Top Tips from College Counselors

1. When an application indicates a word limit, stick to it.
2. Try not to set your heart on a single school but find a range of schools where you can be happy. Picking schools is stressful and getting rejected from a school you have come to love can be painful.
3. Deadlines are deadlines, not suggestions, so plan your time well. Counselors don’t make these dates up, the colleges do. So don’t come to your counselor hoping to negotiate, they are just the messenger.
4. Remember your manners. In every email you write and every contact you have with interviewers, admissions officers and anyone at a college remember that you are making a first impression.
5. Students need to research, research, research the schools in which they are interested. This does not mean simply going to a single information session or reading on an online ranking. Rather, it means digging deep and finding all of the available information on a school.
6. Try not to dash from campus to campus on a whirlwind college tour seeing little more than the information session and official tour. Most college campuses are fairly open places, and it is worth exploring a bit on your own.
7. Don’t pick a college for a single major. Sure, you may think you know your interest, but envisioned research suggests that up to 80% of graduates have changed their major from what they envisioned in high school. Make sure the college you select has lots of fields of study that interest you.
8. Colleges are interested in authenticity, in knowing who a student really is, not who the student the college wants them to be. You do not need to have participated in community service, sports, the arts, and worked at a job to be accepted to the college of your choice. You need to put effort into something that matters in your life and be able to convey that in your application.