Inside Higher Ed’s headline, not ours 😉
But yes, it’s still ED or bust at many top US colleges, and those spots are getting even harder to come by. As the ED application numbers rise, a change in strategy is often needed. Our prediction:
“In” in 2023 –> match schools in ED.
“Out” in 2023 –> overreaching in ED (or SCEA or REA!).
Find an interesting article on the use of early decision here!
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Everyone should read the Georgia Tech admissions blog.
Read rick Clark’s recent post here. For juniors, this section for seniors is important. Read it now, and read it again this summer when you finalize your college list.
Be reminded that your chances of being admitted to a school with an admit rate below 20% do not go up 20% by applying to 20% more of those schools. Trade out “dream school” for IRL colleges. Apply to a group of schools (you figure out the number but generally more than 2 and less than 10) where you know you will be thrilled to get in and excited to go.*
*and we might add: where you can actually get in! Thanks always, Georgia Tech, for keeping it real!
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Every year we work with a handful of deferred students on turning those defers into admits. Reach out to us if you want individualized guidance!
Some colleges and universities can’t admit all of the students they would like to in early decision or early action (“ED” or “EA”), so they defer some and evaluate them again during regular decision (“RD”). These candidates have a shot (albeit small at many top 30 schools) at getting admitted RD. However, some schools just defer everyone or almost everyone! A not so nice practice. Most students who fall into this category should move on and focus on other schools. If you are not sure which category you fall into, ask us.
If you’d like some general guidance on working the deferral, you’ll find it below. But first, a few notes before doing anything to “work” a deferral:
1. Stay positive for RD, or preferably early decision 2, and keep moving forward on other apps! Those are much more important now.
2. Consider ED 2; it’s often smarter than relying on RD. Not all schools have ED 2; check your Common App to see if ED 2 is offered at any schools on your list. Why? Because….
3. The RD round is tough. Get familiar with the ED 1 and RD numbers and understand why ED 2 can present a significant advantage over RD. Read this chart by Jeff Levy and Jeannie Kent. Pay particular attention to the percentage of the class filled by early plans.
4. Don’t make the same mistakes again. You should be very open to doing a thorough evaluation of what might have gone wrong with your early app(s). With fresh eyes, you might find a few things you would change. Or, with the feedback from someone else, see that you missed the mark completely on some elements of your application. If you’d like an evaluation of your deferred app, our “redo report,” contact us.
Other Tips:
–Please follow all deferral instructions. If your defer letter does not provide specific guidance, reach out to your admissions officer/rep and ask them what steps they suggest. Check your portal, too. Sometimes defer guidance is hidden there.
–Get your guidance counselor’s support. Have your guidance counselor advocate for you via telephone. Make sure updated grades/transcripts are sent promptly. Your grades should have remained the same or improved, not dipped.
–If you applied test-optional, consider taking and/or sending scores. Colleges have always valued competitive scores, and this year is no different.
–Get an extra letter of recommendation if the school notes you are allowed to send one*. This letter could be written by a teacher, coach, employer, or someone else who can speak to your background, performance, and potential. *Side note on alumni letters and letters from well-known or famous people. Many students ask if these are helpful to send, and the answer is usually no. And…some schools explicitly state not to send any extra letters.
–Make contacts locally and talk to students and alumni. Reach out to local alumni chapters and ask if there is anyone willing to meet with you for an informal informational interview. Use this meeting as an opportunity to learn more about the school, and demonstrate your interest in attending. Information learned in these meetings can be included in your deferral letter.
-Connect with your regional rep and consider sending a deferral letter (aka an update letter). You should have connected with them prior to applying, so this email won’t be out of the blue. Most schools value an update on grades, test scores, impact/leadership activities, and sometimes more information on why them specifically. A deferral letter should be both intentional and very specific to the school and what was contained within your initial application. It should not be a list of your accomplishments or an essay that re-hashes information already shared in the initial application. You don’t need to label this update a “love letter” or “letter of continued interest”—try to think of a more thought-provoking and less common subject line if you are sending the update via email, or skip it altogether if you are sending a portal update.
-If you had an interview and established a good relationship with your interviewer, you can also reach out to them to see if they have any tips.
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For many students, college admissions interviews are fear-inducing. The good news is, you are already an expert on you, so all you need to learn is a little bit about the school and how to channel nerves into excitement.
Hear us out: You do not need to spend hours preparing answers to hundreds of questions to thoroughly prepare for alumni or any other college admissions interview. Canned responses sound terrible anyway.
Remember, so much of college admissions (especially the interview) is about likeability—rehashing your resume word-for-word or sounding like a robot does not make you likable—but being able to hold a simple, genuine conversation does.
Practice with a parent or friend, or practice for 30 minutes with us! Never go to an interview unprepared! Learning how to interview is a skill for life, not just for the college process. Email us if you are interested in a short mock interview session.
Below, you will find some common interview questions.
High School Experience
Extracurricular Activities
College Expectations
School Specific
Miscellaneous
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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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As with the personal statement, there is no set “formula” for writing an effective supplemental essay—and sometimes the best essays are the ones that thoughtfully and creatively break the rules! That said, here is a general overview of how we approach both long and short supps:
As you can see, our approach is the same for both long and short essays. However, long essays allow for an extended introduction with a longer scene or story, additional paragraphs that allow for more depth and detail in the body of the essay, and a comprehensive conclusion. Short essays will have highly condensed introductions and conclusions, as well as fewer body paragraphs and less detail. This is why we strongly advocate writing long essays first: it’s easier to go back and trim detail than it is to add detail to a short essay.
Pro Tip –> “Less is more” doesn’t apply to college admissions essays: all of your essays should be as close to the word limit as possible. If you don’t max out the word count, it can look like you haven’t put in max effort. Being 5-10 words shy of the limit is fine, but only writing 200 words for a 250-word essay can look lazy.
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Time to write those supplemental essays…
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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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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!
