The college admissions process is a constantly changing landscape!
Join Isaac Foster and Brittany Maschal for a virtual panel discussion designed to inform you about steps your family can take during high school to best prepare for the college admissions process.
This event is free. Click here to register. A Zoom link will be emailed out to registered guests prior to the event.
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From the Common App….
Over the past several years, we’ve marked the joyful occasion of a new application year by celebrating launch as Common App Day! August 1 is just around the corner, and we want to share a few last minute reminders so you and your students are prepared.
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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:
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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One of the reasons that we like students to have a sense of their college list when they start essay writing is that each essay does not exist in a vacuum. Everything submitted with a college application needs to work together to tell the fullest story possible about who you are, what you are all about, and the value you will add to the school that’s reading your application.
Complement your Personal Statement—don’t compete with it. You should aim to make sure all of your supplemental essays are as separate from the personal statement as possible. For instance, if my personal statement is about my passion for dance (my main extracurricular), and a school requires what we call a creativity supplement in The Complete College Essay Handbook, I would choose to write about something other than dance for the PS because I might want to focus on that in the supplement.
Present a rounded picture, even if you are narrow. Notice that I didn’t say be well-rounded. I don’t advise that! But imagine you apply to a school that requires two supplemental essays. One prompt clearly calls for an academic and intellectual interests (AII) essay, and the second is open-ended. You wouldn’t want to write a second AII essay for that school. Although college is first and foremost about academics, you want the opportunity to present as many parts of yourself as possible; go with any one of the other three types of supplemental essays that we outline in detail within The Complete College Essay Handbook! Every single college applicant should be able to write an impact and influence and community and identity essay.
Consider the school’s values. Sticking with the same example: if a school asks for two supplements and one prompt clearly calls for an AII essay, and the second is open-ended, in addition to writing a different type of supp, you should also take the school’s mission and values into consideration. For instance, since Jesuit schools like Santa Clara, Fordham, and the University of San Francisco tend to value service more than some secular schools, an impact and influence essay would be the best choice for the second prompt. Conversely, a liberal arts college with a long history of political activism, such as Wesleyan, Smith, or Oberlin, might react more favorably to a community and identity essay with an impact twist.
Use your best story. Imagine you have one just incredible story, and it fits perfectly into the impact and influence type. You write the essay—it’s great, and you love it! Then you realize that your top-choice school asks for a community and identity essay. What should you do? If your story is really that good, you are actually better off turning that impact and influence essay into a community and identity essay—even if it feels like a bit of a stretch. Admissions officers will remember how you made them feel—not that you didn’t answer the question quite as accurately as another applicant.
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Each year on August 1, Common App launches the refreshed application with updated information, including any new questions and new colleges. Students will need to sign in and refresh their Common App accounts for the new cycle.
Many colleges change their questions from year to year, so if students started working on responses to college-specific questions, they will be deleted.
For more details about how account rollover works, be sure to reference these Solutions Center articles for first-year and transfer students, as well as tips located in the CA application guide.
Mark your calendars for the system refresh dates:
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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.
– 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!
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.
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.
The future starts now! GenHERation® Exploration is an intensive summer program designed to inspire young women to think big and push the limits of what’s possible. During this immersive experience, students will learn from the most innovative companies in America, meet powerful female leaders, and participate in skill-building simulations. Throughout the week, students will connect with industry experts from Fortune 500 companies, tech giants, retailers, government agencies, and sports franchises as they collaborate on custom-designed challenges. Students will become trailblazers in their own lives and develop a toolkit for success to excel in the classroom, college, and beyond.
Students will refine the following skills throughout the program:
Aug 1-3 (3 days)
Full-Day 9am-4pm
Instructor
GenHERation®
Grades
9-12
