CollegeAdvisor Masterclass: Building Your College Application Timeline

Webinar Transcription

2022-10-06 – CollegeAdvisor Masterclass: Building Your College Application Timeline

Hi everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisors Masterclass on Building Your College Application Timeline. I’m McKenzie and I’ll be your moderator tonight. So if you have any tech issues, you can message me and I’ll be putting some additional information in the public chat. Uh, but to orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’ll start up with the presentation, then answer your questions on lead Q&A on the sidebar.

You can download our slides and you can start some in your questions in the Q&A tab. Now let’s meet our panelist. Hey there everyone. My name is Ferrell Armstrong. Uh, I have been an admissions officer both at the University of Georgia, but spent most of my time at Vanderbilt University, where I was on Vanderbilt Admissions committee and I was the head of international admissions.

Uh, happy to be here with you this evening, and then happy to also be back with McKenzie, uh, and look forward to kind of answering your questions at the end of the presentation. Yes. And real quick, we’re just gonna ask a quick question. So, how stressed are you feeling, uh, right now, specifically about the college admissions process?

Very stressed. A little stressed, I feel okay. Or, uh, I’m, I am completely confident. And while we wait for those, um, Ferrell, can you tell us, uh, what do you think is the most stressful part of the application process for most families? I, personally speaking, uh, it’s one of two things. Uh, for the students, it’s the essays and for the parents is talking about finances.

And, and I don’t mean that to be disrespectful. I, I personally find that most families don’t have the finance conversation early enough. Um, and I think that can be avoided. A lot of that stress can be avoided by having that conversation early and building the school list to fit that. Um, but then for these students, it’s because they’re putting the essays off to the last second, and then they’re just panicked that they’re not gonna get done.

So it’s looking like we have 33% are very stressed, 44% are a little stressed. 20% feel okay and 2% the lucky few are, uh, completely confident. Love this. This is great. Yes. And you can control the slides. Perfect. Well again, so excited to be with everybody and you know, tonight, really and truly I think this is important to really understand the benefit of time. And for me, I, I’m someone that if you’ve come to webinar that I’ve presented on before, I, I preach, uh, respective of time and utilizing it. So for me, the biggest thing that can make this process stressful is that by not giving yourself the proper amount of time, you can make everything stressful.

And you really do set yourself up for success by slowly working through this process from the earliest stages of your high school career. So what you’re gonna see this evening is, I’m really going to start kind of walking you through this, and I’m gonna encourage you to break this process into phases.

But I firmly believe, and, and most of my colleagues would agree that if you’re starting this process in your junior. You are significantly behind and, and you have some ground to catch up with. The reality behind that is there’s just too much for a student to do, um, in the span of a year or less. What, what I wanna remind most families of is that your applications are not due at the end of your senior year, your applications, and begin, you know, having their deadlines at October of your senior year, November, and then the very latest January.

So the reality here is that we are now in the month of October, and if you’re a junior, depending upon your eventual school list, you could be right a year away. If you haven’t started your school exploration, that’s a significant problem that you need to adjust. So, we’ll talk about how to break through this process, but I think it’s important for you to realize that while there’s a lot of different phases to this, it is very important that you’re taking breaks at different times.

Um, the reality here is that if you’re not making time for yourself and for your family as a student parents, if you’re not making time for, you know, you in this process as well, you have your own responsibilities. You know, earning a living, earning an income for your family. You know, taking care of your children, uh, making sure they don’t go too crazy.

I, I get it. Uh, but the reality is, you, you need to treat yourself as well to make sure that you’re fully in the process when you’re working on it and not getting distracted by other things. Um, my joking self and smartness tends to recommend ice cream. Um, probably because I’m, I’m at the ice cream store with my three year old, my two year old, about two times a week.

Uh, but ice cream do, in my opinion, truly does solve a lot of problems. And I think it allows you, as a family to kind of sit back and have some time together, um, where you can sit there, enjoy something and, and not always be, you know, in the process, if you will. You do have to pace yourself, and I think that is very, I.

Now as we start to kind of talk about the initial stages of this, I, I think it’s very important that you understand just how early we firmly believe that you should start. Um, and that is as early as ninth grade, uh, and some students actually start before ninth grade. And specifically, we are referring to getting more developed in terms of your extracurriculars and starting to develop a brand for yourself.

Now, why are activities and brain development so important? Well, frankly, that’s really what starts to define an applicant. Your activities, the things that you involve yourself with, they are necessary because that’s what qualifies you for admission. I, I think a lot of students today, uh, and families still rely upon this idea that GPA and test score are what gets you in.

No, that’s the first 15 seconds of the review process. What determines if you’re admitted, your essays, your activities, your letters of recommendation? And the reality here is that when I’m looking at a student, That’s applying to a specific major, I’m always gonna be spending more or spending, excuse me, giving more attention to a student that has multiple activities that relate directly to what that student’s applying for.

So by starting to get involved in ninth grade, 10th grade, trying to figure out, you know, starting with breath and then slowly going more towards depth into something specifically that allows a student time to start identifying two or three different things they might wanna pursue and then use the latter part of high school to narrow that process down.

So how do you do this? Well, internships, research opportunities. Um, another great word that you can substitute for internships is the word shadowing. Um, it’s funny, you, you contact a lot of, uh, local businesses, a lot of, um, just organizations and you as a student that’s in high school and you say, Hey, I’m looking to an internship.

And you’ll get the, Oh, hey, we don’t really do that for high school students here. But the moment I’ve had students call a shadowing experience, the response is completely different. It’s like, Oh, we love high school students. So I always encourage students to lead with calling an internship, a shadowing experience, and in my experience, you’ll.

A better outcome in terms of a response. But these matter in the sense that it allows you to start developing an idea of what you do or don’t enjoy. So even if there’s something out there that you don’t think that you would enjoy at surface level, I would encourage you to, to jump right in and, and try it.

There’s nothing wrong with trying something and later determining it’s not for you. The other thing to take part in it gonna be something, excuse me, something like club teams, you know, other things like sports, um, debate teams, things of that nature. Um, these are other great ways for you to start developing leadership activities.

Um, a lot of schools, so specifically the more selective schools, they put a lot of emphasis and value on, on leadership. Um, that being the case, I, I think it’s important for you to understand that leadership does not just come from a title alone. Um, you doing something for your community, having an. To bring, you know, a better portfolio of maybe, you know, math tutoring, uh, to your local school system that’s being a leader in your community.

And it didn’t necessarily come with a vice president or president’s title. Um, so there are many different ways that you can be establishing leadership, but I will say if you’re anticipating building a leadership role for yourself in a club, you better join that as a freshman or a sophomore because juniors and seniors typically don’t get VP and president roles in an organization cuz they’re only there for a year to maybe two.

So as we start to move on, The other thing that you wanna start locking into as early as possible, uh, are your schools of interest. And, and this surprises a lot of families when I tell them how soon I would love for you to get an idea of your school list. Um, I want you to start looking at schools in 10th grade, the earliest stages of 10th grade, even the summer before.

And I want you to be exploring 30 to 40 schools. The reality is that you need to narrow your list down to a final list of about 12, and you want to be developing that list into three categories that you see on the screen, reach, target and safety schools. A reach school is any school that has an acceptance rate of 30% or less.

So that could be an Ivy, that could be a William and Mary. Um, that could be a very popular public school, UT Austin. Um, so a lot of times I’ll say these numbers to people and they’ll think, Well, that’s not a reach school. It’s not a good. That doesn’t matter if it’s an opinion. What matters is their admissions rate makes it a reach school.

A target school is an acceptance rate of 55% or better, and the safety school is an acceptance rate of 85% or better out of the 30 to 40 schools. The reason you wanna look at so many is you wanna have multiples of each of those categories, uh, that you’re exploring. So your final list ideally will be a 5 43 combination.

Five reach four, target three, safety. Now I’m gonna say something here if you have absolutely crushed it in a highly competitive curriculum, rigorous multiple apps, I’m talking 1215, have a 1560, 1570, 1600, something along those lines, 35, 36 on the ACT. I’m okay with you cutting your target list down a little bit as long as you maintain three solid safety schools.

But I wanna be very clear. That’s the rare situation. That’s the asterisks, okay? And you need to be honest with yourself about your academic performance in comparison to what each school is seeing on average. So to that end, another great way that you should be exploring schools is you need to be coming, you should be coming connected with current students and recent graduates of these different institutions.

One of the reasons that we strongly believe in doing this here at CollegeAdvisor is that you can make yourself much more relevant in the application process by utilizing a lot of the current information, real time, you know, stories of events and other things taking place, uh, taking place within these cultures by adding those into your.

You get that information from current students and recent graduates, not by spending 30 minutes on a school’s website as the majority of applicants will. So this is a better way for you to really not only identify the right schools for you, but in the latter stages of this process, it’s gonna dramatically influence your essays, which will make you really stand out and pop.

And of course, the final piece, you’re taking your tours. Now, parents, for those of you that are here this evening, I wanna save you some bucks. Uh, recently I tried to, to book a, a ticket to South Dakota Little vacation during the cold winter climate to help some family out. And my ticket went from $450 last year to $985 this year.

So with that being the case, I don’t want you going and exploring 30 to 40 schools. I want you getting from 30 to 40 down to maybe 15 to 18 now start exploring schools and cut your list to your final 10 to 12. From that. That’s a personal suggestion, but the reason I want you to start doing this so early, it is pretty unique.

And if you’ll just bear with me, I think we’ll get there. I would like for your school is to be in place by the end of sophomore year. And I know that’s shocking to many of you that may be watching this, that have older children that have gone through this process or many of you that made this may be your first child going through.

I know that can be a very stressful thing to hear me just say, but the reality is, is think from my perspective as an admissions officer at a highly select the school. The moment you, the student or the family lock into a school list, now every course that that student takes, every activity that that student takes can be catered to what those specific schools are looking for.

Why would I not target somebody that’s catered their activities, their academic resume? To me, that’s the student that we’re naturally gonna, you know, lock into from the very beginning and give the earliest consideration to, cuz they’re hitting all of the credentials that we’re looking for. So the sooner your school list is in place, the quicker you can start making a much more specific and solid profile to those schools.

Now, as we move a little bit further on, starting into phase three and four. You really need to look at this from a data driven perspective. And when I say data and look at this, I’m talking about determining how you should be applying to a school. That’s what application strategy is all about. I, I don’t think a lot of students today pay attention to data.

Um, unfortunately, and I sometimes I’ll say this, I don’t think a lot of parents do either. I understand wanting you to get into the top school that the schools you’ve dreamed of, you’ve heard talked about in your entire life. But you need to be honest with your own credentials in comparison to the averages that these schools are accepting.

The best way to be determining if you’re competitive for a school is to be looking at their average gpa, their average test scores. Um, these are the things that will be an initial higher level identifier. But then in conversations with things like school admissions officers understanding what perhaps the average applicant is coming, um, is getting admitted in terms of the amount of apps or the amount of IB courses, um, that they’re looking for in an applicant.

So with that being the case, data is your best friend. And most people don’t understand that the modern application process to college is a recognized data science. Uh, there are actually PhD programs offered for it, and it’s called enrollment management. So these schools themselves are using data by predictive modeling and data analytics to make informed selections on who they should admit.

You should be using data to determine if this is the place that you’re gonna be competitive in their market. So what I suggest is you really wanna be looking at about a two to a three year historical analysis of each school’s decisions in comparison to your own personal profile. In other words, how does someone of your race, gender, GPA, test score, and major of interest normally perform within, let’s just say, University of Southern California’s process?

Has your profile done better in the early action process or has your profile done better in the regular decision process? You want to follow the format that the data is telling you you are more likely to be accepted in that actually will increase your chance of admission. So once you have your application strategy in place, that will then determine what order you’re gonna be applying in early action, regular decision.

Um, so that then allows you to start building into your essays. And the very first thing that I, I love to kind of address when it comes to essays is, yes, you should start in 11th grade if you can, and you should not wait until the summertime after 11th grade if possible. And the reason I say that is there’s a lot of rumors that control this process.

One of the more popular rumors that I listen to almost on a daily basis is that schools don’t release their essay topics until the summer. Most schools maintain the same essay topics for about two, sometimes three years at a time. So as long as the school is not changing their topics the following year, which you can easily find out, you are able to start writing these essays as an 11th grader.

So the sooner that you can start writing these, the more you can spread these out. And the reality here is that you need to make these specific to each school. And that’s what so many students don’t do. I, I think being told to start your essays in the summertime and being told that it’s okay to recycle essays across multiple schools is what’s leading to most students having, um, essentially, uh, a bad outcome with their application process.

You wanna be giving yourself the time to create unique essays to each school that you’re applying to. You want to be making each. Unique to this school by incorporating your knowledge of its culture and community. And the reason for that is I’m truly looking to understand who is genuinely interested in wanting to be a member of my institution’s community and culture.

The more real time information like I talked about earlier, the, the more kind of qualities that you can, you know, build into your essays about why our specific community is the right and most specific spot for you creates a significant difference. And admissions officers can tell a difference between someone that spends 20, 30 minutes on a website versus that’s really kind of not getting to know our school at a much more personal level.

So the more detailed and more revealing you can be in those essays, the greater impact they will have. Um, because the reality here is that we are using those essays as our only attempt to get to know you. It’s the only time that we hear your. So you wanna give yourself the time to, to spread these out.

My my personal opinion is you want to really start these around the Christmas time or, you know, New Year timeline for any schools that are not changing their essays. Um, and then that allows you to write those essays and take a week between the that one and the next one. If you have another one that you can go ahead and get started on.

That allows you to spread this process out. It allows you to rest and kind of reset work around your, all your school curriculum that you’re taking place with or taking, um, taking part in, excuse me. And you’re able to be strategic about when you feel you have the energy to develop an essay. That means your creativity is gonna be functioning at, at ties levels.

The students that I see push these essays off to the summertime, much lower impact because those essays are rushed, they’re underdeveloped. When you have 40 to 50 essays, as you will have for about 12 schools, you’re just looking to get those essays done in time by the, if you’re starting in the summertime, you spread them out from December, January, all the way through the following November, December.

You have a much greater impact because those essays were more refined cuz you get yourself the time to polish them. Now the other thing to address here when it comes to essays is you really wanna be giving yourself the proper time to essentially polish them, like I just said, to edit them and revise them.

And the number one struggle that I see students making and as direct as I am, I, I will admit, I think students are too hard on themselves. Um, many times today when I talk to a family on the phone that’s having some trouble, they’re having some concern that, and the essay comes up, the student is saying, I just have trouble with ideas.

Is it that you have trouble with ideas or that you have ideas that you just don’t like the sound of when you start? That is what the third bullet point is in reference to. A lot of students today are trying to go in and start editing their essays much too early, and they kind of get a little cringy with their initial work and they stop and they wanna change altogether.

That student is being a brick layer in terms of writing development. Uh, brick layer is very specific. It’s he, he or she is using mortar, laying the exact amount of mortar before laying that next break, prepping everything before moving on. Writing is not meant to be that way. You need to give yourself depth to work with.

Okay? So even if it may sound terrible, try not to start editing your essays until you’re two, three, maybe even four paragraphs deep into an essay that will allow you to start having a lot more room to work with and start repositioning different. And then of course to spread this process out and to get that reset relaxation period in, um, you gotta eat that ice cream, okay?

The ice cream will keep you attentive. It’s gonna make sure that you’re having those breaks that are necessary so that you’re not burning out in this process. This process does not have to be boring. This process does not have to be overwhelming if you’re taking the time to reset in between these different essays.

And of course, you’re giving yourself the time to do them thoroughly. Now, I think a larger conversation to have in starting to plan for the college process and the application process is understanding when to do certain things when it comes to the financial side. So the reality here is that this slide that I developed, I do say early to mid 12th grade, there are certain things that you should start doing in 11th grade.

And the very first things that you should be doing, um, when you’re building your school list is you should be looking at a school’s website. And going through their net price calculator. A net price calculator is required by the US Federal Government to be on every university’s, uh, website. And that allows you to get an estimate, uh, typically within about three to 5% of what your expected contribution to that school would be on an annual basis.

So you should be looking at that as you start to cut your list down from 30 to 40, down to your final 10 to 12, but your actual financial aid process, um, that will actually start in your senior year. So the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, uh, it goes live October the first for 12th graders.

That’s when you’re able to start filling it out. Parents, that being the case, you do wanna jump on that as soon as possible. And then the other thing to remember is that scholarships, school specific scholarships have some unique deadlines. I, I have a lot of families that will tell me that they wanna start their applications later in, you know, halfway through the first semester, senior year, or they’re not really worried about deadlines cause they know they have until January.

Yeah, that’s true. But you, you’ll miss your scholarship deadlines. Most schools, their school specific scholarships that you have to physically apply to are due between December 1st and 15th. Most hold to the 15th. But you actually have to apply to that school before you can apply to that scholarship. And so you have to give yourself the time to submit your applications, Allow your student portal to be created.

And that typically takes about five business days after you’ve applied. And then you apply to those school specific scholarships in the portal. And you have to get those essay topic. After you’ve created your student application portal for that school. So there’s a lot of steps that goes with this. So you need to be planning on getting your applications physically submitted, ideally middle of October, beginning of November at the latest.

So you can really have all of November and all of December or half of December to get these school specific scholarship applications knocked down. Now that being said, general scholarships, um, that you can find on places like niche and, and fast web and uh, great resources like HSS there, you know, things that you should be exploring, you know?

Now one thing I just wanna cautious be cautious about is I, a lot of times I’ll talk to a student and they’ll say, Well, I’ve already applied to 10-12 scholarships, and they’re at the end of their spring semester of their junior year. And my concern is, well, why haven’t you started your college essays?

Why haven’t you started your activity descriptions, the foundation for you getting into school where a scholarship is applicable? Is your admissions application. And without a strong application, scholarships won’t matter. So you need to focus on primarily getting your application work knocked out first, then transition to focusing on your scholarships.

Now, the one thing about scholarships I do wanna address here is, is being more specific with where you’re looking. Um, I, I think naturally today, we, as the human race has evolved, start to really pro a lot of, uh, we put a lot of weight on the internet. Amazon, right? I’m a massive Amazon Prime user. Uh, guilty is charged.

I should be better about buying local, but with one click, ta-da. It’s at my house. Well, that’s how the application for scholarship has turned. A lot of families today will look at these online resources only. You should be contacting local, um, ordinances. It you may have an endowed scholar. Uh, within your local city, you should contact your city commissioner to see if there’s an endowed scholarship for a graduate of that city or a graduate of that county.

Um, parents, if you are a member of any, you know, um, employment associations, be contacting those associations to see if there are any endowed scholarships from members’ children. Um, my mother was in the grocery business. She sold food for a living and she was actually a member of what’s called the Tennessee Grocers Association.

And there was a scholarship that I was able to apply to because my mom was a member of the Tennessee Grocers Association. So be thinking of things like that. And one other thing, um, if, if you attend to place of worship, uh, be sure to ask your, uh, place of worship, uh, whether or not there are any endowed scholarships, um, through there or not.

Uh, so leave no stone unturned. It’s very much worth your time, uh, to be, you know, looking to places that you might not think, uh, would have something like that available to you. Then the final part of this process is making that enrollment decision, and that really is in the, the middle to the latter part of your senior year, your 12th grade year.

And, and the thing here is, I, I will say this. If you’re applying to a school early decision, you need to be 100% positive that that is your dream school and that you are 100% affording it, um, if you’re not given any scholarship or financial aid, because if you apply early decision to a school, you are bound by contract to attend.

So you don’t really have a choice on if you’re going to enroll there. If you’re accepted, you’re going. So in terms of making a decision, if you are applying early action or regular decision, keep in mind that you’re not bound by contract to go to those schools and you have time to make that decision.

You should be going back over several things before locking into a school. Most importantly, are you pumped? Are, are you looking forward to being there? Are you excited about it, Making sure that you’re comfortable with the financial cost of it? And of course, Are you sure that they have all the right resources that you’re looking for?

Is this gonna be where you’re going to thrive? If so, and you can answer yes to all those, that’s a great place. I would still encourage you if you’re still kind of struggling between one, two, or three options, go back and do one last school visit. Um, reach back out to those current students and, you know, rehash any, you know, questions that you kind of maybe left unanswered, um, or that, you know, may have popped up since applying to that school.

All of that is worth your time to do once more because arguably, this is gonna be one of the biggest decisions of your life, if not the biggest decision of your life. Make sure you’re gonna be somewhere where you’re happy. But the the last part is making sure that you are, uh, comfortable with the financial aid piece.

Don’t be afraid to push back on an initial offer from a school. Um, sometimes there’s a little bit more money left on the table. You don’t necessarily have to just accept. Um, now don’t be surprised if a school says no, but sometimes when you push back, there’ll be a little bit more. Uh, so I would encourage you to have that conversation if that’s a concern.

Don’t make a a decision on not going to a school just because of what was initially in your, uh, your first offer admission. Have that conversation with the schools financial aid office first. So parents, for you specifically, I, I think it’s important that you really take, uh, a pretty big part in this process.

And I say that with great respect, um, but you would be surprised about. A lot of parents not wanting to be a part of this process. And the reality here is that your guidance, your leadership is what’s gonna make a student get the process rolling. You need to remember that there are a lot of rumors that drive this process, and if you’re not working to figure out what is true and what’s just a rumor, um, you risk as a family, you know, buying into something and doing something that your friend, your, your friends, or even your son or daughter’s friends are telling them, you know, to do at.

You should be not only building a timeline, but you should be putting, uh, putting a plan in place on how to check up and confirm things that you’re hearing to make sure that’s gonna, you know, work out and be to your best benefit. And that being said, I think building accountability with yourself and your student is a great benefit for your family.

Because if you can have open conversations of, hey, you know, to your child, Have you started your school list build? Where do you stand with kind of cutting it down from 20 schools now to 15 schools? Or where do you stand with your essay right now to NYU? Your child can look back at you. And this may seem a little intense, but yeah, here’s where I am with that.

And hey, by the way, have you looked into that fast application yet? Have you been able to, you know, get that submitted that keeps you both in the game, right? So you’re both keeping each other conscious of you have dates and deadlines ahead of you. And the reality that I found is that, A lot of times parents are giving students too much room.

And I’m a father. I, I’m young in my fatherhood. I have a three year old and a two year old to parents. I respect you. I’m, I understand that you have a lot more going on. Again, as I said earlier, work life, you know, putting food on the table for your family, putting that roof over the head for your family.

Um, all things that your children are very, you know, thankful for. Um, however, this is still your son or daughter and you’ve gotta make sure that they’re doing the right thing and you’re doing the right thing for your family. The final piece is please have that financial conversation early. I know I have repeated this now for the third time, uh, but it is such an important factor.

The biggest source of stress for me, um, in working in this industry for the entire 13 years I’ve been doing this, have been the conversations where families have been accepted to the school without a plan on how to pay for it. And the worst phone call of my career was a very sweet lady whose granddaughter had been accepted to Vanderbilt.

Called me in tears and said, Ferrell. Please help. I can’t afford for my baby to go to a dream school and it, it absolutely crushed me. Those were conversations that are avoidable. If you can have the financial conversation up front and have those tough questions answered between student and family, you’re gonna all be on the same page in the earlier stages and be putting schools on the list that make sense for your family financially.

And I say all of that with the greatest amount of respect intended. Please know I’m trying to make this process more efficient for you and as stressy as possible. So final advice in terms of trying to minimize the application stress. Again, I’ll say this, like I said earlier, you do not have to be stressed about this process.

This can be a time that you actually learn a lot about yourself, both as a student and as a parent. But the way that you do that surprise, surprise, is utilizing time. You are in complete control of this. It just depends on when you’re willing to start the process. And the last piece here, and this is mainly for students.

Um, the one thing I really want you to take control of is this is your process. It is not your parents. You have to do the physical work for the essay, your activity descriptions. You have to be the one looking for internships and research opportunities, other extracurriculars, ideas, or passion projects. No one else is gonna do it for you.

It’s about you. It’s for you. It’s on you. So get after. It’s been a true pleasure speaking with you this evening. Very excited to get your questions. And McKenzie, I will turn it back over to you. Yes, so that is the end of the presentation part of the webinar. I hope you found this information helpful. And remember, again that you can download the side from the link in the handouts tab.

And this webinar is being recorded if you would like to view this information again later on our website at app.CollegeAdvisor.com/webinars. Um, moving on to live Q&A. I’ll read the questions you submitted in the Q&A tab and read them aloud before our panelist gives you an answer. As a heads up, if your Q&A tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just make sure that you join the webinar through the custom link sent to your email and not from the webinar landing page, also known as the website or else you won’t get all the feature, the big marker.

So just make sure you join through that custom link now onto the Q&A. Uh, but real quick, I did put some information in the public chat and I don’t think it’s saved after the webinar, so I’ll just go over it quickly. So there’s some different links you can look at. Um, check out, um, learning about fly-in programs, which can be an option for, uh, good bit of.

Students, uh, for current seniors, uh, to go tour schools and stay at them a little bit to see what they’re like. Usually happens your fall senior year applications for a lot of them have closed already since they do typically start in like July, um, and end around early October, but some are still open. So check out that link.

Uh, also check out our other webinars that go more into depth on, um, early decision, early action and other enrollment deadlines, as well as, um, the financial aid process, which we had a webinar for about two weeks ago. So check out those on our website now. It’s the Q&A. Okay, So, um, okay, so for our first question, um, when should I start thinking about applying to colleges?

This was something you sort, you touched upon throughout your essay, but when is a really good time to start thinking about it? When you’re born? No, I’m joking. Um, so, uh, the reality is look, your, your GPA for high school starts getting calculated day one, freshman year. Um, you know, for students, I, I want, you know, for parents I should say, I want you reminding your students of that as they’re entering, you know, high school.

If you’re an eighth grade parent, um, you know, but the sooner that you can start thinking about it, the better. There is not a time that’s really too early to start thinking about it. Um, if you are in your junior year and you’re just starting to think about it, you are behind there are there, frankly, are no arguments at that point because you have significantly less time to develop everything.

So the sooner that you start do doing this, the much greater the impact is gonna be in terms of your applications. Mm-hmm. , uh, going on to the next question, um, when can or, and should students start working on the actual common application or any application portal? Mm-hmm. So the application you can actually create and it will roll over each year.

So, you know, I have students that will start their common app in their sophomore year, and then that will just roll over to the year following, and the next year it, it saves your information. You just adjust your graduation year. Uh, so you can actually create that now and, and start kind of exploring schools that way.

Um, and, and that’s a great way to start becoming more informed about the process and getting comfortable with, you know, how the essays are gonna look and work and all that. Mm-hmm. , uh, just to get through some of these questions really quick, um, for a specific college essays, um, that a school is putting up, you can go onto their website and find it under their admissions page.

Usually they’ll list out like the writing supplements, what they require, and every other requirement, um, as well as you can find, um, like their, um, What is it? They are student profiles for, um, what students from previous years, um, like scores, gpa, et cetera, um, had, and what they’re looking for in application.

So if you want school specific information, you have to go to their website. And also on the common app or any application porter you’re using, it’ll list out once you fill in certain information what supplements and additional essays you need to answer. Okay. So for those questions in general, um, going on to the next question, uh, how long does the application process take?

I mean, it, it takes a long time. I mean, the, the reality here is that you, let’s say you apply to 10 to 12 schools like you should, you’re looking at between 40 and 50 essays. You know, the average school today is gonna have you complete four supplementals, but that’s not all there is to the application process.

Your application process is developing school list, exploring schools, um, making sure that you have the right activities. Comparing your academic profile, developing a strategic plan of how to target each school by looking at data. Uh, so if you’re talking about just completing your essays, that depends on your schedule and your abilities as a writer.

Um, but it, it really, this isn’t o frankly, this process based upon natural occurrences of, of a family living their life. You know, traveling, having, you know, things to go to as a student, uh, having things to go to as a parent. It’s well over a year long. In many cases, it can be as much of a year and a half when you need to get details of everything that takes place.

Mm-hmm. uh, kind of quickly, you mentioned this in your, um, in your slides, what are the various enrollment decisions, uh, and then also how does that change your, um, timeline when applying? So when you’re seeing enrollment decisions, I’m assuming you’re referring to early decision, Early action, regular decision.

So, early decision. The technical early decision deadline for years has been November the first. Early action. The technical deadline has been November 15th, and then regular decision has historically been either the first or 15th of January. There are a few schools that will do a, uh, February one or even February 5th deadline.

Um, I don’t know why, but they do. Um, and, and then you do have some schools that are what are called rolling admission, where there’s, you know, as long as you apply by like March, they will consider your application. Uh, those schools that practice rolling admission are not selective in nature. Um, so to that end, um, it affects your timeline, the fact that you need to lock into place how you’re applying to each school as soon as possible.

Cuz obviously your early decision schools come first, then early action, deadline, then regular decision. So that should structure getting that plan of attack in place structures, how you should be progressing through this process. Um, and just for some, um, additional context here, in the last, you know, three years, there’s been over a 90% increase in applications to college.

And with that, many schools have moved their deadlines for early action from November to October because they’ve been so inundated with additional applications that their staff members didn’t have enough time to get through them all. So many schools are making their deadlines earlier now than before.

Okay. Uh, going and you can also check out our webinar from what day was that Tuesday? Um, where we go into more detail on early applying, early action and early decision, as well as the other, um, enrollment deadlines, what they mean, how they affect your chances, um, with Joanne, um, plus who I provided a lot of wonderful information.

Uh, now we’ll kind of go into like what admissions officers are looking for so far. First question, the big question, how do you stand out? But more specifically, what are admissions officers looking for when evaluating students, Uh, qualifications, first and foremost. So, um, If, let’s, let’s go through my, my famed example here that people either love or hate.

If you’re building a house or electric, uh, you know, it’s for yourself and it’s time to wire it for electricity. Um, would you choose between a certified electrician or would you choose a neurosurgeon to do the electrical work? I’m assuming everyone’s gonna go a certified electrician, at least I hope so.

Um, you know, that being the case, you’re more than likely making that decision based upon someone’s historical credentials that they can safely do the job. Admissions offices are faced with so many students today that are applying without any real connection to the major, that it’s very difficult to understand just how serious someone really is about this pathway.

And I, I’m not throwing any particular major under the bus here, but I’m gonna choose. And we’re gonna focus on psychology. So, uh, for the record, my wife’s  a therapist, so don’t get that. Uh, so 65% of all initial psychology applicants change their major. Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with total psychology.

It’s wonderful, but a lot of students don’t really understand what it involves. And a lot of students are just defining psychology as their major because that’s what their friends have said they’re doing. We sometimes have some hesitancy on that because when we can’t see any connection to that major of interest, when we see so many students changing their major outta that program, it’s like, Hey, is this individual serious?

Or is this individual gonna be just another, you know, change, you know, major change taking place. And, and that in and of itself could work against you. So whether it’s psychology or any major, the more specific that you can make your activities to the field of interest, the better off you’re gonna be. And before the question comes, what if you don’t know what you wanna do?

You need to be showing that you’re trying to figure. So if you can at least show on your activities list that you’ve explored, you know, one or two routes and cool that you’re applying undecided, but at least you’re actively trying to make a determination of what you wanna follow. That shows me a lot more grit and determination than not kidding students that list Netflix as an example of an activity.

And I’m unfortunately not kidding, McKenzie Um, okay. Wow, that’s interesting. Uh, so a student is asking, uh, I’m gonna combine two questions, but one student is asking, Is your 11th or 12th grade GPA considered in your, uh, college acceptance? Another student is asking, How much does GPA matter? Um, if you don’t have the right gpa, we’re not looking at Jim Plain and simple.

Um, and, and so the gpa, the test score that just determined if we look at your application, so, you know, I, I have families that sometimes want to. Avoid having that conversation. They put a lot of emphasis on rank and, and notoriety of the school, but sometimes they don’t pay attention to the fact that that school is extremely selective.

It’s a high GPA range, and maybe they’re coming in with a lower g, like much lower GPA than what that school accepts. They still wanna apply. You’re, you’re wasting your time, right? If, if you have a a 2.0 and you’re applying to Yale, it’s not happening. Um, and I don’t mean that to be disrespectful, but it’s, it’s not happening.

Um, and so the reality here is that GPA does matter significantly, but it matters in the sense that that determines if we choose to then review your application past that, it’s not really discussed much more. Now in terms of does junior and senior year matter? Yes. Um, most of your missions decisions will be based upon ninth through 11th grade.

Um, there are a few schools that do not. For whatever reason, they do not use freshman year in the calculation. Um, other schools will not, you know, some schools won’t use, uh, senior year at all because you’re essentially applying, uh, before at certain schools, before your, uh, first semester grades are released for senior year.

So if you’re applying to any school, early decision or early action, that decision is gonna be based upon ninth, 10th, and 11th grade. Okay? If you are applying regular decision to a school because it’s due after, you know, January, or excuse me, January one, and, and further, um, now your school has the ability to submit your first semester senior grades to the schools that you’re applying to, and then your 12th grade.

At that point, your 12th grade scores can be utilized in the process. Um, however, if you’re sitting on a 3.5 gpa, one semester’s worth of grades is not gonna bump you to a 4.0. So just understand that. Yeah. A lot of times feelings are trying to weigh that and they’re thinking, Oh, well, I’m gonna make a significant bump in my overall cumulative.

Mathematically, that’s not possible. Yeah. Uh, and also again, this, uh, more of this has gone over in our past webinar and a lot of students are asking where to find that. Go to the links are in the public chat. If you just click over and you can click through different links, but it’s at app.CollegeAdvisor.com/webinars.

Sort of similar to the link you’re on now. Um, but, uh, going on to the next question, What details do admissions officers look for and recommendation letters, people that know you, people that like you, most importantly, um, you know, you’d be surprised of the, the amount of things you see in letters recommendation, like, um, I’ve, I’ve actually seen like student verbally assaulted me in front of my class before.

Uh, so I, I’m being serious when I say that. So please pick people that you have a great relationship. That will provide some substance and some detail about the individual that you are, uh, both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Um, the number one thing that you should avoid when it comes to letters recommendation is having somebody simply repeat your transcript and your resume.

At that point, they’re not adding anything new to the conversation. So most s or sorry, most resumes that I see, uh, from, you know, teachers are student took, you know, a very challenging curriculum. They took this and that and that AP class and they, you know, were this organization and that club and they haven’t added anything new to the conversation, right?

They’ve just repeated what you’re telling us in your activities list and what your transcript is gonna show for your course performance. Where you want your letters of recommendation to be focused is to you, the person in the classroom, the individual that you are in your community. Do you add to the conversation in class?

Are you a leader, right? Can people rely upon you? Can people trust you? That is the type of detail that we’re looking to get, um, out these letters of recommendation. And we’re also looking for them to parlay what you’re saying about yourself and your own application materials. So if you’re saying that, Hey, I’m wanting to go down, you know, this direction over here, like I’m all about going into biomedical engineering.

That’s what I’m about. And then your teacher that comes in is like, she’s gonna do so well in political science. Now we’ve got a problem. Right? Because you’re saying biomed now, the teacher’s saying political science, now I’m forced to choose between who’s more accurate? Does a 17 year old know what they wanna do with their lives?

Or does the teacher that has 25 years of experience, is he or she more accurate? Right? That’s a tough position for admissions officers to be in. Now, I believe that most teenagers have a strong idea of what they wanna do. Plenty don’t, plenty do. Um, but it puts an admissions office in a certain position because now we have to choose between what is the student serious about, right?

So you want to be picking people that can really speak to their knowledge of where you’re trying to go and what you’re trying to do with your future. Which is what you should also be talking about in your own essays. So when your essays and your letters of recommendation are kind of lining up with the pathway that they’re kind of painting for you, that’s when it really, you know, creates a significant impact for you.

Mm-hmm. of, uh, students asking how many, uh, letters of rec do you need? That depends on the school. A lot of these things, like how many essays are there gonna be, how many letters of recommendation do you need? What are their requirements are gonna be school specific. A lot of schools do tend to have the same sort of requirements, but it’s good to just go onto their website to figure out what you need to do for that school.

And then, um, my opinion is just to go off of the hardest school to get into, um, requirements because usually you’ll cover all your bases for every other school on your list. Um, but you wanna check out your schools to see like, um, do they accept ap, ib, Uh, dual enrollment, usually dual enrollment isn’t accepted outta state.

For the most part. But you can, again, check out our other webinars on, um, like what courses you should be taking, how admissions officers view them, and as well as, uh, webinars on, uh, letters. Recommendation. Uh, now I may, sorry, McKenzie, because if I may, I was very sorry. Um, don’t be that student. That’s like 25, 30, 40 letters.

Recommendation. Don’t do it. It, it doesn’t work to your favor. Yeah. They aren’t gonna read it. ? No. I submitted five, which was pushing. Yeah. I, I say that’s what I tell students, four to five. No more than that. Leave it at that. Yeah. Uh, now we’ll kind of go into some financial aid questions, but once should families begin the financial aid process and how long does it take?

So the reality is, is that you cannot submit the FAFSA until October one of 12th grade. That’s when it’ll go live for you. It takes you about an hour, honestly. Um, it, it can be a little confusing. So getting some help and getting, you know, Uh, some, you know, questions that you may need to answer, um, do your research ahead of time.

Um, that’s something that we facilitate with families. We have financial aid advisors here at CollegeAdvisor that can help you with that. Um, but if, if you have all the proper documentation, the paperwork, and you know exactly how to answer everything, it takes an hour. If you don’t have all the proper paperwork and documentation, if you have some questions, it can take several hours.

So, um, it’s best to get guidance with that. Um, on the back end of that question though, uh, what should be said is you should be doing your research ahead of time on the schools financially, again, by using like the net price calculator to determine what your expected family commitment to the school would be.

You should be looking at the schools financial aid website to see what their average financial aid awards are. Um, the bigger one that I’m actually more impressed by is not average cost of attendance. It’s the schools that are, um, confident enough to put their average debt out there. Um, that’s what really impresses me when the school’s like, Hey, our average debt for a four year graduates, 14k at Vanderbilt.

Um, you know, a lot of other schools will say, uh, they don’t wanna publish it cuz it may be 30, 40, 50. Right. So you wanna be looking at that as well to determine that. Um, and you also wanna be trying to figure out if this school is what’s called being need aware or need blind, uh, need aware schools. Um, what they do is that if you’re applying for financial aid, that could be a negative in your review process because need to aware schools don’t have a significant amount of financial aid to be able to provide you.

And if you’re gonna need financial aid to come to that school, or I should say significant financial aid to come to that school, that could be a reason why they don’t take. . Mm-hmm. especially. Um, also with, um, schools that offer merit based, um, scholarships. Mm-hmm. , uh, I’ve seen with them that they, or schools that say that they’re on a first come, first serve basis, they tend to want you to submit your, um, FAFSA and maybe CSS profile.

Usually just FAFSA for these schools, but FAFSA and CSS profile as soon as possible so that you can get the most aid. Cuz schools with lower endowments typically run out of funds earlier. So if you’re looking for needs based or even merit based scholarships, those tend to go the quickest. So always make sure that you’re applying, you’re getting that done as soon as possible for financial aid this year.

If you’re applying for the 2023 to 2024 school year, that means probably your first year or your freshman year is going to be during that timeline. So current seniors, parents, you’re gonna need your 2021 tax return forms and all the things that go with that. Um, to fill out the FAFSA and css. CSS is not required by every school.

It’s just about 300 private schools. If you’re applying to any of the Ivy Leagues, you will meet the CSS profile. Check out our other webinar on financial aid and FAFSA 101. It goes over all the details, all the nitty gritty and what school, what to look for in schools if financial aid is gonna be a concern.

Uh, but yeah. Um, going on to the next question a student is asking, um, do I just thought, uh, should you apply for scholarships from colleges when applying or after you get accepted? Uh, you, you do it after applying, but before you get accepted, So you, you have to submit your application, um, to the school.

When you submit your application, it takes about three to five business days and that school will send you essentially an automated email, Hey, thank you for applying. Please go here to create your, what they call your applicant portal or your, your student portal. That’s where they’re gonna release your admissions decision.

That’s where you’re gonna be notified of that. Uh, but then within that portal, that’s where most schools have the, um, applications for their specific scholarships. So you’ll do it through there. Um, other schools that don’t, um, have you apply to the scholarship through the portal, they’ll, um, list those on their website, but you cannot submit them until you’ve applied to the school.

Mm-hmm. And some schools would even ask on the, Well, I’ve seen this on the Common app. Um, they’ll ask if you want to be considered for needs based financial aid or certain scholarships and you can check off some, um, you just have to check off that you wanna be considered, others you check off and it pops up in additional essays.

So, um, look out for those. That’s why it’s best to start as early as possible so you can see what all you need to do and make sure if things do pop up, they don’t take away all your time, you’re not doing everything at the last minute, and that you have enough time to actually answer these things. Um, but we know that, um, for students, not for students in the room who aren’t currently working with us, we know that the admissions process is overwhelming for parents and students alike, especially when trying to figure out what sort of financial aid schools offer, what schools to have in your school is how to get your essays and the rest of your application together.

Um, we, um, Our team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts are here to help you and your family navigate it all on one-on-one advising sessions. Um, take charge of your family’s admissions process by, uh, signing up for a free strategy session by scanning the QR code on the screen.

By signing up for CollegeAdvisor, you get, um, matched with a, an advisor. Usually you can make some, um, difference, um, specifications such as like what major you’re interested in, what sort of career path you wanna go on, uh, and you’ll be, um, matched with somebody who fits those same qualifications so they can really help you or you’ll get ma and or you’ll get matched with somebody that’s been accepted to, or is currently attending the schools that are on your list.

So they can really give you an insider look into these schools that you are interested in. It’s a very useful process because your advisor gets to know you throughout the admissions process and is able to help really build and shape your application to really show that personal brand that we’re, you’re always hearing about, um, and really make sure that you show through in your application and it is the strongest possible, especially for these very competitive schools and this competitive admission cycle in general.

Uh, so yeah, so sign up by scanning the QR code on the screen, but now back to the Q&A. Uh, okay. So, uh, another student is asking, um, when should you start, uh, asking for letters of recommendation? End of junior year? Yes. Uh, and then also you wanna follow up with them senior year, um, and then yeah, uh, just to make sure that they’re submit.

Uh, okay. So another student is asking, uh, do you have to apply? Definitely when you are in 12th grade, what happens if you apply one year after you finish high school? Like taking a gap year? Yeah. So that puts you at a lower, uh, opportunity for selection. You, you need to understand that each year the credentials of the students continue to get better and better and better.

So if you wanna take a gap year, you’re statistically way more likely be accepted if you apply during your senior year, get an acceptance and then get a deferral, right? So defer your enrollment for a year. Um, it’s better to do that than taking a gap year and then reapplying because now you’re being held to, you know, a new set of standards that are typically, you know, higher than the year that you initially applied.

So if you can do that, that’s the better. Mm-hmm. Uh, for FAFSA, you don’t ju most schools are gonna ask you for FAFSA. Um, unless you really just are not trying to get aid. Even if you think you won’t get anything still applied for, um, for FAFSA and the CSS, if the school requires it. Um, just so you can know, um, it’s always worth filing and FAFSA is free.

Um, going on to the next question, schools that don’t require essays and test scores, what are they looking for or at, um, to get the full picture of a student? They’re not, They’re just trying to fill their classes. I mean, that’s the reality of the situation. I hate to be so blunt about it, but those are schools that, those are typically your, um, your, Oh, I’m not trying to say here.

Um, rolling admission schools, They are putting, they’re filling seats, right? And they’re looking for people that wanna be there. And you, by applying, you’re expressing your interests, but they’re not necessarily focused on building a community. They’re more or less focused on getting seats filled, because at that point, they’re just going off of your GPA and your test scores.

Um, those are typically your, you’re, they’re not selective at all and they’re similar, More lowering schools. Mm-hmm. and then those are usually what most people would consider their safeties. I would argue even your safety schools should be schools that you wanna go to. So don’t just apply to these schools just for the sake of getting in, cuz you’ll hate it if you end up having to go there.

Um, but if they are schools that you’d be interested in, definitely considered, because some of them have automatic, uh, acceptance. If you have like a 2.5 GPA or higher, um, it’s something to consider. But if it’s not something you, if it’s not a place you’d wanna go, don’t apply at all. Um, another student is asking, kind of going back to that personal brand, uh, they’re asking where did it go?

Um, well to kind of sum it up, they were asking if having a particular focus in their, um, like activities in their application is more important. Um, if they have a bunch of interest, should they. Where is I? Okay. Uh, if they have a bunch of interest, should they, um, just focus on that, um, focus on all of them and like depict all of them?

Or if they ha uh, should they hone in and focus on one sort of interest? So you, I don’t wanna see at, at a, at a highly selected school, right? Let me address this for highly selected schools, cuz this is where it’s gonna matter the most. Um, I, I don’t, I, I’m gonna take the student that may have 10 activities, but three, the ones they’re sharing with me directly relate to what they’re applying for over the student has 10 activities and maybe doesn’t have anything that directly relates to, only has one.

Right? When you have significant connection to your major of interest by what you’ve involved yourself with, again, shadowing, research, internships, um, you know, passion projects, you have 2, 3, 4 of those things, it makes you more significant because you have the historical proof that we’re looking for.

And now it kinda lowers our doubts that we have about a lot of initial applications. Especially for niche or popular majors. Mm-hmm. , um, that’s really gonna be important to show that you have interest in ’em because they, admissions officers know when you’re trying to game the system to pick a very far out major like anthropology, um, that you have no interest in anthropology at all shown in your application.

Now, if it’s, I think it’s important McKenzie, cuz um, you know, a lot of times students will gain it exactly like you’re saying and they’ll have like all these engineering related things and they’re applying for the education department. That that’s something that we saw at Vanderbilt and it’s an auto deny.

We won’t, even when we catch you doing that, like we don’t reach your application, it’s done so. Yes. Uh, growing up to the next, and the webinar is coming up to a close, but, um, you can give any final advice after this one, but I’m gonna combine two questions. So one student is asking, how does one include the community or like a, the vibe of a campus and their personal essay, Um, more specifically, probably the supplements.

And then another student is asking, can, uh, you mentioned this before, but they’re asking, can you reuse essays for different schools? Never reuse essays. Uh, I will, I will put that stake in the ground and, and just stand on it. Uh, you don’t wanna reuse essays because when you’re using essays, you’re being generic, you’re being high level, and we can tell, um, we want you to tailor the essay to the school by incorporating your knowledge of that school’s community culture into the response, because that’s what establishes your fit within our community.

And look, in my time as an admissions officer and the amount of essays I’ve read just at Vanderbilt and UGA, I read over a hundred thousand essays. I can look at an essay and simply do this. Is this about us or could this be about any school? And the moment that I get the vibe that it could be about any school, and it’s not really unique to us, you’re getting a lower score.

And the more detailed and specific you can make the essay to our community, the more seriously we take you. Because it, it makes us feel that you’re much more realistic about wanting to be here versus a lot of students that will just spend 15 minutes on a school’s website and say, Oh, I wanna study under Dr.

Wilson in the psychology department, or I wanna study under Dr. Irving in the political science department. Right? Anybody can spend 15 or 20 minutes and pull professors’ name from a website and, and throw on a course that they teach. I want to talk about, I want students to talk about, you know, how, you know, the manner of education has delivered to the school.

What certain resources or activities excites you and why, What are your plans to use those for? What are you gonna build your future, um, with, based upon the resources that we have available at our specific school? When you can be that detailed, that’s what makes us take you so much more significantly in the process.

Uh, okay. And then also I just wanted to add onto that because, uh, I have said you can reuse essays in some other webinars, but what I mean by that is you can reuse like sections that are about yourself specifically. So, like in my essays for Howard and Cornell, I reuse like the anecdote about, um, signing my name, Dr.

Murray, uh, in high school for both schools. Cuz that doesn’t change regardless of the school. But when I actually got into the nitty gritty about what I was gonna do, School and how it’s gonna help me become a doctor and do pre-med and stuff. I talked about their specific, um, programs that they had, what they offered, what the different, um, things were offered in the cities that they’re in.

And I got specific about the schools and those parts things about yourself. You don’t have to be as specific. Um, you don’t have to change because that should usually stay the same. Um, things about the school specifically have to change and they can’t just be big. Like your school is number one. No one cares.

Um, yeah. So, um, as a webinar is coming to a close, is there any last advice that you would like to give you? Just be honest with yourselves. You know, if you, if you have questions, don’t trust your friends. No disrespect intended, they haven’t been admissions officers. It, it literally is worth an hour of your time to reach out, you know, to a professional, your college counselor, organizations like ours or other great organizations that exist out there like Infa Test to kind of give you some greater, you know, knowledge and I should say some greater depth of knowledge on what the process is really like.

The number one thing that kills applications is, is the rumor mill. Avoid the rumor mill, Confirm everything you’re being told, and you’re gonna dramatically improve. Mm-hmm. Uh, so thank you everyone for coming out tonight and thank you far for all this wonderful information about building your college application timeline.

Um, so that is the end of the webinar. I hope you found this information helpful. And remember, again that you can download the slide from the link and. Um, download the sites from link in the handouts tab. And this webinar is being recorded if you like to view it again at app.CollegeAdvisor.com/webinars. Um, if you just go to our web, our website at collegeadvisor.com, um, you can, uh, see the tab for webinars and then you’ll be able to find all the webinars, just type in keywords for any topics you’re interested in.

Here are upcoming webinars and our series on different college, um, panels, as well as different aspects of the application process and essay editing that can really help make your application as strong as possible. Do check those out as well as our blog, which goes into more detail. If your question was not answered tonight, I recommend going to these webinars or go, um, watching previous webinars to find out more information about those niche and specific questions or signing up for CollegeAdvisor where you can get an advisor who will help you.

Uh, and answer all of your questions, really help you through all of the admissions process with very tailored and specific support. So thank you everyone for coming out tonight and goodnight.