Colleges Requiring the Self-Reported Academic Record (SRAR)

Colleges Requiring the Self-Reported Academic Record (SRAR)

Some colleges require a form called the SSAR or the SRAR when you apply to college. It is a self-reported transcript and it speeds up the admissions process tremendously at many schools.

Please read the application instructions for each and every school on your list. The Application Instructions or the “Steps to Applying” will inform you if it is required.

Please see a list of colleges and universities that accept the SSAR-SRAR for current high school seniors below. This list can change and is from a secondary source; please read your app instructions carefully!

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY OPTIONAL
BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK OPTIONAL
CLEMSON UNIVERSITY REQUIRED
DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY OPTIONAL
FLORIDA A & M UNIVERSITY REQUIRED
FLORIDA POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OPTIONAL
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY REQUIRED
KEAN UNIVERSITY OPTIONAL
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY OPTIONAL
NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA OPTIONAL
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (NYU) REQUIRED
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY REQUIRED
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, CAMDEN REQUIRED
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, NEWARK REQUIRED
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, NEW BRUNSWICK REQUIRED
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY REQUIRED
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK OPTIONAL
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT OPTIONAL
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA TWIN CITIES REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, KNOXVILLE REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA OPTIONAL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA REQUIRED
UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA REQUIRED
VIRGINIA TECH REQUIRED

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Why Your “Academic Narrative” and a Foundation for Your Intended Major Matter

Why Your “Academic Narrative” and a Foundation for Your Intended Major Matter

Let’s say you were a star student at an Illinois high school last year. You want to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so you check out the Princeton Review’s guide. You find out that Illinois is competitive in admissions, but how competitive?

The answer actually depends on what you want to study.

To reach its class of 7,963 first-year students this fall, the university started with 63,258 applicants. It admitted 28,355 of them. That’s a competitive class to be sure, admitting 45 percent of those who applied.

But let’s say you want to study computer science, which was the intended major of 16 percent of the applicants. Of the 10,214 applicants, the university admitted only 7 percent of them.

Or let’s say you wanted to study business, which was the first choice of more than 10 percent of all applicants. Of the 6,771 applicants, 28 percent were admitted.

Major matters, and if a major is competitive, you need to be competitive for it. You need to take the right classes and have a resume that points toward that major. You’ll want to read more here!

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‘U.S. News’ Changes Policy on Testing

‘U.S. News’ Changes Policy on Testing

Most college rankings are totally useless garbage, but no matter what we think, they are widely used by students/parents in their college search. If you do let them guide you it is important to understand the recent changes. Read more here

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Edison Prep’s UGA Data Repository and Strategy Page – Tracking UGA Stats Since 2012!

Edison Prep’s UGA Data Repository and Strategy Page – Tracking UGA Stats Since 2012!

This is the UGA data we all need! If the University of Georgia is on your list, especially if you are from out of state, you need to give this page a close read. 

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University of California Admit Rates – In State & Out of State

The team at College Kickstart reviewed the recently released Fall 2022 University of California admissions data and has summarized it on their blog. 

California residents and students applying from out of state should review this information. Follow College Kickstart for admissions insights and trends!

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UC Berkeley: The Spieker Undergraduate Business Program

Starting in Fall 2023, you can apply directly to Berkeley Haas to enter as a freshman in Fall 2024.

The Spieker Undergraduate Business Program is a four-year undergraduate business program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business that gives you an additional two years for deeper learning and enrichment, including:

  • Career development
  • Internships
  • Study abroad opportunities
  • Entrepreneurship programs
  • Capstone projects
  • Mentorship engagements, and
  • Student leadership experiences.

The first four-year cohort of students will enroll in August of 2024. Applications to the Spieker Undergraduate Business Program will open in Fall 2023. Learn more here

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The Purpose of & How to Tackle College Specific Essays (Supplemental Essays)

The Purpose of & How to Tackle College Specific Essays (Supplemental Essays)

The supplemental essays (or “supps” as we call them) are a chance for you to “supplement” your personal statement (aka the Common App essay) with more information about who you are and what makes you tick. Although many supps ask you to write about seemingly straightforward topics, like your extracurriculars or academics, they are not merely an opportunity to rehash your résumé or the activities section of the Common Application. They are, like the personal statement, an opportunity to tell another deeply personal story—not to brag about your brag-worthy accomplishments. Remember: it is stories, not accomplishments, that will make your application memorable.

For your essay to count as a story, it needs to tell a narrative that charts personal progress and change. Maybe your résumé is full of community service, and though you love it now, when you started, it felt like a chore. Tell that story. Maybe you played piano for ten years only to quit in tenth grade so you could devote more time to your real passion—computer science. Tell that story. Maybe you founded a club, and no one came to the first meeting, but you decided to keep going, and now you have a small but devoted core group. Tell. That. Story. In other words: Tell the unvarnished true story, even if that story isn’t neat or pretty. Those are the best stories!

Although supps present a valuable opportunity to make yourself even more memorable to your favorite schools, they also present a daunting amount of work: the majority of schools require at least one supplemental essay, and some, like MIT and Wake Forest, ask you to complete five or more. Many students we work with end up having to complete, on average, ten to fifteen sets of supps, or anywhere from eight to twenty additional essays. This is an insane amount of writing, and it can seem especially challenging because the prompts for these essays appear to vary greatly from school to school.

Don’t be daunted. You don’t have to write twenty unique essays!

Over the years, we have identified four types of essays that admissions officers most commonly look for. The students we work with write, on average, these four essays that they are then able to adapt and repurpose for different word counts and prompts.  They are:

  • Academic and Intellectual Interests
  • Community and Identity
  • Creativity
  • Impact and Influence

And following our method, you can do this too! In The Complete College Essay Handbook, we provide:

  • An overview of the type, with writing advice
  • Sample essays to show you how it’s done at different word limits
  • Both obvious and less-obvious prompts, so you can get a sense of the ways colleges phrase each question
  • A brief brainstorming questionnaire targeted to that type

We also show you how to adapt your essays for higher or lower word limits and how to repurpose your essays for the few prompts that fall outside of the four types. Using our methods, you’ll be able to maximize your time by writing fewer, but more effective and widely applicable, supplemental essays.

Get a copy today (paperback or ebook option), or if you are interested in working with us 1:1, reach out via email!

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Break Into Law School™ Conference June 25-26

S. Montgomery Admissions is hosting a free virtual 2-day conference on June 25-26, “Break into Law School,” that will provide information to law school applicants, current law students, and young lawyers at no cost.

Counselors and high school students are more than welcome to attend! They currently have 8 panels planned with roughly 24+ panelists for the entire event. Panelists include law school deans and professors, the Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of the LSAC, judges, corporate attorneys, and more.

– Equity in Law School Admissions
– Financing Your Legal Education
– Conquering the LSAT Exam
– Surviving 1L Year
– Climbing the Corporate Law Ladder
– Entering Academia
– The Judiciary: From Clerkships to the Bench

– Branching Out with Your Own Firm

There will be a networking hour where registrants can network with attorneys, judges, legal professors, current students, and applicants. Thanks to generous sponsors they will also have LSAT courses, free hours of consulting, pre-1L support, and wealth management sessions to give away!

Register at bit.ly/joinbils
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Thoughtful, Authentic, Effective College Essays

Thoughtful, Authentic, Effective College Essays

The college essay is fairly simple to write but often made more complicated than it needs to be. The goal? Clear, concise, effective. Nothing fancy, nothing that should take more than a few weeks, max. 

Effective essays: 

  • Demonstrate authenticity and thoughtfulness
  • Bring the writer to life on paper (but are not an explanation of their whole life)
  • Are excellent in topic, style, and grammar

We are gearing up for a summer busy with college essay support, so our students can start senior year with peace of mind, less stress, and having already completed most of their essays

If you know a rising senior who would benefit from our guidance and who might want to work with one of our essay experts, contact us to schedule a consultation.

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College Admission: Data, Transparency, And Match

College Admission: Data, Transparency, And Match

Does it matter whether Princeton was ranked the number one or number three university in the country this year? Do you really care if Stanford’s overall admit rate was 3.95% or 2.16%? What does it mean to you if the University of Pennsylvania denied 94.32% or 95.74% of all applicants?

News flash: these institutions are uber selective. You could be the most qualified student in the country with perfect grades and test scores, an exceptionally written college essay, glowing recommendations, and impactful community involvement, and still be turned down by the most selective colleges.

Brennan Barnard’s recent Forbes piece explores colleges’ lack of transparency and so much more. Give it a read!
The reality is, you are rolling the dice when applying to these schools. They could select a full class of new students, throw it out, take the runners up, and guess what…the overall profile of the accepted class would look nearly identical. In fact, schools with low single-digit admit rates could do this many times over. This you cannot control. What you can control is how YOU approach the college search and application experience, and the quality and usefulness of the data you seek.
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