In case you missed the huge announcement from each school, both Florida State and the University of Florida will have an early decision round of admissions this year. This is going to make admissions feel much different for Florida students this year. If one of these schools is very heavily your child’s top choice and they would be happy retracting all other applications to other colleges if they are admitted, they will definitely want to consider applying early decision. Thi

All the Florida public universities have now released the admitted student profile for the incoming class. All of these schools perform a holistic review, so it certainly doesn’t mean that if students have these stats, they will be admitted; likewise, it doesn’t mean that a student needs to meet every single one of these metrics to be admitted. I love the State University System Admission Matrix photo that has a LOT of data on it. I advise families to look at the S (summer ad

Two weeks ago, two very popular schools, UGA and Tulane, both decided to drop their supplemental essay prompts for next year. If you read last week’s post, you will probably have a pretty good idea of what implications this will have. Significantly more students will apply because it is easier to do so. This is going to bring application numbers up, which will in turn drive the admit rate down and make the schools look like they are all of a sudden even more selective. When U

I find the top picture fascinating. It’s rare that people actually sit down and do the math on the number of high schools in the country and the resulting number of valedictorians and salutatorians. The graphic so clearly shows that if only the top two students from each high school applied to the eight Ivies, 57,000 of them wouldn’t get in because there just aren’t enough seats! Columbia just announced that they’re intentionally growing in size, so a few more students will b

I was recently talking to my cousin, and she was asking what are some great schools for an A/B student. There is SO much talk about schools that are high in the rankings, and most people overlook tons of great options that end up being an amazing academic, social, and financial fit for their student. During junior year and the summer after that, it’s so important to sit down and really think about what your teen is looking for in a school. I have written quite a few posts abo

Happy Thursday Thoughts! When I was recently in Pennsylvania for college tours, there were a few schools I was looking very forward to seeing. Honestly, of the ten schools, I was pretty excited to tour nine of them! For a few of the schools, the weather was miserable - not only cold but also dreary and rainy/windy. It’s so hard for students when they are going on a tour to try to see beyond what the campus happens to look like on that day. Similarly, it’s important to not let

Seniors have one more week to decide where they will attend college. Hopefully, they have built balanced lists and have many great acceptances to decide between. I so often hear, “I will go to the best school I get into.” What makes a school “the best?” It’s not necessarily the school with the lowest admit rate or most prestigious name. I love how Jeff Selingo discussed high school by saying it “shouldn’t feel like a four-year performance review for college. It should be a ti

At the exact moment that I posted this, all the Ivy League schools released their admissions decisions. Many “Ivy Plus” schools will also be releasing decisions within this week. There is a lot to consider about applying to the Ivies. For starters, they only offer binding Early Decision (with no scholarship money given) or Regular Decision. The admit rate for these schools is around 5%, and everyone applying (for the most part) all has the same straight A record, test scores

This is the time of year when students are choosing their classes for next year. If you have been reading my posts for more than a year, you will probably remember the main point about senior year. It is so very different from when we were all in high school! These days, students are definitely expected to keep their foot on the gas throughout senior year. You can take a look at the attached pictures from FSU and UGA in terms of number of classes taken in each subject area on

Most of my posts now will be shifting to juniors and younger since seniors are just waiting on final acceptances and making their decision at this point. Take a look at the picture attached here that one of my tutoring students sent me. Parents, senior year “these days” is nothing like it was back in “our day!” Students still must keep taking rigorous courses, doing well in those courses, and they should take English, math, science, and social studies for at least four full y

Not only is it challenging enough to create a balanced list of schools that you like and earn high enough test scores for schools that require them, but now you also need to come up with an admissions plan. Early decision, early action, regular decision, restrictive early action, single choice early action, oh my! The main decision to be made is to apply early decision to your one top school or not. Early decision typically boosts your chances of getting in. The graphics belo

I alluded to other big rah rah football schools that are test optional last week. Many of my test prep students want to stay in the state of Florida due to the Bright Futures scholarship program. Many of them want to go to UF, FSU, or UCF (in no particular order) largely due to the football scene, Greek life, and all around big, public university vibe. For many of them, earning a 1250 or 1300 (or higher) on the SAT is very difficult. It is worth considering out of state schoo

Every admissions cycle is unique, and the admissions landscape is constantly changing. Those who have followed this page for a while have read posts about test optional policies. Also, I’m assuming that most of you reading this are aware that quite a few uber selective schools are under fire from the government. These two factors are going to make for an extra interesting admissions cycle. Judi Robinovitz of Score at the Top recently hosted a webinar about recent trends in ad

Most seniors just made it over their first big application hurdle! The first main due date is October 15. Some popular schools among my students with early action deadlines of yesterday include FSU, UCF, FAU, UGA, Georgia Tech, Clemson, and the University of Carolina. Auburn actually accepted their first round of applications on September 15. Other popular schools with the October 15 deadline include the University of Texas Austin and UNC Chapel Hill. Quite a few of these uni

To continue last week’s chat about the FAFSA, many families ask about looking for outside scholarships. This is a tricky one. If your child has earned any scholarship from a community organization (for example), you must report this to the school. What typically happens is the following: say your child earned a $1000 per year scholarship. Now let’s say that the school was going to offer your child $15,000 per year in grant money (need-based aid). What typically happens is the

The FAFSA officially opened last week, one week ahead of schedule. FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It is a form that takes less than an hour to complete and must be completed for any student who would like to be considered for financial aid from the federal government, state government, and/or from colleges themselves (even if it won’t be need-based - this is free money). If you don’t fill out the FAFSA when your child is going to be a freshman, you

I was listening to a podcast recently that was about how students can show their intellectual curiosity in their application. It was a College Essay Guy podcast, and he was interviewing an admissions dean from Colorado College. The admissions rep was talking about the values of the school. She mentioned that in about 80% of their courses, there is some aspect of the class about sustainability. It is a main value of the school. She suggested that if students are interested in

For those of you who are readers of my college tour posts on Tuesdays, this is going to sound repetitive. For those who don’t read those posts, there was a common theme that kept presenting itself over and over and over again throughout my recent tours in North Carolina and South Carolina. Students should be engaging with their local admissions representative from the schools they are interested in attending, especially colleges who track demonstrated interest. I have written

I wrote a post similar to this last year, but it is such an important message for parents of high school juniors and younger. I received quite a few messages during the first week of August this year from parents of seniors who wanted to see when I was available for SAT tutoring. Every hour of every day of mine is booked until the test on the 23rd. The most alarming message I received said, “she’s thinking of taking the SAT in October so she has enough time to study.” Seniors

There was one final conversation when I was at Sacred Heart that I think quite a few of you will find interesting. There was a counselor I was talking to who works at a private school in the Dallas area. She used to be a “reader” for Notre Dame. This means that she would help them go through all of the applications and help admit and deny students. She said that there were always so many students who had a letter of acceptance ready to go out, but then they ended up being rej