Everything you need to know about college admissions, but were afraid to ask

Don’t know anything about selective college admissions? Not to worry. This page will guide you through everything you need to know.

My approach to college counseling

Before you invest much time on this site, you should verify we have the same approach to college admissions. My views are the following:

• When to start: When should you start thinking about college? The short version is that students don’t need to think about it before high school. Parents should start thinking about it in middle school, but mainly to ensure 9th grade placement into a rigorous set of courses. Anything else is too early (except for how to pay for college, which should start as early as possible).
• College Admissions is Unfair: You might think of selective college admissions as a meritocracy. But the reality is that most applicants have the deck stacked against them, in two ways. First of all, it favors the wealthy. Second of all, it massively favors those in preference groups known as “hooks“. This site helps you understand the situation and gives you advice to tilt the odds back in your favor.
• Reasons to apply: Despite admissions not being a level playing field, there are still some good reasons to apply to highly selective colleges, and some bad ones. See if you agree with me on those.
• Do what you love: If you are still early in high school, don’t waste time doing things just to impress colleges. It probably won’t work, and you will be miserable. Instead, focus upon habits and activities that will make you happy and help you succeed in high school, college, and beyond. Do this right, and you should do fine with college admissions as well.
• Choose Fit over Prestige: Too many people choose colleges based upon prestige rather than fit. For example, there are eight colleges in the Ivy League. They vary significantly in areas like core requirements, course workload, and political landscape. Even for exceptional students, it would be a mistake to apply to more than a few of them. Instead, students should seek colleges that fit them at different levels of selectivity.

If you agree with my approach, great! Let’s continue.

Understanding the college admissions landscape

On this site, I group colleges according to tiers of selectivity, where selectivity is simply defined as the admit rate. Grouping them by admit rate is useful because colleges in the same tier tend to have several things in common. Most importantly, colleges within the same tier look for a similar level of accomplishments in the students they admit. I refer to these selectivity tiers often throughout this site, so that post is worth reading. Note that selectivity is not the same as college quality, and is certainly not the same as fit.

Almost all selective colleges in the USA use holistic admissions to choose their students. This means that while high school course rigor and grades remain the foundation for a strong application, that alone is not sufficient. There are three other categories that matter. First up are extracurriculars, meaning everything that you do that is not required by high school. Second are writing assessments by you (your application essays) and about you (your teacher recommendations, and any interviews by colleges). The final category is test scores. Yes, test scores still matter even during this age of test-optional, and almost everyone should take them, because you can choose to send them only where your scores would help you.

And if you haven’t read the post on hooks and why they matter, you should do so now. For those who benefit from being hooked, your admission chances went up a lot. But for the majority of applicants that are not hooked, your odds of admission can be much lower than what the college advertises.

Now that you understand hooks, it is important to understand that the most selective colleges are not looking for well-rounded students. Instead, they are looking to create a well-rounded class that is made up of students, each with an exceptional talent in one area, known as a “spike”An exceptional talent in an academic or extracurricular area... More.

High school year by year

Now that you have an understanding of the college landscape, you can look to what you need to do year by year in high school.

• Freshman Year: This is the year you step up academically from middle school to meet the demands of middle school. This means you strive for good grades in a rigorous curriculum. And do so efficiently, leaving time to explore a variety of extracurriculars.
• Sophomore Year: Of course you are going to keep up the grades and rigor. But this is also the year that you start thinking about potential colleges and start honing in on your potential spike.
• Junior Year: You have a lot to do this year, but this is when the discipline and mental fortitude you built up the last two years pays off. By the end of this year you should have a nearly finalized college list so you can work on your essays over the summer. This is also the year you work towards developing your spike.
• Senior Year: Your resume is largely set (but don’t neglect your first semester grades). In the fall you will select colleges to apply to, write your essays and complete the applications to show colleges how strong you are. You’ve done everything right, and soon you will learn which colleges were wise enough to admit you.