Step By Step Applications

College Application Instructions

    1. Buy a notebook that you can throw in your backpack with blank pages.  Each school gets two facing pages.  Keep track of the majors and minors you apply for; oftentimes you don't see those details once submitted.  Keep notes on score reports, which essays you sent, any other thoughts on the process.  Write down the admissions email address and portal URL. 
    2. Set up college email.  Your parents/family can help you with “engagement” by opening emails from applied schools quickly and responding on your behalf.
    3. Use the same password for all college portals to avoid lockouts.  You could share this password and login with parents and family friends that may assist.  Some portals require more complicated passwords requiring a sequence to build upon.  Example, college email, scoir, commonapp and portals could be College2029!.  To build this out, you could add an @#$%^ until it meets the requirements.
    4. Download a shared drive app on phone or IPad, for example onedrive, googledocs, etc.  Use a laptop as often as possible for the college process avoiding mistakes on the phone.
    5. Log in to Chrome/icloud/etc. on your phone with this new college email.  Colleges track web traffic from the applicant's email address and general location.
    6. Draft CV/Resume with a date to update awards and jobs as senior year unfolds.
    7. Scoir - download app on phone and iPad.  Pull male/female, race, top 3 states, majors summary, acceptance rate, scattergram rate if provided, av SAT etc.  Note the percentage of students reporting SATs comes from nces.ed.gov.  Put data in a spreadsheet.  Put in College Preferences and let it match you.  Take first three schools that you like, and create your spreadsheet.  Your scattergram acceptance rate is relatively accurate so long as sufficient data has been provided by your school.  You are likely to get accepted over 60%.  You should apply over 30%.  Below 30% is a longshot.  Some high schools use Scoir for letters of recommendation, and some don't use it at all.  https://app.scoir.com/signin
    8. Common App - Common App is also now available as a phone app.  It is a similar portal to Scoir, however Common App limits the schools to 20.  We recommend putting your top 20 schools through Common App, and continue 20 - 50 etc. through Scoir.  https://appsupport.commonapp.org/
    9. College Confidential is a useful website to track school response dates, and read comments from former students.  In the AI world, ChatGPT or the AI of your choice likely has the same, or better, information.
    10. Reddit and Quora  - Throughout the years, we've found Reddit and Quora have good intelligence on social life at school.  In the social media world, successful social interactions first year are indicative of overall success at that school.  The days of teens hanging out in common rooms ordering pizza are over sadly; the teens tend to stay in their rooms and use social media instead.  This is the number one student feedback we receive, semester after semester, irrespective of extroverts, introverts, teams and friends the students enjoyed in high school.  Try and identify the vibe for each school and major.
    11. College Board main site provides access to the SAT and AP exams, and downloads score reports, SAT dates, SAT waitlists, AP exams, and more.  It is the same company that manages the CSS described below, albeit there are different logins.  College Board Students with disabilities is another portal, which the high school also has access to.  Download your accommodations information from College Board.  This will be necessary for the colleges in future.
    12. College Board (trademark) CSS is the financial package that some schools, typically expensive schools, desire.  We recommend uploading CSS documents as available.  This is different from the government financial application called the FAFSA.  https://prod.idp.collegeboard.org/
    13. ACT (trademark) is the alternative to the SAT.  If the student is able to take both the ACT and the SAT, even better.  Some Ivy+ indicate they superscore, however we recommend taking exams multiple times to generate one score report, if time and patience allows.  https://my.act.org/account
    14. Nces.ed.gov/ipeds - important site to pull enrollment trend, tuition, test submission rate, graduation rate, programs and majors, cohort default rate, and more.  This detailed data is critical to understanding the type of student body and the majors that may have open seats.  The government mandated college reports lag by one or two academic calendars.  We can help interpret the data.
    15. Web - school websites need a thorough review.  Review the site, research Reddit, etc.(AI may replace this), and note the data to tailor your college specific essays.
    16. Google Maps - map each school’s location and save it.  Writing college specific essays knowing the geography can inform your story.

Additional geographies include:

    1. UCAS website allows for five UK school applications https://accounts.ucas.com/Account/Login
    2. TCD website is for Trinity College of Dublin, a top tier university attracting Americans.  https://my.tcd.ie/urd/sits.urd/run/siw_lgn for the portal.  To apply, you must start by choosing a major.  You can choose several majors.

 

This information could get you started as a teen, family, and larger support system.