College Application Timeline Workshop: Recommended for Rising Seniors and their Families

College Application Timeline Workshop: Recommended for Rising Seniors and their Families

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Calling all rising seniors! You have a lot coming up in the next year as you navigate your college essays and applications, in addition to your regularly scheduled schoolwork & extracurriculars. Join Priyanka Shingala of Let’s Talk College, LLC to learn how you can organize your workload to dramatically decrease your stress levels. In this session, we’ll cover the following topics:
Essays, Supplementals, Interviews: What To Do & When
Maximizing Your Summer: What to Complete Before Senior Year
Asking for Recommendations: Who to Ask & When
The College Application Website & Admissions Cycles (EA, ED, Regular, Rolling Admissions, etc)
Managing Your Stress

Priyanka has been working in the test prep and college counseling industry for 11 years and started her own business Let’s Talk College, LLC in 2018. Her goal is to ensure that families have the information they need to organize their own college applications process.

all right hi everyone welcome to this particular session on basically what should you be working on over this summer and how do you get ahead because there is quite a lot coming your way at this point and it is important that if you want to have a life whether that’s a parent with the stress levels or whe it’s a teen where you want to hang out with your friends or have a summer job but still be doing your college work at least a little bit at a time so that you’re not just putting it all to your senior year um then it isn’t really it’s really really important to use your summer wisely uh because you could it is possible to have a life and to get your work done so let me put it that way so just quick brief about me I’ve been doing this for about 10 years and I really enjoy this Pro this whole this whole just sharing and interacting with everybody experience um and really that’s why I do these presentations is to kind of help everybody out as they move forward in their college applications Journey so if at any point you have any questions whatsoever just post them in the chat and because we’re a small group you can even unmute yourself at like a good stopping point and and ask a question orally if you like okay and in the chat you could post at any time um and I’ll be asking for questions on the regular so I’m not even going to have you it’s not going to be awkward or anything where you feel like you’re interrupting so uh all right with that said let’s get started so today we have a couple of things going going on so we have our main topic so we have the components of the college applications process which if you’ve been to a previous presentation the slides probably going to look a little familiar because the components haven’t changed um then we’ll talk a little bit about the timeline but I’m actually G to I’ll see how you guys feel and the feedback I’m getting and I might just cover the timeline at the end instead of at the beginning um because that way we’ll talk about your college list your SL University search your recommendations what should you be working on right now now who do you ask for recommendations when should you be asking for recommendations and then just a couple things about your college essay where to find the topics supplementals what are they um interviews admission cycles and then finally wrap it up with what should you do now a bonus is that we’re going to take a small break in between to play a quick um cahoot just to see what your thoughts are on the admissions process and maybe clear up a few misconceptions that are pretty common and they tend to spread a lot do rumors and just passing on information from friends to friends and so on so I wanted to clarify a few of those all right um all right let’s get into it so PowerPoint Bo now first up the components of the college application so anyone who has not heard me say this before this will be a first time for you anyone who has heard me say this before bear with me as we go through this it’ll be a quick refresher for you um all right so first up is your coursework now you probably heard me say it before your coursework is really the most important part of your entire application and that coursework includes the the types of classes you take so I’ve had students who basically reach out to me and say hey should we take AP stats versus you know just regular physics instead and we kind of try and figure out hey what’s a good balance for you and that’s exactly what you should be thinking when you’re thinking of your coursework or at this point we’re reaching kind of the end stages and youve already turned in your senior year uh course course list but ultimately it was for the balance right so we’ve sat down and figured out all these minutia of okay play to your strength if it’s a weakness don’t make your life more difficult by picking the harder class and so on um or make your life difficult if you want that challenge but when it comes to your um your coursework and by the way please excuse me I am a little sick so tickle and throat I might be coughing a little bit too um just heads up and if I do have a coughing fit somewhere in the middle I promise I’m not dying I’m not that sick it’s just from talking a lot so with that said back to topic um with our grades so it’s going to be the type of classes you take the difficulty level of the classes are they honors APS with Barlo we also have the advanced level which is really just a barow level high schools can add in their own tiers of difficulty if they want to and Barlo has the advanced classes for that then it’s also going to be a of course the numerical values right so your GPA and some high schools including I know Barlo they usually don’t give out gpas until the end of the year so I believe now um most of you if you’re at Barlo should be given access to your GPA if I’m mistaken then please make sure you have access to your gpas before summer starts because that’s going to play a really big factor when you’re trying to determine which colleges you could apply to so just make sure you have access to your GPA before school ends um or make sure that your guidance counselor has a plan to get you the GPA or some point over the summer okay and then class rank so if you are at Barlo then class rank doesn’t matter because Barlo does not do class rank um and honestly if it’s a un if it’s a high school policy so if it’s a high school policy for example that at Barlo you can only take one AP in 10th Grade and then you cannot take any AP in nth grade and only 11th grade onwards can you take more than one AP well Wilton students can take multiple APS as early as 10th grade so I have Wilton students and some of them have had three APS in 10th Grade or two APS in 10th Grade and then three in n in 11th grade and so on so if we were to take both of their applications keeping in mind that we have very similar demographics in the area where whether you’re comparing Financial levels whether you’re comparing pairing ethnicity and so on we have pretty much the same blend right they’re 10 minutes away so compared to everything else if everything else is equal if all else is equal and the Wilton students have more APS than the Barlo students do or the Weston students do because Weston has the same policy as Barlo then now whose application looks better clearly it’s going to be the Wilton student because they might have more they’ll probably have more APS on the list well something to note is that if it’s a university policy such as no class rank AP is only after a certain grade and so on then it does not count against you that is going to go in and universities will be notified of that by your guidance counselor and something called the school profile and that your counselor will fill out when your applications open up so don’t worry about that part okay then after that we have your testing so ACT Testing congratulations you guys are pretty much the last class that’s going to benefit from this whole test optional thing um and even then I’m sure some of you are feeling it how some of the universities you might want to apply to just last minute switched it to test required so you pretty much are going to be a little bit over the spectrum of you might have to submit your scores you might not have to but I highly recommend having a few scores on file I know you might you’ve taken the March sat and the scores came in for that maybe you took the May exam um I wouldn’t recommend doing the June exam just because not enough prep time in between but then there is an exam in August so you are allowed to test up until the month that your application is due let’s put it that way okay so you have time to prep if you feel that you want to give it your best shot and you haven’t had a chance to give it your best shot until now so then after that we have your personal and your personal your extracurricular activities what have you been up to until this point have you played Sports have you maybe done some community service whether that’s environmental or that’s um teaching kids soccer whatever it might be what have you been up to basically outside the classroom okay then honors and achievements and that’s going to be let’s say National Honor Society maybe you have a like a French Honor Society or a math Honor Society that kind of thing it’s also honor roll um for for Barlo I know everyone had that Junior writing portfolio and that while it’s an in school project so you would think hey nobody else knows about this and will colleges even know yes because because that will be included in that school profile that I mentioned earlier if it’s a schoolwide project related to the school everybody else has to do it and is bound to it it’s going to be on the school profile okay so you can mention the junior writing portfolio if you did a really good if you got a great score okay that counts and then of course your college essay supplemental essays all of that little spectrum of uh kind of what say spectrum of more like dashes of your personality that show up a along the way as you as your application comes together right so now they have a picture of oh hey these are the kind of classes this student takes these are the kind of scores these are the kinds of sports or activities so their interests are coming out and then maybe that’s where you add in the humor and whatever else um we’ll take we’ll talk a little bit more about the essays in a bit and finally we have the recommendations now your counselor recommendation is a given so I wouldn’t even worry about that one just make sure that if your counselor has sort of like a form that you need to fill out in advance just make just get that into them on time early enough um everything else was with a school profile your counselor does that automatically teacher recommendations we’re going to talk about recommendations as a whole so I’ll talk I’ll tell you when you should be asking for them now um and who you should ask and so on okay then interviews and finally demonstrated interest demonstrated interest is basically what have you done to show the university that you are definitely interested in that University couple full of ways you can demonstrate interest open their emails you can attend virtual marketing sessions even if they’re not or like information sessions rather um so you don’t always have to go physically onto campus especially if it’s far away then I mean it’s a little difficult to just take off and go to a different location and you may not have the time okay so whether you have the time or not I still recommend just doing the virtual sessions first to see if that University is a good fit for you what’s the Vibe um is it really does it click ask your questions then and then see if it’s worth that tour or that personal visit and then um the other way you could demonstrate interest is to follow the university on social media interact follow their YouTube channels their Instagram Tik toks whatever they have out follow and also you you should like comment post so if you do go on a college tour at any point just take a few pictures around campus and then post them on your social media every now and then and tag the university with a few comments on there okay all right so that covers the basics or not Basics it’s all of it but of the components of the college applications process any questions so far okay all right let’s keep going all right next up we have the timeline so when it comes to the timeline we have the summer I was able to delete a few slides because we didn’t need all the previous stuff so here is what you guys are approaching now we are currently in May we’re about to hit June at this point in time you want to make sure you ask for your recommendations now meaning as early as tomorrow if you well you every think everyone should be going to school tomorrow so um yes so um I see the question in the chat and I will address address it at one of the like a when we get to that section so I got you and then okay so then we’re approaching this whole thing now you’re approaching June school year is going to close out and is anyone here burning out or do do we still have energy because I sensing most of my students at this point are burning out and the parents have burnt out even more because of the whole reminding them to do their just reminding them to see their work or like just a little bit more that encouragement and everything that they have to give out it’s just been a the parents are ready for a break the moms are ready for a break and um yeah I see in the chat clearly we’re on the right track the students are ready for a break the parents are ready for a break which is kind of why I wanted to do the session now because once you take a break you don’t want to look at work again and I want you to know what your work is and beforehand so that when you do hit your break you’re like that’s fine we take this much time off because after that here’s what we we’re going to do um so here’s what’s happening June ideally when I work with students I have them start on their college essay at the end of June so usually we’ll take a week and a half maybe two weeks off um depending on what their vacation schedules is and then I have them start their college essay at the end of June because then by the middle of July they’re done usually at Max it takes them about two weeks to write their college essay and that’s say that’s maybe a decent writer to an okay writer I would say about two weeks if you’re a good writer it might take take less than that okay so I that’s the first thing you want out of the way then after that we start working on other parts of your applications so I recommend doing your resume writing up your extracurriculars um and then you can start some of your supplementals so supplementals we’ll talk about in a sec as well but they’re just many essays that some but not all universities have so you could start writing those out there’s a lot of different other moving pieces there’s an additional information section that you can put together so you have stuff to do all right oh and let’s not forget your college search as we have a question in the chat about the college like picking colleges right not everybody still has their college list yet in fact most students do not have a final College list yet so you’re still doing your college search maybe you’re doing your tours and everything so there’s quite a few topics getting attention at this point in time so because of that just to systematically approach it we start our college essays in June um at the end of June then we start working on the other parts of the application the resume the additional information section maybe we’re still doing your college searches and figuring out your college list because what happens on August 1 is the applications open the official college applications open and at that point you can copy and paste your college essay and you can upload your resume on there you can upload your or copy and paste your additional information section you can write up your activities on there and you now have access to all your supplemental questions so you can do 98% of all your writing over the summer and while this all sounds like a lot let me break it down to you by time I usually tell my students because they hear all this and they’re like H I’m not going to be doing anything like my mom’s not gonna let me get a job I had a student I actually recently talked to a mom I think two weeks ago she’s like my son got a job at one of the country clubs and I’m not really there’s so much to do for college stuff and I was like no no no it’s fine if he willing to dedicate I would say about three hours three to four hours a day working on some aspect of your college stuff okay so that’s five days a week so about three to four hours a day on your own I’m not even saying you have to get a consultant or work with somebody else I’m just saying carve out the time to be on your laptop to do this work and then after that you have the day to yourself okay so applications open August 1st but I know a lot of the students Al put off their summer work and a lot of families also tend to go on vacations in August so that’s something to keep in mind is that summer work I recommend doing as early as possible if you could weave it in into July do it then especially if you’re taking AP classes because some of that summer work is just insane the outlining of chapters the re just when my students that have worked on this it’s it’s been a wait this is not what they used to do for us and now clearly we have a a workload a full workload academic workload over the summer so um plan for it okay plan for it don’t leave it until the end of summer weave it in throughout your summer as much as possible and then by the time school starts ideally you want like I said 95 to 98% of your writing just done and it makes your life so much easier because you have to keep in mind that grades still need to stay up which means the tests the projects the quizzes the essays the classwork homework all of that still needs to keep going your extracurriculars I doubt anyone is just like well we’re GNA do no extracurriculars over our senior year so you’re still going to have your extracurriculars happening right that might be the sports or the theater schedule that has to stay up and you have to show up every time you have the games you have whatever else happening on top of all of this think of what you did this year how did this year feel because if you’re like most students it was it was really stressful it was stressful there was so much going on whether that’s academic or college search or SAT prep or whatever it is now picture that and then add on another component this college stuff okay which is why I said let’s get it done all over the summer because then there’s less of an effect during the school year which is what you want because there will always there will always be surprise Rises just given what I’ve seen in the past decade and that surprise could be hey my friend is applying to this University and I want to apply there too okay great well they have an extra essay or two that you need to write your extra supplementals you need to make sure you write a genuine essay which requires some hours of research put into this do you have the time to put in genuine research or do you want to write a BS essay okay so you have to factor all that in so there will definitely be surprises once the school year starts so get rid of all the solid points over the summer now what else is happening at the time so you have college interviews assuming your University does interviews then we’ll talk a little bit about the different types of deadlines and um so all of this we’re going to talk about in just a sec but overall just make note that summer is very very valuable and we’re going to come back to the slide again so don’t worry if um you haven’t caught everything or you feel like hey this is the one oops that’s not what I meant to do if that if you feel like this is the one time you’re going to hear about it we’re going to keep coming back to that slide but let’s move on to University Research so when it comes to University Research there are a couple points that you need to be looking at now first up one of the questions I get is hey where should we even start where do we look well you can look on navian or School links I know the platform’s been changing and you can also look on College board’s College search so you just Google College Board college search and there’s a massive database use your filters wisely okay any information or any topic that you don’t care about so maybe you don’t care if it’s a public school or a private school maybe you don’t care if it’s a um a small University versus large versus medium or whatever else whatever it is you don’t care about leave that point blank that’s all that’s the major tip for navigating the College Board college search and we’ve done a previous session on this of how to find the right University for you so just refer back to that video and you’ll find out more about quite literally just navigating the process okay um and you can always reach out to me if you have questions so don’t think that you have to refer to the YouTube videos you can always just talk to me one-on-one about your process as well um after the call but all right so what should you be looking for when you are looking at a university well to address that question in the chat now one of the first things you want to look for if you don’t know what it is you want to do is how will you help me figure this out because to not for a teenager to not know what it is they want want to whatever field of study or career that they want to go into that’s not surprising that is very very common because our education system is not designed to introduce teenagers to Career paths we have them taking the the requirements across a variety of subjects math Sciences social sciences government Etc right um so that’s not career oriented necessarily it’s more of a fundamentals oriented type of approach well okay so if it’s such a common issue then what is the University doing to help me address it or to help me figure out what it is I like to do now when you look at universities one of the first points you want to look at if you’re not sure what it is you want to do is the career resource center now the career Resource Center has two parts so the first part I’m going to talk about is in relation to how do they help me figure it out and the second part is okay well you’ve been a professional student now what so first part how do they help me figure this out out a lot of Career Centers when you go there they will have you do personality tests then they might also have you do some kind of career coaching and that career coaching may be based on your personality test may have you do a few activities um to help narrow down just the fields of Interest then some of them take it a step further and might even connect you to alumni who work in the field that your tests have narrowed you into so some will actually help you schedule the interviews and some might just say here’s the info you reach out whichever option now not every University does all of this okay so when you are doing your research you want to check that there is this full fleshed out program that is going to help you do this and a lot of and universities are proud of their program so they’re going to put this on their website it’s in their Career Center website okay so all you have to do is let’s say Yukon Career Center or um forom career center American University career center whatever ever univiversity you’re thinking just Google it name of the University career center and then they will have some kind of tabs and so on where they’ll State hey we have career counseling we have U find your passion or again synonyms right at that point it’s synonms of which one says what that they’re going to help me find my career so that’s how I would approach this search for the undecided the other way I would actually do a search for how do they help me figure this out or just how do I figure out what I want to do I actually this was part of an email newsletter I sent out um actually I am sending out I’m planning to send this one out in a few weeks I just realized I didn’t send it I just drafted it but it’s basically go to a large University’s website and on their website they’ll list out all the majors and academic fields that they offer so let’s say you go to yukon’s website for example or you go to uh upen you notice I’m going for like the state iers ities um you Michigan and then what you do is you start digging major by Major by major and you look at the classes that they offer do they seem boring first when you look at the list of Majors you’re going to ex out a lot of things I exed out accounting accounting was never going to be for me okay um there were a lot of different topics I was like NOP no no no no and then you might have maybe let’s say 15 20 that you still think I could deal with that I think I’m curious about that okay now you start clicking and you start looking at the courses that they offer well do the classes seem interesting okay so you’re going to start from that point and then some Majors even take it a step further and they’ll tell you hey these are the career paths so before this call one of my students and I we were talking about um one of the univers like just we were making we’re making his college list and we came across the university um and this is a good example actually Indiana University is what we were looking at as one of his safeties and what they did if you went to the career website is that they took you to the majors topic by topic and then they also told you possible careers you could have from that particular major so that was interesting and we’re still working on the research process so we haven’t done the second part of the career resource uh Center research but that was still an initial like okay good we’re going in the right direction right so that was a green flag because there are red flags there are green flags and you will find them as you look more and more into universities um because there are some pieces of information you find on one University where you’re like where is this here it’s not it’s not there um that’s something to keep in mind and those are the two ways I recommend approaching the how do I figure out what it is I want to do again one is look at the Career Centers website just to see what job counseling career counseling type of thing they have available and how robust that program is and then the second one is just dig into a larger University’s basically academics offerings and then see if you actually like the classes that a lot of these have to offer you’re not going to like 100% of the classes we all have to take classes we don’t like I don’t think many people want to take calculus too okay some things you just do but do you like the majority of the classes that are in that major or did that title of that major just sound super interesting but when you go into it that’s not you okay and you want to check that across multiple universities because those programs also vary which brings me to the other point is exploring career paths and um and Majors is if you do know what it is you want to pursue or you have the three topics let’s say it’s graphic design and architecture and maybe computer science um what you want to do is look at each of these universities programs because they’re all going to be different yes you will have to take the same fundamental classes we all again it might be you know engineering 101 or it might be stats or be Cal 2 or the basic levels of biology and and whatever else but then after that one program might have more that’s geared towards let’s say if it’s computer science o we’re making stuff up now because I don’t know much about computer science um let’s say more towards Hardware than software or it might be more towards I should have done this with anthropology my one of my students and I are looking into anthropology but maybe it’s geared more towards with anthropology more towards Eastern studies than it is towards Native American or towards European or just a well-rounded Global right so you want to look into the different field just even even within that same major I promise you it plays out very very differently per University and that is where a lot of the red flags green flags and irritation is also going to come so you want to do the Deep dive research look at the classes you have to take look at the careers that the faculty members have had um look at the kinds of jobs and such that you could get from it or what kind of careers have the faculty members had um as like a idea of what you could get into at some point and then basically explore from there what kind of research opportunities or student participation opportunities and so on okay all right so that’s the career paths and how do I figure out what I want to do now let’s bring it to the actual career center part two which is going to be great I’ve been a professional student for about what 18 20 years of my life at that point we all start school around age four or five um so yeah about that great how are you going to help me transition to a job or an internship or um some kind of shadowing or some kind of career oriented experience some universities once again they have the care the career counseling some will have their own internship and job databases some will have career fairs that they host every semester in the fall and spring semesters some will help you do interview prep and have you walk in with a mock interview maybe they’ll help you with your resume and your cover letter these are all points that you want to be looking for okay resume and cover letter are like the bare minimum that you need to expect all right then of course look at the other stuff so keep in mind University is going to be fun it’s going to be a blast but we’re also there for academic purposes right or just making sure we have a whole life experience purposes so first look at your academic Writing Center tutoring resources what’s available what kind of tutoring center is it paid is it free then look at all the programs available so we have study AB Brads cool where do we go especially if it’s study abroad for a particular major that’s cool study architecture in Florence that sounds kind of cool right right City because they have really great architecture I haven’t been there but we had to study that for art history um in 10th Grade but they have really great architecture it kind of makes sense they have a long history we get to go there and study okay but then are you also in a study abroad where you’re just taking a language class and maybe a Fluff class just so you could be in a different country pros and cons are both co-ops are to Define them basically programs that allow you to take it’s just um co-ops allow you to take a semester off to work in the job or the career that you are studying in right so at that point if you are studying in let’s say computer science or or one of my students who’s doing Cy cyber security and basically when you do a co-op the university helps you find a job placement you are taking a semester off anytime after freshman year and ultimately you’re working you’re earning money and you’re getting practical experience so you’ve been doing all the theoretical stuff in school and now you’re getting some of the Practical experience okay so that’s what co-ops are and then of course make sure you look at Student Life the student organizations if you’re interested in a certain club or certain activity ping pong table tennis whatever it might be I’ve had a student who tried who did and we were looking at some of the Student Life stuff and he’s like there’s no pingpong club and my question to him was okay well would you be willing to start one because a lot of universities will let you start organizations if you have the number of you know you have enough people interested but now you got to be in charge and is that a responsibility that you want if so go for it if not then is that a Make It or Break It Right how important is this to you can you find this particular interest somewhere else so all that whole the whole picture and then make sure you’re looking at mental health and disabilities I’ve had a lot of students have students one are two students at the moment who are really working on their anxiety or depression ad ADHD um and even throughout the years they they’ve had students who might have had different in cogn um cognitive function because they were born prematurely or it might just be um whatever it might be dyslexia dyscalculia discula yes whatever it might be just make sure you’re aware of the resources before you walk into that University and find out that ooh that’s not really available we thought it might be because this is such a large University or this is such a ranked University or whatever it might be but no you don’t have what I need so now we have to make sure we privately organize whatever it is and take a few extra steps to make this work again be aware of what is available to you even if you never plan to use it okay all right any questions so far and Nicole did that answer your question about picking a university or picking universities creating a college list if you’re undecided um all right so hopefully is everyone still with me let’s see okay yeah is everyone still with me I saw someone turn on a camera yes okay perfect thanks I’ve gotten so used to just looking at the okay um okay perfect it’s one of those where I’ve gotten so used to looking at just these black squares that sometimes it turns into a monologue and well I don’t want you falling asleep I don’t want this to be super boring at the same time so just keep the chat going and we’re gonna have a break in just a few minutes so okay we talked about the university search now let’s talk about recommendations because this is a priority for now now I don’t know if Barlo is still doing this because they stopped doing this for the few years after covid and even until last year they were not doing this again but prior to co what Barlo did is that if you had um not if you had they basically asked students to to have ask for their recommendations before the school year ended okay so all students were basically asked to submit the recommendation requests to their teachers before school ended Therefore your teachers would have um yeah so that way your teachers would have like your entire summer to write the recommendations now whether Barlo is doing that again or not not I don’t know yet um this year my students are more Wilton Weston but what I will say is whether whether Barlo is doing that or not I recommend that you ask for your teacher recommend oh they are perfect okay so they’re back on the asking teachers for recommendation perfect ask your teacher for recommendations and I know that you have to what they used to do before I’m sure it’s the same policy back in effect which is um usually you have to do a little write up or teachers have a little form that you need they need to fill out right or they ask you to fill out so make sure you’re providing stories as many as possible ideally three to five bullet points of information that is has something to do with outside of school you or just mix mix it up because your teachers know one aspect of you they might not know your goals they might not know that um oh you struggled with the class but maybe you never asked for help or maybe you didn’t really talk to them as much so they might not even know that maybe um so you struggled in the class and then you figured it out maybe it’s that you did ask for help and you were always at extra help or tutoring or whatever it is so give them points because they’re going to forget I mean they have a hundred students right so they’re going to forget they’re not going to remember all of this so make sure it’s in writing make sure there are examples involved and if possible go take an EXT take it an extra step further and ask your teacher if you could sit down for like a five to 10 minute just meeting to talk about your goals and basically your recommendation okay um some teachers will say yes some especially because it’s the end of the school year might be like on crunch time so maybe they won’t be able to but if you do meet in person whether you meet in person or not make sure that there is something in writing even if your teacher does not have a form for you to fill out it is up to you to email them and in that email you just say hi Mr so and so hi Mr Pinsky um Mr light whoever it might be um thank you so much for heing to write your recommendation for me um really appreciate it because I know that you have so many students and you may not remember everything that has happened with me this year I just wanted to give you a few points to draw help jog your memory or that points that might help you write my recommendation okay so that’s really the tone you’re taking you’re not demanding that they put these points about you in the recommendation You’re simply offering the suggestions so that that it makes their life easier and your recommendation is tailored to you so that the names on the recommendation are not just swappable right oh they’re so respectful blah blah blah uh okay so the question we have in the chat it’s a great one which is a recommendation is recommendation generic or specific to each University well usually it’s going to be generic but if you want a specific recommendation talk to your teacher but maybe and that really when I when would I recommend even getting a specific recommendation I might recommend that if you’re applying to a university that your teacher has been to so your teacher is an alumni I might recommend that if um I think that really would be the only time because otherwise um let’s say you ask your AP Bio teachers let’s say you ask Mr a light to write a recommendation for you well he’s going to be writing about your science interest in science or whatever it might be right well if you’re applying for a science major then no matter which university you’re applying for a science major too his recommendation goes to it it is applicable to everybody does that make sense so because subject and the major matched it wouldn’t really matter but really the specific really comes in if it’s a teacher who has a background at that University or an alumni member that’s really the only time other than that a generic is all it’s going to be and you’re not going to see your recommendations so keep that in mind um they will be uploaded into the middle platform and I believe uh has Baro switched over to school links or are we on Naviance I don’t mind either way um because I know Weston has switched over to school links um I believe Wilton is still using navian for one more year and then they’re switching over for the next year so whichever platform but your recommendation will be uploaded directly to that platform all you’re going to see is that it’s been uploaded so you know it’s in which is good because now you don’t have to keep following up um so you know it’s in you don’t know what it says you can’t click on it and then it’s just going to ah score okay thank you for that um yeah I think people are starting are starting to step away from navian now but and I need to write down score because we already have school links in Weston now score and many programs going around but ultimately when it comes to your recommendations score Navan School links all of these platforms are middlen they collect your grades they collect your recommendations and then they connect it to your application so all of this happens with you ever seeing your recommendations okay um okay so do you need to tell your recommenders if you’re planning early decision early action if you haven’t decided since that affects their timing at this point in time you don’t have to because chances are you might not even know which one you’re doing early decision early action on but the point of asking now is that bringing us back to Let’s refer back to the timeline actually so that’s not it but let’s it’s a few slides down and I’m jumping okay so bringing a back to the timeline what you’re going to do is you ask your recommendations now then August hits applications open around the second week of August is now your is follow-up time so at that point you can again second week of August I would say hi Mr light Mr huminsky just want to follow up make sure you had everything you needed to write my recommendation also just a heads up I’m thinking of applying early decision early action so my deadlines are in November now what note what you’re doing is you’re giving them ample times still okay you said Aug you told made sure you mentioned it in August they have a couple months even if they hadn’t had a chance to write it here they still have time and then after that you can follow up every two weeks usually the teachers are pretty freaking amazing at getting the recommendations done around mid-september is but if not just follow up every two weeks until school starts and after school starts or as your deadlines basically a month before your deadlines then you want to follow up every week if the recommendation is not in yet just a quick checkin not you’re not going to get on anyone’s nerves just a quick I wanted to drop in um and just make sure that you have everything you needed type of thing but don’t be annoying or aggressive about it just a reminder I know you’re busy okay so again asking now not bothering anybody about anything and then you’re just following up in August so still plenty of time a lot of early deadlines tend to start in November okay um any other question questions on that me jump we’re jumping back to the recommendation slide okay all right uh so that’s recommendations for teachers and coaches as well because coaches should also be able to upload since they’re school affiliated they will also be uploading the recommendation onto score navian School links whatever the platform you’re using is um after that you want at least one or two other people and other people could be your again coach could be community service directors or super job supervisors I forgot to put that one in there um friends peers I know you think that’s crazy but there are some universities that actually ask you for your peer recommendation that’s because they want to see hey is this person going to fit in with our student body that we have here and that we’re trying to create here or are they going are they not are they going to be miserable here okay so yeah they do ask for peer recommendations so on you can ask your clergy person and really the most interesting recommendations are from people who are not the expected because keep in mind that admissions officer has spent hours and days going through all those paperwork reading recommendations you’re not going to ask for recommendations for someone who’s going to write something bad about you so from a reader perspective they’ve just spent hours upon hour hours reading like a good stuff really about all these thousands of people so and it’s going to be teachers coaches and so on all the expected so the most interesting recommendations that what like an admissions officer I’ve heard say is um they come from the random they’re like the janitor of the school or maybe the Barista at the Starbucks or coffee shop that you always go to or like a friend or someone who you’re just like plot twist right somebody who sees you but sees you from a different angle and also the recommender the the reader is not expecting that huh like the Jan really this person wrote this is the person that the student asked for a recommendation that’s kind of deat that’s different um um and it kind of makes them wake up from that fog of constantly reading the good stuff from the expected people so think of somebody random and then and make sure you have an actual bond with them because you don’t want a generic weird recommendation um or like a empty one paragraph recommendation so somebody you might have built a bond with over time and then maybe schedule a 10-minute me talk time with them to give them content for recommendations and ask them to write a recommendations when time comes on your application you get to pick which ones you’re sending in to which university so all of these will go and be stored not actually not such only your school ones will be stored on your navian or School links platforms navian platforms let’s just say navian for us um yes so I see the questions in the chat and I promise I’m going to get to them um so they’re SC they’re stored in those platforms and then what happens is um the ones from the miscellaneous you will actually be going into your your application putting in their email address that person so let’s say you ask me for a recommendation right let’s say Nicole is going to ask me for a recommendation well at that point what’s going to happen is Nicole’s goingon to go on her application she’s goingon to enter my contact info name email address I am going to receive a link which allows me to upload my recommendation so note what happened again Nicole is never going to see that recommendation again okay so no recommendation is seen by that student but I get to upload my recommendation so now Nicole’s like hey bian I need you to send in my recommendation to these four universities well okay that means I need four different links from you and that’s easy enough to do on the application but I get four different links as a recipient and I’m just going to upload that PDF every single time okay so that’s what happens with the others that are not school affiliated but at the end of the day um to answer the questions of how many recommendations letters are typically needed I recommend having at least three to four because you’re not going to be sending those in not all of them most universities will ask you for at least two some will say three and some might end really I should pull this up on the application but some will say Okay teachers and then you have underneath it it says required and optional so some might say oh teachers zero required but two optional or one optional and then underneath it is other and then it’ll say one required zero optional okay so every university has a different how many required how many optional So based on that breakdown but you do not want to ever ever ever send in more than three recommendations at that point it seems like you’re compensating for something so even if you could and the options are there for you to send it in do not send in more than three and no I am not counting the the guidance counselor’s recommendation in that I’m talking independent of the guidance counselor do not send in more than three if you can keep it to two and three is like your max cut off so I would do one teacher one other okay all right one of the other questions I have in the chat is um should recommenders be junior year teachers versus you know senior year teachers who lead a club you’re in okay ask the people who genuinely know you because you don’t want it to be again you don’t want the superficial recommendation you want depth to it so it could be a senior year teacher who you might not have had but they know you from this club that’s okay all right you can also have teachers from sophomore years no freshman your teachers I I would not recommend that’s too far away and you have changed as a person teenagers you Chang dramatically just working with teenagers there’s a whole different field to a ninth grader and working with a ninth grader and then working with a 10th grader onwards there’s a level of Independence that comes into play the level of accountability maturity everything so you don’t want to do it that way um all right and then the question is how do I decide which two teachers to send that can really really just I would just play that by here because you want right now ask for the two because some universities ask you for two teacher recommendations that’s the max um so make sure you just ask for it and then that it just depends on the University or how you feel about it basically so if one and sometimes it’s like a 5050 it’s just like oh I’m going to do this one because again everyone’s going you’re only asking people who genuinely know you so you know that there’s good content hopefully in these recommendations so at that point when you get down the applications Sometimes some of my students and I kind of just sit there and we’re like all right we have your we have your other covered and we have only one teacher we can send to so which one do you feel wrote you the better recommendation out of these options that you have and then we’re like all right that teacher and then maybe for another University we’re like I don’t know maybe that teacher also so that point it just ends up being an Eeny Meeny Mighty Mo there’s no strategy because we can’t we don’t know what the recommendation says right um but there unfortunately that is the one thing that we cannot control or really influence outside of choosing our recommenders very very wisely and making sure that our recommenders have the content everything they could possibly need from us they have it okay after that what they write we’re not going to know but we have done our homework we have done our job we’ve provided them with everything they need we have followed up to make sure that they have everything that they need and then after that it’s just a 5050 um all right the other question is um if is a letter of w from a biot teacher necessarily better if I want a major in bio as opposed to somebody who knows me better is more creative honestly I might even go with somebody who knows you better as a creative just to introduce that different aspect to you because if you’ve done the AP Bio for example right or if you’ve done the higher level bio then it’s already on your transcripts so the idea now is to start filling the other parts of you in because is they have this framework but that framework is spotty you have some idea of their grades oh cool they took AP Bio maybe it’s because everybody in that school took AP Bio or maybe it’s because this kid is interested in biology but you might be CH already picking a biology major to apply to so they’ll make that transcript connection and maybe in your college essay you might talk about why you want biology as of Interest not the whole essay maybe at the end or something like three sentences um or it could be the whole essay depending on how deeply you feel about that topic but then hey look this person’s also creative and they also do this so I would ask a recommendation from both and then depending on how your essay plays out and how other parts of your application Play out then we want to say okay did we actually hit the spots did we cover the fact ever that you were creative oh no we didn’t because your college ESS say ended up being about biology okay then maybe let’s s in that recommendation that has to do with creativity instead okay so you’re kind of trying to plug in the many holes to paint the picture of you you as best as possible okay um any other questions on recommendations can you request from more than two teachers yeah honestly sometimes I say request from three teachers just so you have that one other kind of backup um but you will only be submitting two because universities don’t really require but now your eeny meeny miny moe just turned into one more option so yes I I usually recommend having three but I put two in as the standard requirement by applications um and so teachers don’t hate me when you all approach them tomorrow about their recommendations but yes three is perfectly okay asking for more is better than not having enough um you can ask the so the question in the chat is can you ask the teacher to share yes but that’s you can’t force somebody to share right a teacher can always say yeah but I prefer not to that’s completely on that so usually with friends or community service directors outside of school people they’ll usually give you the PDF and say hey here’s what we wrote let us know if you want to make us if you want us to make any changes but teachers usually have their own process just because they’re so used to writing the recommendations and because they have so many people that ask them every year to write their recommendations so um just something to note okay all right any other questions are recommendations because next up we have college essays all right so College I’m surprised I’m not coughing yet and I hope I did not just drink myself when I said that all right college essay so all the fun stuff that you’ve been doing outside of the classroom comes into play and hopefully is what you share or not all of it because that’s part of your extracurriculars but some aspect of that hopefully you decide to share in your college essay now what is a college essay college essay is basically a 250 minimum to a 650 Max maximum word essay about you now before I Ty into some of the topics just a heads up on the word count if you have 249 words this application will not let you submit that particular application right if you have more than 650 words the actual application box the text box will cut off anything more than 650 it’s been a fun adventure working with students on their college essay and being like we’re three words over which words out of this essay that we’ve been working and tapering and tapering down from like 700 words or like 800 words to get to the 653 now what what can we sacrifice and it’s crazy because some students get so excited they’re like I found it I found this word I found this but it is it is a different kind of Adventure to try to get your essay to match the word count most students I have the issue of going over instead of under um but it’s just make sure you’re within that word count because everything else will be automatically deleted so then that brings us to what are the topics the topics for your college essay are already out they usually come out usually January or February of junior year so which is why I said oh we usually start our college essay I start with with my students I start their college essays at the end of June because the topics have been out for a few months already in fact for some AP length classes um at least for my student in Weston that they’re going to actually start working on their college a at some point before the school year ends so it might be the last week of school or something but they’re actually going to start working on their college essay uh since AP exams are over so you have the topics available topics It’s usually the same seven prompts every year they might change a prompt every four years but really it’s something about expand on some certain kind of experiences you might have had obstacles you faced share something that you feel is really core to your identity um or something that you could spend time on hours and hours Upon Time lose time to it or lose track of time what is that what is that thing that you do or it could be a period of personal growth or maybe it’s a time that you questioned or challenge a belief for an idea and what happened then so those are really I kind of just summed up all seven and six of the topics because there’s always the seventh topic which is just share an essay on a topic of your own choosing okay so if you want Define these topics basically just go on to Google oh wait not that put that in the wrong spot um ah no I didn’t I actually I know what I did okay so you just go on to Google and you just type in common app first year essay prompts now if you’re applying to the University of California system you’re not going to have to do a college essay for them but you will for the other universities you’re applying to so you still have to do a college essay but University of California system works a little differently um so just Google you can even do that now while you’re on the call Google common app first year essay prompts and you’re going to find it it’s 2024 2025 um essay prompts which are the exact same for the last two three years so that’s there and then sample essays so you want to know what a college essay looks like because you’ve never written one before it hasn’t been a class assignment you never have to talk about yourself usually it’s about a topic your teacher gave you right so it gets a little paralyzing to have to talk about yourself because you’re like where where do I start do I talk about my extracurricular do I talk about my interest in this major do I talk about my the importance my family has for me what do I talk about and if you want to take a look at a few sample essays the writing style the content that they include how do they keep the readers engaged um I recommend looking at John’s Hopkins essays that worked a lot of universities release essay topics that are relevant um or like the essays rather that they found have worked essays that worked with John’s Hopkins I like that they also give you the admissions committee’s feedback so there have been times and I do this when I’m working with students on their college essays which is I um I have them read a couple and some of them I I find topics that are completely opposite to that student’s personality they don’t understand it they’re like why why does this essay even make sense why would Johns Hopkins put this on their website because that’s what happens sometimes it just you can’t compute why this essay was a good essay because it’s just it sounds weird um and then it it sounds weird um and then you look at the admissions committee’s feedback and it’s a oh okay I get it now moment okay and that’s what you want you want an idea of what the admissions committee is thinking so that when you are writing your essay you kind of have an idea as well of what how to Target your audience so to speak all right any questions on college essays okay all right we’re GNA take a quick break to play a game and it’s really quick it’s five minutes or five questions so it’s going to go really fast um all right for anyone who needs to step away perfectly okay if you need to leave I know um it’s supposed to be about an hour and we’re almost done just to give you an idea of what’s coming up we have supplemental essays that are coming up we also have interviews but that’s going to be really quick because they’re not as popular as they’re they’re not as prevalent as they used to be um admission cycle stuff and then just timeline and then we’re done so it’s fairly quick um all right so the question we have is is the essay same for all colleges yes you pick one of the five or one of the six or seven topics and then you have an option actually you can tailor the essay for two particular universities and if you decide to do that then you have to make sure you change you have multiple copies of your essay right your copy paste you send to that University you go back to that essay now you change it up again and then you send it to that different University and so on so you do it that way or you can make that one essay and it really depends on your as a topic because if it’s you talking about well yourself as a personality as an aspect that is not covered in any other part of your application then you don’t have to change it okay or if it’s you talking about your interest in a particular major then you don’t really have to change it uh but if you’re talking about how you feel that University will help you grow then yeah you have to change it okay but if the university has supplemental essays which are again the mini essays um the why if they have the why us as one of their questions then you’re already talking about why is that University or how is that University going to help you out help you reach your goals so you’ve already mentioned the basically connecting yourself to the university so you’ve already mentioned it which means in your college essay you don’t have to okay so it’s kind of like this this game of navigating the do we don’t we what’s the University giving us first do they have supplementals if they have supplementals is it a y up if it’s a y us great I have the opportunity to talk about that University and what I could contribute there what I could get out of it Etc in that particular essay but if I don’t have that opportunity does that mean I need to tweak my college essay right so it’s like this it’s like a dance that you kind of have to do same thing with the recommendations like how do we pull all of this together to make this perfect package from all this information that we have all right so back to supplementals so supplementals we said were many essays now a university could have first of all random random questions for these supplemental essays some of them will say oh here is this entire paragraph of what our University stands for pick a line in there that is most meaningful to you and write 250 words or 300 words about it some might say if you could be an object what would you be in why um so they get pretty creative on these and so which sometimes the creative part is annoying when you have so much going on you’re like just give me the flat out research base because I have the search because when I work with my students with their college search process we actually create an Excel sheet um like an entire Google sheet and parents have access to this so there’s no question that we’re all on the same page but there’s this Google sheet and the Google sheet has your main list and we have the research tab on it so you’re like I could just pull this information and you know whip together this 250w paragraph or two paragraphs but then they get really creative and you’re like okay great now I have to carve out the time to actually think about this so um it varies by University we have no control over it now some universities may not have any supplemental essays might have one two three four five and same thing goes with the word count I was actually pretty flexible with the word count here when I said 500 because some have like 700 word count or we’ll do the full like hey you have another college essay equivalent 650 word count but most commonly I have seen between 150 and 250 so 150 is about a paragraph and 250 is about two paragraphs and sometimes that’s not even enough space because you’ve done all the research there’s too much you want to share so it’s a good problem to have okay all right next up so resources for the supplemental essay because we talked about your college essay resources now resources for your supplemental essay the college application itself whether you’re using Common App whatever other application there’s a different presentation on the different kinds of applications because as you see with timing um or the University’s website which University’s website is maybe where you want to go if you’re looking for the topics in advance prior to August 1st but as I said there’s to occupy us before August 1 that when August 1 hits you have access to all your application supplementals so now you can get writing those okay all right um by the way please post questions in the chat whenever if ever they come up I am just with respect to time for you because now I’m feeling fully awake and apparently I’m not even coughing so this is going really well um but if um with if you have questions just post I’m just going to speed it up a little because we’re almost there so we’re almost there like right here the slide right after this one um all right so interviews interview policies vary by University so some universities absolutely require every applicant to be interviewed and that’s going to be uh means you don’t have an option you have to prepare then you have some that have the oh if you’ve only gotten to a certain tier through our you know filtering process then we’ll interview you so okay we’ve done the first tweeted out a few people or picked out a few narrowed down narrow down to help us narrow down further we’re just going to interview you to see what your Vibe is basically and then the other one is just it’s optional so if it’s optional then I highly recommend doing it in fact in any part of your application because some universities will even say oh supplementals we have an optional supplemental for you no no no no no no there is no such thing as optional if they say it’s optional they’re filtering they’re looking to see hey who is willing to go above and beyond to turn in the work to do the work okay so no no no no no there’s no such thing as optional most students when they look at optional are going to skip over it because also unlike hopefully everybody on this call most students are going to wait until the school year starts when they have everything else going on to work on their college application stuff so they’re already running on crunch time and they can’t put in their best effort and yeah at that point option op is just extra work they have to do that they don’t have time for okay don’t let that be you so anything that’s optional whether that’s supplemental whether that’s an essay whatever it is you make sure you do it if it’s two essays then you do it okay um all right then format it could be in person if the university is close enough otherwise the most common that’s happened particularly uh it used to happen even before covid but now it’s video has become more common Skype Zoom Google meet that kind of thing and then alumni so if there’s someone who used to attend that University and has now volunteered to interview potentials then that person may be willing to meet with you so I’ve had student uh students who met with their um with the alumni members at like the Fairfield library or some have met at the Wilton Library or at tusken cup or so on so anywhere locally and you might even find especially with a town this size um that it might even be like a parent of your friend or classmate or something all right questions so okay here’s where I want to differentiate a good interviewer is not going to ask you any of these questions they’re just going to ask you tell me about yourself and then it’s going to feel like a natural conversation based on the stuff that you’ve said okay so a good a good interviewer it’s not going to be this rigid tell me about yourself what do you like about this University what are your strengths and weaknesses all this other stuff it’s just going to feel like a natural conversation you might even end up talking about what you did this past summer or something about your extracurriculars or is your academics or your whatever else that’s going on ultimately they’re just trying to get a feel for your vibe to see if what’s happening at the University would again be a good fit for you or if you’d end up miserable there um now an inexperienced interviewer so I’ve had students who’ve been interviewed at universities by current students at the University right so that second year that’s sophomore in college and they are not as experienced so they might really be just looking online for this list of questions to ask in a college interview and they’re the same questions you might find in a job interview but you replace company why do you want to work for this company for why are you interested in this University um no matter what you want to be ready for that okay uh make sure you’ve done your research and this is something I cover with my students and there when their college research process and college search process when we’re making their list but from your end just make sure you’ve done as much academic research all those points I mentioned doing your in the in the University Research aspect make sure you’ve not only done it but you’re tracking that information somewhere that you writing this down because that information is what is going to get you through your supplementals it’s what’s going to get you through your interviews it’s also going to help you figure out your life at the University whichever University you decide to go to you already know what’s available there okay so you’ve done all this stuff in advance while other students are still figuring it out so that’s how I approach the university search process and that’s how I recommend that you approach the university search process research process as well all right final point which is admission Cycles so earlier somebody mentioned hey what do you about if you’re applying early not applying early so let’s talk a little bit about these cycles first up we have early action early action is my preferred one which is it’s not binding at all you’re simply submitting early which is a way to show demonstrated interest okay and usually students find out if you apply early you find out usually mid December before the holidays or the very latest mid January mostly it’s mid December but there are a couple outliers universities that prefer to just release their decisions in January then um if you’re early decision so I remember as early action is acted I just I’m so on top of my work I acted early I’m just going to submit my stuff early decided is I have decided I am going to attend your University so that means it’s binding okay that’s why I have decided so I put that strong word to it that strong tone that’s how I remember it um because otherwise they all blend together so binding meaning parents if you’re on the call once your teenager hits that submit button you will receive an email based on whichever contact info whichever parents contact info that team put in the application you receive an info that’s a email that is basically a contract and that contract says hey if accepted you’re committed to attending this University you’re also going to pull your application from every other university okay um so how so ultimately if you’ve applied to other Universities at that time which chances are you have then they’re just going to say Hey you have to email those people and withdraw your application that’s what that contract States also you can get out of a binding uh an ed if there’s some kind of extending circumstance somebody let’s say a family member lost a job or somebody you know prior in MA major income Source whoever that was lost a job maybe there’s a medical condition whatever it is then that you can get out of it um but it has to be something a little bit bigger right otherwise it’s annoying to try and wiggle your way out of the early decision so be careful where you apply early decision um because also you’re not guaranteed financial aid if you apply early decision these decisions come out also that um usually around December which is before the financial aid has been processed so just be aware of that when you are applying in fact I don’t app I don’t recommend applying early decision if you don’t think you can pay out of pocket to a university okay um and of course you’re regular those deadlines tend to be um right so for early decision now let’s actually go so we have early decision regular let’s talk about these three on the on the actual timeline because we have a couple things to mention so early action generally deadlines tend to be November 1st November 15th and you find out mid December to January then early decision deadlines also tend to be January F or sorry November 1st November 15th and you also find out usually in December before the holidays Max the university is pushing it then to in Jan January now here’s the thing because early decision is binding and university is just trying to fill their spots okay they’re trying to say hey we have to create the student body oh look at all these people who are so committed to going well let’s let’s actually give ourselves more room to play with let’s give ourselves more applicants to play with what they do is that they will have a second round not every University does early action early decision not every University that does early decision Al was a second early decision cycle so early decision two let’s say you did ed1 and you got rejected at your ed1 whatever University you might depending on the other university you want to apply to maybe that other university has an early decision to option so they might have a second round if you have a second round again same application but now you might be submitting your midyear grades instead of just whatever you had in November so you’re adding in more grades other than that application is the same unless you make a few tweaks to specify to that University um and those deadlines can be November or Jan January 1st January 15th usually okay again every University is an independent entity they can pick their own deadlines okay now commonly a lot of universities regular deadlines also tend to be January 1st January 15 Yukon tends to be December if you’re applying to let’s say the Honors College or a few specific programs and then I believe it’s January or February I just they kind of tweaked a little things but it’s somewhere there so again every University decides for itself which is why deadlines are something you have to stay on top of all right and finally I don’t I don’t want to go back a slide just actually you know why not so rolling admissions rolling admissions means that it’s an ongoing admission cycle so let’s actually turn back to the timeline for this ongoing admission cycle means University will say hey we open our applications let’s say August 1st with everybody else between August 1st and March 1st you are allowed to submit your application at any time we will let you know four to six weeks after your application has been submitted as to what what your decision is so if you submit in October you’ll find out in November November find out December and so on and if you are interested in a university that has or that has rolling admissions of course apply early when most of the seats are open as opposed to waiting to hear back from all these other universities and then deciding that oo let’s do that rolling admissions one okay um but those are the four major ones there are a few like weird ones thrown in there but these are the four major deadlines that you’re going to come across as you do your search Okay um all right so then other stuff College interviews we talked about but now let’s put them on the timeline most time most interviews will start around September October depending on registrations will open but then and and you know universities will start they might continue until Jan January but registration May close in November or December if it’s an optional interview type of situation so if the spots fill up for the optional interviews then they filled up and you missed out so um just make sure that you’re on top of those that piece of information as well we mentioned the early decision early action deadline stu um regular decision Cycles they usually get released any point like I said between or any decisions January and really March because if you early decision early action you’re finding out earlier and then rolling admissions you might find out earlier and then everybody else is usually around March March April so it’s like that’s where the anxiety kicks in not that’s where we get a lot of panic a lot of oh my God oh my God oh my God we’re not getting the money we need we got into these universities but they’re not offering US Financial back that’s all Happening Here financial aid stuff so the application CSS profile which is done by college board just College Board CSS profile it’s a paid application for federal aid or not federal aid it’s for University Aid so this application goes directly to the university that if you submit it and you do early decision early action maybe they’ll see it on time okay um the FSA on the other hand they changed that in 2024 so current seniors got a little toast with how that played out with the change because there were also errors and website issues and glitches and so on so deadlines have been tweaked around we’ll see how it rolls out for you guys usually it used to be October 1st as a deadline then they changed it to November this year which then turned into January 1 which then turn into two weeks of technical issues and all this bunch of stuff so we’ll see what they say for you guys next year but that’s the free application for federal student aid all right uh for more of this information by the way please check out my website because I have detailed breakdowns of everything I’ve talked about on my website and I’ll share that website in a bit but there’s a whole guide on just approaching financial aid stuff um so be sure to check that out and then of course you have your grades extracurriculars May 1 is the national decision day so that’s when you have to parents you have to pay the $500 deposit to reserve that spot for that student now after this is when students get off the wait list because now you know you know who’s going to which university so universities know what spots are open so if you get off a wait list after you paid your $500 deposit just go back to the university you paid the deposit to and ask for a refund they’ll process it for you okay all right any questions anything and I’m actually going to desktop share so I can show you what I was referring to um and I saw the question in the chat by the way so let me first show you resource from myand which is my website and on this website I’ve kind of again 10 years of experience I kind of know what all major topics and her like pain points are so College search if starting from scratch all the way to somewhat creating your list you have a topic here and this is all free you don’t have to put in your information or anything for this stuff um scholarships how to find them what kinds some scams to be aw aware of Gap years sat stuff there’s also a video there’s a popup for a video if you’re interested um and then paying for college is the guide that I was referring to so that way you just get the guide and in that case you’ll put in your contact info I highly recommend getting on my newsletter because I really break down things in bite-sized pieces but also as per what’s happening so if APS are happening I’m addressing some of the issues with APS or I’m addressing some the issues with let’s see what happens if you fail in AP and so on which are my most recent things um but yes and then if you are interested again with respect to time and I see the question in the chat okay so I’m going to address the questions in the chat while we go through this so one of the questions is that at the can you Circle back to the organizing of college research and do you have a separate talk on that topic so there should be a separate talk on the topic in the libraries YouTube but it’s also that article on my website so the it’s a lengthy article um but if you go to this one the starting your college search so let’s talk college.org and then just starting your college search I cover the major hit points that I and and the College Board database stuff by the way the database I mentioned but I could not go through the Deep dive we talk about the academics the career counseling the support I even show you examples and website is still new images I still need to fix a few things so you might find a few typos or images are a little small um please be patient I’ll get that fixed probably the next month or two months depending on how everything else with work is going so then I got into details with some of this show you a sample College list and so on so you kind of see it um just in case I can’t I can’t in depth answer your question with the time um Can College interviews that’s the next question we have is can College interviews um only help if you’ve practiced they can only help if you have oh that’s weird if you have not practiced then you might end up hurting yourself so you have to practice with the interviews and that’s usually when I so I’ll give you an example of what I mean by practice so one of my students when we worked on his college interviews for toughs and whatever other universities what we did is um I was timing him I was sitting there with my phone out and first before that we would look at the questions and we would say okay okay you know um make up a name let’s say Mike okay Mike you know tell me about yourself and then he would say something and I’d say all right now let’s mention a little bit more about this a little bit less about your whole academic experience because you say you want to go into medicine well maybe emphasize the fact that you’re taking the EMT class and how’s that going um and then try again oh you’re going over time okay well keep your response to 30 to 45 seconds but it tell me about yourself or and so on so we were we were literally for hours across multip M days of course but for hours we were just like all right okay and the thing is you’re not memorizing this paragraph or something you’re simply bullet points of oh I need to mention I took the AP bio class and I me I need to mention that I mention I took the EMT and also that I do art because that’s a completely different twist okay so you have to play with your responses and you can only do that through practice and it’s tweaking practice sometime if you don’t want to let’s say work with somebody else um you record yourself on your phones all of our phones at this point record us right so record yourself on your phone and then go back tweak go back tweak and so on record delete so on okay um all right so any questions on anything and I highly recommend if you’ve gotten anything out of the session and you want to talk a little bit more about your particular process that you can schedule a free one-on-one consult we you to do a call or if you want to meet at the writing library or the Wilton Library um or tuskin cup I’d be happy to do that as well just give me a heads up so um and of course check out the free resources on my website and the newsletter if you’re interested all right so thank you so much for hearing listening out I hope this was really helpful and I hope the cahoot game is my first time trying it out in a presentation but I thought it just I don’t want this to be dry and boring so I added that in as well so if you’re looking to delegate or if you’re looking for just getting more information in then I recommend just doing the free consult and then taking it from there all right okay thank you so much and have a great evening bye everybody