COLLEGE ADMISSIONS MASTERCLASS Week 7 Video 1- Timing Is Key

All right, welcome back. Week seven, video one. This is the last week and this is where we really kind of pull everything together and try to make that decision about where we're going to apply and what we're going to do after we get the verdict back from the admissions committees. There's two students I worked with recently who I love dearly. They're children of friends of mine. One is named Jess, the other is named Jackson, and they're both very bright, very nice, down to earth. I hope my children become like them kind of children. They are students who are applying to college recently and they approach the college admissions process quite differently. Jessica started focusing in on where to apply to college in the summer between her junior and senior year. And she started thinking about her essay during that time whenever she had more time. So the stress of the senior year hadn't started yet. She wasn't burdened with AP studies and getting pulled to field hockey practice or doing 98 million other things. She was focused on relaxed, enjoying her summer doing things that were important to her, but allowing her to really think through how she wanted to present herself to college. That's the way to do it. Jackson, on the other hand, equally bright, very smart, very hardworking, approached college admissions quite differently. He did not spend his summer thinking about his essays. He did not spend his September or October or even much of November thinking about his essays. He decided that December was the time when he was going to really focus in on his college applications that were due in a few days. And when I met with him, the sense of panic and stress almost gave me a heart attack. The approach to college for him was procrastinate and then not sleep and get it done. And I've done that on other projects. But when it comes to something as important as applying to college, the Jess approach is preferable. And that at the end of the day, while Jackson submitted quality essays and a quality application and ended up going to a very good school for him, he ruined his senior year to some extent because of the way he approached his college applications. And Jess, I think, thoroughly enjoyed her senior year and had terrific memories that weren't marred by a stressful December in which she was taking final exams and trying to write essays over the weekend. So my point to you is start early. I know that your counselors are probably telling you this and your parents are begging for you to do this, and parents, I feel you on this, right, that you really want your child to, to at some level, if possible, enjoy this experience of self discovery that the college Application process is a time unlike any other, where you get to sit down, think about who you are, how you want to be, and present yourself to somebody you don't know. Right. I can't think of any other time in life where all those things come together like they do in the college admissions process. And the best way, the best way to do that ultimately generates the best quality product is by starting early and working first and foremost on that opening statement, making sure that your application resonates with that opening statement, and you present a consistent, coherent, persuasive application to the schools where you want to go. Okay? So the question is, when should you apply? If that's going to dictate your schedule and your plan? As we talked about in previous videos, you need to first understand the deadlines and the different applications that are out there. So there's three main ones. The first one is what Jackson was aiming for, and that's the regular application. One day my handwriting will improve. But today is not that day. For most colleges, they have a regular application deadline of January 1st. Some of them, it's January 15th. It's early January. So right after Christmas break, boom, New Year's, it's a new you. Applications are due. You're going to hear back from those schools sometime in March or super early April. Okay. And then you have to let them know if you're going to accept their offer of admissions by May 1. May 1 is called decision day. In my world, it's a day in which we get a lot of happy people. Right. The other application is called rolling, and this is used by a lot of public schools. This is a good way to make sure that you have a full class. And what happens is that you submit your application at any time prior to them having a full class. So you can submit it at any time. You're going to get a response back in four to eight weeks, and you're going to have until May 1st. For 99.999% of them, most of them make this mandatory that you're going to have. Even if you apply early, you can go all the way to May 1st to make a decision around whether you're going to accept a rolling admissions acceptance for a lot of students. I encourage them if this school truly is a school where they see themselves being happy, remember that from the last video, that they go ahead and apply early to this school. Why? Why? Even if it's a safety school, even if it's ranked low on their list. I do that because it gets a level of confidence that if you know that you've gotten in somewhere early in your senior year, the stress level in your home will go down. You will get along with your child better. So we encourage students, if they have a school that they truly are interested in, that's on their list that offers rolling admissions, to go and apply early. Don't accept. Don't have to accept till May 1, because it's going to give you a level of confidence, going to lower your stress level. You're going to college. Okay? The third one is the one that a lot of people don't seem to know about. And it's especially true for students who do not have access to private school admission counselors or access to people who have gone through the process before them. Okay? And this is a big one for us. Early acceptance. When you apply early, most of them require your application come in by November 1st or November 15th. So right in the middle of your semester, you're submitting an application to a college that has early acceptance with the results coming Back to you December 15th. Quick turnaround. Okay? This is good for a lot of the same reasons that we encourage people to do this. If you find out where you're going to college by December 15th, you get to enjoy your Christmas break. If not, you end up Lake Jackson and you spend your Christmas break in your basement typing up essays. So early acceptance is one way to do this. Now, here's my big warning on early acceptance. There's two different kinds of early acceptance, and they're very different. Very different. So early acceptance, remember, is the third way that schools take applications. Most schools, most private schools especially, offer early acceptance deadlines, November 1st or 15th, and regular deadlines January 1st or January 15th. Early acceptance comes in two forms. There's some variations, but two basic forms. The first one is early decision. Sounds good, right? Early decision. That's what you're hoping for. You'd like to get this done, get it out of the way. The other one is called early action. Same basic deadline. Some schools offer both. Most of the time they offer one or the other. Early decision is binding. If you apply here, early decision, and they accept your application and give you an offer of admission, you have to go there. It's a binding contract with some wiggle room. If they can't come across the financial aid package, that's good for you. High bar. It's a very high bar. It's a binding contract. Just think of it as that way. Early decision. You get in, you got to go there. And some of these schools say you can't apply early decision or even early early action elsewhere. So it's just important to know the difference between the two. Early action, on the other hand, is not binding or is non binding. So why do people apply early decision or early action? Well, we talked about that, right? You get your decision back sooner. You also get your application in front of an admissions committee that has not been beaten up with thousands of applications and reading a million essays. So they are rested, they're in a better mood. You're also submitting your application with a different applicant pool. The people who are applying early decision are usually the people who have made up their mind. This is where they definitely want to go. It's a different base of applicants who are applying at this time. Usually the GPAs, SATs and ACTs are lower. Some have argued that's because that's usually when the legacy students, children of alumni, are applying. But a lot of factors that come into this, but the reason why we encourage a lot of students under certain circumstances to apply early decision is because the acceptance rate is two to three times higher. The chances of getting in are two to three times better. Huge. If you apply early action, it's non binding. The school doesn't feel as tied to you. The chances of you getting in go up slightly and it varies, but there is, without a doubt, and we've seen this across different schools, the increase doesn't quite reach 2 to 3 times, doesn't increase your chances by 2, 3 times, but it certainly helps. Okay, so here you are, say it's October, September, October, and you're thinking, do I have a number one school, Do I have a school right now that I feel so strongly about that I'm willing to be bound to that school if they accept me. Okay? If that is true, you may want to consider applying early decision. If you can apply early decision and not be penalized monetarily. If it's a school that offers no loan financial aid, we talked about this in the financial aid video, that these are the top. About the top 85 most selective colleges in America are now offering financial aid packages that do not have loans in them. So you're graduating without the burdens of loans. So if you're, this is a true number one for you and it's a no loan school, you don't need to worry about waiting to see how other financial aid offers are coming across. Okay? If you're worried about financial aid and you want to see what kind of financial aid offers, you get back before making your decision and you don't have the credentials to clear that bar, then you don't want to apply early decision. Early decision is only good for those that have absolutely a number one school that they want to go to. If I get in, that's where I'm going. And you qualify, you clear the academic hurdles for that school such that you're not worried about the no loan situation. You want this, right? You're coming to the school and you're going to end up with a financial paid package that doesn't have loans, then you want to go ahead and apply early decision. The other way you want to do it is if you have a clear number one and you know that you're going to end up with a sizable financial aid package because you're such a coveted asset for that school. Very limited situations in which this applies, very limited situations in which a student feels like they're going to clear the academic hurdles for the top students in the country, the people with the top GPAs, top SAT ACT scores, and their number one school is one of these no loan schools, then the binding early decision is a great way to go because it's going to increase your chances of getting accepted. Waiting for the regular applicant pool is going to be harder for you. Okay? Now early action, I love early action. It's non binding. So if they accept you, you don't have to go there. It's going to give you a boost. We don't know what some schools, it's a lot, others it's not as much, but it's going to give you some benefit in getting in. Maybe not two to three times, but something. And you don't have to make up your mind till May 1, which allows you to then compare financial aid packages. Okay, so you're going to get back an acceptance letter Dec. 15 saying we accept, we want to accept you to our school. It's not binding. Please feel free to apply to other schools in the next few days during the regular admissions process. Here's our financial aid package that we're going to offer you. You'll receive that usually sometime around late February, early March. And then what you can do is apply regular to the other schools, receive the financial aid packages from those schools and compare. And as we talked about before, if there's a financial aid package that you receive from a comparable school to this one, you can take that financial aid package and, and present it to the school where you really want to go and say, can you match this? And this is a conversation that the parents should have that your child wants to go here but they're getting more money somewhere else. Taking the financial aid package from that school that is viewed as comparable key point to that school oftentimes will result in a better financial aid package for your student. Okay. Early decision versus early action. Don't confuse them. There's a big difference being the binding versus non binding part for those students who have the credentials to get into a no loan school and that truly is the number one school for them. Early decision. If those criteria are not met. Early action. Okay, big differences, big results. At the end of the day. It's a great way to go if you have a number one school and you get in early and you can enjoy your Christmas break right? That makes things happier for everybody. We are going to now flow into the last video so the next video. We're going to wrap things up for you during this course so I'll see you on the next video.