Webinar Transcript: How Important is GPA? A Discussion About College Admissions Factors

Anthony Su: Hi everyone – really glad that all of you could make it today. And I'm glad we're continuing  this weekly [webinar series]; we did one last week with Danny. Today we have Dayna joining us – and next week it'll be Kelly. We're doing three in a row for this little chunk of time.

Today we have Dr. Dayna Meyer joining us – to talk a little bit about GPA (and other admissions factors). Dayna, do you mind introducing yourself?

Dayna Meyer: For sure. Hi everyone, thanks for joining us tonight and taking time out of your busy schedules.

A little bit about me: I've been a consultant now, going on (I can't believe!) 11 years. Started way back in 2012, and I continued being a consultant through my different graduate programs.

I graduated with my PhD from USC right before the pandemic, actually. I studied education and higher education – and really got the lay of the land with admissions: both from behind the scenes, and from students’ perspectives.

I love blending my knowledge with helping students in high school – where I can see the long trajectory of where a student's going. But then from the university side, too. And then even into graduate admissions!

So, yeah, I have a background in education (and anthropology) – and that's a little bit about me. Can't wait to get into what we're going to discuss tonight. I hope you find it very helpful and interesting. 

Anthony Su: And feel free [to] put questions in Q&A [or] chat. We'll probably integrate a little bit [into our] discussion as we go. If you think of anything (or want us to pause or clarify) just let us know. (We'll also [save] time at the end to try to tackle as many questions as we can.)

All right, Dayna – I guess the floor is yours.

Dayna Meyer: Awesome. Yeah, there's a chat; I like conversations. If there are things that emerge in your thinking as we go along, please feel free. We'll have time for a Q&A at the end too.

How important is GPA?

Dayna Meyer: I think we all know that GPA is incredibly important. Our entire educational system is based around grade point average (GPA), and it continues to be important into undergrad – and then graduate school too.

But there are many other factors (in addition to your GPA) that you should consider when you're preparing your entire résumé for your college applications. Definitely important for GPA to be as good as it can be – and we can talk about some strategies if you have a lower GPA. (We can talk about things that you can do to try to boost that.) And all of the other factors involved with how you can showcase your work that you've done in high school – both in and out of the classroom – in the best way possible.

Short answer: [GPA is] very important – but let's get into some other factors that we should consider for college admissions.

Application snapshot

Dayna Meyer: This is helpful because it's an application snapshot. As you can see in the “academic” circle, GPA is number one – because it is the first item that the admission reader will see on your college application: the “first stop,” if you will. But in this bubble you see GPA, course count, honors count, and “trend.”

And if you're wondering what a “UC GPA” is, the UCs recalculate a student's GPA based on 10th and 11th grade grades. Unlike other private schools and other public universities (that consider 9th, 10th, 11th), UCs just do 10th and 11th. So those two years are incredibly impactful for your college admissions, looking at your GPA in that way.

I think we'll get into “trend” a little bit more as we continue. Sometimes they call it “academic rigor.” It's: are you increasingly taking more challenging courses over the course of your high school career? What does that look like? Are they AP classes? Are they honors classes?

Even if they're [not] college prep classes, are you integrating more challenging courses as you go on? There are not usually a lot of AP courses that sophomores can take. But during junior year… This is the time when everybody's choosing what classes they're going to take for next year, no matter what grade you are. This is the time where you want to consider [your] “trend” and academic rigor.

Moving on, let's just do test scores – since it's a shorter bubble. This was made just prior to the College Board getting rid of subject tests. No more subject tests! You have the SAT, ACT, [and] AP exams (which are the advanced placement exams).

The SAT and ACT (as we know) have been somewhat optional over the past few years. I say “somewhat,” because a lot of the admissions data shows that even though it's optional, a lot of students continue to take the exams – and that a lot of the students that were admitted for early action, early decision, and even regular decision at more selective schools all took the exam (and did pretty well). So I say “optional” – but it’s still highly encouraged that you take it.

Anthony and I were chatting (before we started the webinar), and we were talking about how the SAT is going to go digital by spring of 2024. Right now they are piloting the digital SAT internationally, and the digital PSAT will come out during the fall of 2023. (And I'm by no means an expert, yet I'm learning as we all learn about this transition.) It will be going completely digital by the spring of 2024. That will change the experience for a lot of our students. (The ACT will continue to be paper-based, in case that's the factor in your decision on which exam to choose.)

If you have questions around that too, feel free to ask later.

Okay, going into the “extracurricular activities” bubble: think of it as how you spend your time outside of the classroom. Are you doing clubs? Sports? Do you have any unique skills or talents? What kind of leadership positions are you holding? It could even be entrepreneurial activities you're doing on your own. Some of our students start businesses on their own: not necessarily tied to an organization, but more of what we call a “personal project.”

And then you have “educational prep courses” – which are all those pre-collegiate courses you can do in the summer ([or] sometimes even during the school year). A lot of our students will take some of those during the summer.

And then, of course, volunteering.

This is not an exhaustive list, but anything the student is doing outside of taking academic classes. That's also considered [by the admissions readers].

And then this last bubble [“college essays”]. College essays have always been important. During the pandemic, though – with the optional SAT/ACT – because admissions people couldn't use that factor to determine eligibility for admissions, they had to replace how they would evaluate a student's abilities to succeed at their institution.

Hearing different colleagues speak (deans and presidents and [people] like this at universities) the college essay became a little more centralized as something that people were looking at – because it's a way to measure a student's involvement in school, their growth, how they overcome challenges… things like this. Which we'll touch on just a little bit later, too – but it's a primary factor in the application.

I think a lot of people don't realize that most of the time you're preparing for your applications is spent writing. So it’s important that writing is something that the student becomes pretty good at. Otherwise it can be overwhelming with the amount of essays a student needs to write as they go through the application process!

Anything I'm missing, Anthony, on this one? I think that's a pretty solid account.

Anthony Su: Yeah, it's pretty comprehensive. I think this increased “weight” to the essays, in comparison to the test scores that have mostly gone away – not quite completely, of course; for UCs, it is test-free, so they do not want an SAT or an ACT, but we're seeing places like MIT [and] Purdue say, “we will require tests going forward” – still something that is in flux.

A quick question about the education prep courses: they were wondering [about] like Coursera – do you think that would be considered here?

Dayna Meyer: Yeah. Coursera, I love for my freshmen. I would say either 8th grade, freshman… even if your child is not knowing what major they want to do yet, I think Coursera is a great way to get started on being exposed to various different subjects.

For instance, I'm encouraging a lot of students who want to do CS to consider pivoting to data science – where you can still take CS classes. (CS is computer science, if you don't know.) So, “data science”… where do you start with that? The high school curriculum doesn't doesn't really support that.

Coursera is great. First have a student understand what “data science” is to get them interested – that could be YouTube or something. But then to actually take a class (if they don't want to go the community college route, which we'll touch on later), I would say Coursera is great.

[There are] other ways you could do some “ed prep” courses, too. For summer programs, there are so many! Johns Hopkins has some. Stanford, USC, UCLA… There are a lot of summer programs out there that have these. They call them “ed prep” courses. You can get involved and see a different subject. It kind of mocks a college class – not quite, sometimes, but sometimes it really does!

So I would check into a lot of universities – because they usually have a third-party affiliated summer program for high school students, where you can take some classes. I would check that out.

Anthony Su: Definitely Coursera is a good option for a lot of our younger students trying to explore and take a look at different options for interests or majors, or learning a bit more about it. Of course, after you take that initial course, if you want to have a little bit more depth, that's when we're looking at these other programs: summer courses, options like that. Even the local community college courses sometimes have that little bit more depth.

So [don’t] just take Coursera and be done with it – and think that, “Okay, this is a check mark on this extracurricular box,” or something like that!

Dayna Meyer: Yes, I would say Coursera is good for exposure. Not necessarily developing depth, but more of that initial exposure to a subject matter that's incredibly important to see if it's of interest at all!

Anthony Su: The next slide is going to be a little bit of a lot… sorry.

UC application review

Anthony Su: Yes, it's a ton of text. We break it down in the next slide – so don't worry if you can’t read all of it right now.

Dayna Meyer: Yes. I know it's a bit text-heavy, but we wanted to just give you an example.

The UCs are pretty good about being very transparent about how they evaluate a student's application. On their website they actually have these 13 different points laid out – and this is it. This is how the UCs evaluate your child's application.

How we broke it down is we're going to go through it – and each different point we categorize based on the text bubbles: which parts are affiliated with GPA? Which parts for extracurriculars? Which parts for essays? Not necessarily test scores – test scores kind of live on their own – but for [everything else].

And then, how do you make sense of that? We wanted to give you an idea of how you can apply these in different areas of your student’s profile – and how they all work together.

We're going to break it down.

GPA attributes

Dayna Meyer: The first piece is going back to the bubble – that [“academic snapshot”] bubble that we were talking about first. As you can see, there are eight different points [numbers 1-7 and 9] – eight different points out of the 13 original points that have to do with your academics. Again, that reiteration that GPA is important. We can't get around that, of course – but there are a ton of other factors [in addition].

Let's go through some of these – so that you can see that it's not just the GPA. We can get a more holistic picture of what they're talking about when they say “academics.”

The first one is GPA – but it says, “in all completed A-G courses, including additional points for completed UC-certified honors courses.” If you don't know what “A-G” is, it's a list of courses that the UC system has deemed as the preparatory courses to be eligible to be admitted to a UC campus. That's really what it means. If you look up “A-G courses,” it'll pop up. You have everything: math, science, English, all electives. And it will break down how many classes you need in each category to be eligible for UC admissions.

The cool thing about California high schools is that usually it's embedded into the curriculum of the school already. So you don't actually have to do extra work to account for that. But you do want to make sure that you're checking for [ones] like geometry and physics – because there, sometimes, we get into issues, where a student didn't take geometry and skipped [it], but a lot of uh the UCs actually require that – so you just want to glance at it and make sure.

Sometimes we get seniors walking in the door [to] work on applications with us, and we can't really go back when there's an issue like that where a class is missing! They have to end up taking it in the summer before they go off to college. It's an anxious moment that happens when you realize that you don't have a class. I would just check it – and just be aware of it, and communicate (if you can) with the counselor at school, too: just to see that you're on the same page. I just wanted to point that out.

Okay, number two: number of, content of, and performance in academic courses beyond the minimum A-G requirements. This gets into [where] the bubble said “course count” [and] “honors count.” It’s back to the idea of academic rigor that I introduced – where it's accounting for: how many advanced placement courses are you taking? How many honors courses are you taking? It’s looking at: what is the rigor of the academic curriculum that you're setting yourself up for? And how are you doing in those courses?

It's not just [getting] all A's. I've had a student who had all A's but didn't take any honors or advanced placement courses. That would look not ideal – because you're not challenging yourself. That's where that comes into play.

And then for number three: number of and performance in UC-approved honors, advanced placement, International Baccalaureate higher level, and transferable college courses. The “transferable college courses” part is getting back to what Anthony and I were saying about taking community college classes – which you can absolutely do; you just need to make sure that you check with your school counselor about if there needs to be a form filled out. Is it called dual enrollment? Sometimes it's concurrent enrollment. Sometimes the high school doesn't care – and you can just have your daughter or son take courses at the community college. And then what you do (if the high school doesn't care and they don't put the [community college] courses on their transcript) is you just order a separate transcript from that community college – and you send it in when you do college apps.

It's similar to the number two with the content and performance – but this is just: how many did you take, and how many were [AP/honors/IB/college-level]. These two points are getting to academic rigor.

And then for number four, I find that a lot of people don't really know about this until they are a senior. [Number four is called] “Eligibility in the local context” – [you get it if you’re a California resident and] you're in the top 9% of your high school class. And it's amazing. I remember I had this when I was in high school. At that time the UC system wasn't as impacted: the population was just a little bit lower, so they could actually offer [guaranteed admission]. What it means is that if you're in the top 9% of your class, you can potentially get offered admissions to a UC campus automatically. When I was in high school, it was automatic acceptance for UC Santa Barbara.

Today it's a little bit different. If they have the space, you're looking at more like UC Riverside [or] UC Merced, if they have the space. It's really great for being distinguished in that way, but it doesn't necessarily translate to [the guaranteed admission] into a UC campus that most people desire.

And then, even now UC Merced, too, is establishing a med school. That might change how their admissions are impacted. It's not necessarily guaranteed that you get into a UC campus now – which is what it used to mean. Still cool if you get it – it's still awesome to be in the top 9% of your class; you can still mark that on your college application. So it still has value.

And then number five: quality of your senior year program, as measured by the type and number of academic courses in progress or planned.

I think this is incredibly important for the UC application snapshot – especially because (like I said) they don't consider senior year courses when they make their admission decision. When you apply it's by November 30th. You still have your first semester going on until December, when finals happen. So they can't actually assess the first semester of senior year grades when they admit you to their university!

Also, it's conditional admittance – I just want to put that out there. I have a lot of my students go like, “So I can just get bad grades second semester – even first semester?” I'm like, “Not really.” You still need to pass. You still need to do well – and show them that you care about this final year of your education, [and] that you're still going to take your AP exams.

So that's what this is about. This is like, “Did you maintain that academic rigor during senior year – even though you knew that they weren't going to be able to use that GPA from senior year to make the decision for your admissions?” I've had students in the past be perfect students, and then all of a sudden they don't think it matters and get all kinds of grades! That's where that comes from.

And then for number six: quality of your academic performance relative to the educational opportunities available in your high school. I think this is also important to talk about – because your kid’s application is not seen in a vacuum. I don't think a lot of parents know that most of the time the readers have contextual information about the school district: how many AP courses [and] honors courses are available in that district, in your high school. Even demographics. They have a lot of information about the school district when they look at your child's application!

Everything is viewed in context of the surrounding school districts: school districts around the Bay Area, or wherever you are. That's also a factor that they consider. This isn't about the UCs, but a year or two ago I had a student apply for Columbia. He did not get into Columbia. Also, nobody from his senior year class got into Columbia from that school.

That can only be explained by something like this – even though [they are] different university systems. It's the same principle: you're looking in context. Sometimes a region has an overrepresentation – and so they cap how many admits they're gonna have. You can't be sure, but I think that's an important factor that you can't necessarily account for. (For parents choosing their kid’s high school, sometimes [this affects] their strategy around which high school to choose.)

For seven we have “outstanding performance in one or more specific subject areas.” Try to do the best you can in all the classes that you have, but let's say that you have an idea of a major you want to do. (Hopefully by the end of sophomore year you have a direction that you're seeking.) Then you can choose [to make] the classes that echo that major intention stronger. If you are [going to be] a history major, you might not be taking all heavy STEM classes. You might be taking more [classes] like advanced placement English, advanced government and econ, and things like this.

So this [#7] is: are you carving out a path, and taking more intensive classes in the area that's going to be associated with your major? If so, what are they?

That's another way you can show the admission readers that you've really thought about the major direction that you want to go long before you even applied. That's how I interpret that section.

And then for number nine (which is the eighth point): recent marked improvement in academic performance, as demonstrated by academic GPA and the quality of coursework completed or in progress.

If there are any students out there listening that had a rough semester during the pandemic or anything like that, okay – this is where your life is not over if you had a bad semester. I just want to say that because I think that there's too much pressure on our students these days – on your kids – to be perfect. When that's not what humans are, right?

There is an opportunity to show that you can have a more challenging semester, and then come back the next semester (or the next year, if it's a second semester). [You’ll] demonstrate that in the grades: the GPA will mark up, for sure. But also it will be an opportunity. I know this [webinar] is GPA, but I'm going to say that in the essay section you can mark that journey – even if it's [just] a paragraph about what happened during that semester where it was hard: whether it's mental health, whether it's the transition from online going back into in-person, or being in-person [and] having to go online during the pandemic.

It was a struggle for different students in different ways. So if you have a struggling semester – and then you turn it around – they actually care about that. It's proof that it's one of the tenants in the UC application snapshot. So I just want you to know that it's not over if you have one semester [where] you did not do as well as you wanted.

So that's the little look into the “academic” bubble that we were talking about.

Anthony Su: But recognize that these are eligibility items: these 13 points within the UC system. I think for some folks they might be confusing: as like, “I need to be within this top 9%!” That's not [the case]! It's just a way that the UC system is looking at how they can grade a student – not necessarily that you need these certain things, right?

Dayna Meyer: Yes.

Anthony Su: So you can [get into a UC] without being in the top 9% of your class?

Dayna Meyer: Absolutely, yeah!

If you're not in the top 9%, it's not over! That's a specific program that the UC system has had with California resident students for years – and so they put that as a [point]. But it does not mean if you're not in the [top] 9% of your class that you're not getting in! That's not what that one means.

That was a good point of clarification, Anthony. I'm glad you brought that up.

Extracurricular activities

Dayna Meyer: For the “extracurricular” bubble, I was saying anything that's outside of taking academic courses. (It can be summer prep courses – if you think about it like that – because they’re outside of the high school curriculum; I just want to put that out there.)

But, as you see, only three. Not only three points – but significantly fewer than the “academic” bubble. Which I find interesting.

We have number eight here, which is: “Outstanding work in one or more special projects in any academic field of study.” We often talk to our students about being well-rounded, but also having a narrowed focus in a specific direction. Like I was just talking about where you start choosing classes that align toward the major that you're intending to pursue. But this is more like, “Are you doing things outside of the classroom to demonstrate your interest in that field as well – outside of just academics?”

A STEM one would be (for CS students, or even engineering): are you doing robotics? Are you doing research projects? Are you creating apps? It's not exhaustive [this list]; it's just thinking off the top of my head. But some things – outside of just taking coding courses and whatever CS classes your high school has – that demonstrate that you're serious about this field.

And then going into number 10: “Special talents, achievements, and awards in a particular field.” [Such as] communication, athletic endeavors… Basically, it's: “Do you have anything like awards or special certificates (or things like that) that show your skill set?”

I also enjoyed this part here: “written and oral Proficiency in other languages.” I've had a lot of students actually really proficient in French – and they go the distance with that. “Special interests, [such as] intensive study and exploration of other cultures.”

This is just an amalgam of a bunch of different things that you can do that are not just showing the academic trajectory you're going down. They want you to be well-rounded (like I was saying) too. They want a student who can walk into the university and be able to sit down in a class and be able to converse with people from all different racial and ethnic backgrounds – and all different walks of life – and have a dialogue about the same material in a meaningful way: where you're open-minded. You can hold yourself accountable.

The reason they say leadership too is that you can command a room: have a discussion, and be able to take the lead (like if there's a school project or something or work with other people). I think this is super important. It's varied. I don't even think this is totally exhaustive to what the UC is meaning.

I think the last part [sums it up]: “experiences or achievements that demonstrate the student’s promise for contributing to the intellectual vitality of a campus.” Can you walk in and be a meaningful part of the campus dialogue, and part of campus culture? (Essentially.)

Getting involved in volunteering as a freshman is awesome. And then, if you love what you're doing, you continue to build on that – and maybe you can get a leadership position doing something with that volunteer experience.

Think of number 10, too, as “community.” A lot of our students are learning that to have a meaningful impact and a positive impact [in your] community shows up a lot in college essays – shows up a lot in what the universities are seeking out of a student that they admit these days. Especially given the pandemic – when the fragmentation of people getting together in community was at an all-time high. A lot of universities are trying to see how students impact community (and care).

So anything like that – that also allows your child to grow as a leader [and] do something for the community. It doesn't matter what. It could be your local community, could be a school community, an online community… any people that you can impact in a positive way. That's what they're trying to get at here for number 10 – but not necessarily saying in that direct way.

And then number 11: “Completion of special projects undertaken in the context of your high school curriculum or in conjunction with special school events, projects, or programs.” I have had students do Model U.N. Or they do various different school projects.

Or where they're organizing large school events. That looks really great – because it's leadership, but it also allows the student to talk about challenges a lot: because they have to problem-solve and work with different people. I think it really feeds into the next slide – I think we could go on, Anthony, with that.

Essay attributes

Dayna Meyer: [What we were talking about] goes into the “college essay” bubble. As you see, there's a lot of overlap: numbers 10 and 11. We were talking about them for extracurriculars. But the reason we put it down here, too, is because [the essay is] a way a student is going to communicate that they've done all this.

Yes, there's an activity section – and you can upload a résumé (sometimes, on different apps) for what the student has accomplished. But it's really hard to communicate the exploration of other cultures – really hard to capture that on a résumé list! The way that a student can do that is by writing a 350-word essay on how they did that: what did they learn, and how did they grow?

Think of the extracurriculars as not just being good for your child to get involved in the world and develop more as a human – but also, the way that they're going to communicate the meaningfulness of those activities is probably through the essays on the app. One does inform the other. One bubble does intersect with the other bubble. Hence, they're all connected.

The other (unique) one here is number 12: “Academic accomplishments in light of your life experience and special circumstances.” There are a bunch of factors that they have here. Where this will live [on the app] is [this] “additional info” section on the college apps. There's also another small section where you can account for the challenges that a student faces.

I encourage my students to write about this (if they're very passionate) in a primary essay. If they just want to acknowledge something that happened, maybe in the shorter essay that's more geared towards, “How did a student overcome a certain challenge?”

But the most important idea to [take] away from this is that – in those circles that we had at the beginning – everything impacts the other: the essays and the extracurriculars really go hand in hand, in terms of how you can use those together. I hope that makes sense.

Anthony Su: [This is just] a comprehensive overview of the 13 items that the UCs will look at in an application, or will evaluate a student based off of it. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of, “I need to hit one of all 13!” It's just, when an application comes to the admission officer's desk, here are the things they are allowed to evaluate on. Here are the things they are not allowed to evaluate on. (“Whatever is not listed within the 13 [points], I cannot use that as a way to justify if a student is going to come to the school or not.”)

Dayna Meyer: Absolutely.

Also know that the other schools do it too (the schools that are on the Common App, if you're familiar with that: a lot of the private schools and whatnot). It's a similar holistic evaluation process. It's just those schools don't necessarily publish (like the UCs did) all the [points] they're looking at. But it's very similar – very, very similar.

GPA vs. extracurricular activities

College tier	GPA/test scores	Extracurriculars
College tierTier 1	GPA/test scores30%	Extracurriculars70%
College tierTier 2	GPA/test scores40%	Extracurriculars60%
College tierTier 3	GPA/test scores60%	Extracurriculars40%
College tierTier 4	GPA/test scores70%	Extracurriculars30%

Thus…

1. Higher GPA students >> focus on EA’s [extracurricular activities]

2. Lower GPA students >> focus on grades/test scores

3. Extracurricular activities for top students: depth + leadership

Dayna Meyer: This is an interesting slide.

Think of the “college tiers” [in terms of the] top 100 national schools. Tier one is 1-25, 26-50 is tier two, and so on. I wanted to put this [in] here because I'm going on and on about how important academics are and things like that (as we all know)… but very interesting here [is] the relationship between GPA/test scores and extracurriculars based on the tiers of the schools.

Tier one is the most selective schools. I find it fascinating that there's an inverse relationship between the GPA and test scores and [tier of the school]. The percentages are how much weight that the admissions team gives to these different categories. [In tier 1 schools] GPA/test scores are given 30% of weight in consideration – versus extracurriculars: that are given 70% of the weight!

But [in the tier 1 schools] the GPA/test scores are pretty much assumed to be stellar. It's not like you can get a 3.0 and then just focus on extracurriculars – and convince the admissions office that you should be admitted. I'm not saying it's never happened – but I am saying that this 30% [for academics] is given less weight because they already assume that those areas are pretty exceptional. What happens in these situations (like Stanford): they already assume that your GPA and test scores are going to be pretty good. So then they look at your extracurriculars – and they give more weight to that.

As the tiers go on, that relationship inverses: so by the time you're [at national school number] 75 to 100 in tier four, they very much focus on the GPA first and foremost, and then test scores (if it's not optional). Extracurriculars are just a little less weighted.

If you're familiar with the CSU application for the Cal State school system, you do that application and there's really no area for you to write down extracurriculars at all! It's not actually there. It's just very GPA-driven: you're filling out the basic information. If you compared Stanford's app to Cal State L.A. or something, you would see it's just very different in how they evaluate.

That's why I wanted to share this slide. I hope it's interesting too, and that you see this visually.

Anthony Su: Yeah, and to clarify: no school is giving these numbers or anything. This is a rough way to understand how critical extracurriculars are in comparison to GPA, test scores, and other metrics – understanding that CSU LA – if they don't ask for essays, if they don't ask for extracurriculars – very frankly they are not going to [care]; that's not part of their admissions factors. Whereas Stanford asks for four extra essays. They want to have a lot more information to make these decisions – because they have harder decisions to think through: who's going to be at their school?

Dayna Meyer: Yes, exactly.

GPA vs. college essays

The essay is:

·   An opportunity for the admissions committee to learn more about who you are as a human being

·   Highlights an underlying theme or characteristic that ties your application together

Dayna Meyer: We talked a little bit about this, so I won't spend too long here – but the college essays are truly an opportunity for the admissions committee to learn more about who the student is as a human – and their impact on [their] community. That's not highlighted here, but I'll echo it: how has your student been involved in [their] community?

[The essay] is how they get to know you, too: “Are you going to be a valuable part of our campus culture? What are your plans for focusing on this major? How do you want to help people?” Those are all really important questions that can only be answered through the essays.

·       Letters of recommendation 

·       Interviews

·       Demonstrated interest

Dayna Meyer: Additional factors that we don't have much time to get into – but I wanted to note, here, that there are other parts of the application process too. Letters of recommendation are incredibly important for the application process. And you have opportunities to do interviews at certain schools – so you want to make sure, if that's a possibility, you do that (even if it says “optional”).

And then “demonstrated interest” might sound like a concept that's really hard to understand, but it's actually embedded into the name. It's basically: how long have you shown [demonstrated] that you're interested in attending a school? How you do this is you can take tours. You can take virtual tours now (since a lot of people did that for the pandemic). You can have your child talk to current students there. You can sign up for webinars and newsletters and things like that.

So those are more factors.

Tips for boosting GPA

·       Take community college classes 

·       Take courses at A-G approved educational institutions (i.e. UC Scout, BYU Independent

·       Tutors 

·       Study groups 

·       Work with your teacher

Dayna Meyer: I don't know if we'll have much time to get into the case studies [because we need time for] Q&A. But I just want to highlight (I think we mentioned some of these before) if you want to boost your GPA (you're not happy about where it's landing), take community college classes. I would encourage you not to stack up too many – try one and, if you do well, take another one.

Those classes are super important – you get a college grade, and it could follow you even until grad school! If you have a high school that doesn't honor the classes, you [end up with] a transcript from a college that will stay with you forever while you're in the education system! But it's an excellent way – because every community college class is counted like an AP course: so it gets you the extra GPA point.

Additional ways are you can take courses at A-G-approved institutions, like UC Scout and BYU Independent. They're just great ways of taking additional courses that even might not be offered by your high school. They've all been UC-approved – and a lot of the private schools also consider them. I would definitely look into that.

And then get a tutor! I know that seems like a pretty obvious statement, but it's helpful! Form study groups with your friends. (That could help, too, if studying is not exciting.) And go to office hours or work with your teacher if they offer it – because that could actually open the door to better letters of rec in the future: “I see how hard you're trying.” All different ways of boosting GPA.

But I know there are a lot of questions rolling in – so I definitely want to get to this.

Anthony Su: Let me quickly go to the free consultations – because (of course) if you are interested in continuing this discussion, or getting a little bit more [information] with regards to this process, get in contact with us.

If you can put in chat (because we only have a couple minutes left): would you prefer to talk about a couple case studies of students we worked with, or would you rather just take a look at Q&A and spend more time there? (But, again, a free consultation is going to be the best way for us to discuss your individual student.)

Okay, overwhelmingly: case studies!

Dayna Meyer: Yes, case studies!

Case studies

Anthony Su: Okay, we will go back to case studies. We have three. We'll probably just look at two, and then try to do Q&A. Is there any particular one that you wanted to discuss, Dayna?

Dayna Meyer: Do you want to take this one? I'll do the next one: the lower GPA.

Anthony Su: Sounds good.

“D”

• 3.9 unweighted GPA/36 ACT

• Came to ILUMIN with piano and community service + interest in CS, basic programming experience

• Applied/accepted to “sound for virtual reality” at COSMOS 

• Interned for local Chinese School, created program to automatically grade exams

• Joined/led project for Junior Achievement entrepreneurship program (included designing/printing/marketing product)

• Applied/accepted to research internship with Expressive Intelligence Studio @ UC Santa Cruz (SIP)

• Accepted: UC Berkeley, U Michigan, UC Irvine, UCSD, UC Davis. 

• Waitlist: CMU, UCLA, GA Tech

Anthony Su: All of these students are anonymized.

[Here’s] where a student is already doing very well with their GPA/test scores: 36 [ACT] is the highest, pretty much perfect unweighted GPA! Coming in with this interest in computer science, some programming experience.

The thing with computer science is it is one of the most competitive majors at this point. What can we do for this student to make sure that we have that chance to show his or her coding skills as part of the application? Knowing that a student with such great test scores and GPA will probably be looking at a lot of these hard-to-get-into schools (tier one, tier two) where the quote-unquote “weight” is a lot in the extracurriculars.

Thinking about this, the student did a Cosmos program for sound for virtual reality. [They] created a program for their local Chinese school to automatically grade exams (to make it easier for the teachers). [They did] work on a Junior Achievement entrepreneurship program: helping students there working on a small business idea. [They] worked on this research internship as well.

All of these kinds of items [are] key things to help the student show their strengths: what they've been able to do so far, [and] what they might want to do when they come to [college].

The student was accepted into [UC] Berkeley, University of Michigan, [UC] Irvine, [UC]SD, [UC] Davis – [with] a couple of waitlists here as well: CMU, UCLA, Georgia Tech.

Dayna Meyer: Yeah, and I would just like to say, look at, “Intern for local Chinese school and created a program to automatically grade exams.” That's a good example of taking a community of people (a community you're part of, that you care about) and doing something with the skills that you have to make that community better. That's exactly what I'm talking about in terms of: how do you want to impact [your] community? How can you apply those skills?

Especially for CS – because we get too many students who love CS, know the coding languages and all the theoretical concepts and things like that, but then it's like, “Why do you want to impact people in this way?” They can't answer. We have to work on developing that. That's super important right now: to care about community, and how you can apply your skills and interests to whatever community that you care about. So that's super important.

Anthony Su: Absolutely.

“A”

• 3.3 unweighted GPA/1390 SAT

• Came to ILUMIN with a community college course, sports, and tutoring + passion for aerospace engineering/physics

• Applied/accepted to ASDRP

• Major: Aerospace Engineering/Physics 

• Accepted: Texas A&M University, UCSC, UC Merced, UC Riverside

• WL: University of Michigan

Dayna Meyer: And then for this student – for “A” – he came to me during his senior year for application help. By this time we couldn't do any of those GPA-boosting techniques that I was talking about earlier. His unweighted [GPA] was a 3.3. His highest SAT was a 1390.

We actually ended up not really using the SAT, and not reporting it. That's another thing: if the SAT and ACT continue to be optional, you only want to report [it] if the student is at least getting average for what the student body is getting when they enter the university. You don't want to send a lower test score so that it hurts your application; you only want it to help your application. That's the beauty of the optional part right now for most of the schools. Make sure that it's still optional, though – because, like Anthony was saying, MIT and Purdue and places are requiring it again. You want to make sure that that's correct when you make those kinds of decisions.

So he came to me with a community college course. Very involved in sports – but not team captain or anything. Did a little bit of tutoring.

He had this real passion for aerospace engineering and physics – and I'm talking about passion! His STEM grades were not ideal, but he was [having] tutoring in those subjects. I was like, “Are you sure you want to do this? Because your classes are not echoing this.” He's like, “I have to go for this. I don't care what school I get into – in aerospace engineering or physics. This is what I want to do!” These are the kinds of decisions you have to make: does the passion outweigh the school name? Talk to your consultant about that, and things like that.

So he applied to (and was accepted into) a research program called ASDRP. It's become more competitive over the past few years. It's getting a little bit harder to get in. It's a research program – and the students work together on a team of researchers with peers to answer all different kinds of research questions. He was on (I believe) an aerospace engineering one – or the content was about aerospace. And then it was using physics. So it was right up his alley.

That was the main academically-focused extracurricular he had – the one and only, besides the passion. He was accepted into Texas A&M, UC Santa Cruz, [UC] Merced, and [UC] Riverside. (He ended up going to Santa Cruz.) And then he was waitlisted at the University of Michigan. I think this is pretty decent – considering that there was [only] one significant academic extracurricular program that he did as he was applying to schools!

With that GPA and test [scores] you could see it was different. But he still ended up getting to a place he wanted to go – for now, before he goes to grad school. I wanted to share a pretty pristine GPA versus one with some challenges – and then what you can do with that. Hopefully that dichotomy is helpful to see the difference.

Anthony Su: Just as an aside – because I did want to just quickly check – Texas A&M [and] University of Michigan are tier one category for engineering schools.

Dayna Meyer: Yes.

Anthony Su: Since everybody wanted to chat about case studies, let's just do one last case. We'll leave it at that. So very sorry for those that submitted questions today, but I'll put our info email and my own email.

Dayna, do you want to discuss “C” here?

“C”

• 4.0 unweighted GPA/No SAT or ACT

• Came to ILUMIN with myriad STEM activities (robotics-lead of mechanical team), VP and co-founder of pre-med club, designed and organized Covid relief, editor of school newspaper + interest in biomedical/mechanical/chemical engineering

• Had a well rounded EA [extracurricular activity] profile: swim team, pet sitting job, math tutor, German school, plays the accordian 

• Awards: National Merit Scholar Semifinalist; German language fluency award; AP Scholar

• Accepted: Purdue (Honors), UT Austin (Honors), Virginia Tech, Cal Poly, UC’s (Merced, SB, Davis), SCU, USD 

• Deferred: Rice (but wrote a letter and was accepted!) 

Dayna Meyer: I find “C” interesting – because really good GPA, but no SAT or ACT. So that wasn't considered. It was much like “A” in the previous one. “A” had an SAT that we didn't submit; “C” didn't take it. So they couldn't consider it in admissions. If they say that it's optional, they can't actually consider it [or its lack] in terms of eligibility.

[“C”] came ILUMIN [with] lots of STEM activities: robotics lead, VP and co-founder of a pre-med club… (Starting a club is excellent for leadership. Also just getting a leadership position in a club you're already a part of.) Designed and organized COVID relief. Editor of school newspaper (which is super interesting – because you can see that they're going down a STEM path, but then they're the editor of the school newspaper, which gets to that well-roundedness that I was talking about earlier). And then they had an interest in biomed/mechanical/chemical engineering.

Remember about the well-rounded[ness]! If you have a sport, keep doing that – just make sure you make time for the academic programs you need (or extracurriculars you want to do) to get admitted into that major. [“C” had a] really well-rounded extracurricular profile: swim team, pet sitting job, math tutor, German school, plays the accordion. Super well-rounded!

In terms of awards, a National Merit scholar semi-finalist. German language fluency award, AP scholar. If you remember back to the UC application points we went over, it said, “proficiency in a language,” or “demonstration of exploring different cultures.” This is a way! (In addition to [listing] the awards, they're probably going to talk about [it] in essays too.)

And then, as you can see, they were accepted to the honors program at Purdue, the honors program at UT Austin, Virginia Tech, Cal Poly, not as many of the UCs as you would think – but SCU and USD. I'd say pretty good for what they were going for.

And then deferred at Rice, but wrote a letter and they were accepted! Which is something that we didn't even cover – but you can write appeal letters for whatever admission decision you get. Sometimes the decision is reversed! (That's actually a whole different webinar we could [do] about after you apply!)

But I'm hoping that these three different students – with very different interests, different levels of GPA and test [scores], exams, and things like that – at least get you thinking about the possibilities!

Anthony Su: Well, we covered a lot today.

Dayna Meyer: A lot!

Anthony Su: Thank you, folks, for hanging around.

Hopefully we were able to kind of provide a different perspective about the application process. Again, feel free to request a free consultation. I put my email and the link in the chat – so you can definitely reach out to us.

Again, apologies we couldn't get to all the questions today. But we hope that you will reach out to us, or that you can join us next week – and we'll try to cover your questions.

Dayna Meyer: Thanks everyone. Sorry we couldn't answer your questions, but definitely reach out to us!

Anthony Su: Thanks everyone – and Dayna, thanks for your time as well.

Dayna Meyer: Thank you, Anthony.