 

Note that what scores you are required to have depends on your course of study. Just as with domestic students admitted with an ATAR, some courses of study require higher scores. This is true of every university in Australia. Unlike US universities, you cannot change your course of study; make sure you pick one carefully when you apply, and then make sure your scores qualify you for admission.

English Proficiency Scores

These are required for all students who did not have English as their primary language of instruction during high school. (Note that any documents not in English must also have official English translations made and submitted). Australian colleges accept IELTS, TOEFL, PTE, and Cambrdige generally; but we advise checking specifically what the universities you are applying to ask for. The exact score asked for varies as well (as with US colleges); make sure you pass the benchmarks each school sets. This doesn’t increase odds of admission, but applications will be rejected if you can’t meet this benchmark. 

Passport Scan

You need a full-color scan of your passport. It must expire at least six months after your proposed term of study ends. Note that youth passports in the US expire more rapidly; if you are under eighteen, this may be more difficult. 

Statement of Purpose

There’s no Common App for Australia, no personal statement. Instead, you will generally be asked to complete a statement of purpose. This is a 800-1,000 word essay where you lay out your reasons for choosing this field of study, both in terms of past experiences and for your future career goals. This is something which you must write when applying to graduate programs in the US; not all undergraduate programs in Australia require this, but most of the top ones do. 

This statement should contain the following sections. Each of these should ideally be its own paragraph: 

• Introduction: a brief story about why you’re interested in this field, and a strong direct statement of interest.
• Academic background: lay out what you have done academically related to this field. This may be limited, especially for fields which are not easily explored in high school. Cover coursework, certifications, and research.
• Why Australia: why here, and not elsewhere? This can and should be tied into the next point.
• Why this university: for this, you want to be very specific. Discuss professors you want to work with, or research opportunities which are available at this school.Ěý
• Career goals: explain how this course of study fits into your larger career goals.
• Conclusion: tie everything together, summarizing your intentions, and your enthusiasm for both the course of study and this particular university.

You will need to write one of these for every university you apply to. If you are applying for the same or similar courses, then much of the statement can remain the same between universities, with just edits to the portion on why you want that university in particular. If you are applying to courses which are significantly different, you will need a whole new statement tailored to that course of study.Ěý

While you are not required to have significant engagements with a subject before applying, they will make your statement more impactful, and increase your chances of admission. As with US universities, your chances of acceptance are highest when you can clearly demonstrate your interest in and prior involvement with a particular field. 

Letters of Recommendation

You will generally need one to two letters of recommendation. These should come from teachers who know you well, and who are able to speak to your work and academic potential. If you are also applying to universities in the US, the letters will have the same format, and you may have the same teachers write and submit them. For explicit guidance on getting great letters of recommendation, see our article here. 

Portfolio

If you are applying for a course of study in the arts or architecture, then you will need to submit a portfolio. Applicants to other courses are not permitted to submit one. Research portfolios, which exist for some US colleges, are not a thing; if you have undertaken research related to your intended course of study, you should discuss it in your statement of purpose.

The Application Timeline for Australian Universities

Applications for Australian universities generally open two full years before the deadline. We, and others in the field, recommend submitting your applications six to nine months before they are due. Note that Australia, being in the southern hemisphere, has seasons reversed from those of us in northern latitudes. Their first semester begins in February, their second begins in August.

You may apply for either semester; beginning in August is perhaps simpler for students from the US, as it aligns more closely with how school years are arranged in the US system. Most universities in Australia accept applications year-round; the specific deadlines vary by university and the course you are applying to. 

Once you submit your application, you will generally hear back in four to six weeks (though response times vary). If you are admitted, then you must begin your visa application immediately, and also arrange your Overseas Health Coverage; health insurance for your time in Australia. In some cases, your university will bundle the fees for this with your tuition.

Your visa application will require a separate statement of purpose, describing why you want an Australian visa. We advise speaking with an immigration attorney about the visa process if you have concerns; we are not lawyers, and cannot give you any legal advice. 

Should You Apply to an Australian University?

This is an important question to ask, given the many steps required to apply to one. Australian universities have many things to recommend them, but have downsides as well depending on your interests; we’ll run through these in order, so you can properly judge whether or not what they offer appeals to you. 

A Focused Course of Study

Much like universities in the UK, at an Australian school, you are there to study one particular subject. Your coursework will all be related to that subject, and you won’t be able to change your area of focus. This is quite different from American colleges, where changing a major may be difficult, but is rarely impossible, and taking courses across a range of disciplines, a broad liberal arts core, is the norm. 

If you are quite certain what you want to study, and would rather leave off some subject altogether, then this kind of focused study may appeal to you a great deal. If you are uncertain of what you wish to pursue, or have an academic background unrelated to your future interests, then Australian universities may be too restrictive for you. 

Costs and Scholarships

Australian universities do cost less than their US counterparts, but offer far less financial aid (to international students at least). International students are self-pay for the most part, bearing the full expenses. If you think you’ll get stuck with the costs regardless, then Australia can be commensurate with what you’d pay for a public university in the US. If you are relying on financial aid, however, then it isn’t an ideal choice. 

A Change of Setting

College is a chance to broaden your horizons, go to new places and experience new heights. Some students experience that across their state, some head to the other side of the country, and others seek to travel further afield. This is neither right nor wrong, but if you are struck by wanderlust, there are few places further afield you can travel than Australia.Ěý

Final Thoughts

There are many many colleges out there; most students in the US stay within the confines of the country when choosing where to apply, but you do not need to do so yourself. We hope this article has helped you understand how this process works for Australian universities, and whether or not one of these universities may be the right fit for your own needs. 

If you are looking for help navigating this somewhat alien admissions process, or advice on crafting your essays, be they the personal statement or Australia’s statement of purpose, then łÔąĎąŮÍř can help. Our mentors are experts of admissions, and can help guide you to the schools which will best fit your unique needs. Schedule a free consultation today to learn more; we’re always happy to hear from you. 

The post How to Apply to Australian Universities appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post How to Apply to Australian Universities appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

That this is happening is unsurprising; the potential uses and upsides of AI have been quite widely extolled (especially by those selling the tools). But are these new counselors to be trusted? How good is their advice, and is it worth paying for? Is this any different than just asking a chatbot yourself? In this article we’re going to examine how these tools work, and how they compare to a traditional human college counselor. 

How AI College Counselors Work

We looked at a number of different companies which are moving to use AI tools. We aren’t going to name any directly here; our goal isn’t to call out or belittle particular companies, but instead look at general trends. These companies on the whole fall into two distinct camps: 

• Established consulting companies which are moving towards a more AI-centric model
• New startups which are planning on centering their counseling model on the use of AI agents from the get-go

In most cases, you will be speaking with a counselor and an AI chatbot alike; the AI will handle the majority of your case, while the counselor will check in from time to time. The split of work taken on by the counselor and AI varies, with some companies leaning in much more to using AI agents for everything.

AI tools are being used in other places as well, and here they can be more insidious. The most alarming are the ones used to help students draft essays, the same way college counselors do. There is and remains a major difference between human writing and that generated through these models, and colleges are increasingly on the lookout for AI-generated text in students’ admissions materials. We aren’t certain how, if at all, these companies plan to address this, as no mention of it is made on their sites.Ěý

The Potential Issues With AI Counselors

We mentioned this briefly, but now we’re going to go over potential issues that come from relying on an AI counselor. These issues stem in large part from how AI works; they are simply inherent to the current state of the technology, and not something which can ever be fully controlled for or ironed out. Others are structural issues; we’ll go through each in sequence, and explain how each one can hurt your chances of college acceptance. 

AI Hallucinations in Research and Advice

One of the main purposes of a college counselor is to help you research potential colleges, and give you advice on which are best suited to your needs. We help students compare colleges, give them information about special programs (like UPenn’s Jerome Fisher or Berkeley’s MET), and generally explain the nuances of college admissions. 

Now, an AI can do this as well, to a point. The primary issues are twofold: that AIs are all trained on old data, and that these AI agents inevitably hallucinate. AIs are trained on existing data; that’s how it works. This means, however, that they aren’t able to keep up with recent changes; newly announced programs or ones which are shuttered are completely unknown to them. We have a dedicated researcher to keep our materials up to date, so we can always give our students the most relevant information, but AI tools aren’t able to self-update in the same way. 

In addition to out-of-date information, AIs hallucinate. Even when given careful guidelines and instructions not to, they create information from whole cloth with no relation to reality. Since this is how they generate all of their results, there is no way to avoid this. This can lead to the AI counselor recommending programs which don’t exist, or facets of university life which have never been a thing. Needless to say, if you are relying on expert advice to choose which program and college are the best fit for you, you want that advice to be as accurate as possible. 

AI Essay Advice and Plagiarism

College counselors walk a fine line when helping students with their essays. We are here to advise and support, to counsel, to lead students to interesting thoughts and help them frame their ideas and arguments. We don’t write essays for students; that would be unethical. We help them create the best writing they can. This is the moral thing, but it also produces what colleges are looking for: they want to know who you are, what your dreams and passions are, not those of your counselor. 

While we know you would never intentionally cheat on your college essays, AI tools make it very easy to do so, no matter how many guidelines are in place. The temptation is there, driven by doubt in your own writing, stress from the application process, or the mountain of other work you have to do. A good counselor helps you manage this, making the application process something you can handle; an AI agent doesn’t have this deft touch, and can easily lead to an essay that doesn’t come from you. 

AI Detector Tools

This is the other side of the previous point: colleges are increasingly wary of students using AI in their applications and essays, and are turning to detector tools to ferret this out. These tools are not perfect, but they are quite good. Many of them will, however, ping on essays that use AI in any way, from full writing to simply rewording what you wrote. This isn’t always a direct rejection from colleges, but with how important essays are in admissions (especially to top schools) it can seriously hurt your chances.

With this in mind, the issue with an AI tool assisting in your essay drafting becomes all the more apparent. Even if you just have the AI tool clean up the grammar and phrasing (something we always do with our students), it still puts its distinctive spin on it, something which is increasingly a turn-off for admissions officers. While trying to help, this could instead greatly injure your chances of admission.

Context Windows and Personalized Advice

AI agents do not have memories the way people do. They can remember specific pieces of data, but only so much (and the more they remember the more it costs). This means, inevitably, that all conversations and advice end up being somewhat generic. Now, there’s nothing wrong with generic advice; this blog is full of that, and we think it’s quite useful (and have been told as much from those who’ve found it). But there’s a difference between getting generic advice from a blog and being given generic advice from a counselor you’re supposedly working with. 

One of the major benefits of working one-on-one with the counselor is how personalized the advice you get is to you and your situation. We can factor in concerns about financial aid, or location, or simple dislike of a state. We can remember comments from a brainstorming session months later when we need a topic for another supplemental. AI can do parts of it, but its adaptability and memory will always be more limited than that of a person, and it will never fully measure up. 

Directly Comparing Human and AI Counselors

While we’ve discussed some of the potential downsides AI counselors can have compared to humans, we think it would be helpful to lay it all out visually as well. Here are different factors which can influence your college application experience, and how each kind of counselor impacts them: 

What Kind of Counselor is Right for You?

The college admissions process is hard, stressful, and one of the most important things for shaping your future. It’s no wonder so many students look to third party counselors to help them with it, or that new startups in the AI sector have seen the possibility of value in this field. The task that falls to you, now, is choosing the right counselor to meet your needs. 

We’ll admit right now we’re biased in this advice, but based on the rest of the article, we think our doubts about AI counselors are well-founded. This isn’t to say that all human counselors are a good fit for you, or even necessarily good at their jobs, but that AI-based counselors have significant structural issues that simply do not (or should not) occur if you work with a human. 

AI is a remarkable tool, and while it does have some uses for counselors (we use it to create transcripts of our Zoom meetings, for instance), not every tool is right for every task. You may get some mileage out of using an AI tool, even a dedicated AI college counselor, but it is likely to give you advice or guidance which is worse than what you would get from a human counselor. 

When reviewing potential counselors, look for ones who are able to build upon your strengths, and who can mesh with your needs and personality. Be wary of those who promise the moon; there’s nothing certain in college admissions. The best counselors tell you your odds realistically, and then give you the best possible chance to achieve your goals. You may have to meet with several to find a good fit; that’s normal. Finding the right counselor for your needs is probably the best single way to increase your odds of acceptance to a great college.

Final Thoughts

The field of college admissions changes frequently, new trends arising, new rules from various state or federal governments, or new directions colleges want to go. AI has precipitated any number of these changes, and we expect it to do more in the future. We hope that this article has given you the insight you need to understand how AI counselors work, and what they can and cannot do for you. It is in the end your choice which counselor works best for your situation; our goal here is to give you all the information you need to make an informed choice. 

If you have questions about what working with us looks like, or want to see if we’re a good fit for your needs, schedule a free consultation today. We love meeting new students, and helping them find the right plan and college to fit with their aspirations. 

The post The Birth of AI College Counselors: Can You Trust Them? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post The Birth of AI College Counselors: Can You Trust Them? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post Does Your College Application Need Supplemental Letters of Recommendation? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.

The post Does Your College Application Need Supplemental Letters of Recommendation? appeared first on łÔąĎąŮÍř.