When should you tour colleges?

A few weeks ago a parent asked me when I recommend touring colleges. Her daughter is a senior, so it pretty much came down to choosing between times this fall and this spring. But I know many families like to visit colleges throughout high school (or earlier), so I’d like to talk about all the different times you may want to visit a campus. There are no right or wrong times, but there are reasons to be deliberate about which colleges you tour and when.

Before the end of 11th grade. Start as early as you like, and visit as many colleges as you like. There’s no rule that says you have to wait until later in high school. The advantage to visiting colleges before the end of 11th grade: you have lots of time. It gives you a chance to visit more schools and an opportunity to get to know different types of schools. Don’t just pay attention to what makes each school unique, but also to all the things they may have in common. A feature or tradition that seems really cool at one school becomes less fascinating when you realize that many colleges have essentially the same feature or tradition. The drawback to visiting colleges before the end of 11th grade: your early tours may not correspond whatsoever to colleges you will actually apply to when you’re a senior. Most students’ college plans evolve a lot between 9th and 12th grade. By the time you actually apply to schools, you may be wondering why you ever bothered to visit that college. Tip: especially in 9th and 10th grade, go on “practice” tours at universities close to home, whether or not you eventually want to apply there. Get a feel for different types and sizes of universities without as much travel or expense.

The summer before 12th grade. This is a really popular time to visit colleges, which makes sense. The advantage to visiting colleges the summer before 12th grade: you’ve got time away from school. I don’t like to assume that high school students and their families have nothing going on in the summer and have unlimited time and resources to tour colleges. Still, it’s a few months without high school, and that makes a high difference for a lot of people. Also, by the summer before your senior year you’re probably a lot closer to your final college list. There’s more urgency to these visits, because these are schools you’re more likely to actually apply to. The drawback to visiting colleges the summer before 12th grade: if “vibe” is something you’re looking for, summer is a difficult time to feel it. There are a lot fewer students on campus. Plus, lots of schools earn revenue by renting out their facilities to summer camps and other non-college events. I’ve been on a college campus in the summer when it was full of middle school cheerleaders. I’ve been on a college campus in the summer when it was full of 6th grade science nerds. I’ve been on a college campus in the summer when it was full of Army soldiers in fatigues. It’s hard to get “the feel” of a campus during a time when it doesn’t have its normal feel. Tip: don’t let this visit be your first contact. If this is a school you’re interested in applying to, you should already be on their mailing list and have spent some time doing online research about them. Already have some sort of relationship with the college before showing up to visit.

The fall of 12th grade. This is also a popular time to visit colleges. By this point, things are getting quite real. You’ve got to send off applications by the end of this semester. The advantage to visiting colleges the summer in the fall of 12th grade: lots of high schools give excused absences for college visits. It’s expected and allowed for you to miss (a little bit of) school for these days away. And by this time, you can focus on schools that are definitely on your list. The drawback to visiting colleges in the fall of 12th grade: senior year is busy, and there’s not always much time. And you're realistically only talking about the first half of the fall of 12th grade, since you need to save time to actually complete applications. Tip: if you’re sure you’re going to apply to a particular college, you don’t need to visit in the fall. Use this limited time to focus on your undecided schools to help you decide if you really want to apply. You may completely fall in love with a school and decide it’s your new top choice. You may also really hate a campus and wonder what you ever saw in that college.

As I write that, I can already hear people objecting. If you’re sure you want to apply to a school and have time to visit, you should tour there so you get the Demonstrated Interest “points.” They’re not wrong; if a university takes Demonstrated Interest into account, then a campus visit is a big deal. Still, I would say two things to that objection. One, you should spend your time and resources, if you’re even able to go on fall visits, getting what you need to make a wise choice, not gaming the system to try to convince them you’re worthy. You’re a person, not just a resume. Prioritize getting information and experiences that will help you, as a person, make better decisions. Second, there are plenty of other ways to demonstrate interest, and you should certainly do those things. Make sure you’re on the school’s mailing list, and check their website often. Email the admission officer for your area and tell them exactly what’s up: you’re not going to tour in the fall, because you already know you’ll definitely apply. Instead, ask about dates and formats for accepted student visits in the spring. Apply Early Action if it’s available, or even Early Decision. You can let them know you’re interested without feeling like you absolutely have to go on campus. Going to visit a college just so you can write your name on the attendance list and “get credit” is not a wise use of your time.

The spring of 12th grade. Don’t forget about this! Most colleges host accepted student weekends and other events for students trying to make a decision. The advantage to visiting colleges the summer in the spring of 12th grade: you’re super-focused on finding the right fit, and you’re only visiting places you’ve been accepted. Also, by this point students who need financial help have usually already made their case, and there are often opportunities for some travel costs to get reimbursed. You can’t count on financial aid for spring visits, but you can ask about it. The drawback to visiting colleges in the spring of 12th grade: if you’re accepted to too many schools, this can be really overwhelming. Getting lots of acceptances and having lots of options is good…until you have to choose just one or two to visit in the spring. The most stressed-out seniors I ever taught were the ones trying to cram a lot of college visits in their last semester of high school. Tip: before going on any spring visits, review and update your college mission statement. They’re doing everything they can to dazzle you and get you to send in that deposit, so make sure you have what you want top of mind, not what they can wow you with.

Bonus tip: Every parent wants their children to be safe, but I have a friend who is extremely security focused. (He was a Marine sniper.) When his family went on college visits, his wife would go along on the official tour with their children. Then he would go out on his own. He would walk into buildings to see if anyone noticed there was a stranger there. He would strike up conversations with the security guards, maintenance workers, and landscapers. He would try to get a sense of how safe people outside the admission department felt the school was. While I don’t recommend this approach to most people (I can just picture myself getting arrested for walking into the wrong building and ruining my children’s chances of admission), it is a reminder that everyone should be watching not only what the tour guides show them, but also looking for hints beyond the official program. Just don’t get in trouble.

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:

   Making the most of a campus tour

   Go on practice college visits

   The Glossary: Demonstrated interest

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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"The light is much better here"

There’s an old joke that goes back at least to the 1920s. One night a police officer sees a drunk man on his hands and knees in the light of a street lamp. “What are you doing?” the officer asks. “I lost my keys, and I’m looking for them,” replies the drunk man. The cop asks “Is this where you lost them?” “No,” the man replies, “but the light is much better here.” It’s a silly joke, but “looking for your keys under the street light” is also shorthand for doing something that’s simple instead of effective. It’s also a good metaphor for the biases we carry around with us.

It’s also, I want to say, a good metaphor for college rankings. The updated US News rankings came out yesterday, and they are—as they are every year, for better and worse—on the minds and in the comments of lots of people today.

Do most students really believe that the rankings will tell them which college is right for them?

Do most parents really believe the only path for professional success for their children is through a top-ranked school?

Do most universities really want to spend advertising dollars touting their ranking, even though they understand how incomplete and dubious that rank is?

No, but the light is just so much better there.

Instead of just laughing at the drunk man (remember: in my analogy you are the drunk man), let’s consider his situation for a moment. We might actually find some empathy and understanding.

One, he has a real problem. He has lost something valuable. He’s not just looking for any old thing, but his keys. It’s hard to get inside his home without them. If you are a student looking for a college that is a good academic, social, and financial fit for you, you are also looking for something valuable. Even if you think it’s silly for the man to be looking under the street lamp for his keys, it’s not necessarily reasonable to tell him to just go home without them. Maybe there’s someone else who can let him in that one time, but just giving up on your keys is not a viable solution if it can be avoided. Same for a good-fit college. You’re looking for something valuable, and that’s why you’re checking the rankings. You may not know yet where else to look, but giving up is not a good idea.

Two, he has external difficulties. It’s late and dark. He hasn’t got access to sunlight to make the search easier. In many ways, looking for the right college is also looking in the dark. There are thousands of two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States. Most people only apply once, if at all, so you don’t get to learn from your earlier attempts. Even if you have parents or older family members who did go to college, the experience is much different now than it was a few decades ago. It’s overwhelming, and anyone willing to provide a shortcut, like rankings, is going to seem like a friend, no matter how useless in the long run that shortcut may be.

Three, he has internal difficulties. In the joke, the man is drunk. He hasn’t got all his internal resources to help him make a good and effective search. You’ve also got internal difficulties. In any year, having the time, resources, and mental energy to do a thorough college search—especially if you’re doing it without help—is a lot to ask. Few people have all they need for the best college search and application. The past two years have been a lot worse. If you’re overwhelmed and have too many other stresses to deal with, then hanging around where things look a bit easier isn’t surprising. It actually makes sense.

I feel for the drunk man, and I’m not going to judge him for looking under the street lamp. In fact, consider the inverse. Imagine a man loses his keys and spends days searching for them. He finally finds them…under the street lamp. He didn’t look there first because it seemed too easy. I also feel for college-seeking high school students, and I’m not going to judge them for checking the rankings. I look at them too, all the time. Don’t avoid them just because they seem too simplistic. But I will try my best to stick to the analogy I’m working with and give some further advice.

Start with the street light, but don’t stop there. I think rankings—whether US News, Niche, Forbes, or others—is a fine place to start looking for colleges. They seem to be a simple and easy place to get started on a daunting task. So have a look at those rankings. But don’t let yourself believe that they are objective, true, or best for you. They’re only an easing-in point. Then you move on to better research.

The keys aren’t under the street light, but other clues may be. If you go to a ranking site, don’t just look at the list and the rankings. Click on individual schools, and you’ll see a lot more information. The easy-to-find information is the great part of the rankings, not the order. If you’re going to start clicking on schools, don’t start with the top 10. Skip down to #100 and begin there. It’s not like you’ll never hear about Princeton again if you don’t click on that link right now.

If you know that the street light isn’t actually helpful but you’re just looking there for ease and comfort, admit that to yourself so you’ll know when to move on. Somewhere in his head, drunk as he may be, the man knows his keys aren’t there under the light. But it’s late, and he’s drunk, and it’s just reassuring to stay under the lamp post. Colleges know that the rankings have nothing to do with their true value—as do parents and students. But it’s overwhelming for students and it’s difficult for universities to distinguish themselves, and rankings are an easy and reassuring place to spend some time. If that’s what you’re doing, that’s fine. It makes total sense. But admit that to yourself and understand that you can’t keep thinking of the top-ranked schools as the “best” schools for you. One of those schools may end up being the best school for you. But if it does, I assure you, it has nothing to do with US News’s numbers and methods.

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 to think of college rankings

   About the Transactional Approach to admissions

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

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

Three quick questions with the University of Delaware

It seems like it would be difficult to make a school with over 18,000 students sound charming. But the University of Delaware does just fine—with twilights on the lawn, a tight community, and apple cider doughnuts.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Marianne Nagengast, Assistant Director of admissions at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the University of Delaware?

Our Twilight Induction Ceremony is really special. It’s the last major event of our 1743 Welcome Days for new students each fall. They all gather at – you guessed it – twilight for a candlelit ceremony on the Green to welcome our newest Blue Hens to the family. It’s the only time the entire class will be together in one group before they graduate in four years, and students often cite it as one of their favorite memories from their time at UD.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at UD?

I always tell student they’ll get out of their college experience what they put into it. There are no shortage of opportunities for all students at UD, no matter what their background is. We’re a medium-sized, research I school in a small state; if you want to play the game of six degrees of separation, to make it challenging in the state of Delaware you really have to knock it down to three. And that’s something that’s really exciting for students and those who are just embarking on their careers, because there are so many ways to connect with peers who share your interest as well as professionals who are more established in their careers and can help give you a boost as you take your first steps into the workforce. Our professors are all eager to get to know their students – go to their office hours, get to know them, and they’ll be happy to connect you with their networks to get you hands on experience in your desired field, whether you want to work at a Fortune 500 company, at a children’s hospital, or for a local nonprofit. In addition, we have more than 400 student groups on campus, so there is no shortage of things to do. This is a really special time in your life to explore all of your interests, both in and outside of the classroom, and UD is set up to allow you to do just that, and to make an impact early.

When people come to visit Newark, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Staying close to campus, I have to recommend Main Street. It cuts through our campus and is lined with everything you could possibly need – restaurants, coffee shops, our UDairy ice cream shop, the bookstore…I never had a car when I was a student here because it truly felt like everything I could possibly need was right on Main Street. If you want to go a bit farther out, I love Millburn Orchards in the fall (the BEST apple cider doughnuts!) or a hike through White Clay Creek State Park.

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of the University of Delaware. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

Three quick questions with Illinois Wesleyan University

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Andrew Starnes, Regional Admissions Representative at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Illinois Wesleyan University?

Each year we host a campus wide party called the Big Show. Tons of fun, games, dancing and a big name music act that comes to campus.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at IWU?

Students that want to grasp the entire college experience flourish at IWU. Students who want to be involved in more than the classroom, whether it's clubs, sports, greek life, etc.

When people come to visit Bloomington, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Coffee Hound! Local owned and operated. IWU and Illinois State University frequent this stop a lot!

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Illinois Wesleyan University. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

What 9th graders should be doing this fall

A long time ago, the Dallas Maverick basketball team, while their new arena was under construction, practiced at the same gym where I went for morning workouts. On the first day of practice, weeks before the season began, there was already a big banner hanging up over the basketball court that read “The Playoffs Begin Now.” The point, as I understood it, was to remind the players that in order to make it to the playoffs they would need to be preparing then, not waiting until the end of the season.

In some ways, college applications work the same way. Your college admission begins now. You should feel no pressure whatsoever to know where you will go to college, what you will major in, or what you will write on your application essay. But all the information that goes on an application—transcript, list of activities, skills and accomplishments—starts compiling your first year of high school. Luckily, there are only a few major things to figure out now to make that process much easier and successful later. Keep reading.

Work at being good at high school. This has an academic side—take the most rigorous classes you can, get the best grades you can, be involved in your education. But just as important at this point are the social and emotional sides. You’re easing your way into a new and exciting (and challenging) place. You’re going to have missteps, and you’re going to change your mind about things. That’s normal, and that’s fine. If you’re feeling pressure to make yourself into a perfect resume—from your family, your school, your friends, or your self—just repeat this mantra to yourself and anyone else: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. If you find yourself feeling disconnected from high school because you’re already too immersed in test prep or overexerting yourself in too many activities to boost your college prospects, then it’s time to back off and reevaluate.

If by Halloween there’s a class that still isn’t working out—because it’s too easy, or too challenging, or not the right fit—bring this up now and see if there are schedule changes that can be made for the spring semester. Keep doing your best in the class, but understand that adjusting plans is something that all successful people do.

Explore your interests. Remember that the whole point of education is to help you be a productive, happy, and interesting person. You can’t and shouldn’t wait until some future date to start working on those things. Explore activities and interests that you haven’t before. Try out a new club, sit somewhere different for lunch, find an interesting question to ask a teacher you haven’t connected with yet. The great thing about high school is that you get to do a lot of growing and changing and developing—you’re not stuck being the same person you were at the end of last year or the beginning of this year. But the hard part is that you are in charge of that growth and development; it can’t happen passively. So try new things, read new things, listen to new things, talk about new things, think new things.

Begin good habits. There are two things you need for success in college and beyond: a meditation routine and a time management system. Now is the time to begin.

Start talking to your family about paying for college. Ask them what the plan is, what your priorities should be, and how you can contribute. If they give you any of the three most popular answers (“don’t worry about,” “we can’t afford anything,” or “we don’t have enough to afford it but make too much for financial aid,” then please ask them to reconsider. You need something more specific. You’ve got time to have these conversations, but now is the best time to begin them.

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 “What should I be doing now?” for the other grades.

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

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

What sophomores should be doing this fall

Work at being good at high school. Take time to reflect and talk to your family or other adults you trust about the high and low points of last year. Work on making a plan to be even better at high school than you were last year. Keep taking the most rigorous courses you can, and keep doing as well at them as you can.

Think about college. You don’t need to know which college you want to go to, and you don’t need to have a “long list” prepared yet. But it is time to start thinking about it—I assume you have, since you’re here. Remember that you’re at the exploring stage right now, not the deciding stage. Ask older friends where they are thinking about going. Ask yourself what you think you might want in a college and what you hope to get out of it. Think about geography and areas that you might like to spend four to six years. Think about what sorts of things bring you pleasure and how you hope to pursue those when you’re older. Resist the pressure to decide what you’ll major in. Resist the temptation to look at college rankings. Resist the pressure to think you’ve got to have this figured out.

When you get recruiting information from colleges, hold on to it. Make a special email folder to archive all the "college stuff.” Have a box to keep all the materials you get in the mail. You don’t have to examine it all closely and make decisions about schools—but keep those resources near you. When it comes time to find a school that’s a good fit, starting with the ones who reach out to you early is a great strategy.

Find a mentor. You need an adult you can trust to give you advice. Academic advice; personal advice; advice about how and where to find further resources. An adult, other than a family member, who you see and speak to even when it’s not required. So a teacher that you can talk to outside of class, or a coach that you can talk to outside of practice, or a minister or spiritual leader you can talk to outside of regular worship. There are a lot of factors that go into productive, independent, happy adulthood. There’s no single magic formula. But having a mentor is one of the biggest factors, and it’s often overlooked. Finding a mentor has a lot of the same risks as making a new friend. You have to be willing to accept rejection and awkwardness. But it’s really hard to go through life without friends, and it’s really hard to go through life without mentors. If you haven’t got at least someone who fits the description, then there’s no better way to spend your time than searching for someone who will.

Expand your interests. Assuming that you’re not completely bombing any of your classes or dealing with trauma, the place you should be pushing yourself isn’t with putting together college applications or getting that math grade two points higher. The place you should be pushing yourself is in your personal interests. Begin looking for a leadership position in your club or team. Read more books about your interests beyond what’s required. Look for mentors who can give you guidance. Explore careers that use the same skills. For example, if you’re passionate about soccer and a member of the soccer team, that’s fantastic. But don’t just show up to practice. Tell your coach you aim to be a team captain as soon as you can. Follow your favorite team, and also learn about the history of that team. Look for summer camps or programs where you can be an instructor. Be a soccer player, but also be a soccer leader.

Maybe sports aren’t your thing, but by now you’ve probably got some ideas about what your thing is. Push yourself to expand your skills and your presence in that thing—even if not’s academic or something school sponsored. If what you do is spend hours a day playing video games—no problem. But push yourself to do more. Design a video game yourself; take a break to learn an esoteric or alternative game; research the history of game design; join a competitive league. If that doesn’t sound interesting, if what you really want to do is keep spending hours passively doing what you’ve been doing for years, then it’s time to shut down the games. The problem isn’t video games, it’s that you’re using them to avoid exploring something you’re more interested in and better suited for.

It’s perfectly ok to be interested in whatever you’re interested in—assuming it’s not violent or self-destructive. But now is the time to expand your presence in that interest.

And keep repeating to yourself and whoever will listen: the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. 

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 “What should I be doing now?” for the other grades.

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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

What juniors should be doing this fall

Work at being good at high school. You probably already know this—you’re living it—but 11th grade is generally acknowledged to be the toughest year of high school. There’s a major jump in the rigor of your classes. You’re moving into leadership positions in your extra-curricular activities. You have some major high-stakes tests. (Or not. We’ll see how things go with test administration in a continuing pandemic and test-optional policies at colleges.) People are beginning to ask you more and more about your plans after high school. You’re more likely to be working an after-school job, you’re more likely to be driving, you’re more likely to be dealing with the ups and downs of dating and relationships. You likely have growing responsibilities at home. You’re more likely to be dealing with emotional or social issues. The pressure can be overwhelming. But as much as I can empathize, there’s not a lot to say except…keep being the best high school student you can. If you need to reevaluate your commitments and reduce them, that’s ok. But be mindful about it, and talk about it with adults you trust. When you’re tempted to just say “screw it” and give up, that’s not ok—it’s not ok for your mental health, your future, or your relationships with your family and school. Ask for help when you need it.

When my children were in the midst of their Terrible Twos, my wife and I had a line we kept repeating to ourselves: "she’s only two once, and it only lasts a year." It gave us a reminder to keep things in perspective and not get completely despondent. When you’re having your really difficult days, it may be helpful to you, too. Say it: "I’m only a high school junior once, and it only lasts a year." It’s really difficult, and you’re going to be fine.

And here’s something you may not know. Among teachers, a whole lot of them think that juniors are best to teach. 11th graders have developed a lot of maturity—both intellectual and emotional—that makes them seem a lot more like approachable young adults. And juniors don’t yet have the “Senioritis” that so many seniors get infected with by the beginning of September. So remember that a lot of your teachers are cheering for you, even if they’re also assigning you too much homework. Seek out the good ones who are on your side and cultivate those relationships, both for your personal development and next year’s recommendation letters.

Research college. Now is the time to start researching colleges. You’ve got enough of an idea of what’s really important to you and what you have to offer. Spend some time wandering around college information and taking some notes.

Pick one activity where you often feel like it’s wasted time: maybe it’s web surfing, maybe it’s watching a guilty pleasure television show, maybe it’s chatting with friends in the school library when you should be working. Whatever it is, that’s now your college research time. Dedicate one day a week using that time for researching colleges instead of the time-wasting activity.

Where do you start? Anywhere, really. Go ahead and look of some of those “top colleges” lists. They’re not a good way to pick a school, but they’re a fine way to begin looking. Or do a basic Google search. Challenge yourself to look up a school that you know nothing about but see on posters near the counseling office. Ask your family and friends. Start looking more closely at the materials that have been sent to you over the past year. Go down the rabbit hole of web surfing, just make sure the web sites are college ones. If you're paying attention you’ll start to notice patterns in what appeals to you and why. Don’t feel like you need to have a list of schools you’re going to apply to. But do realize that you’ll need that list soon—a year from now at the latest—and do what it takes to get as much information as you can before you make that list.

Pursue your interests. 11th grade is not a good time to dabble. If you’re spread too thin over a number of interests—in and/or out of school—and not really doing much with any of them, then you’ve got to weed out some activities. You’ve got too much going on. Choose one or two to actively pursue and push yourself. Don’t fret, there’s still a whole lifetime ahead of you to try new things and explore hobbies. But seriously, this isn’t the year. If you’re not actively pursuing it—drop it. Your sleep schedule and your sanity will thank you. If people are pressuring you to keep spreading yourself thin in order to look "well-rounded" on your college applications, remind yourself and those people that anyone can see through a fake. Don’t waste your time doing that.

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 “What should I be doing now?” for the other grades.

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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

Three quick questions with George Washington University

All colleges will give you access to a library and some open space, but George Washington University gets you close to a major library and a graduation celebration in one of the nation’s most iconic open spaces.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Kaitlin Crepps, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to George Washington University?

I think one of the most unique traditions is that our students graduate on the National Mall! Definitely a #OnlyatGW moment!

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at GW?

The students that really stand out in the admissions process or when they're on campus that may have had "imperfect" grades or outside a typical profile would be students that are able to express what they are passionate about and show us how they engage in their passions. I think one attribute that unites all GW students is the desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

When people come to visit Washington, DC, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

I always recommend a visit to the Library of Congress. I think it's an incredible place that is totally free and it's a resource that is actually available to our students throughout the year which I think is really cool. I also recommend grabbing a bite at Nando's Peri-Peri Chicken Restaurant. It's chain that started in the UK but it's only in Chicago and DC in the States, it's one of my favorite places to eat in DC.

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of George Washington University. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

Three quick questions with Florida Southern College

It’s easy—even for someone like me who looks at colleges a lot—to associate liberal arts colleges with the Northeast. Yes, there are a lot of them in New England, but not all of them. Florida Southern College reminds us that you can get the liberal arts experience in sunny Florida…and still get to throw snowballs and drink hot cocoa.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Alicia Tracey, Admission Counselor at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Florida Southern College?

For traditions, we have “Winter Wonderland”, where we bring the winter to Florida: a sledding hill, hot chocolate, and snowball fights. We also have our “Fairwell Festival”, which is a carnival that we bring to campus at the end of the spring semester. And lastly, we have our “Senior Waterdome Splash” where our senior class has a pool party in our Frank Lloyd Wright inspired fountain and celebrate their time at FSC.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at FSC?

As long as a student is curious about the world around them and has a passion for learning, FSC helps them thrive. There are many opportunities for support and growth for our students, regardless of academic background!

When people come to visit Lakeland, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Definitely check out Palace Pizza! They have the best pizza and pasta around, and it’s right in Downtown Lakeland.

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Florida Southern. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

What seniors should be doing this fall

It’s back-to-school season, and for incoming seniors this year is a really big one. Whether you’ve been working on the college application process for two years or are just beginning to think about it, there’s a lot to do in the next few months. Below I outline the major categories for your checklist.

Continue being a good high school student. This is a tough line to walk senior year. On one hand, you really ought to be shifting your focus to next year. You have a lot of big decisions to make, and you need to allocate time and resources to working on strong applications and making informed decisions. Your daily high school homework isn’t quite as compelling as it was a year ago. On the other hand, you also need to be preparing yourself to be a good college student, and the best way to prepare for college is to be a good high school student. As tempting as it is, you can’t just coast through senior year; that never works as well as it seems like it should. So it’s perfectly normal and appropriate for you to be less diligent your senior year than your junior year. The important thing is to ask yourself why. If you’re spending less time and attention on high school because you’re spending more time on college and leadership opportunities, that’s fine. If you’re spending less time and attention on high school because you can see the finish line and you just want to have an easy year, you’re selling yourself short, missing opportunities to prepare for the near future, and annoying pretty much every adult around you. Doing well in your classes is actually easier than dealing with those annoyed adults.

This year it may be harder than normal to be a good high school student. While some areas are indeed back to normal, in most of the country there’s still a Covid crisis happening. High schools are having a hard time being good high schools, too. Even if you’re fortunate enough to be back to normal, things haven’t been “normal” for you since 9th grade. A lot has happened, and there are still a lot of changes and uncertainty. Whether you’re fully online, fully back to school in person, or some hybrid, please understand that everyone understands how rough the past few years have been. If your grades have dropped or if you’re having difficulty staying focused because of unexpected circumstances, you will have an opportunity to explain that and be heard. Even in the middle of a pandemic, you should do your best. But colleges aren’t asking you to do more than that. With that in mind, let’s look at what else you can do to prepare for college.

Make sure you’re caught up on what you should have done this summer. Have you already got a solid first draft of a Common Application essay? If not, get on that soon. Have you written and updated your college mission statement? If not, do it immediately. Have you got a preliminary list of 20-25 colleges to take a closer look at? For each of them, have you signed up to be on their mailing list? Looked at their web sites for the admissions department, financial aid office, and departments for your potential major? Found out if and how they conduct interviews? Tried out their net price calculator? If so, that’s wonderful. If not, you still have time—but move quickly!

Take any tests you still need to take. Most students don’t need to take the SAT or ACT. About two thirds of colleges aren’t requiring them. But you may really want to apply to one or more of the other third, so find out if you need to take a test. There are still three SAT tests this fall you can register for. Same for the ACT. Whether or not those tests happen or get cancelled like many before them will depend on the ongoing Delta surge as much as anything else.

You’re going to need some letters of recommendation. You’ll need to decide—soon—who to ask, when to ask them, and how to ask them. Be as polite as possible. This is a personal favor, not part of their job. Don’t do what someone once did to a colleague of mine, cornering her in the bathroom to hand her paperwork. When my colleague asked if they could do this later, in a more appropriate place, the student left…and waited right outside the bathroom door to re-start the conversation. This is not a good plan to get someone to write nice things about you!

Narrow your college list, from 20-25 down to 3-10. Which ones do you keep on your list? Which ones do you let go of? There’s no single process. It helps to research as much as possible. It helps to meet with representatives at a college fair or at your school. An interview is helpful, and a campus visit is really helpful. Make sure you’re keeping the ones that best fit you mission statement.

And also make sure you cover several categories. Traditionally we talk about “safety” and “reach” schools, but let’s think about it a little differently. Everyone’s list should include at least one in-state, public university. If your state’s flagship state university is also very selective (Virginia, Texas, California, Michigan, and a few others), then make sure you include at least one in-state public university that is more achievable. For most people, most of the time, an in-state public school is going to be the most affordable, most attainable, and have the lowest living expenses—especially if you live at home.

You should also apply to several other schools—whether public or private, in state or out—that you feel pretty confident you’ll be accepted to. Maybe not absolutely, perfectly assured, but pretty confident. Your confidence should also include being confident that you’ll be able to afford it, based on the full price or a net price calculator. If you apply to three or four of these, including at least one in-state public, then you should feel ok.

You may also want to apply to some schools that you’re less confident about your acceptance. Apply to as many of these as you want, within reason. The best-case scenario is that you’re accepted to several, and at least one of them offers you a financial aid package that makes it within your range. A seemingly-good scenario is that you get accepted to many of them, and they all offer you good financial aid. But now you’ve got a stressful spring on your hands figuring out which one to pick. Since you can only choose one, too many similar options isn’t always a great thing. A worse scenario is that you don’t get accepted to any of them. That stings, but if you’re accepted to at least one of your confident schools, then you’re going to be ok. The very worst thing is being accepted to many or all of them, but not getting the aid to make any of them affordable.

Remember that some schools (the most prestigious and famous ones) have such low acceptance rates that absolutely no one should feel confident that they’ll be accepted. Even if you have perfect ACT scores and are top of your class, chances are still that you won’t get accepted to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, or the other super-selective colleges. Once a school’s overall acceptance rate drops below 20%, it’s not something anyone should feel at all confident about. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try—thousands of people do get accepted to those schools every year. But nobody can count on it.

If I have a client, no matter how smart and accomplished, with a college list where every school has an acceptance rate below 50%, we have a talk about the risks of their “very aggressive” list (I’ve definitely done this before). If I had a client with a college list that only has schools with acceptance rates below 20%, then I’d tell them to either add some more reasonable schools or consider my money-back guarantee off the table. (Fortunately, I haven’t had to do that yet).

Beginning October 1, you can apply for federal financial aid using FAFSA. Everyone should do this, as soon as possible after October 1. Even if you’re not expecting to be eligible for financial aid, you should still apply as soon as possible. (Why should you apply for financial aid if you’re not expecting to get any? For one, you may be wrong, and it’s worth it to try. Also, some colleges use your ability to pay as a factor in admission. It helps if you provide documentation up front that you have the ability to pay. Plus, some programs will not award you merit scholarships without having a FAFSA.) Some universities, or programs within universities, may also ask you to use the CSS Profile.

Send your applications. Understand that most schools have multiple deadlines. Early Decision. Early Action. Preferred Application. VIP application. Regular decision. Deadline to be considered for scholarships. Each school has its own vocabulary, and each school has its own deadlines. Understand each one for each school you're considering, and understand which ones are relevant to you. There’s no great reason to send a regular application much earlier than the due date. But there’s no good reason to wait until the last minute, either. Plan on hitting the “submit” button three to five days before deadline. Early Decision and Early Action deadlines are typically—though not always—in November. Regular decision applications are typically—though not always—due in early January.

This year is going to be busy and stressful and emotional. And you’re going to be great!

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:

   Three pandemic changes I hope will become permanent

   Should you submit your test scores to a test-optional college?

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

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

Not all merit aid is the same

It’s generally understood that there are two types of financial aid: need-based aid and merit aid. Need-based aid is relatively straightforward. Your family submits financial documents (mostly income tax forms) so your Expected Family Contribution, how much you and your family might be expected to pay, can be determined. The difference between the price of a college and your EFC is considered need. Need-based aid, loans that have to be repaid and/or grants that don’t have to be repaid, is awarded to help you cover that need.

Merit aid, on the other hand, isn’t based on financial need. Merit aid—scholarships and grants—is what colleges offer to students trying to entice them to choose their school over other schools. It’s a tool universities use to make sure they get enough students to enroll and to get the student they really want.

(There is a lot of overlap between need-based and merit aid. If a college is really interested in a student, they may find a way to reduce their EFC and therefore get more need-based aid. Also, being able to meet full need and not gap a student on aid is definitely a way to entice students. But let’s ignore the overlap today and focus on pure merit aid.)

What’s less generally understood is that there is a wide variety of merit aid. To get an idea of the spectrum of merit aid, let’s look at two examples from my home in Houston.

When you look at the scholarship page on the University of Houston’s website, you get a lot of information. There are so many different scholarships, both funded by the university and outside sources, that they have a special navigation tool to help you search through all of them. Each scholarship has a name, a description, and instructions for how to apply. You can spend a lot of time looking through the scholarships and see exactly what you may be eligible for. It’s overwhelming at first, but it’s transparent.

Screenshot of the Scholarship Universe page at the University of Houston website.

For comparison, have a look at the Rice University merit scholarships page.

All admitted freshman applicants are automatically considered for merit-based scholarships so that no separate application forms or interviews are necessary. The Office of Admission notifies scholarship winners at the time of admission to the university.

That’s it. There aren’t individual scholarships you can apply for, nor are there descriptions or requirements. It’s the scholarship version of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Screenshot of the Merit Scholarship page at Rice University’s website.

These are two extremes. On one end is U of H, which is basically a list of individual scholarships that require extra applications on your part. On the other end is Rice, where merit aid is not separately applied for, but is just part of your overall application. One is limited, but transparent. One is open-ended, but opaque.

Merit aid at most colleges is somewhere in between. There are named and defined scholarships for which you can apply, but there are also “merit aid” tuition discounts that just…appear. It helps to remember that while need-based aid is all about you and your particular circumstances, merit aid is all about the school and the funds they have to try to entice students to apply and enroll. Some schools have limited funds to hand out merit aid, and some schools have tons.

These two extreme examples remind us of several key ideas when it comes to merit aid:

Not all merit aid is the same. There’s the specified and limited kind like you see on the University of Houston website, and then there’s the mysterious kind you see on the Rice website. When I talk to students, they’re usually thinking of the UH kind. They’re talking about scholarships for which they can apply. When I talk to college admission professionals, they’re usually thinking of the Rice kind. They’re talking about the tuition discounts that are offered out of the blue by algorithmic calculations the college makes to decide how much to offer you to entice you to enroll. When you’re thinking about applying to a college, spend time on their financial aid sites to see where they fall in their approach. You don’t want to miss an opportunity to apply for a scholarship, nor do you want to assume that there’s no merit aid if there is. But you should know what the school offers.

Merit aid is often out of your control. It’s all about them enticing you for their enrollment needs, not necessarily you earning something through a competition. There are all sorts of reasons a university may want to entice you, and you often don’t know what it may be. Maybe the college is trying to improve the stats of their incoming class and therefore their ranking, so they want to lure students with higher test scores and higher GPAs. Maybe they’re trying to improve diversity, so they want to lure students from different parts of the country or with different experiences than those who typically applied in the past. Maybe they’re trying to fill up a new major they offer or revitalize a declining program, so they want to lure bright students with a particular course of study in mind. Maybe they want to lure wealthy students who can pay cash, so they flatter them by giving them a merit-based scholarship and a small discount to get them to come and pay most of the tuition. So think of merit aid as “acceptance plus.” You’ve been accepted to the college, plus they want to give you a discount in order to really lure you in. Some schools give very few applicants this kind of bonus, and some schools give most—or even all—their applicants some kind of bonus.

Generally speaking, expect more transparency from public institutions. It’s not surprising that University of Houston has the navigable list of specific scholarships. Public institutions, which are subsidized by tax dollars and overseen by public boards, tend to have more regulations in place for transparency. Private colleges are more likely to use the un-announced, un-applied-for type of merit aid. To be clear, I’m not saying that public universities are more or less likely to give you merit aid, just more likely to tell you upfront what it might be, and to make you apply for it separately.

Generally speaking, expect less merit aid the more selective an institution is. Remember that merit aid is meant to entice you to apply to their college, and to enroll if accepted. So it makes sense that the lower the acceptance rate of a college, the less merit aid you might expect. They already have enough applications; they don’t need to entice more. That’s how a private university with a low acceptance rate like Rice can be so nonchalant about merit aid. And it’s how the schools with the very lowest acceptance rates, like Harvard and Stanford, don’t give merit aid at all.

With each school you apply to, know what their merit aid landscape looks like and what you need to do. If you’re considering applying to a school, make sure you check out their website to learn more about their merit aid program. Is it more like the one at the University of Houston, or more like the one at Rice University? If you want to know even more details about aid, look up the Common Data Set for the college. Just do a web search for “[name of school] common data set”. Most colleges have this information available, and you can scroll through the spreadsheet to find all kinds of financial information. It takes some searching, but it’s there.

You can’t assume you will get merit aid. Whichever type of merit aid you’re thinking of, there’s no guarantee you’ll get any. If you meet certain qualifications to get automatic merit aid at a particular college (being a National Merit finalist, for example, or having really high standardized test scores), that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get that automatic aid from other schools. Each sets their own policies, and—as we’ve seen—not all of them even tell you what those policies are.

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:

   Schools can, and should, teach college affordability

   Three things parents should stop saying to their children

   Don’t pass up a full ride

   Asking for more financial aid

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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

Three quick questions with Albion College

Albion is a school I’d honestly never heard of. Flipping through my Fiske Guide, I think I assumed it’s an international school. But it’s a small liberal arts college in Michigan, and I’m glad I finally came across it and wish I’d payed more attention sooner. If you’re interested in a liberal arts college that wears its passions and purpose on its sleeve (and on a coin in its pocket), then read more.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Daria Bloomfield, Admission Counselor at Albion College in Albion, Michigan.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Albion College?

Every single first-year student will step into our Goodrich Chapel on move-in day and go through the formal process of becoming an Albion student. During this event, our students are formally welcomed to the Albion community of scholars by the College’s president, faculty, and upperclassmen. Together they will learn the College hymn, walk across the altar to sign the student pledge, and verbally introduce themselves to our community. After this, they receive their Matriculation coin, which they are instructed to carry with them forever. We call this the Matriculation Ceremony, and it is a memory that all students will remember.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Albion?

That's a great question! We are a holistic review campus and Albion has a seat at the table for all students. Though the 'perfect student' can be an easy admit, the majority of our students are both perfect and imperfect. I think that a student who is willing to put in effort in the classroom, jump into the Albion community, and take advantage of the many individualized support opportunities on campus, will ultimately thrive.

When people come to visit Albion, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

In our small town of Albion Michigan, there are a few places that you must stop at during your visit. The first is Albion Malleable Brewing Company. If you are looking for a great burger or some world-class Poutine, Malleable is your place! The second place is the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli. Our whole main street is filled with the smell of freshly baked desserts, you can't go wrong with that!

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Albion. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

Three quick questions with Florida Tech

Let’s say, hypothetically, you were interested in a medium-sized, STEM-focused college in a sunny location with access to both Mickey Mouse and astronauts. Where would you look? Try Melbourne, Florida, home of Florida Institute of Technology.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Joy Walton, Admission Counselor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the Florida Institute of Technology?

We are a STEM University on the Space Coast. This means that when Space flights take off, we can see them form our campus. In addition, because of our strong relationship with NASA, it is not unusual for our STEM students to have astronauts or persons involved with NASA as professors.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Florida Tech?

We are looking for students who are curious! Students who are eager to be hands on as we are very project based. We are looking for student who are willing to work hard. We look for students who don’t see failure but see opportunities to learn from their mistakes.

When people come to visit Melbourne, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

The beach! NASA! Disney World!

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Florida Tech. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

Looking for some seniors who will talk to me

Every year from September to May, Apply with Sanity follows several seniors as they make it through their college application journey. It’s called Meet the Class, and you can read all the posts from the last several years here.

I’m looking for a few college-bound seniors who would like to participate this year.

You would commit to a few things:

Respond to some questions, once a month, about where you are in the process. I ask questions about facts and feelings. You don’t need to spend hours writing pages, but readers really do appreciate full answers.

Respond to a follow-up question now and then.

Continue to respond all year, and respond in a timely manner—I usually send questions at the beginning of the month and publish responses in the middle of the month.

On my end, I’ll promise a few things:

I’ll be respectful of your time and feelings—I’ve got no intentions of being mean or asking hundreds of questions.

I’ll give you anonymity. I’ll use your first name and say what state you’re in, but that’s it. You can even use a fake first name. In the past, some Meet the Class students have provided me a photo, and some haven’t. Either is fine with me.

Does this sound interesting to you? Do have you have any questions or concerns? Are you someone who is not about to start 12th grade, but have questions about the process you’re hoping I’ll ask? Hit the Contact button and send me a message! Let’s show the world what you go through to achieve your college success!

Paying for college: some basic principles

It’s really hard to talk about paying for college with a broad audience, because every individual’s circumstances are different. And individual circumstances are really important to college affordability, since the price of college depends to a huge degree on your individual circumstances. One of the great things about college education—but also one of the complicated things—is that most students pay different amounts for the same education. The pricing for college is some of the most complex and opaque pricing out there. Still, there are some basic principles that can help make the process a little easier and more rational in the long run.

1. You don’t know what any individual college will cost you until you apply and are accepted.

You can look at the published full cost of a university, but remember that only about 13% of college students pay full price. On the end, about 2% of college get a “full ride” scholarship that pays for everything. Everyone else gets at least some financial aid, probably including you. How much financial aid? Well, that depends on how much you need. And it also depends on how much the other accepted students need. And, of course, it depends on how much money the school has to give out for financial aid. If a college accepts a lot of wealthy students who can afford the full price, then they have more to give as aid to less wealthy students. But it also means they have a lot more wealthy students and a lot fewer others. Colleges balance these things—the desire for a diverse student body and the money to provide financial aid—on a yearly basis. So your aid package is unknown until you’re part of that year’s calculations. There’s just no way of knowing until then.

There are ways to get an idea of how much financial aid you may get, but it’s only an idea. Each college provides a net price calculator. You enter in some financial information, and the calculator will tell you how much aid to expect based on estimates and averages from the past. But again, you don’t know for sure until you are accepted and get an actual offer.

You can also look up the school’s average percent of need met. The higher that number the better. A school that is able to meet 100% of their student's’ financial need is probably going to be more affordable than a school that can only meet, on average, about 70% of their students’ need. Knowing the average for last year doesn’t tell you how much you’ll be offered this year, but it gives you some clues about what the school is able to do.

You can also look up a college’s average indebtedness. It’s the average amount of school debt that students have when they graduate. For most universities, that number is between $20,000 and $30,000. Be careful for schools where the average debt is higher than that.

The main thing I want you to remember is to never decide not to apply to a school simply because you think you can’t afford it. You may be right, but make them tell you so. Surprises happen all the time. On the other hand, always make sure you keep schools on your list that you’re more confident you can afford.

2. Talk to your family about money. Soon.

There’s a line, or at least a range, between your family saying “yes, we can afford that” and “no, we can’t afford that.” There’s a line, or at least a range, between “yes, that’s an acceptable amount of debt” and “no, that’s too much to borrow.” There’s a line, or at least a range, between “I can work after school to cover that cost” and “I can’t make that much money on top of full-time school.”

We may not want to think about those lines, and we may not want to talk about them, but they’re there. The sooner you talk about where those lines are, the better. It’s not always an easy talk. It’s almost never an easy talk. But it’s a talk you must have with your family. It’s better to have it now, before you have your mind set on a school, than after you think you’re going to a school and are then told “no, we can’t do that.”

3. Most or all of your financial aid will come from the college.

Think like a donor. If you want to donate $100 to help a student afford college, how are you going to go about that? By spending hours and thousands of dollars setting up a scholarship fund? Nope. You’re probably going to donate your hundred bucks to a specific college for their scholarship fund. Even if you have $1,000 to donate for scholarships, it’s much simpler to give it to a college for their funds. Even Michael Bloomberg, who donated almost two billion dollars to help with college affordability, gave it to a single school for their financial aid funds. That’s why your biggest financial aid awards are going to come through the college.

Lots of financial aid actually comes from the federal government, in the form of Pell grants and subsidized student loans. Many states also have grants for college affordability. But it’s the financial aid office at the school you attend who coordinates all those awards and loans. The money, even when it isn’t the school’s money, usually makes its way to you through the school.

There are some big private scholarships out there that you apply to directly, not through the college. The Coca-Cola Scholarship is a well-known example. So yes, there are other sources of funding outside the school. But it’s a very small portion of overall funds, and those national scholarships are fiercely competitive.

There are also tons of smaller—$100 to $1,000—scholarships out there. A lot of students find, though, that these simply aren’t worth the time it takes to find and apply to a bunch of them.

4. There’s paperwork to complete.

It’s not simple or easy. It requires your family’s tax forms and sometimes other financial statements.

Luckily, it’s consolidated. Everybody should fill out the FAFSA. Do it as soon as you can. It opens up October 1. Don’t wait any longer than you have to, even if you haven’t decided where you’re going to apply. It’s a federal, standard form that all the schools will ask for, so just go ahead and do it. Even if you’re not expecting to get any financial aid, fill out the FAFSA. Surprises happen all the time. Plus, plenty of places won’t even consider you for merit aid if you haven’t filled out a FAFSA.

Some colleges, mostly private schools, will also ask you to complete the CSS Profile. It’s similar to the FAFSA, but administered by the College Board. It’s more detailed and broad than the FAFSA.

5 There are some terms to understand.

I’ve already covered the basics. Click the links below for a longer explanation of:

Expected Family Contribution

Gapping

Need Aid vs. Merit Aid

Need Blind

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:

   Schools can, and should, teach college affordability

   Three things parents should stop saying to their children

   Don’t pass up a full ride

   Asking for more financial aid

3. Ask a question—or share other resources—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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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

Great graduation speeches of 2021

Every late spring or early summer, I like to look through all the best graduation speeches of the season and share them. I did this teaching high school seniors, and I did it here on this site. But I decided to let that go this year. 2020 was such a rough year, with almost no in-person graduations. A lot of people did their best with online ceremonies or distanced drive-throughs, but they seem more gloomy than inspirational to me. Even with things back in person for most people this spring, it still didn’t seem like the time to share speeches. I let myself get out of that habit.

To be honest, it’s also partly because finding good graduation speeches means wading through tons of very successful people telling you not to be afraid to fail. It’s not bad advice per se, but it gets old. Commencement speeches were losing some of their magic for me. So the speech sharing was over.

But then I got an email from a former student this week. It links to this 2014 graduation speech from Jim Carey, and it says “You introduced me to my love for commencement speeches! Just speeches in general! Thank you Mr. Holloway!” So…habit revived.

Below are some of the best college graduation speeches of this year. I only spent a few hours looking, so I may have missed some really great ones. If so, leave a comment and let me know.

Enjoy!

Attorney, activist, and author Bryan Stevenson speaks to the graduates of the University of Michigan.

Journalist Marty Baron speaks to the graduates of Suffolk University.

Musician John Legend speaks to the graduates of Duke University.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the graduates of the US Naval Academy

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. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   Best graduation speeches

   Finding the perfect graduation speech

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.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

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

Three quick questions with Antioch College

I often talk about colleges and universities as “communities.” But when you’re as small as Antioch College and as dedicated to cooperative learning, Community is less a concept and more the daily reality.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Myles Corcoran, Admission Counselor at the Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to Antioch College?

Community is a significant aspect of Antioch College. Each Tuesday afternoon we have Community Meeting that involves all community members (students, faculty, and staff) which is facilitated by the Community Manager. Community Meeting entails updates on campus events, news, etc. along with various discussions and workshops (and often snacks before the meetings went virtual during the pandemic). Each academic term we also have Community Day which is like a potluck.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at Antioch?

Students that truly flourish are those that question the status quo and do not accept society's norms at face value. We seek thinkers and those that have a desire to make positive change in the world and as our first president Horace Mann declared, "win victories for humanity".

When people come to visit Yellow Springs, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

Visitors must experience the splendor of the thousand acre Glen Helen Nature Preserve. Downtown Yellow Springs in general is a great place to be with the abundant shops and restaurants but visitors must make a stop at Young's Dairy for ice cream.

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Antioch. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

How do you write a great application essay?

If this is the summer between your junior and senior years of high school, then now is probably the best time for you to work on your application essays. I understand that you’re not sitting around doing nothing this summer, but with school out you probably have more unstructured time to work on the essays than if you wait until fall. Some of the most miserable high school seniors I’ve ever worked with were students trying to write application essays days before the deadline. You should have a solid draft ready to go by September 15th at the latest. If you need to keep revising and editing, that’s fine. But get yourself to “only an hour left to finish it” as soon as possible.

Most the students I work with end up writing two “big” application essays. They’ll write one for the Common Application, and they’ll write one for their state public university application. There are certainly some public colleges that accept the Common App, but many—especially the larger systems—have their own application. And yes, you can use the same essay for both; prompt #7 on the Common App allows you to share an essay on any prompt, even if it’s an essay you’ve already written. But from my experience, once you factor in the long Common App essay, smaller supplemental prompts, public university application prompts, and prompts for honors programs or scholarships, most write two longer essays and have a stable of smaller responses that get shifted and re-used for various other tasks.

Let’s step back and ask why colleges ask for an essay in the first place. Back when I first left the classroom and started writing and advising about college admissions, I talked with a friend who is also an admission dean. I asked for the inside scoop on essays. What, exactly, do you do with them? Do you run them through programs to determine Lexile levels and readability scores? Do you match them against databases to find cliches and plagiarism? She politely told me I was making things way too complicated. “We read them, that’s what we do with them,” she told me. That’s it.

Admission officers are looking for a few things when they read your essays. They want to make sure that you’re prepared to do college-level writing. That doesn’t mean that you already have to write like a college senior; you’ll probably take a writing course early in your college years. But it means that if you don’t show that you’ve at least mastered high school-level writing and aren’t ready to begin college writing, then that’s a problem for them.

The other thing they’re reading for is to get to know who you are as a person. Transcripts and test scores are pretty impersonal. It’s the recommendation letters and essays that show who you are and who you might become. College is not just an honor society for high school students. Universities don’t exist just to recognize your hard work in high school. They are places where people develop and work together, so colleges want to see who you are as a person, not just your recent accomplishments.

Ok. With that big picture always in mind, how do you actually go about putting together an application essay?

The first thing to know is that you’re playing offense, not defense. Too many students look at the prompts, try to think of a response, and then write something. They take a defensive stance, wondering how they should respond in order to seem worthy to the universities. Instead of thinking of yourself as a passive commodity for the schools to peruse, think of yourself as an interesting person and decide what you want the schools to know about you. The essay is your primary way to show the schools that you’re a person, so make sure you show them what a great person you are.

Don’t start by looking at the prompts! I had a really great literature professor in college who talked to us about the essay questions on her final exam. She said that, ideally, the final exam would simply say “Explain.” Then we’d have two hours to explain what we’d discovered and learned over the semester, and she could assess us from that. However, lots of students would be confused or anxious about such an open-ended test, so she posed several essay questions, each ending with “Explain.”

College admissions essays are similar. What they really want to ask is “So, tell us about yourself.” But that would be too weird for too many applicants, so they ask more specific questions to get you to tell them about yourself.

So instead of beginning with the prompts and taking a defensive stance, begin with yourself. Think about several things:

• What makes you an interesting person?

• What skills and traits do you have that will make you successful at college?

• Other than your grades, what do people praise you for?

• How do you fit into your communities, and what kinds of communities do you want to belong to?

• What are you hoping to get out of college?

• What are you hoping to provide to your college?

• What separates you from your friends at school?

• What gets you intellectually excited? What do you do when you’re excited?

• What’s happened to you in the past three years that has most changed who you are?

• How do you hope to change over the next three years?    

• You’ve matured in the past three years—what evidence or stories have you got to show it?

• What’s the most recent un-assigned book you loved?

• If you could design the perfect college course for yourself, what would it be?

• If you wanted to impress a stranger in under a minute, what would you tell them about yourself?

Spend some serious time thinking about these and similar questions, and think about what kind of a presentation you’d make to an admissions committee about yourself. Once you have that in mind, then go and look at the prompts. Think about which prompts can best highlight the qualities you want to talk about, and then go from there.

Nobody likes a show-off. This is tough to remember when you’re being asked to talk about your accomplishments, but it’s still true. When you’re writing your essays and speaking to people, you want to make it clear that your accomplishments are not traits in themselves, but evidence of your important personal traits.

So it’s not just that you were captain of the basketball team, but that the challenges of being captain of the basketball team taught you a lot about motivating others and yourself. It’s not that you had the highest grade in your math class, but that the rewards of good grades highlight your resilience and ability to meet self-imposed goals. It’s not that it felt great to win the debate trophy, but that your ability to cooperate and collaborate with a partner made you successful at the debate tournament. It’s not that your band went to Regionals, but...you get the idea.

Balance style and content. I often had students ask me which is more important on admissions essays: the writing itself or what the writing talks about. The answer is both. A poorly written essay about something really cool is neither better nor worse than a really polished piece of meaningless fluff. Work on both. A lot.

Most college admissions essay sound alike. This makes sense. There’s a limited range of possibilities—most of the applicants are about the same age, come from the same national cultural background, and are high school seniors. There’s only so much variety you can have. So don’t worry about writing something that’s going to be completely different—worry about making yours stand out in small ways. In a 650-word essay, a single sentence can make a huge difference. So pay attention to each sentence.

Consider the past, present, and future. Whatever personal quality you’re talking about, make sure to include—even in small ways—how you developed this trait in the past, how you’re displaying that trait now at the end of high school, and how you think that trait will be useful in college.

Some things NOT to do:

1. Rehashing what’s already in your transcript. If you only say things in your essay that the admissions committee can already see on your transcript or test scores, you’re missing a big opportunity.

2. The Mission Trip essay. Maybe you went on a mission trip or some other service project, and you learned a lot about people in different circumstances than yourself. Maybe you felt that they affected you more than you affected them. That’s wonderful, but please understand that the admissions counselors have seen this essay a gazillion times and it’s going to be extremely hard to make yours stand out. If you write this essay, make sure you work hard on highlighting your own personal traits and not just the epiphany you had. I’ve also seen many weird essays where the student basically argues that the way of life of those being helped is superior to the writer’s way of life. These essays have sentences along the lines of “they may be poor, but they take care of each other and have true happiness.” This is a great idea if you’re applying to go and live among the people you helped in your service project, but not so much if you’re applying to a expensive college.

3. Unbalanced before & after. Many essays use a “before and after” structure as a way to talk about personal growth or overcoming setbacks. I used to be unmotivated, but now I’m motivated. I used to be a bad student, but now I’m a good student. I used to be selfish, but now I’m involved in helping others. Things like that. If you write this kind of essay, make sure you spend most of your time and words on the positive, not the negative. I’ve seen too many essays that spend about 90% of their words on describing the negative in great detail, and then give a vague “but I got better.” Spend no more than 20% on the negative Before, and most of the essay on the positive After.

4. On any type of essay that is going to multiple schools (like the Common Application), you should not name any individual school or place. If you send an essay to individual schools that includes a school name, make sure you have the right name. Many students send the same writing to multiple schools and simply replace one school name for another. If you do this, make sure you replace them ALL.

5. There’s a common misperception that your essay needs to be some kind of “sob story” that gets tons of sympathy from the readers. That’s not true. This year the Common App even added a prompt about gratitude and positive stories. If what you want to write about involves major challenges or even trauma, that’s not a problem. Work on that essay. But never try to amplify or exaggerate a minor challenge to make it sound traumatic just because you think it will make you look better to an admissions officer. It will actually have the opposite effect.

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. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   Writing about your unique circumstances

   Yes, you can write about that

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.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

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

Three quick questions with the University of Richmond

My clients this summer include a few people in the “medium size, liberal arts school, undecided on major, avoid cold places” group. So the University of Richmond has come up a lot, and I’m so excited they responded to my quick questions.

For Three Quick Questions, I send the same three questions to admissions representatives at colleges all over the country, and then I hope to hear back from them. The three questions are meant to probe some of the things that make a school unique but that aren’t easily captured as a stat to go in a book or web search.

Today’s response is from Heather Selby, Admission Counselor at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia.

What is a course, tradition, program or event that is unique to the University of Richmond?

The University of Richmond was the first university in the country to create a Leadership Studies school and major. You can read up on details about the Jepson School of Leadership Studies here.

Naturally every college wants to recruit the perfect student--high grades, high test scores, involved in their community, leadership...everything. But what kinds of imperfect students tend to flourish at UR?

Truthfully, all components of a students’ application are very important at Richmond. We admit students who are very strong academically, extremely involved in their communities, and who seek to make a positive impact on our campus. Being a small, private, highly selective school makes it all the more important that students put time into crafting their applications.

When people come to visit Richmond, what's a place off campus that you recommend they check out while they're there?

I would recommend students check out the James River! It runs through the city of Richmond and is a fun spot to spend time outside and get some fresh air.

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. See which other colleges and universities answered the questions.

3. Is there a school you’d like to hear from? Let me know, and I’ll make sure they get the questions.

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth. [The banner photo is not of Richmond. I use the same photo for all Meet the Class posts so you can spot them easily.]

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

The Glossary: Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Hispanic-Serving Institution is an official designation from the US Department of Education. (Higher Education Act, Title V, as amended in 1992, to be more precise.) Unlike HBCU, another official status, the definition has nothing to do with who a school has historically served, but only the current student population. A college need not have always been an HSI to become one. A few colleges were intentionally founded to serve Hispanic students, but most HSIs grew to the status through strategy, geography, or both. Not surprisingly, most HSIs are in areas with larger Hispanic populations, places like California, Puerto Rico, and Texas.

To be categorized as an HSI, a college must meet a few basic criteria (like being a degree-granting, non-profit school) and have a student body that is at least 25% Hispanic. But that’s the key fact, being more than a quarter Hispanic. HSIs include four-year colleges and also community colleges.

Once a college passes the 25% Hispanic mark, then it can apply for the Hispanic-Serving Institution designation. This official status gives it marketing and recruiting power, since Hispanics makes up the largest ethnic minority in the US and are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. Before Covid took over as the most-discussed topic in higher education (and the whole world), a lot of the big conversations in higher ed were about demographic shifts and how well colleges would be able to recruit and retain Hispanic students. The HSI designation also allows colleges to apply for special grants and other federal funding.

Why might it be important to you that a school is an HSI? If you are Hispanic yourself* and would like to make sure you go to a college with a concentration of other Hispanic students, then checking a college’s HSI status may be really important to you. If so, you may want to look farther than just “official” HSI list. There are also schools who meet the 25% threshold but haven’t finished the approval process yet. There are also some schools that are very close to the 25% line. All these are called “emerging” HSIs.

Obviously you don’t have to be Hispanic to care about diversity, and anyone may want to check a college’s HSI status before applying. But remember that HSI designation only has to do with numbers and the percentage of students who identify as Hispanic. It doesn’t necessarily say anything about the institutional values of a college, how diverse the non-Hispanic population is, or the experiences you can expect. You’ll need to look more deeply to get a feeling for those more qualitative things.

For a list of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Exelecnia in Education has an up-to-date list plus some basic stats.

For a robust list that includes HSIs, emerging HSIs, and unofficial HSIs, go to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, which was instrumental in getting the original HSI legislation passed.

*I’m using the word “Hispanic” because it’s the term used by the Department of Education and other federal programs. I’m not intentionally overlooking or excluding you if you identify as Latina/o/x or Chicano/a.

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. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   The Glossary: HBCU

   What’s wrong with Affirmative Action?

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.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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