Three quick questions with Florida Southern College

It’s easy—even for someone like me who looks at colleges a lot—to associate liberal arts colleges with the Northeast. Yes, there are a lot of them in New England, but not all of them. Florida Southern College reminds us that you can get the liberal arts experience in sunny Florida…and still get to throw snowballs and drink hot cocoa.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Alicia Tracey, Admission Counselor at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Florida Southern College?

For traditions, we have “Winter Wonderland”, where we bring the winter to Florida: a sledding hill, hot chocolate, and snowball fights. We also have our “Fairwell Festival”, which is a carnival that we bring to campus at the end of the spring semester. And lastly, we have our “Senior Waterdome Splash” where our senior class has a pool party in our Frank Lloyd Wright inspired fountain and celebrate their time at FSC.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at FSC?

As long as a student is curious about the world around them and has a passion for learning, FSC helps them thrive. There are many opportunities for support and growth for our students, regardless of academic background!

When people come to visit Lakeland, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Definitely check out Palace Pizza! They have the best pizza and pasta around, and it’s right in Downtown Lakeland.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Florida Southern. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

What seniors should be doing this fall

It’s back-to-school season, and for incoming seniors this year is a really big one. Whether you’ve been working on the college application process for two years or are just beginning to think about it, there’s a lot to do in the next few months. Below I outline the major categories for your checklist.

Continue being a good high school student. This is a tough line to walk senior year. On one hand, you really ought to be shifting your focus to next year. You have a lot of big decisions to make, and you need to allocate time and resources to working on strong applications and making informed decisions. Your daily high school homework isn’t quite as compelling as it was a year ago. On the other hand, you also need to be preparing yourself to be a good college student, and the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. As tempting as it is, you can’t just coast through senior year; that never works as well as it seems like it should. So it’s perfectly normal and appropriate for you to be less diligent your senior year than your junior year. The important thing is to ask yourself why. If you’re spending less time and attention on high school because you’re spending more time on college and leadership opportunities, that’s fine. If you’re spending less time and attention on high school because you can see the finish line and you just want to have an easy year, you’re selling yourself short, missing opportunities to prepare for the near future, and annoying pretty much every adult around you. Doing well in your classes is actually easier than dealing with those annoyed adults.

This year it may be harder than normal to be a good high school student. While some areas are indeed back to normal, in most of the country there’s still a Covid crisis happening. High schools are having a hard time being good high schools, too. Even if you’re fortunate enough to be back to normal, things haven’t been “normal” for you since 9th grade. A lot has happened, and there are still a lot of changes and uncertainty. Whether you’re fully online, fully back to school in person, or some hybrid, please understand that everyone understands how rough the past few years have been. If your grades have dropped or if you’re having difficulty staying focused because of unexpected circumstances, you will have an opportunity to explain that and be heard. Even in the middle of a pandemic, you should do your best. But colleges aren’t asking you to do more than that. With that in mind, let’s look at what else you can do to prepare for college.

Make sure you’re caught up on what you should have done this summer. Have you already got a solid first draft of a Common Application essay? If not, get on that soon. Have you written and updated your college mission statement? If not, do it immediately. Have you got a preliminary list of 20-25 colleges to take a closer look at? For each of them, have you signed up to be on their mailing list? Looked at their web sites for the admissions department, financial aid office, and departments for your potential major? Found out if and how they conduct interviews? Tried out their net price calculator? If so, that’s wonderful. If not, you still have time—but move quickly!

Take any tests you still need to take. Most students don’t need to take the SAT or ACT. About two thirds of colleges aren’t requiring them. But you may really want to apply to one or more of the other third, so find out if you need to take a test. There are still three SAT tests this fall you can register for. Same for the ACT. Whether or not those tests happen or get cancelled like many before them will depend on the ongoing Delta surge as much as anything else.

You’re going to need some letters of recommendation. You’ll need to decide—soon—who to ask, when to ask them, and how to ask them. Be as polite as possible. This is a personal favor, not part of their job. Don’t do what someone once did to a colleague of mine, cornering her in the bathroom to hand her paperwork. When my colleague asked if they could do this later, in a more appropriate place, the student left…and waited right outside the bathroom door to re-start the conversation. This is not a good plan to get someone to write nice things about you!

Narrow your college list, from 20-25 down to 3-10. Which ones do you keep on your list? Which ones do you let go of? There’s no single process. It helps to research as much as possible. It helps to meet with representatives at a college fair or at your school. An interview is helpful, and a campus visit is really helpful. Make sure you’re keeping the ones that best fit you mission statement.

And also make sure you cover several categories. Traditionally we talk about “safety” and “reach” schools, but let’s think about it a little differently. Everyone’s list should include at least one in-state, public university. If your state’s flagship state university is also very selective (Virginia, Texas, California, Michigan, and a few others), then make sure you include at least one in-state public university that is more achievable. For most people, most of the time, an in-state public school is going to be the most affordable, most attainable, and have the lowest living expenses—especially if you live at home.

You should also apply to several other schools—whether public or private, in state or out—that you feel pretty confident you’ll be accepted to. Maybe not absolutely, perfectly assured, but pretty confident. Your confidence should also include being confident that you’ll be able to afford it, based on the full price or a net price calculator. If you apply to three or four of these, including at least one in-state public, then you should feel ok.

You may also want to apply to some schools that you’re less confident about your acceptance. Apply to as many of these as you want, within reason. The best-case scenario is that you’re accepted to several, and at least one of them offers you a financial aid package that makes it within your range. A seemingly-good scenario is that you get accepted to many of them, and they all offer you good financial aid. But now you’ve got a stressful spring on your hands figuring out which one to pick. Since you can only choose one, too many similar options isn’t always a great thing. A worse scenario is that you don’t get accepted to any of them. That stings, but if you’re accepted to at least one of your confident schools, then you’re going to be ok. The very worst thing is being accepted to many or all of them, but not getting the aid to make any of them affordable.

Remember that some schools (the most prestigious and famous ones) have such low acceptance rates that absolutely no one should feel confident that they’ll be accepted. Even if you have perfect ACT scores and are top of your class, chances are still that you won’t get accepted to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, or the other super-selective colleges. Once a school’s overall acceptance rate drops below 20%, it’s not something anyone should feel at all confident about. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try—thousands of people do get accepted to those schools every year. But nobody can count on it.

If I have a client, no matter how smart and accomplished, with a college list where every school has an acceptance rate below 50%, we have a talk about the risks of their “very aggressive” list (I’ve definitely done this before). If I had a client with a college list that only has schools with acceptance rates below 20%, then I’d tell them to either add some more reasonable schools or consider my money-back guarantee off the table. (Fortunately, I haven’t had to do that yet).

Beginning October 1, you can apply for federal financial aid using FAFSA. Everyone should do this, as soon as possible after October 1. Even if you’re not expecting to be eligible for financial aid, you should still apply as soon as possible. (Why should you apply for financial aid if you’re not expecting to get any? For one, you may be wrong, and it’s worth it to try. Also, some colleges use your ability to pay as a factor in admission. It helps if you provide documentation up front that you have the ability to pay. Plus, some programs will not award you merit scholarships without having a FAFSA.) Some universities, or programs within universities, may also ask you to use the CSS Profile.

Send your applications. Understand that most schools have multiple deadlines. Early Decision. Early Action. Preferred Application. VIP application. Regular decision. Deadline to be considered for scholarships. Each school has its own vocabulary, and each school has its own deadlines. Understand each one for each school you're considering, and understand which ones are relevant to you. There’s no great reason to send a regular application much earlier than the due date. But there’s no good reason to wait until the last minute, either. Plan on hitting the “submit” button three to five days before deadline. Early Decision and Early Action deadlines are typically—though not always—in November. Regular decision applications are typically—though not always—due in early January.

This year is going to be busy and stressful and emotional. And you’re going to be great!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Three pandemic changes I hope will become permanent

   Should you submit your test scores to a test-optional college?

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Not all merit aid is the same

It’s generally understood that there are two types of financial aid: need-based aid and merit aid. Need-based aid is relatively straightforward. Your family submits financial documents (mostly income tax forms) so your Expected Family Contribution, how much you and your family might be expected to pay, can be determined. The difference between the price of a college and your EFC is considered need. Need-based aid, loans that have to be repaid and/or grants that don’t have to be repaid, is awarded to help you cover that need.

Merit aid, on the other hand, isn’t based on financial need. Merit aid—scholarships and grants—is what colleges offer to students trying to entice them to choose their school over other schools. It’s a tool universities use to make sure they get enough students to enroll and to get the student they really want.

(There is a lot of overlap between need-based and merit aid. If a college is really interested in a student, they may find a way to reduce their EFC and therefore get more need-based aid. Also, being able to meet full need and not gap a student on aid is definitely a way to entice students. But let’s ignore the overlap today and focus on pure merit aid.)

What’s less generally understood is that there is a wide variety of merit aid. To get an idea of the spectrum of merit aid, let’s look at two examples from my home in Houston.

When you look at the scholarship page on the University of Houston’s website, you get a lot of information. There are so many different scholarships, both funded by the university and outside sources, that they have a special navigation tool to help you search through all of them. Each scholarship has a name, a description, and instructions for how to apply. You can spend a lot of time looking through the scholarships and see exactly what you may be eligible for. It’s overwhelming at first, but it’s transparent.

Screenshot of the Scholarship Universe page at the University of Houston website.

For comparison, have a look at the Rice University merit scholarships page.

All admitted freshman applicants are automatically considered for merit-based scholarships so that no separate application forms or interviews are necessary. The Office of Admission notifies scholarship winners at the time of admission to the university.

That’s it. There aren’t individual scholarships you can apply for, nor are there descriptions or requirements. It’s the scholarship version of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Screenshot of the Merit Scholarship page at Rice University’s website.

These are two extremes. On one end is U of H, which is basically a list of individual scholarships that require extra applications on your part. On the other end is Rice, where merit aid is not separately applied for, but is just part of your overall application. One is limited, but transparent. One is open-ended, but opaque.

Merit aid at most colleges is somewhere in between. There are named and defined scholarships for which you can apply, but there are also “merit aid” tuition discounts that just…appear. It helps to remember that while need-based aid is all about you and your particular circumstances, merit aid is all about the school and the funds they have to try to entice students to apply and enroll. Some schools have limited funds to hand out merit aid, and some schools have tons.

These two extreme examples remind us of several key ideas when it comes to merit aid:

Not all merit aid is the same. There’s the specified and limited kind like you see on the University of Houston website, and then there’s the mysterious kind you see on the Rice website. When I talk to students, they’re usually thinking of the UH kind. They’re talking about scholarships for which they can apply. When I talk to college admission professionals, they’re usually thinking of the Rice kind. They’re talking about the tuition discounts that are offered out of the blue by algorithmic calculations the college makes to decide how much to offer you to entice you to enroll. When you’re thinking about applying to a college, spend time on their financial aid sites to see where they fall in their approach. You don’t want to miss an opportunity to apply for a scholarship, nor do you want to assume that there’s no merit aid if there is. But you should know what the school offers.

Merit aid is often out of your control. It’s all about them enticing you for their enrollment needs, not necessarily you earning something through a competition. There are all sorts of reasons a university may want to entice you, and you often don’t know what it may be. Maybe the college is trying to improve the stats of their incoming class and therefore their ranking, so they want to lure students with higher test scores and higher GPAs. Maybe they’re trying to improve diversity, so they want to lure students from different parts of the country or with different experiences than those who typically applied in the past. Maybe they’re trying to fill up a new major they offer or revitalize a declining program, so they want to lure bright students with a particular course of study in mind. Maybe they want to lure wealthy students who can pay cash, so they flatter them by giving them a merit-based scholarship and a small discount to get them to come and pay most of the tuition. So think of merit aid as “acceptance plus.” You’ve been accepted to the college, plus they want to give you a discount in order to really lure you in. Some schools give very few applicants this kind of bonus, and some schools give most—or even all—their applicants some kind of bonus.

Generally speaking, expect more transparency from public institutions. It’s not surprising that University of Houston has the navigable list of specific scholarships. Public institutions, which are subsidized by tax dollars and overseen by public boards, tend to have more regulations in place for transparency. Private colleges are more likely to use the un-announced, un-applied-for type of merit aid. To be clear, I’m not saying that public universities are more or less likely to give you merit aid, just more likely to tell you upfront what it might be, and to make you apply for it separately.

Generally speaking, expect less merit aid the more selective an institution is. Remember that merit aid is meant to entice you to apply to their college, and to enroll if accepted. So it makes sense that the lower the acceptance rate of a college, the less merit aid you might expect. They already have enough applications; they don’t need to entice more. That’s how a private university with a low acceptance rate like Rice can be so nonchalant about merit aid. And it’s how the schools with the very lowest acceptance rates, like Harvard and Stanford, don’t give merit aid at all.

With each school you apply to, know what their merit aid landscape looks like and what you need to do. If you’re considering applying to a school, make sure you check out their website to learn more about their merit aid program. Is it more like the one at the University of Houston, or more like the one at Rice University? If you want to know even more details about aid, look up the Common Data Set for the college. Just do a web search for “[name of school] common data set”. Most colleges have this information available, and you can scroll through the spreadsheet to find all kinds of financial information. It takes some searching, but it’s there.

You can’t assume you will get merit aid. Whichever type of merit aid you’re thinking of, there’s no guarantee you’ll get any. If you meet certain qualifications to get automatic merit aid at a particular college (being a National Merit finalist, for example, or having really high standardized test scores), that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get that automatic aid from other schools. Each sets their own policies, and—as we’ve seen—not all of them even tell you what those policies are.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Schools can, and should, teach college affordability

   Three things parents should stop saying to their children

   Don’t pass up a full ride

   Asking for more financial aid

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Three quick questions with Albion College

Albion is a school I’d honestly never heard of. Flipping through my Fiske Guide, I think I assumed it’s an international school. But it’s a small liberal arts college in Michigan, and I’m glad I finally came across it and wish I’d payed more attention sooner. If you’re interested in a liberal arts college that wears its passions and purpose on its sleeve (and on a coin in its pocket), then read more.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Daria Bloomfield, Admission Counselor at Albion College in Albion, Michigan.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Albion College?

Every single first-year student will step into our Goodrich Chapel on move-in day and go through the formal process of becoming an Albion student. During this event, our students are formally welcomed to the Albion community of scholars by the College’s president, faculty, and upperclassmen. Together they will learn the College hymn, walk across the altar to sign the student pledge, and verbally introduce themselves to our community. After this, they receive their Matriculation coin, which they are instructed to carry with them forever. We call this the Matriculation Ceremony, and it is a memory that all students will remember.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Albion?

That's a great question! We are a holistic review campus and Albion has a seat at the table for all students. Though the 'perfect student' can be an easy admit, the majority of our students are both perfect and imperfect. I think that a student who is willing to put in effort in the classroom, jump into the Albion community, and take advantage of the many individualized support opportunities on campus, will ultimately thrive.

When people come to visit Albion, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

In our small town of Albion Michigan, there are a few places that you must stop at during your visit. The first is Albion Malleable Brewing Company. If you are looking for a great burger or some world-class Poutine, Malleable is your place! The second place is the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli. Our whole main street is filled with the smell of freshly baked desserts, you can't go wrong with that!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Albion. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Three quick questions with Florida Tech

Let’s say, hypothetically, you were interested in a medium-sized, STEM-focused college in a sunny location with access to both Mickey Mouse and astronauts. Where would you look? Try Melbourne, Florida, home of Florida Institute of Technology.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Joy Walton, Admission Counselor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the Florida Institute of Technology?

We are a STEM University on the Space Coast. This means that when Space flights take off, we can see them form our campus. In addition, because of our strong relationship with NASA, it is not unusual for our STEM students to have astronauts or persons involved with NASA as professors.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Florida Tech?

We are looking for students who are curious! Students who are eager to be hands on as we are very project based. We are looking for student who are willing to work hard. We look for students who don’t see failure but see opportunities to learn from their mistakes.

When people come to visit Melbourne, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

The beach! NASA! Disney World!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Florida Tech. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Looking for some seniors who will talk to me

Every year from September to May, Apply with Sanity follows several seniors as they make it through their college application journey. It’s called Meet the Class, and you can read all the posts from the last several years here.

I’m looking for a few college-bound seniors who would like to participate this year.

You would commit to a few things:

Respond to some questions, once a month, about where you are in the process. I ask questions about facts and feelings. You don’t need to spend hours writing pages, but readers really do appreciate full answers.

Respond to a follow-up question now and then.

Continue to respond all year, and respond in a timely manner—I usually send questions at the beginning of the month and publish responses in the middle of the month.

On my end, I’ll promise a few things:

I’ll be respectful of your time and feelings—I’ve got no intentions of being mean or asking hundreds of questions.

I’ll give you anonymity. I’ll use your first name and say what state you’re in, but that’s it. You can even use a fake first name. In the past, some Meet the Class students have provided me a photo, and some haven’t. Either is fine with me.

Does this sound interesting to you? Do have you have any questions or concerns? Are you someone who is not about to start 12th grade, but have questions about the process you’re hoping I’ll ask? Hit the Contact button and send me a message! Let’s show the world what you go through to achieve your college success!

Paying for college: some basic principles

It’s really hard to talk about paying for college with a broad audience, because every individual’s circumstances are different. And individual circumstances are really important to college affordability, since the price of college depends to a huge degree on your individual circumstances. One of the great things about college education—but also one of the complicated things—is that most students pay different amounts for the same education. The pricing for college is some of the most complex and opaque pricing out there. Still, there are some basic principles that can help make the process a little easier and more rational in the long run.

1. You don’t know what any individual college will cost you until you apply and are accepted.

You can look at the published full cost of a university, but remember that only about 13% of college students pay full price. On the end, about 2% of college get a “full ride” scholarship that pays for everything. Everyone else gets at least some financial aid, probably including you. How much financial aid? Well, that depends on how much you need. And it also depends on how much the other accepted students need. And, of course, it depends on how much money the school has to give out for financial aid. If a college accepts a lot of wealthy students who can afford the full price, then they have more to give as aid to less wealthy students. But it also means they have a lot more wealthy students and a lot fewer others. Colleges balance these things—the desire for a diverse student body and the money to provide financial aid—on a yearly basis. So your aid package is unknown until you’re part of that year’s calculations. There’s just no way of knowing until then.

There are ways to get an idea of how much financial aid you may get, but it’s only an idea. Each college provides a net price calculator. You enter in some financial information, and the calculator will tell you how much aid to expect based on estimates and averages from the past. But again, you don’t know for sure until you are accepted and get an actual offer.

You can also look up the school’s average percent of need met. The higher that number the better. A school that is able to meet 100% of their student's’ financial need is probably going to be more affordable than a school that can only meet, on average, about 70% of their students’ need. Knowing the average for last year doesn’t tell you how much you’ll be offered this year, but it gives you some clues about what the school is able to do.

You can also look up a college’s average indebtedness. It’s the average amount of school debt that students have when they graduate. For most universities, that number is between $20,000 and $30,000. Be careful for schools where the average debt is higher than that.

The main thing I want you to remember is to never decide not to apply to a school simply because you think you can’t afford it. You may be right, but make them tell you so. Surprises happen all the time. On the other hand, always make sure you keep schools on your list that you’re more confident you can afford.

2. Talk to your family about money. Soon.

There’s a line, or at least a range, between your family saying “yes, we can afford that” and “no, we can’t afford that.” There’s a line, or at least a range, between “yes, that’s an acceptable amount of debt” and “no, that’s too much to borrow.” There’s a line, or at least a range, between “I can work after school to cover that cost” and “I can’t make that much money on top of full-time school.”

We may not want to think about those lines, and we may not want to talk about them, but they’re there. The sooner you talk about where those lines are, the better. It’s not always an easy talk. It’s almost never an easy talk. But it’s a talk you must have with your family. It’s better to have it now, before you have your mind set on a school, than after you think you’re going to a school and are then told “no, we can’t do that.”

3. Most or all of your financial aid will come from the college.

Think like a donor. If you want to donate $100 to help a student afford college, how are you going to go about that? By spending hours and thousands of dollars setting up a scholarship fund? Nope. You’re probably going to donate your hundred bucks to a specific college for their scholarship fund. Even if you have $1,000 to donate for scholarships, it’s much simpler to give it to a college for their funds. Even Michael Bloomberg, who donated almost two billion dollars to help with college affordability, gave it to a single school for their financial aid funds. That’s why your biggest financial aid awards are going to come through the college.

Lots of financial aid actually comes from the federal government, in the form of Pell grants and subsidized student loans. Many states also have grants for college affordability. But it’s the financial aid office at the school you attend who coordinates all those awards and loans. The money, even when it isn’t the school’s money, usually makes its way to you through the school.

There are some big private scholarships out there that you apply to directly, not through the college. The Coca-Cola Scholarship is a well-known example. So yes, there are other sources of funding outside the school. But it’s a very small portion of overall funds, and those national scholarships are fiercely competitive.

There are also tons of smaller—$100 to $1,000—scholarships out there. A lot of students find, though, that these simply aren’t worth the time it takes to find and apply to a bunch of them.

4. There’s paperwork to complete.

It’s not simple or easy. It requires your family’s tax forms and sometimes other financial statements.

Luckily, it’s consolidated. Everybody should fill out the FAFSA. Do it as soon as you can. It opens up October 1. Don’t wait any longer than you have to, even if you haven’t decided where you’re going to apply. It’s a federal, standard form that all the schools will ask for, so just go ahead and do it. Even if you’re not expecting to get any financial aid, fill out the FAFSA. Surprises happen all the time. Plus, plenty of places won’t even consider you for merit aid if you haven’t filled out a FAFSA.

Some colleges, mostly private schools, will also ask you to complete the CSS Profile. It’s similar to the FAFSA, but administered by the College Board. It’s more detailed and broad than the FAFSA.

5 There are some terms to understand.

I’ve already covered the basics. Click the links below for a longer explanation of:

Expected Family Contribution

Gapping

Need Aid vs. Merit Aid

Need Blind

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Schools can, and should, teach college affordability

   Three things parents should stop saying to their children

   Don’t pass up a full ride

   Asking for more financial aid

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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Great graduation speeches of 2021

Every late spring or early summer, I like to look through all the best graduation speeches of the season and share them. I did this teaching high school seniors, and I did it here on this site. But I decided to let that go this year. 2020 was such a rough year, with almost no in-person graduations. A lot of people did their best with online ceremonies or distanced drive-throughs, but they seem more gloomy than inspirational to me. Even with things back in person for most people this spring, it still didn’t seem like the time to share speeches. I let myself get out of that habit.

To be honest, it’s also partly because finding good graduation speeches means wading through tons of very successful people telling you not to be afraid to fail. It’s not bad advice per se, but it gets old. Commencement speeches were losing some of their magic for me. So the speech sharing was over.

But then I got an email from a former student this week. It links to this 2014 graduation speech from Jim Carey, and it says “You introduced me to my love for commencement speeches! Just speeches in general! Thank you Mr. Holloway!” So…habit revived.

Below are some of the best college graduation speeches of this year. I only spent a few hours looking, so I may have missed some really great ones. If so, leave a comment and let me know.

Enjoy!

Attorney, activist, and author Bryan Stevenson speaks to the graduates of the University of Michigan.

Journalist Marty Baron speaks to the graduates of Suffolk University.

Musician John Legend speaks to the graduates of Duke University.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the graduates of the US Naval Academy

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   Best graduation speeches

   Finding the perfect graduation speech

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Three quick questions with Antioch College

I often talk about colleges and universities as “communities.” But when you’re as small as Antioch College and as dedicated to cooperative learning, Community is less a concept and more the daily reality.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Myles Corcoran, Admission Counselor at the Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Antioch College?

Community is a significant aspect of Antioch College. Each Tuesday afternoon we have Community Meeting that involves all community members (students, faculty, and staff) which is facilitated by the Community Manager. Community Meeting entails updates on campus events, news, etc. along with various discussions and workshops (and often snacks before the meetings went virtual during the pandemic). Each academic term we also have Community Day which is like a potluck.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Antioch?

Students that truly flourish are those that question the status quo and do not accept society's norms at face value. We seek thinkers and those that have a desire to make positive change in the world and as our first president Horace Mann declared, "win victories for humanity".

When people come to visit Yellow Springs, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Visitors must experience the splendor of the thousand acre Glen Helen Nature Preserve. Downtown Yellow Springs in general is a great place to be with the abundant shops and restaurants but visitors must make a stop at Young's Dairy for ice cream.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Antioch. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

How do you write a great application essay?

If this is the summer between your junior and senior years of high school, then now is probably the best time for you to work on your application essays. I understand that you’re not sitting around doing nothing this summer, but with school out you probably have more unstructured time to work on the essays than if you wait until fall. Some of the most miserable high school seniors I’ve ever worked with were students trying to write application essays days before the deadline. You should have a solid draft ready to go by September 15th at the latest. If you need to keep revising and editing, that’s fine. But get yourself to “only an hour left to finish it” as soon as possible.

Most the students I work with end up writing two “big” application essays. They’ll write one for the Common Application, and they’ll write one for their state public university application. There are certainly some public colleges that accept the Common App, but many—especially the larger systems—have their own application. And yes, you can use the same essay for both; prompt #7 on the Common App allows you to share an essay on any prompt, even if it’s an essay you’ve already written. But from my experience, once you factor in the long Common App essay, smaller supplemental prompts, public university application prompts, and prompts for honors programs or scholarships, most write two longer essays and have a stable of smaller responses that get shifted and re-used for various other tasks.

Let’s step back and ask why colleges ask for an essay in the first place. Back when I first left the classroom and started writing and advising about college admissions, I talked with a friend who is also an admission dean. I asked for the inside scoop on essays. What, exactly, do you do with them? Do you run them through programs to determine Lexile levels and readability scores? Do you match them against databases to find cliches and plagiarism? She politely told me I was making things way too complicated. “We read them, that’s what we do with them,” she told me. That’s it.

Admission officers are looking for a few things when they read your essays. They want to make sure that you’re prepared to do college-level writing. That doesn’t mean that you already have to write like a college senior; you’ll probably take a writing course early in your college years. But it means that if you don’t show that you’ve at least mastered high school-level writing and aren’t ready to begin college writing, then that’s a problem for them.

The other thing they’re reading for is to get to know who you are as a person. Transcripts and test scores are pretty impersonal. It’s the recommendation letters and essays that show who you are and who you might become. College is not just an honor society for high school students. Universities don’t exist just to recognize your hard work in high school. They are places where people develop and work together, so colleges want to see who you are as a person, not just your recent accomplishments.

Ok. With that big picture always in mind, how do you actually go about putting together an application essay?

The first thing to know is that you’re playing offense, not defense. Too many students look at the prompts, try to think of a response, and then write something. They take a defensive stance, wondering how they should respond in order to seem worthy to the universities. Instead of thinking of yourself as a passive commodity for the schools to peruse, think of yourself as an interesting person and decide what you want the schools to know about you. The essay is your primary way to show the schools that you’re a person, so make sure you show them what a great person you are.

Don’t start by looking at the prompts! I had a really great literature professor in college who talked to us about the essay questions on her final exam. She said that, ideally, the final exam would simply say “Explain.” Then we’d have two hours to explain what we’d discovered and learned over the semester, and she could assess us from that. However, lots of students would be confused or anxious about such an open-ended test, so she posed several essay questions, each ending with “Explain.”

College admissions essays are similar. What they really want to ask is “So, tell us about yourself.” But that would be too weird for too many applicants, so they ask more specific questions to get you to tell them about yourself.

So instead of beginning with the prompts and taking a defensive stance, begin with yourself. Think about several things:

• What makes you an interesting person?

• What skills and traits do you have that will make you successful at college?

• Other than your grades, what do people praise you for?

• How do you fit into your communities, and what kinds of communities do you want to belong to?

• What are you hoping to get out of college?

• What are you hoping to provide to your college?

• What separates you from your friends at school?

• What gets you intellectually excited? What do you do when you’re excited?

• What’s happened to you in the past three years that has most changed who you are?

• How do you hope to change over the next three years?    

• You’ve matured in the past three years—what evidence or stories have you got to show it?

• What’s the most recent un-assigned book you loved?

• If you could design the perfect college course for yourself, what would it be?

• If you wanted to impress a stranger in under a minute, what would you tell them about yourself?

Spend some serious time thinking about these and similar questions, and think about what kind of a presentation you’d make to an admissions committee about yourself. Once you have that in mind, then go and look at the prompts. Think about which prompts can best highlight the qualities you want to talk about, and then go from there.

Nobody likes a show-off. This is tough to remember when you’re being asked to talk about your accomplishments, but it’s still true. When you’re writing your essays and speaking to people, you want to make it clear that your accomplishments are not traits in themselves, but evidence of your important personal traits.

So it’s not just that you were captain of the basketball team, but that the challenges of being captain of the basketball team taught you a lot about motivating others and yourself. It’s not that you had the highest grade in your math class, but that the rewards of good grades highlight your resilience and ability to meet self-imposed goals. It’s not that it felt great to win the debate trophy, but that your ability to cooperate and collaborate with a partner made you successful at the debate tournament. It’s not that your band went to Regionals, but...you get the idea.

Balance style and content. I often had students ask me which is more important on admissions essays: the writing itself or what the writing talks about. The answer is both. A poorly written essay about something really cool is neither better nor worse than a really polished piece of meaningless fluff. Work on both. A lot.

Most college admissions essay sound alike. This makes sense. There’s a limited range of possibilities—most of the applicants are about the same age, come from the same national cultural background, and are high school seniors. There’s only so much variety you can have. So don’t worry about writing something that’s going to be completely different—worry about making yours stand out in small ways. In a 650-word essay, a single sentence can make a huge difference. So pay attention to each sentence.

Consider the past, present, and future. Whatever personal quality you’re talking about, make sure to include—even in small ways—how you developed this trait in the past, how you’re displaying that trait now at the end of high school, and how you think that trait will be useful in college.

Some things NOT to do:

1. Rehashing what’s already in your transcript. If you only say things in your essay that the admissions committee can already see on your transcript or test scores, you’re missing a big opportunity.

2. The Mission Trip essay. Maybe you went on a mission trip or some other service project, and you learned a lot about people in different circumstances than yourself. Maybe you felt that they affected you more than you affected them. That’s wonderful, but please understand that the admissions counselors have seen this essay a gazillion times and it’s going to be extremely hard to make yours stand out. If you write this essay, make sure you work hard on highlighting your own personal traits and not just the epiphany you had. I’ve also seen many weird essays where the student basically argues that the way of life of those being helped is superior to the writer’s way of life. These essays have sentences along the lines of “they may be poor, but they take care of each other and have true happiness.” This is a great idea if you’re applying to go and live among the people you helped in your service project, but not so much if you’re applying to a expensive college.

3. Unbalanced before & after. Many essays use a “before and after” structure as a way to talk about personal growth or overcoming setbacks. I used to be unmotivated, but now I’m motivated. I used to be a bad student, but now I’m a good student. I used to be selfish, but now I’m involved in helping others. Things like that. If you write this kind of essay, make sure you spend most of your time and words on the positive, not the negative. I’ve seen too many essays that spend about 90% of their words on describing the negative in great detail, and then give a vague “but I got better.” Spend no more than 20% on the negative Before, and most of the essay on the positive After.

4. On any type of essay that is going to multiple schools (like the Common Application), you should not name any individual school or place. If you send an essay to individual schools that includes a school name, make sure you have the right name. Many students send the same writing to multiple schools and simply replace one school name for another. If you do this, make sure you replace them ALL.

5. There’s a common misperception that your essay needs to be some kind of “sob story” that gets tons of sympathy from the readers. That’s not true. This year the Common App even added a prompt about gratitude and positive stories. If what you want to write about involves major challenges or even trauma, that’s not a problem. Work on that essay. But never try to amplify or exaggerate a minor challenge to make it sound traumatic just because you think it will make you look better to an admissions officer. It will actually have the opposite effect.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   Writing about your unique circumstances

   Yes, you can write about that

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Three quick questions with the University of Richmond

My clients this summer include a few people in the “medium size, liberal arts school, undecided on major, avoid cold places” group. So the University of Richmond has come up a lot, and I’m so excited they responded to my quick questions.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Heather Selby, Admission Counselor at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the University of Richmond?

The University of Richmond was the first university in the country to create a Leadership Studies school and major. You can read up on details about the Jepson School of Leadership Studies here.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at UR?

Truthfully, all components of a students’ application are very important at Richmond. We admit students who are very strong academically, extremely involved in their communities, and who seek to make a positive impact on our campus. Being a small, private, highly selective school makes it all the more important that students put time into crafting their applications.

When people come to visit Richmond, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

I would recommend students check out the James River! It runs through the city of Richmond and is a fun spot to spend time outside and get some fresh air.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Richmond. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Glossary: Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Hispanic-Serving Institution is an official designation from the US Department of Education. (Higher Education Act, Title V, as amended in 1992, to be more precise.) Unlike HBCU, another official status, the definition has nothing to do with who a school has historically served, but only the current student population. A college need not have always been an HSI to become one. A few colleges were intentionally founded to serve Hispanic students, but most HSIs grew to the status through strategy, geography, or both. Not surprisingly, most HSIs are in areas with larger Hispanic populations, places like California, Puerto Rico, and Texas.

To be categorized as an HSI, a college must meet a few basic criteria (like being a degree-granting, non-profit school) and have a student body that is at least 25% Hispanic. But that’s the key fact, being more than a quarter Hispanic. HSIs include four-year colleges and also community colleges.

Once a college passes the 25% Hispanic mark, then it can apply for the Hispanic-Serving Institution designation. This official status gives it marketing and recruiting power, since Hispanics makes up the largest ethnic minority in the US and are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. Before Covid took over as the most-discussed topic in higher education (and the whole world), a lot of the big conversations in higher ed were about demographic shifts and how well colleges would be able to recruit and retain Hispanic students. The HSI designation also allows colleges to apply for special grants and other federal funding.

Why might it be important to you that a school is an HSI? If you are Hispanic yourself* and would like to make sure you go to a college with a concentration of other Hispanic students, then checking a college’s HSI status may be really important to you. If so, you may want to look farther than just “official” HSI list. There are also schools who meet the 25% threshold but haven’t finished the approval process yet. There are also some schools that are very close to the 25% line. All these are called “emerging” HSIs.

Obviously you don’t have to be Hispanic to care about diversity, and anyone may want to check a college’s HSI status before applying. But remember that HSI designation only has to do with numbers and the percentage of students who identify as Hispanic. It doesn’t necessarily say anything about the institutional values of a college, how diverse the non-Hispanic population is, or the experiences you can expect. You’ll need to look more deeply to get a feeling for those more qualitative things.

For a list of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Exelecnia in Education has an up-to-date list plus some basic stats.

For a robust list that includes HSIs, emerging HSIs, and unofficial HSIs, go to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, which was instrumental in getting the original HSI legislation passed.

*I’m using the word “Hispanic” because it’s the term used by the Department of Education and other federal programs. I’m not intentionally overlooking or excluding you if you identify as Latina/o/x or Chicano/a.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   The Glossary: HBCU

   What’s wrong with Affirmative Action?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Three quick questions with Georgia Tech

It can be easy to think of large public universities as too large, too bureaucratic, too impersonal. But that’s not usually the case. If a busy admission department at a school like Georgia Tech can take time to answer questions for my little website, then think about the attention they can give actual applicants.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Alexandra Thackston, Senior Admission Counselor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Georgia Institute of Technology?

One tradition that is unique to GA Tech is our Freshman Cake Race. This tradition dates back to 1911 and is still holding strong today. The Cake Race is held before sunrise on the morning of our Homecoming football game and spans half a mile around GT's campus. All freshman participants receive a cupcake, but the top winners receive a cake and great bragging rights. You can learn more about GA Tech traditions here.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Georgia Tech?

We practice holistic admission reviews at GA Tech. Therefore, we evaluate multiple documents and levels of each student's application. Something that stands out to us is grit. We love to see students who may have been challenged in some way or another, but were able to overcome that challenge and become who they are today. This represents what many students experience when they go off to college. We also look for students who demonstrate progress and service (our motto) throughout their high school experience.

When people come to visit Atlanta, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

I ALWAYS encourage students to check out the Atlanta Beltline. This is an urban pathway built throughout our city and encompasses what our Atlanta Community looks like. It's one of our favorite parts of Atlanta.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Georgia Tech. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Making a high school résumé

I’ve had resumes on my mind this week. I met with an executive recruiter and career coach who said that a huge part of her job is helping people make bad resumes good. I’ve also helped two clients, both high school juniors, improve their resumes in the past few days.

(Resume or résumé? I think that using the accents looks a little too formal and affected, but that going without the accents makes it too easy to read the word as the verb to resume, which interrupts the pace and understanding of your reading. I go back and forth, because neither seems “right” to me.)

So with résumés getting a lot of my attention, I’d like to re-run this post from a few years ago about putting together a good high school résumé for college application season. Leave a comment if you think I have a good piece of advice, got something wrong, or if you have an opinion on resume vs. résumé. Enjoy!

One of my Five Foundations of Applying with Sanity is to “be a person, not a résumé.” By that I mean to remember to think of yourself as an authentic person with complexity and contradictions, not just a list of achievements and statistics. That’s really important as a metaphor. But often you need a literal résumé. Scholarship applications may ask for a résumé. College applications sometimes (but not too often) ask for a résumé. Teachers and counselors may want a résumé to help them compose a recommendation letter. Potential employers very often ask for a résumé—that’s what résumés were created for. On top of that, it can be a useful exercise to go through and organize your thoughts about yourself and what you want to say about yourself. So with all that in mind, here are some things to consider when putting together, or revising, your résumé.

It’s strangely difficult to explain how to draft a résumé. The first thing I’d tell you to do is simply to do an image search for “resume samples” and notice the basic patterns. Résumés are just lists, but highly structured lists. The basic categories of things you would list are education, experience, and achievements. That’s where you begin your drafting, by listing the major facts of your education, like the high school(s) you’ve attended, your work experience, including volunteer work, and your awards and achievements. There are hundreds of guides and templates out there, but the best one I’ve come across recently is from the career center at Pomona College. It gives the basics, the reasoning for what goes there, and templates for different ways of organizing the résumé. I also recommend this video from a series produced by the Financial Times. (They’re British and use “CV” instead of “Resume,” but it’s the same thing.) Résumés are easier to revise than draft, so just get something written down, and then you can shape it from there.

There are also lots of fill-in-the-blank templates and résumé generators. Don’t use them. It’s important that you build your own from scratch, even if you’re looking at samples or templates as you do it. For one, you need to understand why you’re writing what you are, and why you’re placing it where you are. It’s easy to lose track of that when you’re just filling in information for a program to format for you. Revising and changing your résumé will be much easier and more intuitive if you make your own.

You’ll want to use a simple design. Keep it basic for your first résumé. Yes, there are some pretty good looking and clever templates out there to help you fit more information into the space or add photos or charts. But please understand that when most readers see this from a high school student, they’re not thinking “wow, this high school student made a really impressive design for their résumé!” They’re probably thinking “this kid expects me to believe they made this? They just used a fancy template. I wonder if they know how to make their own.”

Your résumé doesn’t need to have everything! It’s meant to begin a conversation, not be the conversation, so you want it to be concise and short. You’re trying to show off the things that speak to your finest abilities, and that’s different for everybody. Some students ask “should I have my GPA on my résumé?'“ If you’re proud of it, yes. Should you put your SAT or ACT scores on it? If you’re proud of them, sure. Should you list AP exams you’ve taken? If there’s more than one and you have room, absolutely. Should you list every class you’ve taken? No.

Similarly, you may decide not to list every tiny volunteer project you’ve ever done, especially if they were only a few hours total. If you house-sit for a number of families every year and it shows off your responsibility, then put it in the experience section. If you house-sat once for your aunt, there’s no need to put it on there. Everybody’s résumé will be different and list different things. There’s no precise formula. Make sure you’re listing, as concisely as possible, the broad outlines of your education, your experience in the world, and the achievements you’re proud of.

Two pages are fine if you need two pages. Many people will tell you that your résumé should never be more than a page, and they’re not completely wrong. Many readers—essentially the same ones who say a résumé should never be over a page—will not read past the first page. And if your résumé is over a page because you’ve failed to prioritize the important things or have weird formatting, then that’s a problem. But if you’ve got a reason to go onto the second page, it will be ok. Several studies have now shown that a second page doesn’t make you less likely to get hired. Watch out, though, for waste or sloppiness. If your résumé only goes a few lines into the second page, that looks odd. A second page should be at least half of the page. Otherwise, find ways to cut and condense.

But if it’s only a page, that’s great! Better, really. Don’t feel like you need two.

People tend to read résumés (and most things, on the page or on the screen) in an F pattern. They spend most of their time looking at the top, along the left margin, and at headings as they work down. Knowing this, make sure you put the most important section of your résumé at the top. Which section is going to be the most important for this particular audience? Put it first, even if your templates or examples don’t show it first.

Likewise, make sure the most important information in your lists is along the left. Say for example that you were on the swim team all four years of high school, and you were the team captain your senior year. If you write

2016-2020: high school swim team. 2020 team captain.

then you’ve got the least important information (dates) along the left margin and the most important part (captain, which demonstrates leadership and responsibility) all the way over to the right. Organize the section so that you can instead write

Captain, high school swim team, 2019. Team member 2015-2019.

There can be more than one version of your résumé. The information is going to be the same for all versions, but there are reasons to make changes. The most important thing for one audience may not be the most important thing for another audience. A résumé for a college may need to emphasize your academic credentials, so the education section will be at the top. But if you’re supplying a résumé to a teacher who is going to write a rec letter, then you may want to emphasize experiences that demonstrate your character. Besides, the teacher is already likely to know about your grades and obviously knows what school you attend. So for that version, the experience section will go higher and the education section will go lower.

I’d also advise using slightly different fonts for your résumé depending on whether or not you expect it to be read on a screen or on paper. Graphic designers and font nerds will debate these things for days and days, but for our purposes: san-serif fonts are generally more readable on a screen. However, even if they’re not less legible on paper, sans-serif fonts often look strange when printed, because we’re so used to seeing serif fonts used for printed materials. So consider making a sans-serif version for the screen and a serif version for printing. And please don’t use Times New Roman or Calibri—no matter how good they are, they’re associated with “default” and therefore “didn’t really bother.”

It has to be perfect. Not a single typo. As someone who is very successful told me once: “If you can’t make even one page perfect, when you’ve had lots of time to work on it and it’s all about you, then I don’t want to see you for an interview. You’re done.” She’s right. This one needs to be perfect.

Beware sending someone a résumé unless they ask for it. Remember that the point of your résumé is to provide a concise summary of your past four years. It’s meant to start a conversation or get someone to notice you. But if they’ve already noticed you or already started a conversation, then to hand them a résumé can be very limiting. It signals that you want to talk about what’s on the paper, when you have much more interesting things to talk about.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

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2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   How do I prepare for a college interview?

   How do I handle supplemental questions?

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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

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It's not the choice you make, it's how you explain it

A question I get often—from students, from parents, from strangers I’ve just met—basically comes down to “should I do A or B? Which is better for college applications?”

I can take AP Chemistry or AP Biology. Which should I take?

Should I take Calculus or Statistics?

I can take this really cool elective course or do one more year of baseball. Which should I do?

My daughter wants to quit the robotics team to be in the school play. Will this look bad to colleges?

My son wants to quit doing schools plays to try out for the robotics team. Will this look bad to colleges?

We’re thinking about moving high schools. How will this affect college acceptances? Does it raise red flags?

Can I take one fewer class my senior year to get more hours at work, or will that ruin my college chances?

My answer to these “A or B” questions is almost always “it doesn’t matter.” If you’re choosing between two good options, then you can’t go wrong. Pick the one that feels right to you and move on.

How can I say that these decisions don’t matter for something so consequential, and daunting, as college admission? For one, there is no secret set of standards and choices that colleges demand. To be clear, they do have standards. Take this example from the University of Oklahoma.

You can see that they require three years of math and recommend four. You can see that calculus and statistics are both things they recommend. You can see that they don’t tell you which one to take. If they really want you to take calculus and not stats, they’d say so. But they don’t.

A lot of our anxiety around college admission is this idea that there are secret expectations and rules. We love the idea of holistic admission. Holistic admission means that we can highlight our positive aspects and get credit for them. Holistic admission means that we’re not penalized for not taking a class that isn’t available at our school. Holistic admission means that our application will be taken within the context of our own life and not just a list of rules and requirements. We love all this…but we don’t always really believe it. Take a deep breath and accept it. There are no secret rules or requirements. You’re going to be accepted to a college—or denied—based on your whole application in context of your school and experience. You’re not going to be accepted—or denied—based on how well you guess what the secret rules are and adhere to them.

“Ok,” some of you may be thinking now, “I accept that there isn’t a secret rule about which option I take. But within my context, which would look better for me in a holistic admission context? Does it make my application look less polished, on the whole, if I switch from robotics to drama, or from debate to drums? What does it say about me?”

That’s a great question. I get it: “it doesn’t matter what you do” is unsatisfactory. Colleges accept some applicants and deny other applicants, so obviously “anything goes, don’t worry about it” is not a complete answer. So I say instead, “it’s not the choice you make, it’s how you explain it.” Because you get to decide what it says about you when you explain what it says about you.

Context matters, so explaining the context helps you out no matter which choice you make. Explaining your choice moves you away from a passive “tell me what to do” attitude and gives you more agency and control. It also highlights your critical thinking and illuminates your personality.

So don’t just focus on the choice, but the reason for the choice.

Even though I know that AP Biology aligns more with my intended major, I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to take another class from a really great teacher with whom I have a strong relationship. I’ll be taking plenty of biology in college and don’t expect the AP credit to transfer to my college in the first place.

Even though I had to pass up another class with really great teacher with whom I have a strong relationship, I ultimately decided to focus on my intended major and take AP Biology. I can still talk to my chemistry teacher after school, but I can’t get solid biology instruction after school.

It was difficult to let go of a unique elective course to play baseball another year, but I’ve developed into a team leader and didn’t want to let the team down my senior year.

It was difficult to walk away from the baseball team I’d spent three years with, but I know that my future is more academic than athletic, and this elective course was the ideal place to start making that future real.

In all these examples, it’s not the choice that’s really important—it’s the explanation. By explaining your choice, you emphasize personal qualities and priorities. You are showing colleges your decision-making process and your values. Preparing for the future, prioritizing relationships over grades, leadership, and intellectual curiosity are all things that colleges value. All of these explanations, even though for opposing decisions, mark you as having qualities colleges are interested in.

The more the reason for your decision aligns with the qualities you’re trying to emphasize in your overall application, the better. If you write an essay about how personal relationships are the backbone of a successful life, but also explain that you chose the class that aligned with your intended major over the teacher with whom you have a strong relationship, then that does indeed muddy the application. If you explain that you chose the relationship over the curriculum, but then don’t have a letter of recommendation from that teacher, it can be a glaring omission. If you want to emphasize your leadership capabilities in your application but also explain that you walked away from a leadership position to take an elective class, that might raise suspicion. But again, it’s the explanation that raises suspicion, not the decision. Let your defining qualities and priorities guide your decisions, not what you think colleges want you to do. The more you do that, the stronger the application will be.

But where do you get to explain your decisions? In the most basic, literal way, where does that happen? Throughout the application. If it’s a really major and important choice, then it may even become the subject of your essay. More likely it’s going to answer a supplemental question and/or be something you make sure to talk about in an interview. While there probably won’t be a question about “explain why you took one class over another” on an application, there will be places where you have a chance to explain your choice if it needs explaining. Most application supplements even have some version of “is there anything else you want us to know about you?” That can be where you briefly explain a choice you think might need an explanation.

There’s a real possibility, though, that the choice doesn’t even need explaining. Once you’re thinking about your own needs and goals and not just what “looks good to colleges,” you very well may decide you have better things to talk about than being defensive about a single decision. As a basic guiding principle, realize that the bigger and more difficult the decision, the more likely you’ll want to be prepared to explain it. This class over that class, this extracurricular over that one—not a big deal. Moving schools, quitting a team, or drastically changing your workload in either direction will raise questions, though. Be ready to answer them fully and honestly. That really is the best thing, both in terms of college admission and in terms of being the best version of you possible.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   How do I handle supplemental questions?

   What high school classes should you take?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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The Glossary: Colleges that Change Lives

First there was a book. In 1996, journalist and independent college counselor Loren Pope published Colleges that Change Lives: 40 Schools You Should Know About Even If You’re Not a Straight-A Student. The idea was to highlight colleges that weren’t as famous and prestigious as Ivy League universities or other “elite” New England liberal arts colleges but that delivered the same—or better—personalized and life-changing education. It’s now in its fourth edition.

Later came the organization. The 40 colleges named in the book formed a non-profit organization to champion liberal arts colleges and help students find a good fit. It’s an antidote to reliance on rankings and the “prestige anxiety” that often comes with rankings. Even though Colleges that Change Lives was prompted by the book and named for the book, the group is completely independent. It has no relationship with Pope’s estate (he died in 2008) or the book’s publisher. Likewise, all the member colleges of CTCL are independent institutions. They just contribute to the organization.

CTCL does several things. It is a loud and thoughtful voice in the drive to make college admission more about a student-centered fit and less about elitism-centered prestige rankings. It provides resources to students, parents, and schools about making wise college decisions.

Probably the most important thing CTCL does for students is provide profiles of their member schools. It’s a good way to get to know some smaller colleges that you may not have heard of if you don’t live near them. CTCL also offers scholarships for students attending member schools.

Who are the member schools? There are now 44 of them. They are all small liberal arts colleges. Small in that they range in size from around 100 students to around 3,000 students. Most are in the 1,000-2,000 range. They are liberal arts colleges in that they focus on undergraduate teaching. For contrast, think of a flagship public university like the University of Michigan. It has over 30,000 undergraduate students, and it also has 180 different graduate degree programs. Liberal arts college doesn’t mean they don’t have STEM programs, nor does it mean that the college is liberal in terms of politics.

If I talk to a student or client who seems interested in a large, comprehensive university, I don’t try to steer them towards Colleges that Change Lives. Small liberal arts colleges aren’t for everyone. But if I’m working with someone who does seem interested in that kind of school, especially if they’re undecided about a major, then I definitely want them to spend time looking at CTCL and the member colleges. I live and work in a very large city, and most of the students I work with want to be in—or at least near—a metropolitan area. They stay away from the “tiny college in the middle of nowhere” stereotype. But many of the CTCL colleges are in urban areas. And none of them are, in reality, in a spot with nothing but cornfields for miles around.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   The Glossary: Liberal Arts College

   The Glossary: Public University

   The Glossary: HBCU

   The Glossary: Ivy

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Colleges that Change Lives is an independent organization which does not endorse or have a relationship with Apply with Sanity. It neither sponsored nor contributed to this content.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Three quick questions with Delaware State University

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Todays response is from Zackery Rogers, Admissions Counselor at Delaware State University in Dover, Delaware.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Delaware State University?

Homecoming is one of our unique traditions. Also, our aviation program is parallel to none as we have the largest fleet amongst HBCU’s on the east coast.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at DSU?

I would say students who were on the boarder line 2.1 GPA range or students who are first generation college students.

When people come to visit Dover, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

A place off campus that they should attend is the raceway track, when the race circuit is in play.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Delaware State. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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What 9th and 10th graders should be doing this summer

Earlier this week I wrote about what current high school juniors should do this summer to prepare for effective and efficient college applications this fall. I know that lot of younger high school students are already thinking about college and how they can prepare. So let’s talk about good approaches for current 9th and 10th graders.

But before we begin, let me say that you should not do anything that is boring or onerous just because you think it might “look good to colleges.” Colleges prefer that you are in interesting person, and there’s nothing interesting about wasting your time and energy just because you’re insecure about someone else’s approval. Don’t jump through any metaphorical hoops (or literal ones, either, I guess) based on vague ideas of what colleges want.

What should sophomores do this summer to be better prepared for college?

Train. You're like a professional athlete during the off-season. You get a lot more flexibility with your schedule and a lot fewer people watching you as you work, but you've got to spend this time productively. Does this mean to fill up your day with summer school classes and be a constant student? No. Like pro athletes, find another way to enhance the skills you have.

Think about your notable skills and talents, the things that you may want to emphasize on college applications. Now find interesting ways to hone those skills and talents. How can you best prove and improve your resilience, passion, intellectual curiosity, initiative, talent, creativity, empathy, or leadership? The more unlike another high school class or program the activity is, the better.

So, for example, going to a weeklong camp for debaters is good, but volunteering to do door-to-door canvasing for a local political campaign is better. Reading books ahead of time for your 11th grade English class is good, but starting a book club that focuses on foreign or lesser-known books is better. Taking a class for adults at the local community college is good, but teaching younger kids in a summer program is better. The most important thing is that you focus on yourself and the qualities you want to improve, not focus on a vague sense of "looks good to colleges." Do everything you can with your summer time--in any setting, be it a summer job, summer camp, traveling, or staying close to home--to be a better person, not have a better résumé. 

Push yourself. If you need to work or want a job, that's great. As far as college is concerned it really doesn't matter what that job is so long as you work hard at it and are reflective about what you learn from the job. As you go to work, remind yourself to work as hard as you can. And when you're done, ask yourself what you learned from that day's work. Those two things matter so much more to everyone than the job title or name of the company. 

If you don't need to work and don’t want to work, then make other plans. And here's the trick: treat it like a job, in the sense that you decide to do your best and be reflective. Even if you have the cushiest summer imaginable--maybe you're going to spend two months as a VIP on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean--you can still get a lot out of this. Just begin each day reminding yourself to make the most of the day, and end each day reflecting about what you learned. Whatever is you do, it can be useful for your college applications and useful for your productive and interesting life.

Go someplace new. Choose someplace you've never been that you can visit this summer. Geographically, it doesn't matter how close or far the place is, so long as it's new to you. It can be another country, another state, or another neighborhood. Try to get a sense of how people unlike yourself spend their days, and do it with an open and empathetic mind.

Goal of 20. Another way you can make the most of your summer is to give yourself a goal of 20. Make 20 visits to local museums or parks. Have 20 intentional interactions with older members of your family asking them about their experiences. Read 20 books. Watch 20 of the best movies of all time. Find 20 items to donate to charity. Run 20 miles, spread out over as many days as you need. The number 20 is arbitrary, but an arbitrary number helps make a vague idea an achievable goal. Every time you knock out one of your 20, remind yourself to be deliberate and reflective.

What should 9th graders do this summer to be better prepared for college?

Anything! You can do just about anything, I mean it. In terms of preparing for the next three years of high school, preparing for college, and preparing for productive adulthood, there's no magical activity that you really must do to get ready. Do your thing, no matter what it is (within reason--if your current thing is chaotic or self-destructive then take care of that first).

At this point, what you do isn't nearly as important as how you do it. Whether you're doing amazing, once-in-a-lifetime things like volunteering with veterinarians at a wildlife refuge in Botswana or mundane things like babysitting your little brother, you can make the most of it. Be reflective. Ask yourself "how did today go, and what can I do tomorrow that will be interesting?" Every day. Read something that relates to what you're doing. Even if all you're doing is walking aimlessly around the neighborhood trying to find someone to hang out with, stop at the local library and learn about the history of your neighborhood and go inside shops you've never been in before. Take photos of weird things you notice around the neighborhood. Be engaged with your world and your mind, whatever you're doing in the world. 

Write about your experiences. Writing about what you do on a regular basis serves several goals. For one, any college-bound person has got to be very comfortable with a lot of writing, so practicing on your own with your own assignments helps build up your discipline in a way that's more palatable to you. It will also help you maintain and deepen your self-reflection that's so vital for your off-time. You’re not trying to draft college application essays or make it into a novel. You’re just practicing writing in your own voice about what’s interesting to you.

Make a product. Toward the end of the summer, make some sort of product. Select some journal entries to make into full-on essays. Select and edit some photos to make a narrative photo essay. Make an interactive map of the places you visited. Make a book of advice for someone starting the job that you worked. Again, you can do almost anything. The idea is to curate and edit your experience into something that you can share. That's kind of a definition of education, isn't it?

Meet someone new. Right, of course you're going to meet new people over the summer. But what I'm talking about is to proactively and intentionally introduce yourself to new people that you've chosen to meet. Circumstance, coincidence, serendipity, and providence bring all sorts of people into our lives. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't work to bring others into our lives through our own intentions and effort.

Practice some form of meditation and contemplation. There's probably no better gift you can give yourself than to start the habit of meditation and contemplation. There are dozens of different traditions and techniques to fit any religious, cultural, and personal background. Here is a pretty solid introduction to 23 of them. Choose one and try it. It doesn't have to be a religious or spiritual exercise. It can just be good relaxation. 

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are two easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   What juniors should be doing this summer.

   The secret to success? Here are two of them!

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

What juniors should be doing this summer

Some high school juniors are already far along in their college admission process. Through personal ambition, pressure from family, high school requirements, or a combination of those, they have a clear sense of where they will apply, why they’ve chosen those colleges and universities, and how to go about it. Many high school juniors will not start thinking about college admission until their senior year begins. But most college-bound juniors are starting their admission season right about now, toward the end of 11th grade. If you’re one of those juniors—or an adult who cares about one of those juniors—then you should check out my post from last week, “What juniors should be doing right now.” Read that first, and then come back to this.

What follows are my recommendations for things you can do this summer to make your fall semester a little easier. It’s not a checklist to do in order, though. Each piece can affect all the other pieces, and you’ll find yourself updating and going through the cycle multiple times.

Go on college visits. You should visit some colleges. I mean this in the broadest sense, though. It doesn’t have to be a weeklong trip with family where you will personally visit three or more colleges that you think you’ll probably end up applying to. That’s great if you can do it, but most families can’t. After campuses shut down last year because of the pandemic, most began offering high-quality online virtual tours (or improved the ones they already had). Take advantage of these to look at schools you’re interested in.

As far as college visits go, you don’t even have to visit schools you’ll be applying to. I’m a big fan of visiting colleges near you just to get a feel for college in general. Tour the large public university nearest you, the small liberal arts college nearest you, and anything in between. I live in Houston, so I encourage people to visit the University of Houston, Rice University, the University of St. Thomas, and Sam Houston State University. You may not be interested in actually attending any of those colleges, but it will quickly and easily give you a sense of the difference between a large public university, a mid-sized regional public university, a private research university, and a small private university. Three of them are centrally located in the heart of Houston, and the other is just over an hour away.

Write and revise a College Mission Statement. Start with the formula “I want to _____ at a _____ college with _____.” For example, “I want to study engineering and/or financial mathematics at a small- to medium-sized university in or near an urban area, preferably not in the Northeast, with an intramural sports program.” Fill in the blanks as thoroughly and honestly as you can. For more on writing a College Mission Statement, start here.

Put together a game plan. You don't need to start on your applications yet, but it helps to have a plan for how you will go about finishing your applications. Here are some questions to ask yourself to get an outline ready for your next semester:

• What personal qualities do you want to project in your application? Examples of the kind of qualities I'm talking about include resilience, passion, intellectual curiosity, initiative, talent, creativity, empathy, and leadership. Think of one or two of your strongest qualities that will be the focal point of your applications. Your essay will center on these qualities, and you'll try your best to arrange for your recommendation letters to center on them.

• What concrete evidence do you have--other than grades and test scores--of those qualities? What stories can you tell that exemplify those qualities? Who can vouch for you when it comes to these qualities?

• What are the primary qualities of a college that will be a good place for you? How, other than by looking at rankings or reputation, will you know when a school is right for you? It helps to have an idea about this before you start looking too closely at individual schools. Knowing if a school has what you want can prove difficult if you don't know what you want. 

• Is there a school for which you think you should apply early? Why?

• What are the major application deadlines? Begin with the general. Early applications are generally due in early November, regular decision applications are generally due in early January. As you build and then narrow down your own college list, you can find more specific deadlines for your schools. How do those fit with the rest of your schedule, both at school and outside of school?

• What are the gaps in your understanding that you need to fill in? It can be quite difficult to know what it is that you don't know, but make sure you've looked through the Common Application as best as you can and identify any major holes in your timeline or knowledge.

Talk to your family about money. By the end of the year, you're going to need to send away paperwork with very detailed and personal financial information, including your parents' tax forms. You're going to decide where the line is between affordable and unaffordable. You're going to to decide how much you and/or your family is willing to borrow for your education. The sooner you begin these difficult conversations, the better. They rarely go well the first time around, so you don't want to wait until the deadline to have the first time around. If your family’s financial circumstances have changed recently through unemployment, depletion of savings, loss of investment value, and/or extra costs associated with the pandemic and lockdown, then you’ll need to revisit your financial discussions often.

Draft some essays. Even if you don’t have a college list ready, you’ve probably got a good idea of the essays you will need to write for your applications. The essay prompts for the Common Application are available. So are the essay prompts for the separate application for public universities in your state, if they have an application separate from the Common Application. Look those over. You can begin working on those now.

Most of the seniors I work with end up having two “big” essays—around 600 words—that they use. Sometimes one gets submitted for the Common Application, and another gets used for scholarship applications or shortened for supplemental questions. When I work with a senior I end up seeing several versions of the same response, at lengths from 150 to 1,000 words, constantly updated and re-used. You can begin those now, even without prompts. In fact, it’s best to begin without thinking about a prompt. Think about your qualities that you want to highlight, the big ideas that excite you, and the stories about yourself that you end up repeating to adults often. If it helps, here are some questions to consider:

• What are you most proud of?

• What do teachers or other adults praise you for?

• How would you explain yourself to a stranger?

• What separates you from your friends at school?

• What gets you intellectually excited? What do you do when you’re excited?

• What’s happened to you in the past three years that has most changed who you are?

• You’ve matured in the past three years—what evidence or stories have you got to show it?

• What’s the most recent un-assigned book you loved?

Narrow down your list of colleges. There are around four thousand colleges and universities in the US to choose from. By then end of your junior year, you want to have that narrowed down to no more than 50. By the beginning of your senior year, you want to have that narrowed down again to about 25. By application time, it will be narrowed down to between four and twelve (for most people), and by May 2022 it will need to be narrowed down to one or two. For each, make sure you do these things:

• Go to the school’s website and sign up to be on their mailing list.

• Look at the school’s web pages for any majors you’re interested in.

• Look over the school’s financial aid and scholarships web pages.

• Try to find the admissions staff assigned to your geographic area. Most schools still divide their admissions staff geographically, and many post that information on their website. You’ll know exactly who is in charge of your application.

• Look up their policy on campus tours. If you sign up for their prospective student mailing list, they’ll let you know if and when it changes.

• Find out if and how they conduct interviews.

• Find and if and how they handle gap year requests.

• If your high school counseling office uses Naviance or similar software, put the college into your college list there so your counselor can see.

• Get the information you need to try out their net price calculator.

Take care of yourself. The junior year is the most difficult for many high school students. You've just finished yours, under some of the most difficult conditions to happen in a long time. You need to prepare for your senior year and college applications, but you don't need to neglect your immediate well-being. Get rest. Read something for pleasure. Have a long talk with an interesting person. Ask some good questions instead of always being the one called on to answer questions. Be a person, and be the healthiest one you can.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are two easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   What are good test scores?

   What’s the right number of colleges to apply to?

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth

Breya's last interview

Breya is finished! She had a number of universities to choose from, and she made her final decision. Congratulations, University of Michigan, on scoring a great first-year student! And congratulations, Breya, on your graduation and new life as a Wolverine! Read the full interview below.

Meet the Class gets updated each month from September to May. Each installment features an interview about both the facts and the feelings of where the student is in the process.

Interviews may be edited lightly for clarity and grammar. Names may be changed to protect privacy. 

Breya attends a public high school in Ohio

Have you made a commitment to a college? Where did you choose?

I made a commitment to the University of Michigan with the backup of Ohio State, depending on how much I get in scholarships at the end of the year.

How did you make your final decision? What were the factors you considered, and what was the deciding factor?

The University of Michigan has everything I want in a college. It is out-of-state, has an amazing study abroad program, and I was offered a spot in the Summer Bridge program, so I would have a opportunity to earn more college credits before actually starting college. Out-of-state and affordability were basically my deciding factors.

How does it feel to be finished with college admissions?

It feels nice to be done because it was extremely stressful for me as I don’t really have a support system so I went through a lot of it by myself.

If a current high school junior asked you for a single piece of advice, what would you tell them?

I would tell them to make sure they hold themselves accountable, especially if they have no support system. It will make life way easier and make sure that you are on top of everything.

What have you got left in terms of high school? Is there still a lot going on, or do you get to coast and relax a little bit?

Next week, I have my Phlebotomy exam, along with my AP Chem exam and club photos for the yearbook. I would say that I still have a lot to do before I get to relax.

What are your summer plans?

I plan on working this summer and attending the Summer Bridge program for the University of Michigan. I also plan on preparing myself for college, outside of academics. I also want to enjoy my hobbies more.

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