To all our seniors: just submitting applications is a huge accomplishment!!!
Take 7 minutes to listen to Kelly Corrigan’s case for celebrating the litany of accomplishments that a completed college application represents.
There’s so much more to applying to college than where you get in or don’t. Listen here!
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Our friends at GenHERation have a post up from our Fireside Chat! Read more here, and check out their programming while you’re at it!
And for all things college essay, check out our book, The Complete College Essay Handbook!!!
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Penn Admissions has shared four great informative guides to help students with their college application process—and they are NOT Penn specific (although the samples they provide are)!
Narrowing Down Your List
Fill out a worksheet for each school on your list while visiting school websites, exploring virtual tours, and attending information sessions. Compare worksheets and see which schools match your must-haves. Download Guide 1
Curriculum & Majors
This second guide will help you narrow down which colleges will be the best fit for you based on academics offered. Use this worksheet to learn more about a school’s curriculum, majors, and learning opportunities. Download Guide 2
Tracking Application Requirements & Deadlines
There’s a lot to keep track of when you’re applying to multiple colleges. Use this worksheet to stay organized and take some of the stress out of the application process. Download Guide 3
Highlighting Your Extracurriculars & Activities
This worksheet will prepare you for the activities section of your college applications. Think of this guide as a way to brainstorm what you’ve been involved in through high school, what your commitment looked like, and how things may have changed in the past year. Download Guide 4
Bonus: Watch this video for even more tips on activities!
Thanks, Penn! Pair this advice with The Complete College Essay Handbook and get ready to apply!
College Kickstart helps you track those merits $$ deadlines. Students: yet another reason to get apps in EARLY! We suggest submitting as many RD apps as you can by 12/1.
To help you stay on top of free money opportunities for your students, they’ve compiled a list of popular schools with hard merit deadlines for the 2021-22 cycle.
For each school listed, they’ve included the stated deadline, as well as the percentage of students receiving merit aid, the average amount of aid awarded and a link back to the school’s merit scholarship page.
Get there now!
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Virtual Event!
Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Time: 7-7:30 PM EST/4-4:30 PM PST
During this virtual session, college admissions expert Dr. Brittany Maschal will discuss how to select the best topic for the personal statement and supplemental essays, what makes an essay stand out, and the best strategies for presenting a well-rounded set of application essays.
GenHERation will also raffle away a copy of The Complete College Essay Handbook at the end of the session!
Campus Pride’s 2021 BEST OF THE BEST Colleges & Universities is online at https://campuspride.org/
Campus Pride, the preeminent resource for LGBTQ leadership development, diversity inclusion and advocacy within higher education, recently announced the annual Best of the Best Colleges and Universities for LGBTQ students in the United States.
“More than ever colleges today want to be viewed as LGBTQ-friendly and a welcoming place for all students. LGBTQ students and their safety impacts the recruitment efforts of the entire campus,” said Shane Windmeyer, Campus Pride Executive Director. “Upper-level administrators are now understanding how LGBTQ-friendliness is key to academic success of students and the future institutional success of the campus.”
The announcement features 30 four-year campuses from across the country that have shown themselves to be deeply committed to LGBTQ students, earning a perfect score of 5 out of 5 stars on the Campus Pride Index, the definitive national benchmarking tool tracking LGBTQ-friendly policies, programs, and practices.
This year, Campus Pride is putting a spotlight on two-year colleges and religious schools with two separate lists focused on community colleges that are leading the way on LGBTQ inclusivity, and religious schools living up to LGBTQ-inclusive values. These campuses were selected by the Campus Pride Index team showcasing campuses with inclusive policy, program and practice and who scored 3.5 or higher stars in their respective categories.
“Seeing the representation of schools from every corner of the country, and highlighting the efforts of community colleges and even religious institutions really underlines the successes Campus Pride has had over our 20 years,” said Tom Elliott, Campus Pride Board Chair. “The work we’ve done with student leaders, and the resources Campus Pride continues to provide them, is making the higher education experience safer and more welcoming to LGBTQ students nationwide.”
The Campus Pride Index, cataloging more than 430 LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities, is available at https://www.
The start of junior year is the perfect time to determine your story for applying to college. What majors are you considering? What have you done to explore those majors? Where will you add value in college both inside and outside of the classroom? Is your value add clear on your resume?
It might seem early since you won’t be submitting apps until this time next year, but those apps are much easier to write if you’ve done some work ahead of time.
Juniors, right now you can:
Speaking of essays now would be a great time for juniors to grab a copy of our book, The Complete College Essay Handbook!
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Making Caring Common’s Youth Advisory Board is a diverse group of high school students from across the country who are committed to making schools more caring and respectful places through everyday interactions. Members guide our understanding of and help devise solutions to the most pressing moral issues and social challenges of their peer groups, such as bullying and exclusion. They provide feedback on our ideas, share their thoughts on current events, and make sure we’re on the right track when communicating information to young people.
We are looking for young people with the following characteristics:
We are particularly interested in including young people who are not typically identified as leaders in their schools, those who may be socially marginalized, and those who represent minority groups within their school community.
The deadline to apply is October 4, and you can submit your application here.
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Though more and more colleges are dropping their ACT and SAT requirements, test scores still count in the closely watched college rankings many folks love to hate. But that might not hold true for much longer.
U.S. News & World Report, which published its latest Best Colleges guide on Monday, once again factored incoming students’ average test scores into its measure of “student excellence” at each ranked college despite recent calls for the publication to remove the ACT and SAT from its methodology. This year, standardized test scores were weighted at 5 percent of an institution’s overall ranking, the same as last year (down from 7.75 percent previously).
But U.S. News did change one part of its methodology in an acknowledgment of the growing number of test-optional colleges. It’s known as the 75-percent rule. Previously, the publication reduced the weight of the ACT and SAT by 15 percent for test-optional colleges with fewer than three-quarters of incoming students submitting scores. “The lack of data, for 25 percent of students or more, likely means the ACT or SAT score is not representative of the entire class,” Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News, explained in a 2016 blog post. Some enrollment officials have said the policy — which can lower a college’s ranking — penalizes institutions that don’t require standardized tests.
This year, U.S. News lowered the threshold to 50 percent: Colleges received “full credit for their SAT/ACT performance” if at least half of their incoming students submitted a score. Just 4 percent of nearly 1,500 ranked colleges did not meet that 50-percent threshold. But “many” colleges, Morse wrote in an email, fell somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent, though he and a U.S. News spokeswoman declined to say how many “many” was.
Read the full article here. [Source Th Chronicle of Higher Education]
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Carnegie Mellon officially offers ED 2 (they had that weird, kinda hidden offering last year!) as do a few other schools. Some new EA, EA2 offerings we well.
Get the full rundown on College Kickstart, our list go-to!
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