1. Visit the Colleges
College will be your home for four years. Take a test drive by taking a trip to the colleges you are considering and spend some time walking around. Most importantly, try to visit the campus while school is in session. If you go during summer when no one is there, it won’t feel the same. By visiting during school hours you can get a feel for the students attending there. These could be your new friends, do they look like people you would want to be with? Do they look happy?
For parents, this is a great opportunity to spend some quality time with your kids.
2. Write the essay of your life
Make yourself stand out. There are several books available on how to write great essays. Your essay can show things about you that grades and test scores cannot and this is your chance to tell the school why you should be admitted.
Check out “On writing the College Application Essay” by Bauld and another one is “100 Successful College Application Essays” by Christopher Georges. This one has actual essays for you to learn from and get ideas. DO NOT PLAGURIZE! If you get caught it won’t be good.
3. Familiarize Yourself with the entrance applications
Before filling out any college entrance applications, make sure to read through them so that you have all the necessary information available to avoid making any mistakes.
4. Apply to 6 to 8 colleges
This gives you more options just in case you were not admitted to your first choice. Apply to colleges that you have a good shot at getting into. Some colleges have better financial aid packages than others, find out about the schools you are considering. Take into consideration the size and location of the school. Will you be happy in a very small school, or in a small town?
5. Apply Early not Early Admission
Apply no later than October 31st of the year you wish to go to college. The admissions office gets flooded with applications and they are overworked, so they don’t always give the full attention they should to each application. If you get your application in 4 to 6 weeks before the deadline, the staff at the admissions office tends to have more time to go through your application.
6. Do Well on your SAT’s
This is very important and we suggest you try to do your best. There are several great resources to help you prepare and we can recommend some great SAT courses. If you are not a good test taker, don’t stress out too much, it is not the only thing colleges look at. They know that some people are just not good test takers and there can be other compensating factors. |
