Webinar Transcript: Crafting a Cohesive College List

This webinar was conducted on March 24, 2021; certain details or statistics may have changed by the time you are reading this transcript. Please request a free consultation if you’d like to get more specific information for your student. 

Anthony Su: Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us this evening. I'll take a bit of time to make sure everyone can join the room, for what is a really exciting topic today: of students thinking about where's their next destination. “What colleges am I thinking about?” I'm glad that we can introduce this topic to a lot of families, and think about, “How do we start thinking about that college list process?”

Of course, we're not going to get it all in one go. We'll talk about making it larger, making it smaller, and other things to consider beyond GPA and test scores. And, of course, feel free to put down some questions in the chat and Q&A in the lower part of this Zoom call. We'll definitely try to get to that Q&A section, so feel free.

There are so many things to cover, but we're going to try to touch base on a little bit of all of them, definitely! We have Katie and Dayna joining us today. I really appreciate them for taking the time out of their day to help us out. Katie, do you want to introduce yourself, and then Dayna?

Katie Young: Sure. Hi everybody. My name is Katie Young. I am the associate consulting director at ILUMIN education. I have been working in education consulting since 2012. I recently got my master's degree in counseling from San Jose State, and before that I went to USC, where I got my bachelor's in English and creative writing.

Dayna Meyer: Hi everyone. My name is Dayna, and thanks for coming out tonight. Like Katie, I've also been doing consulting work since 2012. I recently graduated from USC with my PhD in education – so I looked at admissions and different things like that. And, yeah, thanks for coming out tonight. I’m excited to talk with you.

Anthony Su: Great! And, honestly, I totally forgot both of you are USC. So it’s great that we have two representatives from that school here today.

But let's go ahead and start this process off, and think about, with this college list process, when should we start thinking about this? Assuming that you guys are juniors in the room, going through this, right? “When should I start thinking about building my list?”

Dayna Meyer: Yes. Let me let me tackle that first. Different schools have different suggestions for this topic. Sometimes you might have a senior year meeting where your college counselor comes in and gives you a bunch of information. For me, it was junior year in my AP English class. So, depending on the school district, it's a little different. Sometimes Naviance will send out task reminders, and you might find out like that, with their own system for when you should start thinking about when to build your college list.

We typically suggest that you start thinking about this late in the spring of your junior year. That being said, it is the most intense time of the year as well – because you have finals, you have AP exams, and you might be preparing for the SAT or ACT. So there's a lot that's happening. But that's typically a really good time to start researching the colleges you want to go to, and demonstrating interest to schools that you have been interested in for many years, perhaps.

You have a good idea of a couple of things, like what courses you're taking next year, and what your final grades and GPA might be going into admission season – especially if you're doing early admission, where you have October or November deadlines. So that would be the perfect time to start. We always suggest to our students that you start in the spring of junior year.

But I’ve had students who start researching in their freshman or sophomore years. They just keep a document, and then slowly you start immersing themselves more in a certain university or college, just to get to know it over time. Honestly, you can't ever start too early to just start thinking about schools. Or taking virtual tours, now that the pandemic's happening, if you can't get there you can just go online and take virtual tours, or things like that.

But the critical part of the summer for rising seniors – between junior and senior years – is to work on your college essays, because that's the perfect time to do the bulk of the writing. And, basically, you're making decisions about what schools you want to apply to in order to start working on those essays. So they all go hand in hand with one another.

Anthony Su: Yeah, so sorry, bad news, juniors! We're adding one more thing to your plate. In addition to testing and APs, also starting to more seriously think about that college list. Definitely, again, I encourage 9th graders and 10th graders to do those online tours and things; they’re great. Maybe have a list just to think about. But, of course, right around junior year is the time to start thinking about, seriously, “Okay, where could I imagine myself attending school for the next four years?”

And I think the next most important question that’s on students’ minds is, “How many schools do I apply for? How many do I need?” What's the right number here? Katie, do you want to tackle that?

Katie Young: Sure. So there are a lot of factors to consider. And, again, as Dayna mentioned on when to start building your college list, different high schools will have different suggestions and procedures for you. So make sure to check with your individual high school’s counseling office. It might be different from school to school.

The concern with choosing how many colleges is that sometimes high schools will limit how many letters of rec you're allowed to request from your teachers and from your counselor. And there are individual teachers who will make that rule. So, like, the English teacher says, “I'm only writing five letters for you, and that's it, so choose your five schools and we're done.” So it's important to nail down that limit from your school and from your teachers as early as possible.

As Dayna mentioned, and as Anthony mentioned, everything's tied up together. Letters of rec are tied in here. Essays are tied in here. The college list is the first step to know how many letters you need and what essays you need to write, so that's why we're pushing you to consider it now.

So what we would say is to check in with your school, figure out the limits, and then consider, alongside your family, the cost of college applications. That's the next step. Each one of these – and this is going to be depressing – but each school you apply to is going to be between 50 and 90 dollars just to submit the application, with no guarantee whether it's going to go anywhere. And then, on top of that, for some schools you're going to need to send transcripts and test scores, and each of those things has a cost.

So talk to your family about what's feasible for you in terms of a budget. Let's say you do 10 schools at 50 bucks. You guys can do math. That's a lot! Fee waivers are available, so if there are any of you in here who are low-income students, or who get reduced price lunches at school, you'll probably qualify for a fee waiver. So you can look into that as well with your school counselor.

And then there are other factors to consider on top of that. I'm going to let Dayna talk about a couple more.

Dayna Meyer: Yeah, so think about this. You go into senior year, you're probably taking rigorous courses already. So you would hardly ever want to go into senior year not having written anything for college, because you'd be doing yourself a disservice. Every college can have upwards of 3,000 words that you have to write for one application. So you want to be strategic about how you plan out your writing schedule: brainstorming, writing, having multiple edits, and then finalizing.

A lot of these early deadlines are around the holidays. Like I said earlier, October or November for early decision and early action, and then regular deadlines can be November, December, or January. But you don't want to be doing your entire first semester of senior year while you're writing! So it's important to do things like consider colleges that share platforms – like the UC system; it's one app for all the schools. Actually, there are only four questions for the UC app, with 350 words each – which is a completely different process than the common application, which has an extensive writing portion and then supplementary essays for every private school.

So good advice? Start preparing your writing schedule early. Use that summer! I cannot stress that enough. It’s the perfect time to do the bulk of the writing. I’ll say that over and over again tonight.

And we also suggest that you apply to a total of twelve to fifteen schools. We don't usually encourage fewer than ten, and we definitely don't encourage more than twenty – just for your own sanity to be honest! With more than twenty, time management… I’m not saying it's impossible, it's just what we've seen.

What we suggest, typically, is twelve to fifteen. Ten or more allows you to have that flexibility in your decision-making. You want multiple options. You want to weigh the pros and cons of each university in college that you get admitted to. And then, of course, there are going to be some colleges you don't get into, and you want to be able to not feel like everything was riding on that one college. So you want a well-rounded list that goes over reach, target, safety, or however it's delineated. It's just smarter to have a breadth of different colleges at every level that you're applying to, so you have more choices.

And if you're applying to all the UC campuses, that means that you only need to select six more colleges to round out your list. You have to think of different platforms that cover multiple schools like that. You're spending one app’s worth of time on the UCs. And then you have the Common App. If you think about it, then and there it could be a lot of schools: eight to ten already, just doing a few different apps. If you do it wisely, then you can really make it work for yourself.

Anthony Su: Yeah, and it comes to thinking about this strategically, right? Understanding that twelve to fifteen is that sweet spot. If you're applying to all the UCs, you've already got nine on the list. So then it's about just those few more – between three to six more schools to consider. Again, being strategic, thinking about planning ahead with those essays, and making sure your list has a good mix of reach, target, and safety schools.

Which comes to our next topic: “How do I know what's a reach, target, or safety school for myself? How do I evaluate schools beyond just understanding that this school is more competitive than this school? How do I understand my shot of getting in?”

Katie Young: I'll take that one. So when we're looking at schools – and again, I'm sorry I keep doing this, but I think it's important because I know we have people from different schools across the Bay Area – some schools will have different language on calling colleges “reach,” “target,” or “safety.” Some schools will call them “dreams,” “likely,” and, I don't know, “cool ones”! They'll call it something different so our terminology is “reach,” “target,” and “safety” here at ILUMIN. Forgive me if that's not the terminology that you're used to hearing.

So I know we keep talking about reach, target, and safety, but there is one tier higher, which I would discourage you from doing too many of – and that's a “dream school.” That's a school that you're not likely to get into, but you're just in love with, and you would hate yourself for not taking the chance to just try it. I know, for a lot of my students, that's Berkeley or Stanford. They're pretty sure they're not going to get in, but they know, in twenty years, they'll look back and be like, “Oh, if I had just applied to blah blah blah!” That's your dream school – the school that you would just die to get into regardless.

So, generally, the way to gauge whether it's a “dream school” is it usually has between a 0% and 15% – obviously not zero – between like a 4% and 15% acceptance rate. These are like the Ivy League schools, or the top ten, top fifteen colleges. Your grades or scores will be well below the average if this is a dream school for you. There are some students who will hit the averages: the grades and the scores for a top-tier school or an Ivy league school. But the acceptance rate there is still very low. So it's really hard to call it anything other than a “dream school.” Maybe a “reach school” if you're the inventor of something incredible!

A “reach school” would be the next level down. We're looking at between a 15% and 30% acceptance rate for a reach school. You can find this information on acceptance rates, average test scores, and average GPAs easily, just through Google. There are a lot of blogs that keep a record. I don't want to name-drop them, because they're other consulting firms, but you'll find a lot of blogs out there that have the average scores and the acceptance rates. And then you can also go directly to the college's websites for additional data.

So a dream school will be less than a 15% acceptance rate, and your scores are way below their averages. A reach school will have below a 30% acceptance rate – between 15% and 30% – and your grades or scores are going to be below the averages, but not significantly. So let's say their average is a 3.5, and you've got like a 3.2 or 3.3. That's reasonable. It's reasonable to reach for that. If you had a 2.8 and it's 3.5, I would say that’s too big of a gap, and you’re probably not going to close it. That would be a dream school for you.

A “target school” is a college you should get into, but we can't guarantee it. It would be between a 30% and 60% acceptance rate. It’s right there down the middle, like a 50-50 shot for you to get in. And there's really not a big reason why you shouldn't. Your grades and scores are right on the margins. But there are little factors that go into admission that we can't really control: a lot of subjectivity, and a lot of competition. That's why we're asking you to choose twelve to fifteen schools – so you have a range of options just in case one doesn't work out.

And then a “safety school” is a school that you will almost definitely get into. It has over a 60% acceptance rate. Your grades and scores are way above the averages there, or pretty significantly above the average. I can drop those percentages and things into the chat just as a reference as we move forward.

And there are some things to consider in addition to grades and scores. Obviously it's not just a numbers game anymore. I know you know people like me, who applied back in the day to college. Really all we had to do was do pretty well in school, and try hard at our applications, and we did pretty okay. Nowadays, that's not going to fly. There are a lot of other factors that go into the consideration. I'm going to let Dayna go into details on a few of those and then I'm going to circle back in.

Dayna Meyer: Yeah, so there are many factors, right? If you find yourself barely on the average just looking at scores – like GPA, test scores, and things like that – then, when you're constructing your list, you might want to consider bumping that school up a tier. What I mean is, like, take a target school that you consider yourself right on par with, average-wise. But an average test and GPA is just meeting the minimum for eligibility for that school. You might want to make that a reach school, just to be safe.

When we construct college lists for students, we don't take many risks. We'd rather it be we play it a little bit safer. So if you're on average, we'll just bump that up either from a safety to a target, or a target to a reach. Dreams, you kind of just know that they’re dreams already.

So that's an important element to keep in mind. You want to know that a target would actually be a target. You don't want to be on that tipping point. So safe practice is just that if you meet the average, just bump that school up from whatever you think the tier would be for you.

Also keep in mind that majors really do impact whether a school will be a reach, target, or safety for you. If you're going into a school with a competitive major, then your chances become lower. So it might become a reach very quickly. Different majors like computer science, engineering, and business – things that we've heard a lot of, and things in STEM right now that are popular.

Certain schools do statistics by major. For instance, Carnegie Mellon University. They have a 7% admit rate for computer science students. That is very competitive – in that “dream” category already. And then 23% for business. Same with Cal Poly. It has a 31% chance for engineering students, and 43% for business. So you really have to, in addition to just the school's average test scores and GPAs, also look at the major. It really does change by institution, by department, and by major. Keep that in mind.

Katie Young: Yeah. So what we're talking about are different factors – just to recap – different factors that will bring your list up or down. We talked about how grades and scores are the first step to ranking your schools from “dream” down to “safety.” Then considering your major, and bumping things up or down depending on the acceptance rate for that major, or the competitive level of that major.

Another factor to consider is: where are you ranked within the context of your own high school? We've talked about this at other webinars, for those of you who know my face and Anthony's very well by now – and probably Dayna's, actually; you've done a lot of these too. We talk a lot about context: eligibility in the local context, and achieving within the context of your high school. When you apply to college, you're evaluated against the other students from your high school, primarily. So where are you in your graduating class? Colleges will use this as a metric.

So if you look at common datasets – this is another thing that you can Google, and I'll write this in the chat – if you Google the name of a school, and you Google “common dataset,” you can find a lot of statistics regarding freshman admission. A lot of colleges will not directly report GPA, but they will report the class rank of students who were admitted to the school. A lot of schools in the Bay Area do not rank externally, so that means you don't know what your rank is, but somewhere in the computer at your school your counselor knows your rank, and that's something that, likely, they will be reporting to colleges – or at least a ballpark of top 10%, top 25%, top 50%. So, if you're in the top 25% of your class, you're in good shape.

For the majority of schools, I would say 100% of their applicants are in the top 50% of their class. Or, sorry, at a competitive school. Let me rewrite, because I said a lot of numbers there! If you're looking at a top 50 college, and you're trying to decide whether you're competitive for it, if you're in the top 10% or 25% of your class, you're in good shape. Because they're going to admit the bulk of their students from that echelon within each high school.

They're going to take the top 10% of students from Leland High School, the top 10% of students from Lee High School, and from Harker. Those are the kids that they want. So the bulk of the students that are accepted are in the top 10% of their class. And then, each tier down, from top 25%, top 50%. So if you're not in the top half of your class, you're probably in trouble when it comes to the top 50 schools. But as long as you're getting a B average, you're in that range, so don't panic.

And just to clarify that with some numbers, I looked up a few up today. 94% of students admitted to Yale were in the top 10% of their class. 88% of students admitted to Carnegie Mellon were in the top 10% of their class. And 64% of students admitted to Boston U were in the top 10% of their class, while 92% of admitted students were in the top 25% of their class. 

So it's important to think that – even if you don't know your rank. Look around and think about your friends. Think about the rigor of your schedule. The grades you've been getting compared to all these other people. And where are they applying, and what are they majoring in? If you're standing out above them for the most part, you're in good shape for these schools.

If you feel like you're lacking on a lot of fronts when it comes to this percentage, maybe your shining factor is not your GPA. Maybe your shining factor is your extracurricular résumé or something else like that, which we're about to talk about.

Dayna Meyer: So, yeah, extracurriculars. If you think about it, the more competitive the school, the more expectations for good academics and test scores there. So what you start doing at that point is you switch your focus to extracurriculars – assuming that everything's good on the academic side of the line. You start looking at your extracurriculars.

That's where you really want to start distinguishing your résumé, because that will stand out on your profile. You're going up against students who have a similar academic background – as difficult as that is. I don't like to just assume, “Oh yeah, my student’s getting a 4.5,” and how easy that is. It's extremely difficult. But it's just the reality of the admissions game – that you have to be academically stellar before you can really focus on extracurriculars.

When you have the grades and scores, colleges start looking at different things on your profile, like your extracurriculars. Which includes what you're doing with your résumé, and your letters of rec. All these types of activities. And when you consider your activities in comparison to your peers, you really have to ask the question, “Is what I'm doing standing out, or does it look pretty similar?” and if you answer the question that it looks pretty similar then you start asking yourself, what can you do to distinguish that?

If you have research, maybe you want to focus on service. And if you have a lot of service, you might want to balance it with research. You have to start looking strategically at all the elements of your profile, and weighing what could be improved upon – and that's a whole subject in and of itself, to be honest! But just keep that in mind if your academics are really good and you're going for those more competitive schools.

But I think Katie's gonna take it over and talk about reach, target, and safety colleges.

Anthony Su: I'm gonna jump in just for a quick recap, because I know there's been a ton of info – and, again, in the Q&A box or chat, feel free to drop questions there. But, again, the main thought is like, “How do I evaluate a school as a reach, target, or safety?” And there are really four items.

The first one Katie put in the chat, so if you guys want to go in there and follow me. Beyond reach, target, and safety, there's also this dream tier, right? The schools that are just fundamentally really hard to get into. So that's the first step. The second step is, of course, to consider the context of your major. And, of course, we also highlight which of the majors are especially competitive – that you should be wary of if you are going in that direction. Three: where are you in your class rank, roughly? Again, this is not a super hard and fast rule, and if you're top 11% or 12%, it’s totally not going to be a big deal. But thinking, of course roughly, are you in that top half? Are you in that top 25%? That's an important context to consider. And then, lastly, is of course the résumé – thinking through what is differentiable about your résumé compared to other students around you?

There are those four major items to consider first. But now let's also talk about the rough distribution of these reach, target, and safety schools. What would be considered a good starting point for students to think about this process when they start to build up that list?

Katie Young: Yeah. So at this point in the process, you have selected some colleges that interest you. You've done your due diligence, and thought about whether they're reaches, targets, or safeties for you. And now you've got about thirty-five colleges, and we're sitting here telling you you need twelve to fifteen. So how do you really balance out this list, and what should it look like when it's done?

Right now, most of my juniors are at the stage where I'm just putting together their college list. I'm asking them to research three colleges a week and just give me some feedback on those colleges. So, at this rate, they'll be through their whole list around June, so that we can make final decisions. If you're not at this point yet – I just want to make sure nobody's panicking here – you should not have made these decisions already. This will be a little bit later.

But when you're refining your list, you want to make sure that you're not cutting off all your safeties or all your reaches. You want to make sure, though, that the majority of your list is in the target range. So that 30% to 60% admit rate, where your scores are right there on the averages, should be the bulk of the colleges you apply to. That ensures the most admits later on.

Another good thing about applying to target schools and safety schools is you're more likely to qualify for merit-based scholarships. These are scholarships based on your grades and scores and performance in high school. So the more target schools you apply to, the more likely you're going to get into them and the more likely money's going to be thrown at you to attend. If you apply to a school that's above your pay grade, they're not going to invite you in with some money – so think about that too if financial aid is a concern for you!

So your list, with the bulk being targets, and the rest being reaches and safeties, should look like a bell curve. I'm not a math person, so I'm sorry if I'm not saying that right, but it should look like that – where most of the schools are in the middle, in the target range, and then there are a few reaches and a few safeties. So let's say that you're applying to 14 colleges total. About 8 of those should be targets, and the rest distributed equally: some safeties, some reaches. And included in the reaches is like one dream school. So you've got, let's say, one dream school, two reach schools, eight target schools, and three safety schools. Maybe move that a little bit around.

We're looking to calibrate your list so that not only do you have adequate numbers of colleges, but at this point you've done all your research and you're happy to attend any of these colleges. What I want myself – this is always my goal, and I think it's a shared goal among the team at ILUMIN – is we want every school you get into to be a school that you're excited to go to. We don't just want you statistically to pick some schools that are safe for you and just apply to those, just in case. We want to pick safety schools where, if that's the only school you get into – knock on all the wood – you're still going to be happy to go there at the end of the day, because it's a school that's a good fit for you.

So can this be flexible? Can you up your ante? Can you apply to more Ivy League schools? Of course you can. But remember what we said about balancing your time. You're not going to be able to do a good job on ten out of ten of the top 10 schools; it's just not going to happen. And not all of those are a good fit for you anyway. So choose one. Maybe choose two.

If you're a really competitive applicant, you can minimize the safeties, and up the reaches. But if you're below the averages on a lot of schools, and you're not feeling super confident about your chances, pad. Pad, pad, pad on the back end, and give yourself a lot of safeties. 

This is especially relevant – I just thought of this – I have some students where there's a discrepancy: where they have one strong area, like let's say their GPA is really high, but they've got no activities, or they've got a really great test score but their GPA is way down here. Then it's really hard to do this predicting. It's really hard to decide whether it's reach, target, or safety for you. So err on the safe side. Give yourself some additional options on the back end. And then really focus on your essays for those tippy-top schools; the essays can push you over the top sometimes. I've seen it happen.

And I hope that answers your questions about how many. Anthony, did I answer the question?

Anthony Su: Yeah, and it is this thought of, “Let's get that bell curve!” Totally fine if you're starting off right now and you've got thirty-five schools that you're really excited about – that's totally fine. But as you continue to research and refine, start to think about which schools are you actually excited to attend – that you think there are a lot of resources on the campus that you could use, whether it's for your major, or clubs that you're interested in joining, or different activities, competitions, or things like that. And then, slowly, try to isolate it down to create that bell curve.

Of course, there are some slight movements that you can make with that bell curve, but, again, it should fundamentally stay a bell curve. You should not have a whole bunch of reaches, and then just a few targets and safeties, or a whole bunch of safeties, and then just a few targets and reaches. Again, continue to aim for that bell curve shape while thinking through this.

And one other thing that we also want to think about is, “How much does my choice of major influence my particular acceptance?” We were talking about the schools that are particularly impacted for things like business, computer science, and engineering, So how can we make an additional adjustment here as part of this?

Dayna Meyer: I'll tackle that. I just want to echo Katie, though, that the essay portion, for dream and reach schools – we’ve all seen how much of a difference that can make in admissions. So I just want to echo that, because I'm talking to all my students about that right now, and it's just a really important process and an important point. Especially with testing being test-optional, the essays become even more critical to the process. So I just wanted to echo that before we turn back to how much does the major impact your chances for acceptance.

Short answer: it really depends on the college. As I was mentioning earlier, public colleges are usually admitting by capacity in a given major, while private colleges have a little bit more flexibility. And that's also just because of resources like the distribution of class sizes. There's just more money in private schools, to be honest with you. Public universities are usually strapped for money. They're great institutions, and there's a lot of research that can happen, but there's just a financial difference that really does change the admissions game.

Some colleges within larger universities have different standards for admission. Take USC, which Katie and I went to. What's required for the College of Letters and Sciences might be different than in engineering. In this past admissions cycle, I believe the College of Letters and Sciences added an additional essay for their admissions cycle, given that the SAT and ACT went test-optional. Versus maybe the business school – they didn't require that. So there are differences. Just make sure to look at your specific major and those requirements, because it might be like there are university requirements, and then there are by department or school or major. Just check that out when you're building your college list.

If you choose more uncommon majors, that can be a strategic way of getting in. There's the age-old question: if you want to get into a competitive major, should you choose a less competitive major and then switch in after? I say that's definitely possible. I always just give my families a word of caution. Let's take Carnegie Mellon again for computer science, because it's a huge one. If a student wants to go into a different major with the hopes of getting admitted and then switching into that major, you're probably going to have a hard time doing that because it's such an impacted major.

Whereas, at a lower-tiered university, it's a lot easier to do that once you get admitted. So you really do have to consider the context when you're making these two strategic admissions choices for major and what you're applying to. Just keep that in mind, because there are ways to be strategic, but then you have to know the context of the university and the program and how competitive those stats are too. So just keep that in mind, because I talk a lot about that with my students as well.

When you do find a college you're interested in, like I said – and I just want to echo it again – read carefully through the major options. You might find something new and unique that you haven't seen at other schools. The UCs actually mark majors as new when they come out with new majors that they haven't been offering, and within different disciplines, like biology and engineering, there are lots of different options like “psychobiology” – which I haven't personally had any students apply to, but basically there are a lot of majors that aren't being considered outside of the standard big ones that we hear about right now – like engineering or biology for the pre-med track. There are ways of doing a pre-med track that go outside of doing biology. You can do psychology. You can do chemistry. There are so many different things. but hopefully that helps your thinking just a little bit.

That's a lot of information though, I realized, so sorry for overloading!

Anthony Su: For sure, but recapping, of course, that major consideration is critical. It is a potential advantage to consider the majors that are typically less popular for schools. But do be wary and make sure that the school – if you do apply into Carnegie Mellon as business, know that you're not going to be able to transfer into computer science, or it's going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult and painstaking to go through that process, if not impossible. So, absolutely, make sure that schools will be open to that if that's part of your strategy of admissions.

And I think, definitely, we can talk a little bit about deadlines and early decision, because I think this is also something on people's minds, like: “How do I use early decision? How do I consider schools here and evaluate what is my top or dream school, or a school that I would want to commit to?”

Katie Young: I can talk about that. And I do see the questions in the chat, and they're all such good questions that I want to save them for the Q&A. We only have one more section before we get to the Q&A, so just hang in there guys. They're really good questions.

One of the questions was about early decision, and when we would recommend it. Most colleges have multiple deadlines to choose from. There's generally an early action or early decision deadline around November 1st, and then a regular decision deadline, and sometimes an early decision too, in January. So let me clarify. With colleges that you apply to on the regular decision pool, there's nothing fancy about that. You just meet the deadline.

If you apply early action, that means you are going to be considered in the first pool of applicants that the college reviews, so you'll turn in your app November 1st and you'll hear your result back in December, sometimes January, before the regular decision applicants turn their applications in. What that means for your admissions chances is not much. It doesn't really change anything for you.

It demonstrates your enthusiasm for the college and it gives you a chance for a second round of review. If you're applying early action and you get deferred – which means moved over to regular decision – they'll read your app again. So it can give you a bit of an advantage. But not significantly. There's no statistical data that shows that applying early action is going to help you get in.

The reason I recommend it to my students is to divide up the workload. You get some things done November 1st, and some things January 1st, so you're not panicking at the end. Also, you can get some results back early, so that you can rest over break knowing, “I got into some schools. I'm happy. I don't have to apply to that last safety that I was keeping on the back burner.” That's early action.

Early decision is a whole different ball game, and I think that's what most people have questions about. Early decision is you are committing to attend the college if you are accepted. Not all colleges have this – but since we've been talking so much about Carnegie Mellon today, let's just keep it going. Carnegie Mellon offers an early decision program. It's due on November 1st. If you apply to the early decision program and you are accepted to Carnegie Mellon, you will attend Carnegie Mellon. You must withdraw your other applications from other schools. You're done.

It's great if that happens. I’m very happy because then I don't have to do the rest of my work – yay! But a lot of students choose early decision because they see the vast difference in acceptance rates. I'll give you an example. I have Cornell right here – 22% acceptance rate for early decision at Cornell, versus 9% at the regular admit rate. That's a huge difference in terms of the admit rate!

But what people are not seeing when they look at those numbers is the level of competition in the early decision pool. The benefit of early decision, on the college's end, is something called yield. They want to make sure they get the best possible applicants to fill all their spaces, and they want to fill those with students who are already committed to attend, because then they don't have to take a risk, like, “Will Jimmy come to the school?” Yeah, he will. He already committed to come to the school. So if we like Jimmy, we're gonna take Jimmy.

So not only are we looking at the cream of the crop who are applying to Cornell, but we're looking at the cream of the cream of the crop for the early decision pool. So if you're not above those numbers – if you're not stellar – it's not going to give you an advantage to apply in the early decision pool. I would recommend you get your senior year first semester in there, maybe improve a little bit, and then apply on the regular decision deadline.

Now some colleges really care about this yield thing. So what they've done is they've included another deadline called the early decision 2 deadline. This is when you apply early decision in November, you get your results back in December, and you don't get in. Then you can apply “early decision” – even though it's not early anymore – in January, and that's you, again, committing to attend the school if you get in. You get your result back early. They're happy because they got the cream of the cream of this crop, and we move on.

I know that's a lot, but, basically, I would consider early decision at your dream school if you know if it's a school that's within your— well, you know what, if it's your dream school, just go for it! If it's a school that's a reach school for you, you can, I guess, take the next step to admission by selecting early decision because – if you're good enough to be just a little bit below their numbers or on their numbers – take the risk. The big consideration to make there is really around financial aid. If you're a student who needs financial aid, you need to make sure that the college that you're applying early decision to covers 100% of your financial need. If not, you might get locked into attending a school that you can't afford – and then you have to go through a big appeal process to back out!

In the early decision pool, you're considering both, “Am I on or above the numbers?” and “Is this a school that I would commit to attend and never see whether or not I got into UC Berkeley?” You'll never know. You have to withdraw. I had to fight with a parent about it this year – but you have to withdraw. You agree to do it. So it's a risk, and it's something you'll look back on and be like, “What if, what if?”

Basically, to summarize, I would suggest that you definitely do some early actions to divide up your workload. And then you consider early decision really carefully, and not just throw it out there because you can.

Anthony Su: Right, yeah, and we'll probably do— Oh, Dayna, go ahead, if you have something else!

Dayna Meyer: I was just going to say, in addition to that, there's “restrictive early action,” which some places like Stanford use. That's where you can only apply to them early. It's not early decision, but it's the only early application you can do if you want to do Stanford early. It's very rare, but just to put that out there in case Stanford was some place you were thinking about.

Anthony Su: Yeah, REA – restrictive early action. I forget which other schools besides Stanford use it, but Stanford's a notable one. REA is this weird edge case where it’s just like one or two schools do that, but it's another thing to consider. Of course, to summarize, you do need to kind of think through that decision. There’s that additional consideration of how you are locked into it if you get in. You do need to consider the financial situation, and things like that.

Early action is kind of like, “Yeah, we can divide up our school work.” You might be able to get that result back early. If you have a school on your list that offers early action, you probably should go ahead and apply with that.

And, wrapping things up for today – and of course we'll be moving to Q&A – we also think about if you're a student – if you are a junior right now thinking through this. Katie, Dayna, how would you recommend paying attention to colleges or researching colleges through this process right now?

Katie Young: Yeah. So we actually have a resource for everyone. I'll link it; Anthony's gonna put it in the chat. But we're sharing it with you, and I think this may help to answer one of the questions in the chat – which I already lost, but the question was, “How can I determine if a school is a good fit?”

A lot of schools seem to be just great, especially according to their websites, their current students, and their alumni. I mean, why would the college say anything bad about itself? So of course they're all gonna big themselves up and act really cool. There are a lot of websites – third-party websites – that you can use to do your research.

One big factor, I'll just say, is it's pretty hard to apply to college as undeclared. Choosing the major is a big factor in researching the college. Knowing that the college has a good program in your major and offers the things that you want to study is really important. So you can look at rankings of colleges. You can also look at rankings of majors at colleges. That first link on there – which is Niche – they have a ranking system by major. There's also, at the bottom, CSRankings and Poets and Quants. Poets and Quants is for undergraduate business. CSRankings is for computer science. So that will help you determine whether it's a fit.

Let's say that you're a business major, but you want to do, specifically, marketing and communications. You would want to look into their employability results from their marketing major. “What are some of the classes I would take as part of their marketing major? Is marketing a really popular major on campus, or is it one of the ones that's underfunded – that's not really getting a lot of attention?” Looking at your major is one really good way to determine fit.

Two of the things on here – CampusReel and Unigo – are straight from the point of view of current and former students of the universities. CampusReel will actually take you around on a day in the life on campus and what it's really like to live there. They'll show you their dorms, the food, and their classes. They'll show you what a day looks like – so you can kind of envision yourself there and decide whether you think you'd fit in with these people. If, like, Sally's making the video, and you think Sally is insufferable, maybe that college is not the right college for you. Maybe it's full of Sallys. So think about the personality of the students, and think about what they're saying about the college.

Unigo will have these reviews, where they're like, “Every class is super competitive! It's so hard to get the classes that I want! Everybody's so focused on studying!” They'll just give you an insight into the culture there.

Aside from rankings by major, Niche will offer rankings based on things like happiest students, best campus parking, and good sports teams. They have all kinds of these lists – so you can take a look where your school stands. If you're super liberal and you're looking at a school that says it's the number two best school for conservatives, you're probably in the wrong spot! So take a look at some of these lists and try to figure out where you stand culturally. Academically, and culturally. Because, at the end of the day, you're not just trying to get into the best ranked school. You're going to live there! Think about it.

There are some more rankings on here, but I think for this year one thing that's probably gonna be really helpful as you visit is that these are virtual campus tours. So for people who are not able to to go to campus, or if colleges are even having campus tours – I'm actually not sure – this is really great because it's actually the exact tour that they would give you if you went to campus. So it helps you get a sense of what they value, and prioritize. If they're showing you all the science buildings and the engineering labs, you know what that school focuses on. If they're talking about their service days and their football games, you know what the school focuses on.

So, when you're evaluating fit, you're not just looking at the school's website. You're looking at third-party opinions, rankings, whatever you can find to compare. And, sorry, just a quick caveat about rankings: if you look at the best business schools on this list and the best business schools on that list, they're going to be completely different. Every list uses different criteria. So try to find the evaluative method: how did they come about these rankings? And find one that you agree with.

U.S. News, for example, is a bit controversial because it relies on alumni giving as a factor. I, as a graduate of USC, loved USC. I wouldn't change it for the world. But I’ve not given that school one dime. They have plenty of dimes! They do not need my money. So the fact that I have not donated is actually bringing down the rank of my school, which I think is silly – so double check all your rankings and evaluations. And I'll stop talking there.

Anthony Su: Of course.

Dayna Meyer: Can I add one thing, Anthony?

Anthony Su: Go ahead.

Dayna Meyer: I know I mentioned it in passing earlier, but doing like these virtual tours online and subscribing to newsletters and things is what's called demonstrating interest. I just said it in passing earlier, but I can't stress it enough. Especially at these private schools, that actually care about something like that. If they are wavering between admitting two students, and they look back at your track record – of you contacting the university, going on tours, signing up for newsletters, and things like that – it could make or break your admissions at these more competitive schools.

So choose an email that you're going to apply to colleges with. Keep that same email – because I've had students change the email last second, and then the schools can't track their demonstrated interest because it's a different email, and they were panicking! So all I'm saying is create a conversation with the university so that they see that you've enjoyed the school for more than just a month before admissions. That they see the history is super important.

Anthony Su: Yeah, demonstrated interest is another consideration. Of course, things like going on colleges’ tours and attending their webinars – just like this one – to get more information about the school and things like that all can be super critical for those schools that consider it. So, definitely.

We'll move on to Q&A, but definitely please take a look at that resource that we had below and in the chat. And, of course, if you are interested in a free consultation to continue this conversation to think about the college list, we could definitely help some students think about what is that next step to consider.

So, yeah, let's start taking a look at the Q&A here. I do want to answer this one right off the bat – my guess is it’s a junior, of course: “Can I still pursue new extracurricular activities right now in my junior year?” Katie, Dayna, do you guys want to comment on that?

Katie Young: You are in a super unique situation, because you have been stuck in your house for a very long time. Colleges know that. Colleges are aware that you might not have been able to get involved to the fullest extent. So I would say yes, it's not too late to start something new, because you haven't had a chance to start it before. Usually I would say it’s maybe too little, too late, going into senior year, but in this particular class I would say go for it. Try to show colleges that, when given the opportunity, you will engage with what's available to you.

And it's okay if you're not like president or whatever by the time you apply. If you stick with it, even past applications, into your second semester… Let's say you get waitlisted for a college. You can update them with all the new things that you've been able to do as part of that club. So if you're gonna join it, don't just sit there! Try to be proactive. Try to take on projects. Get hours. Help the leaders, even if you're not in an official leadership role. I think any activity you can join at this point would still be valuable.

Anthony Su: Another question. I think this parent is referring to how, when you go to Naviance, you can look at GPAs and test scores on a graph, and consider that to take a look at your chances of it being a reach, target, or safety, and things like that. I think this parent is saying that given that most schools are test-optional, or some students don't have an SAT or ACT, how would you go about evaluating that particular process if you only have the GPA to be a guide there.

Dayna Meyer: Yeah, I'll tackle that. So good question. Yeah, with test-optional and testing sites being closed, and a lot of juniors perhaps taking it in the fall of their senior year, what you can do is a couple of things that I've been suggesting to students.

So if your student has taken practice tests, and they are averaging a certain test score, you can use that to gauge what it might be. And, of course, they have the summer to prep, and of course you can get it up for the fall, but just as a good starting point.

Since it is test-optional, you're in this very unique situation, like Katie's saying. You're in a sweet spot where, if the test score is not what you want – if it's not average or above for whatever school you're looking at – you don't have to send the scores, and then it can't negatively impact your chances. So, really, the test score should only help you on your admissions this coming year. After, you know, the policy’s changing. UCs are getting rid of it for sophomores and below. And then we don't know what's happening with private schools.

But think of it like that. Take the average, and build the college list taking into consideration GPA, average, extracurriculars, and all those other factors that we were listing earlier. And then use your educated guess. You can also come to us if you want a little bit more insight on how you're crafting your college list.

And then, with that being said, whatever scores come out in the fall – if that's when your student’s taking it – if it's not average or above, just consider not sending in. That's what I've been doing with my students.

Anthony Su: Got it. And, of course, with that GPA comparison, in general you should use your unweighted GPA as a default. It's no use using a weighted GPA because the schools recalibrate that anyways when they're taking a look in the application process.

I had a question that I think is also that question of local context. This student was saying, “I attend a really small school with just forty students. I know I'm not within the top four or five!” So of course not in that top ten percent. I think she's asking like, “What else do I do to stand out?” But I think there's also a question of, is that ranking going to be so important in such a small school in this context?

Katie Young: That's a good question. I started to chat with this person, but I don't think I answered her question all the way. So colleges will – like I said – they'll evaluate you within the context of your school. But they will also know that you are a student who transferred into this school, so they're not going to hold you to the standard of the other students. This will be especially true at private colleges, where they're going to do a more holistic review of your application and notice these smaller factors and smaller details, versus big schools like the UCs, who are going to read very quickly and might miss a detail like that.

So what you should do is make sure that your counselor makes a note about your status: the fact that you transferred in, and that you might not have a great ranking because of that – because you didn't have access, let's say, to APs or IBs at your previous school. They can do that for you. They can submit that for you. And then you can also explain it in the additional information section of the application. I've had students do this before – just to provide context. They're evaluating you within your context, so they will see that these are factors for you. Don't worry so much about not being in the ranking.

If you feel like you're looking at a school that's above your GPA right now, one thing you can do this summer is take some community college coursework to boost up your GPA at the last minute. A lot of colleges will take that community college transcript plus your high school transcript and do a calculation to come up with an overall GPA. UCs do that. Cal States do that. A lot of private schools do that.

So I would recommend, if you need to stand out more academically, take some classes outside of your school. Then you stand out compared to them, because you have more college coursework! You could also try to do a summer program this summer. It's a bit late at this point to do some of those applications, but if you're able to stand out extracurricularly. then your GPA might not matter so much. And then for testing, as everyone mentioned, we still recommend moving forward with test preparation. Take the test. That's another way you could differentiate yourself – if it's a good score!

Anthony Su: Last two questions! So definitely, if there’s anyone with a few more, feel free to submit those!

A question about submitting test scores, and worrying about, if you have two or three tries at the ACT or the SAT, do you have to submit all of them? For certain schools do you have to do this? And any way to mitigate against that?

Katie Young: I know neither one of us wants to answer this question. I'll start and then, Dayna, you can jump in.

ACT was working on a superscore policy when the pandemic occurred, and so they froze that. So, at this point, ACT is just your best score, whichever it is. For the SAT, some schools will superscore. Some schools will use your single best test date. The instructions say, “Send us all your scores and we will only use the scores that we mentioned – so we'll use your best section scores or we'll use your best single test date.” They're there to give you the benefit of the doubt. They're there to put you in the strongest position possible. They're not going to hold a low section score from your 10th grade, first try against you!

So I would submit all your scores. But you can check school by school on the Collegeboard website – whether they superscore or not. I'll try to find that link right now while Dayna is talking.

Dayna Meyer: Yeah. So the reason that we both were hesitating is because we have this conversation all the time with students and families where there's like a panic that ensues if a score is lower than a student anticipated. You know, we all have our bad days. Especially if it's your first time, and then especially in the pandemic, given that um so many tests were canceled. A lot of my students were doing prep courses in one month and then it was canceled, and then it's like, “Should I prep again for the next one?” So a lot of back and forth, resulting in sometimes the first score isn't the best.

With that being said, there's superscoring. There's policy. I tend to just say, “Send it all.” There's not like this evil intention to take, like Katie was saying, to take your lowest score. And to do the test should help you, right?

So, with that being said, it’s just good practice to trust the process. Trust that they'll see that you improved, and then that in and of itself will be something worth noting as well – especially for private schools.

Winifred, I see your question. I'll just tackle it while Katie's getting the link. So are the SAT and ACT going away for students who are freshmen this year?

For UCs, they are going away. After this next admissions cycle, UCs will not be taking the SAT or ACT. Now, with that being said – before students start celebrating – the private schools have yet to determine their policies. Certain private schools have come out with their policy regarding it, but I don't want to speak to everything yet, since we're in the midst of seeing what policy is going to take place for all private schools. It could still be test-optional. We have yet to see.

So, with that being said, yes, Winifred. Short answer: yes. It’s going away for UCs for sophomores and freshmen – students who are currently sophomores and below. I hope that answered your question.

Anthony Su: Still tentatively. We don't know for private schools. Assume that you still have to do it until they tell you you don't.

Final quick clarification: the difference between deferral and waitlist. I think typically “defer” refers to the idea that your ED [early decision] application is just going to be re-evaluated with regular decision. While with “waitlist” you're just waiting to see, hoping that you get off and get accepted to the school.

Katie Young: Yep. A deferral will move you from an early pool to a regular pool. A waitlist means you're already in the regular pool, and they're just not sure whether they have room for you, so they're going to put you on a waitlist until other students have accepted or declined their offer. If there's space then you can get off the waitlist.

We have a ton of people on the waitlist right now, especially at the UCs. That's very stressful, but usually when there are a lot of waitlist spots, it turns out okay. So don't panic if you get waitlisted. And definitely don't panic if you get a deferral. That means they're interested in you; they're just not sure.

Anthony Su: Awesome. Appreciate everyone for taking the time out of their evening again. And definitely, again, feel free to send us a free consultation request. I've put in the link again.

And Katie, Dayna, again thank you for taking the time to answer some of our questions and thinking through this process. Of course, there always seems to be a trillion different variables going through this, and definitely this will be posted on our website. We'll send that document out with resources for college research for students to take a look at. It was an email as well if you missed it. And we will likely see you again very soon, probably next week, for another webinar.

All right, thank you everyone. See you guys.