The college application process can feel overwhelming, but do you really need a college consultant? Many students and families navigate applications on their own, and with enough time, research, and persistence, you might not need outside help. However, before you make your decision, let’s explore some common reasons why people think they don’t need a consultant—and why they might want to reconsider.
This is a transcript of a webinar from August 2024, a recording of which you can find on our YouTube channel. Thank you again to Samantha Castro-Rico, Ivan Chan, and William Kerr for coming to share their personal thoughts and experiences surrounding their own pathways to med school!
This past summer, The University of Chicago announced their binding Summer Student Early Notification (SSEN) application option: high school seniors students who have previously completed one of UChicago’s summer programs can now apply to the university between September and mid-October—earlier than the ED1 timeline. This development adds to UChicago’s wide range of early application options; the institution already offers ED1, EA, and ED2.
Just to intro our time: I’m going to share some content about college majors. There’s a lot of new and important data to share—some of that is going to be rehashed from the trends webinar, if you were there—so there’s going to be some of that, plus a little bit more specific data to share.
I'm excited to share more about what we're learning about the college admissions landscape, including trends that we're seeing from this past cycle. Actually, I think the greater bracket of time is really from 2020 to now, so I think there's a lot of interesting things to share! Excited to do so.
For many students, college is simply one step in their academic journey towards medical school and a career in healthcare. This is by no means an easy step, of course. The standard route for a doctor-to-be takes approximately eleven years: four years to get a bachelor’s degree, four years in medical school, and at least three years in residency.
Getting a solid job with a high salary soon after graduating from college is, for many students and families, the goal of their degree. Tie this in with the belief that majoring in STEM will guarantee both a high salary and a low unemployment rate, and it’s no wonder that 131,500 undergraduates obtained bachelor’s degrees in biological and biomedical sciences in 2021 (the fifth most popular college major in the United States), and that 126,000 undergraduates did so in engineering (the sixth most popular).
Early Decision 2, or ED2, is a second round of Early Decision that comes with the same binding agreement as ED1—that is, if a college accepts an ED applicant, that applicant is automatically committed to attend—but the same timing as Regular Decision (RD), with a later application deadline of early January.
Ninth graders: congratulations on your first year of high school! There’s a new stage of your academic journey ahead of you. While it may seem far too early, being fresh out of middle school, to be thinking about college, ninth grade is actually the perfect time to start laying the foundation for a rock-solid college application.
I am thrilled to introduce Mr. Giles Eady, the senior associate dean at Emory University (located in the vibrant city of Atlanta, Georgia). Emory is renowned for its commitment to outstanding academics, groundbreaking research, and fostering a community that encourages the pursuit of knowledge and the development of ethical leaders. Giles brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to the admissions process, guiding aspiring students on their journey to joining the Emory family.
Many students, even high school seniors preparing their college applications, don't quite know which major they want to pursue. Maybe there are too many majors that interest them, making it difficult to boil their choices down. Maybe your student wants to pick a major that sets them on a career path, but they haven't committed to their intended career yet!
Now that it's August, summer is drawing to a close, and the brand new school year is slowly approaching. While there's no need for students to stress about their incoming courseload and extracurriculars just yet, there are certainly some simple ways students can prepare themselves for the new year!
The status of affirmative action in college admissions, or admission policies that consider the race of applicants in order to admit more students of underrepresented and historically-discriminated groups into higher education, has been in question for years
Good evening, everyone! We have a very exciting topic today for a lot of our rising seniors (current juniors) – and maybe some younger students to start thinking about – the college list process: what schools they should be looking at when they're thinking about the admissions process.
Students do a lot of self-advocating in their college applications, but colleges also value hearing what others have to say about an applicant. This is where teacher recommendation letters come into play.
Thanks for joining us tonight on another part of our webinar series. We’re talking about early decision early action today – as a lot of our juniors (soon to be rising seniors) are about to be planning their college lists, and thinking about which schools they might want to do an early application for.
Good evening, everyone. Really glad that all of you can make it today. We have a really exciting topic for a lot of our juniors right now – to get ready for the admissions process, and start to think about the timeline: what they should be thinking about, researching schools, essays… We'll go through everything today! College tours – I think that's also something on people's minds: thinking about that for spring break, potentially. We'll talk about all of that today.
Welcome back to our webinar series. It's been a little bit, but I'm glad that we're able to chat again – and hear from all of the folks at home – to give you some thoughts about what's coming up for our younger students: freshmen and sophomores… and a little bit of what's on our minds in regards to how we support younger students. And, hopefully, what should be on students’ and parents’ minds getting ready for this process.
Planning for spring break? Check if college visits are on your itinerary! For all high schoolers, especially 11th graders who arebuilding their college lists and 12th graders who are waiting to hear back from schools before National Decision Day, spring break is the optimal time to visit college campuses.
Last week, we were honored to be able to host Olivia Harris, Assistant Director of Admissions at Northeastern University for a Live Q&A, in which she revealed to us that Northeastern isn’t your typical top-50 college. Olivia’s tagline was simple: “We have a lot of offerings.”
Welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us today. It’s really great to have everyone again. I know it's been a while since we've had a webinar, but we’re really glad that Olivia Harris could join us today from Northeastern University admissions.
I know there have got to be a lot of rising seniors coming in and trying to also learn more about Pomona today. I definitely want to get to all your questions – and get you an idea of the campus.
I really appreciate folks joining us on this Sunday morning. We're covering an important topic for a lot of seniors – and hopefully some curious juniors are here, just to hear a bit about it, maybe get a preview – the UC personal insight questions.
Welcome to the first webinar of our five-part college essay series this summer. Today we're going to be going over some basic and general information about college essays and the application process in general.
It’s the beginning of the new year, which means many seniors have just recently turned in their last few applications and are now eagerly awaiting results. But in the back of their minds they might recall hearing odd results from previous years, such as students getting waitlisted or rejected by their safeties. Is that a sign for bad news to come? Or is there something deeper going on?
It’s mid-March, which means that across the world, students of the incoming Class of 2026 are waiting to hear back from colleges about their Regular Decision responses.
The college application process can feel overwhelming, but do you really need a college consultant? Many students and families navigate applications on their own, and with enough time, research, and persistence, you might not need outside help. However, before you make your decision, let’s explore some common reasons why people think they don’t need a consultant—and why they might want to reconsider.