If You Could Give One Piece of Advice to the Class of 2019...

I have been a member of this website for about two years now, and now I’m about to head off to college!

But before I do, I have some final projects to do, including one in my AP Lang class about college admissions. I’m the only senior in the class, so the actual final project for the juniors is to write a few practice college app essays based off of common prompts, but as I have already gone through this process, my teacher asked if I could do a presentation with tips and advice for them. So, naturally, I turn back to you wonderful folks!

I have ideas already, but I would love for you to drop some advice you wish you had gotten, or you feel like the upcoming senior class should know! It can be about essays, or about the application process in general.

Thanks a bunch you guys!

Do NOT have a “first choice” school, and even if you do in your deepest heart, do NOT tell anyone what it is. This advice was given to us when our kids went through the process and it served us well. Your first choice will make itself known when the admission offers come in.

Don’t worry about perceived prestige and focus on fit.

Make sure you and your family can afford the schools were you are applying.

Look at the common data sets to create a well balanced reached/match/safety lift.

Don’t apply to too many schools.

Sorry that was more than one ; )

Find a safety that you love! Instead of visiting 10 reach schools, visit safeties!

Forget the idea of a dream school. Instead, honestly asses your academic profile and work to create a solid college list that includes reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (find out the budget and run the net price calculator for each school) and that you would be excited to attend. The people I see who get hurt by the college admission process are the ones who focus on one or two hyper-competitive schools and then don’t get in. IMO one of the most important and under-rated parts of the process is finding those match/safety schools that truly are great fits. Know that there are many wonderful schools out there where a person can have a great 4 year experience and get wherever he/she wants to go in life.

Does anyone else see a theme here?

You will bloom where you’re planted. So find a school you can afford, that is likely to accept you, that hasn’t your major, and where you can picture yourself living and being happy for 4 years. Then find another. And another. And apply.

Apply to them early…it’s so nice not to be scrambling as spring approaches.

You are not above any institution. No matter how well you did in high school you are not “too good” for any perceived safety school.

Also, to steal the best advice I’ve seen here, is that all it takes is one acceptance. One.

The only true fact you can rely on in choosing a college is cost. Everything else is personal preference and opinion. U.S. news rankings are opinions, not facts. Prestige is a perception based on opinion. Never base your decisions on the opinions of others. Do research and form your opinions, then you can make an educated decision on where you go to college.

Debt is not your friend. Going into large amounts of debt for prestige is foolish and could sabotage your future, especially when you decide to get married and start a family.

Choosing a college is just like any other major purchase. No one ever says, “My DREAM car is a Ford.” They’re going to do some research and find out the best fit. Apply to a wide variety of schools and choose the best one for you that you can afford.

Thank you all for your advice so far! My project isn’t due for a while so I’m going to check back periodically to see if anyone has dropped any new pieces of advice.

Apply early and show interest!

There is a school for everyone.

The best gift you can give yourself is an early admission to a school you like.

Always have plans b through z ready. Be prepared for the unexpected. Anything can happen. Don’t take anything for granted.

(I learned this the hard way)

If your parents haven’t given you any financial limit, work a little bit harder on getting that information from them.

When your parents run the Net Price Calculators for the first time, have the really soft tissues and really cold adult beverages handy because parental nerves aren’t always what you’d like them to be.

The college that is ranked #300 is in the top 10% of schools. Do not dismiss a school because it isn’t in the top 50.

Graduating with no debt can be very liberating.

“When your parents run the Net Price Calculators for the first time, have the really soft tissues and really cold adult beverages handy because parental nerves aren’t always what you’d like them to be.”

LOL @happymomof1 . I just run our state flagship’s NPC last week. My reaction was, “wait, what??? we are expected to pay that?”. A dose of cold reality.

It’s not worth stressing over this process. Enjoy your senior year and don’t put all of your efforts into college college college, the right school will come to you.

Rather than try to impress college admissions officers, aim to develop capabilities that will serve you well in college and more importantly in career. Think longer term than merely getting into college. In most first jobs post graduation from college, your alma mater, your major, your GPA, etc. becomes irrelevant within months if not weeks into that first job. On the job performance quickly trumps credentials once in your job. And post graduation jobs are not that far away for high school seniors. In many career fields, getting a substantive internship with a reputable company during college matters more than one’s major and GPA when applying for post graduation jobs. And once you earn such an internship, subsequent internships come more easily. And at some colleges for some employers, internship recruiting starts during the fall of freshman year. This is just a few months after high school graduation.

I mentored several high school students who were well prepared for their October internship interviewing as freshman, just 5 months after HS graduation. One got an internship lined up with Google during summer after freshman year and that led to a series of more substantive internships with Salesforce and IBM because she performed well during her first summer internship. And as many posters can attest, the capabilities you’ll need to exhibit during internships (reading political situations in organizations, tolerating ambiguity, collaborating across boundaries, managing bosses (also known as managing up), project management, adapting to corporate cultures) are usually only marginally related to academics.

“Find a safety that you love! Instead of visiting 10 reach schools, visit safeties!”

I think this is important enough to restate. Remember two things need to happen before you can attend a university. You have to be accepted and you have to be able to afford it. You need an “Ace in the Hole”. I think this is especially difficult for the high stat student because frankly they are qualified for nearly every school. in my opinion top students need to reverse the effort they put into searching for schools. Most of the effort should go into finding that ace in the hole school, next should be the excellent match schools that your chances of acceptance are good (affordability may still be a significant question) and the least effort should go into those schools where your chances are low because they are so selective. I may be wrong but I can’t help but believe that most students applying to mostly reach schools are doing because of ego not for any practical reason.

do your own research. do not settle.
i spent countless hours researching schools and the college process in general, and it paid off. if your counselor and/or school do not/does not have the capability to help you in the ways in which you want to be helped, take matters into your own hands.

demonstrated interest matters, even if you think it doesn’t.
particularly aimed at liberal arts colleges, demonstrated interest can matter a lot. bates college lists “demonstrated interest” as an important factor when choosing to admit students, and washington university in st. louis considers demonstrated interest too. sign up for those mailing lists, email your admissions counselors, and visit if you can. it, honestly, could save you from being waitlisted.

college applications are (usually) a once in a lifetime opportunity. use it.
college applications are your chance to shine. don’t not apply to a school because you fear being rejected. you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.