Eight questions for juniors

The last six weeks of school are busy for most students, especially juniors. AP Exams, projects, final exams….I try to leave students alone during this time, but first I like to do a quick spring check-in to know how to plan for the summer. Here’s an outline of the conversations I’m having right now. If you’re a current high school junior, or a parent or loved one of one, then this may help you as well.

1.     How’s it going?

I try to start every conversation with a student this way. I have an agenda and things I want to make sure we talk about, but I always try to begin by giving them a chance to let me know what’s going on in their life. Their whole life, not just college applications. Honestly, most of the time the answer to this question is “pretty good,” and it’s not a very deep conversation. But sometimes there’s a lot going on, and I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t paused to ask. The one piece of advice I give to anyone beginning to work with teenagers is to always start off by asking how they’re doing, and to really care about the answer.

2.     How are you doing on your college list? Do you have a feeling for where you will apply? If not, what do you need other than time to research and maybe some campus visits? Is there anything I can do to help with this?

Please don’t read this and panic because you don’t yet know where you will apply to college. As I wrote in my last newsletter, almost everyone feels like they’re behind. But you’re not behind. The juniors I’m talking to have got at least 25 college recommendations from me based on several hours of conversation, but most of them don’t have any idea yet where they’re going to apply or how many schools to apply to. Because I’m trying to plan for the summer and fall, where they are in their search this spring is good information to have. If you haven’t begun your search yet—or even if you have—here are some things to consider:

·      You need to know by October if there are any schools you’ll apply to early. Those Early Decision, Early Action, and other priority applications are typically due between October 15 and December 1. Most people won’t apply to more than one or two colleges at this early stage.

·      Most Regular Decision deadlines are in early January, so you’ll need to have those applications finished while you’re also finishing school in December and beginning your winter break.

·      Apply to a balanced list. I want everyone to apply to at least two schools where they’re very confident they’ll be accepted. I don’t want to discourage anyone from applying to a few super-selective schools if they want, even though the odds are slim they’ll be accepted. And there are literally hundreds of colleges between “confident I’ll be accepted” and “almost certain I won’t be accepted.” Spend a lot of time looking at those mid-range colleges, generally ones with acceptance rates between 30% and 60%. Apply to as few as four schools and as many as 12. I don’t recommend more than 12, though many do.

·      If you want to have your applications finished by the beginning of school so you don’t have to deal with both high school and college applications at the same time, you absolutely have time to do that. I’ve worked with several people who did this—completely done with college applications by the end of August. They were really glad they did it, but it required a focused dedication in the summer. If you want to do this, you’ll need to decide really soon so you have time to finish everything up.

3.     Are you interacting with colleges?

If there’s a college you’re interested in, you should begin interacting with them as soon as possible. Actively go on their admission website and sign up to be on their mailing list. Follow the college, their admission department, and any other relevant social media accounts. Take an in-person campus tour if possible, and take their online tours if not. Look up your specific admission officer (usually designated by geography), and consider sending them a brief introduction email. This isn’t about playing the system and getting demonstrated interest “points.” It’s about getting to know this place where you may spend the next several years of your life, and it’s about letting them know that you’re seriously considering them as your next place. It’s about exploring a relationship.

4.     What’s your testing situation?

As much as I hate it, and as much as I didn’t think we’d back at this point, SAT and ACT are making a big comeback. While it’s still possible to apply without test scores—tons of colleges are still test-optional—a lot of big-name schools are no longer test optional. Almost all the people I work with apply to UT Austin, so they all need to test.

My recommendation for testing is to be low-key about it until you feel you can’t be. Take a test this spring or early summer and see how you do. From there, based on how you feel your percentile scores matches your ability, how your scores compare to those at your high school, and how they compare with the mid-range at colleges you’re thinking about, decide if you want to do any test prep and retest. Don’t decide now, without seeing any scores, that you’re going to go all out by doing test prep and taking it three or four times.

5.     Have you talked with your family about costs and budget?

I’ve said it hundreds of times: the happiest, least stressed college applicants are the ones who understand exactly what their budget and parameters are. This takes open and detailed communication with families, and it usually takes more than one conversation. There are many ways to have this conversation, and each family works a little differently. But here are the main questions families need answers to:

·      Do you all know the list prices of the schools you’re thinking about applying to? Do you all understand that’s not usually the actual price? Do you all know what net price means?

·      How much is your family planning to spend on college? What’s the line above which a school is definitely unaffordable?

·      How much is reasonable for you to spend on college each year?

·      How much is reasonable to borrow to help pay for college?

·      What financial contributions are you all expecting from the student to help pay for college?

·      Does your family have a 529 or other college savings account?

 6.     What are you doing this summer?

Summer is the natural, obvious time to take care of most of your college admission tasks. It’s a great time to research colleges, work on essays and other writing prompts, take some preliminary campus tours, narrow down your choices, and begin applications. This is kind of obvious, but it needs repeating: don’t plan to do all this in the summer if you’re not going to have time for it in the summer. If your summer is already full with work, travel, family obligations, or other commitments, then don’t plan on doing all your college work over the summer also. Decide what’s reasonable to do over the summer, and then decide what you need to do this spring and what you can reasonably put off until fall.

 7.     How soon do you want to begin on the essay(s)? This summer, or before?

Very few students say they want to begin on essays before the summer. But it really helps to ask this question after asking about summer plans. Some realize that, although they don’t want to, they would be wise to start essays before the summer. How many essays and other writing prompts will you need to write? It’s hard to say until you know where you’ll apply and what short supplemental questions they ask. If you really want to be prepared, start brainstorming and outlining—but necessarily drafting—responses to the following:

·      One Common Application essay

·      An answer to why you’re interested in your chosen major

·      What extracurricular activity has been the most important to you, and why

·      Three or four of the University of California application prompts. Even if you don’t apply to a UC, these are really good for answering other prompts, including the Common App essay.

 8.     Anything else?

Just as I like to begin with an open-ended question, I like to finish with one. If you’re a parent, friend, or caregiver going over these questions with a student, make sure to ask what else is on their mind. If you’re a student going over these by yourself, take a moment to think about what questions and worries you have. Now is the time to think of your questions and search for answers. Much better now than in December.

 Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Four things juniors should do now, before the end of the year

   What 11th graders should be doing this spring

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Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

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Meeting students for the first time

I haven’t been posting online much the past two months (or reading online, for that matter), because I’ve been busy meeting new clients from the class of 2024. The first meeting with a student is one of my favorite parts of the entire process, because it’s when I get to know these new, interesting people. I never stop being amazed and grateful how much strangers will open up to me within a few minutes of meeting.

What does that first meeting look like? One thing that’s really important to me is that we almost never talk about college in our first meeting. Because a good application process is about finding schools that are a good fit with the student, I need to know about the student.

Here is my outline for talking with students the first time. I don’t usually get to every question, and I try to let the conversation flow as naturally as possible. Whether or not you’re going to work with a consultant for college admission (you probably don’t need to), how would you answer these questions? How would you explain yourself to another person? What questions do you think I should ask that I don’t?

How’s it going? Two things I learned teaching high school: always begin a test with an easy question to put nervous people at ease, and always begin a discussion by asking what the students want to talk about. So I try to begin every meeting with a general “how’s it going?” or a slightly more specific “how’s school going?” 80% of the time the answer is “fine,” but sometimes students are ready to talk about really interesting things right off the bat.

What school do you attend? What’s it like? Most my clients go to the same five high schools, and I’m familiar with them. But it’s good to hear what the students think of school. There’s are huge differences between “I go to the health professions magnet school because I want to be a doctor,” “I go to the health professions magnet school because my parents make me,” and “I go to the health professions magnet school because I thought I wanted to be a doctor…but I’ve changed my mind and now I’m stuck there.”

What classes are you taking? It’s funny, but most students have trouble answering this question. They’re in their classes all the time, but they’re rarely asked to list them. It’s like asking someone to list all the rooms in their house; it’s so familiar that you rarely actually think about it.

What do you like and dislike about school? What’s working for you? The most popular answer for what students like about school: being with their friends. (Especially after pandemic lockdown.) The most popular answers for what they don’t like: taking classes they’re not interested in. And busy-work.

Have there been any big changes recently, either in circumstances or what’s working for you? If your high school life has a before/after structure, I’d like to know. Before/after you moved. Before/after your parents split. Before/after your injury. Before/after you got in some trouble. Before/after your diagnosis.

Who do you live with? What do they do? Parents, ask your children what you do for a living. You may be surprised by the answer. A lot of my clients have trouble answering this question.

What are your grades like? Do you have a GPA and/or rank? Asking “what are your grades like” often gets a narrative answer. Things like “mostly As, but Bs in math classes” or “not too bad, though I had a bad freshman year.” I follow up with asking about the GPA, but that narrative is much more important.

What tests have you taken (PSAT, SAT, ACT etc.) and how did you do? Do you plan on taking any you haven’t already taken or re-taking any? For years, I noticed that nobody was ever happy with their test scores. Everybody wanted to re-take tests and raise their scores. At least for my clients, that’s largely gone away for the past two years. Thanks to test-optional policies and general fatigue, most are taking the SAT once and being done. I’m happy about that.

Tell me about extra stuff at school. Tell me about extra stuff outside of school. Like listing their classes, students have a hard time with this. I’m constantly going back to my notes on this one to add something when they casually mention something they do outside of school that they didn’t list before.

What are your external limitations and special circumstances? Do you have any learning differences? Dyslexia? Anxiety, depression, or OCD? Do you care for your anyone in your family beyond the occasional babysitting or normal housework? Do you work job to help sustain your family? None of these things are a problem, but they are circumstances it's better to know about sooner than later.

What are your current career aspirations? What are all the things you’ve wanted to be when you grow up? This is my favorite question. Lots of “astronaut,” lots of “lawyer,” lots of “veterinarian.” Someone once told me “I had a spy phase, obviously.” Having someone list all their aspirations, even going back to pre-school, can be illuminating. For some students, there’s a clear theme. Some are all over the place. Some don’t really have a career goal. Late middle school seems to be the line where people either find new interests or begin to lose interest.

What do adults praise you for? I didn’t realize it when I began asking this question, but I can now usually predict the tone of the next year’s work with the student based on their answer to this question. I listen very carefully to what students say—and don’t say—when I ask them this. A few have basically given me an outline for an application essay, enumerating several intrinsic traits that adults have noticed in them and giving examples of how those traits have been helpful to themselves and others over the past few years. At the other end of the spectrum are students who have never really heard praise from adults. Most are somewhere in between.

Why do you do what you do? Everyone does at least a few things beyond the bare necessity of what they have to do to graduate high school. Why have they chosen the things they have? What do they get out of it? Where do they want to go next with those interests?

What’s the last book you read--because it was assigned--and enjoyed?  I don’t think anyone will be surprised that students rarely name a book they read for school that they enjoyed. Most reach back to elementary school to find a good example.

What’s the last book you read on your own volition and enjoyed? This usually gets much more robust and enthusiastic responses. And they’re often books I’ve never heard of.

How heavily do you edit? Big things like school essays and projects, and little things like emails and texts? My favorite responses to this question are the ones who essentially say “I don’t really edit much. I just go back over the essay five or six times, making changes each time, until I feel like it’s good enough. But that’s all.” This question gets more humblebrags than any other.

In the past year, what’s been your biggest victory? Let’s celebrate the good!

In the past year, what’s been your biggest setback? Let’s acknowledge the difficult.

For what are you most grateful? This one is really tough to answer. I know because most students begin by saying “this is really tough to answer.” But then they usually answer it.

If you could magically gain one talent or trait, what would it be?

What are you hoping to get out of college consultations with me? It’s never the student who hires me. Usually parents reach out, occasionally an uncle or a family friend. But there’s always something the student hopes to get from me, and it helps to know what it is. It’s also good for the student to understand that what they hope to get from our work may change as we go.

What else do you want to talk about? What did you expect me to ask that I haven’t asked? What else do you think I might need to know about you? I like to end just as open-ended as I begin. My first year or two doing this, I didn’t ask about test scores in our first meeting. I didn’t want to over-emphasize the numbers. But so many people told me that they were expecting me to ask about test scores and that they wanted to tell me about their test scores, I began asking. I now prefer to ask about ACT/SAT early in the conversation to get it over with, since so many are expecting to talk about it. Like with the opening question, the majority say they have nothing else to talk about or ask. But the ones who have something on their mind usually have something really interesting and useful to say. I always want to make room for interesting and useful.

 Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   What do you want to be easier?

   What would you do as a bored billionaire?

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

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Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.