Masterclass: Strategies for Impressing Admissions Officers and Building a Winning Academic Profile

Welcome everyone. My name is Shellee Howard and I am joined this evening with Mr. Oscar Cancino. I practiced that, I really did. Welcome, Oscar. He's going to be sharing with you some incredibly important information. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Shellee Howard. I'm the founder and CEO of College Ready. We are on a mission to help a million families get into their best fit college and graduate debt-free. And so before I jump in, wanted to just remind you, put your questions in the Q&A, and as soon as Oscar is finished, we will stop and we will answer those questions. Hopefully we'll answer them prior to having to ask them, but We are here to serve you. Our goal tonight is knowledge. We want you to have the information before you apply so you can make wise decisions. One, how to find the perfect fit college. Two, how to get in. And three, how are you gonna pay for it? So all of that is super important, and I'm not gonna steal any of Oscar's thunder, so I'm gonna jump right in. A little bit about me. I think it's important, you know, who you're speaking to or who's speaking to you. And my, my business has been here for 17 years. We are in our 18th application season. I know it's totally crazy. And how this all got started is I'm a parent just like you. I have 2 boys, 2 girls. My firstborn is the reason why College Ready was started, and I am super excited because We are now starting to see all of the fruits of our labor. So my firstborn came home in 8th grade and says, Mom, I know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people still figuring it out. And I said, great, what do you want to do? He says, yeah, I want to be like a brain surgeon and I want to go to one of those top colleges. Can you help me? Wow. And he walks away and he turns around, he goes, can you help me? And I'm like, oh yeah, I've got this. Absolutely. I was the firstborn, our first child to go to college on both sides of my family. And yes, I, I have multiple college degrees and certifications, but I didn't know how to get him into brain surgery. So I did what you're doing. I sought knowledge, and that is why I give back. I'm part of the Society of Financial Awareness, which means I give knowledge so you don't make for financial decisions. So that same young man, I won't go into the details, he is now a, a fourth-year resident orthopedic surgeon at UCLA with zero debt. So he went Harvard 4 years pre-med for free. He went UC San Diego for medical school, and now he gets a small stipend at UCLA, and he is on his way. My second child, her dream school was University of Alabama. I told her, I'm not paying full price, but if you go for free, I can't say no. And so she did. She is now a registered nurse with zero debt. My third is graduating college in 3 years because that's what he wanted to do, and he will have no debt. And then my fourth said, I'm going to do something totally different. She is getting an international business degree. From AAU in the Czech Republic of Prague, 3 years for $27,000 total, not per year, in total. She will also graduate because she's able to work at the same time. So even if you want to pay full price, I always encourage families to think of how great it feels to receive scholarships for the hard work that the students have done. So College Ready is unique, and I can't wait to share with you how you can do what we do. If you want to do this on your own, just take tons of notes. We support you with a ton of resources. If you would like our support, at the end I'm happy to tell you how we can do that. But my goal tonight is just to give you as much information as possible. So I'm going to share my screen, and I'm going to, um, show you how. So many people talk about this and talk about that. I'm going to actually show you how this all happens, how families are able to navigate this process. I think it's really important when you are trying to, to decide, am I on the right track? Am I college ready? To know what does that really mean. So I'm going to share— we call this our vault. Our vault is proprietary software, and it is something that we like our families to know is securely password protected. I'm going to show you Vincent. He is my fake senior, and so I am not sharing anybody's private information, but I have put my 17 years of intellectual property in here to help you as the families understand how this all comes together. Because if you graduated more than 10 years ago, I want you to know it's changed a lot and it's become more expensive and more competitive. Now, keep in mind, the GPA is still the most important factor with rigor. And so taking the right classes in the right order and making sure they all are going to set you up to be able to apply to any school you want which doesn't happen automatically, is the very first step. So we start with a 4-year academic plan. What rigorous classes will the student take? What will they not take? Will they take IB, AP, dual enrollment? Will they take online? Will they take college classes? And Oscar's gonna jump into that a little bit more, so I'm going to keep on going. So as you can see here, Vincent, I put together his standout strategy. Because no longer can you just have a GPA and a test score and then get in. Uh, you need to have something that's going to position you for success. We call it a standout strategy. And so I do this for each one of our students. They have resources to research projects, internships, summer opportunities, test prep. We even have a Passion with Purpose International Project where our students can earn 8 national awards. So So I share these— this information, nothing short of this is what can be done, and I encourage families to navigate what they can. Then we have to-dos, and we simplify the process. This whole portal, The Vault, was put together to simplify the process. So the next thing we talk about is testing. Is it really optional? It is not if you want scholarships. In our world, it is not optional. If your student is not a good test taker, we have figured that out. We have test strategists who absolutely can get you the score that you need. So please know, if you want scholarships, testing will be important. Just because a school is optional today doesn't mean it will be optional tomorrow. Then we're able to look at every college in the world and give you the deadlines, due dates, and the strategy of how and when to apply. So for example, you can type in any college in the world. You can see who got in last year. So this is what I wanted to show families. How do you pick the right school? Everybody wants to know this. You start with the student. So in other words, does the student want a large school, medium-sized small? Do they want public or private? Do they want, um, religious, non-religious? There are so many decisions for this young teenager to make that they really need some support. Then we show them, is it a good fit for them? You can see at UCLA, only 84% of students finish in 4 years. What does that mean? Add a 5th year or a 6th year of tuition and then decide if it's still a good return on your investment. On the other side, the retention rate is super high, and so if you wanted to go community college and transfer in, you have an even smaller chance of doing that based on nobody leaving. Last year, this is who applied, who were admitted, and who enrolled, and then you can see the average GPA. So you can see as you look at all of the GPAs, what are your students' chances based on that one factor. From there, we show you the cost of attendance in-state versus out-of-state. Remember when I said not everybody gets out in 4 years? Then you have to add another year of in-state or out-of-state. We then can show you how, um, generous or not generous a school is as far as grants, scholarships, and need-based opportunities. The next thing most families are not familiar with is that not every college offers every, every major. And so this is very important when you think of how does this all come together. Well, if your student wants to go into business, it might be a problem if they want to go into business admin or management because they don't offer it as an undergrad, or management science. So keep in mind, what is the reason why that is a good fit school? You could see they have a lot of biologies at this school, but if you wanted to do, you know, pharmacology, maybe not a good fit school. So we really help the students start from the foundation, and this is what I recommend for you families. It's hard, I know, when they're your own children. I've done it with 4. Is helping them figure out what are their gifts and their talents and their advocacy, what are their passions, what, what will they want from a career, financially, job security, flexibility, and then what major feeds into that career, and will a robot be doing it in 5 years? So we start with that. So when we hit this, we can say, yes, UCLA is a great school if you want to do neuroscience. Then we can show the family, here are the essays you're going to be writing your senior year. I think it's important to know the answer to that question. So we know the chances of your student, if they were going to apply to UCLA, would be 4 350-word essays an activities list with 20 activities and awards. That is hard to do for a 17-year-old on their own. We spend a lot of time helping them build that out and what that looks like. So as a parent, that is something that you would want to step in and support. There's also this thing called optional supplements. They are not truly optional, but that is something that students will look at and go, ah, I I don't have to do it. We then can show you all of the big scholarships that, that school offers, and then we get into the essays. So writing essays, most students will write between 5 and 15 essays per college. That scares most left-brained people, so we want you to know that we have built in opportunities to show you different essay, uh, brainstorming on topic view, on school view. We help build the resume, the activities tracker, the content plan. Everything is in here for the student. Otherwise, parents, just know it was 33 spreadsheets when I did this with my firstborn. So just kind of keep that in context. Then the next thing you're going to want to do is to break it down for the student. There are a lot. You can see that the student's already completed 71 things before they finished out their senior year. So, um, the more the student does early on— we start with students as young as 7th grade and go all the way through to transfer students— it's a lot easier to do this slow and gently without mistakes versus doing it rapid-fire their senior year. And then finally, this next tab is, I think, one of the most critical pieces. Every college is going to ask you to apply differently. Some will be the Common App, some will be the Coalition App, some will be a private app. And so it is up to you to figure out when to apply, how to apply, what is needed to apply. And so we put it all right here at your fingertips. Instead of you having to research and build spreadsheets. So the, the very most important thing I want to show you is how some schools will have you do a lot and some schools will not. This one right here is the most critical piece if you are looking for a good return on your investment. For a student, they say, "Yes, I would like an early decision." For the person paying for it, it means you have to go there, get rid of all the other colleges, never know if they got in or got a financial offer and pay full price. So financially, this can be very, very critical to a family. So, um, I just wanted you to know all of this is what it takes to get in. It's not just this or that. So hopefully that kind of sets your minds up thinking, how are we going to pull all of these details together? And then also, a good assessment can make a massive difference, helping students not just take the test but understand what the test means. So we spend time breaking it down to what is their personality, what is their intellect, how do they learn, what are their skills, do they want to work in a research lab, or not. Um, so all of this is why our students have received over $7 million in scholarships this year. In the last 2 years, it's been $23.7 million. So we're very much attuned to a return on investment, and I'm happy to talk to you more about that, but I do believe it's time for Mr. Oscar. So thank you all. I will be here for the Q&A.

Thank you so much for that, Shellee. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen as well here. And there we go. Are we able to see it, Shellee, with the thumbs up?

Yes. Awesome.

Thank you so much. Perfect. So again, my name is Oscar Cancio. I'm the Senior Director of Enrollment Management at Holston Academy, and Holston is an online private school for grades 6 through 12. And before joining Holston, I worked at a number of admissions offices, including USC, Bates College, the University of La Verne, and most recently at Pacific Oaks Colleges. Uh, the schools I worked at have been large research universities, midsize, uh, schools, and small liberal arts colleges with enrollment as few as 1,000 students. And in my 10 years of college admissions, I've read at least 10,000 applications and have interviewed at least 2,000 students. My college admissions roles have also included leading the appeals committee, waitlist committee, NCAA verification and admissions for all our student athletes out there, and serving as a liaison to the arts departments. And before we dive in, I wanted to make sure to give you a brief overview of things I'll be covering this evening. I wanted to share some insights with you all in my experience as a college admissions officer, what the flow of an application looks like, Who reviewed it? How much time did folks spend on a file? I'll be covering what college admissions officers around the country are looking for. Uh, the most important part of an application, as Shellee mentioned, is the academic profile. So I'll be getting into the nuts and bolts of things to be aware of, uh, that when you select your high school courses and when you're getting ready to apply for colleges. Balance is key. So we'll have an opportunity to discuss how to best portray yourself to a school Although an academic profile is important, colleges are looking for more than just somebody who studies all the time. We'll go over some academic options that can support you along your journey, and of course, I'll end with my 5 tips for how to prepare for college search and admissions. So, some insights for you. As Shellee Howard mentioned, you're going to spend hours and hours as a student on your applications. And the truth is that the person reading your application is only going to spend about 10 or 20 minutes on it. Even though colleges have made it more streamlined to apply by using things like the Common App, uh, you're still going to pour lots of time and effort into it. And it's not to say that colleges are not giving it the effort, they just have to go quickly. As you saw at UCLA, over 100,000 applications. At USC this past year, I think it was over 60,000 applications. So they get a lot of things that come their way, and even though they have massive admissions offices, they have to go through things quickly. But rest assured that The person reading your file is a professional. They've been doing this for a long time, and the applications are also going to be read by multiple people. So it's a way to have checks and balances on things. I strongly encourage you as a student to avoid acronyms. Don't make the assumption that the person on the other side knows what you're talking about. Now, there are some specific acronyms that are more commonly found than others, things like USAID, GSA, Junior State of America, NHS, National Honor Society. But overall, I would recommend that you actually spell things out to make sure that the other person reading your application doesn't have to Google things. And the reality is, is that they're so limited on time, they're probably not going to do that. So it may be a missed opportunity on your end. So make sure to do that. Show interest by attending events. You want to make sure that you're going to things like webinars, tours, open houses. Many college Colleges have something called demonstrated interest. They should be making clear of what that is and if they have that on their information sessions or websites. And if they don't, simply reach out to your representative or call their 800 number to verify that they have that. So what is demonstrated interest? It's those things that are tracked by the school. Did you take that tour? Did you go to that open house? Those things can be taken into consideration when a school is making their admissions decision. They want to see how interested you actually are in that particular school. So if it comes down to a student who's gone to one event, or maybe zero events, has only applied, versus a student who's gone to the tour, the open house, interacted with the professor, those things will make a difference. So make sure to look into that with the schools that you're applying to. Don't forget to send a thank you note. The art of writing thank you letters has really gone by the wayside, unfortunately. Seems like such a simple thing to do, but as the years went on when I was working in college admissions, I saw fewer of them each and every year. Send a thank you note to your tour guide. Did you go to an information session? Send the representative a quick note. It doesn't take that long. It doesn't have to be handwritten. You can go ahead and send an email. Handwritten notes are nice, and even things like that do make their way into the file. They'll go ahead and scan things in, make it available to the person that's reviewing your application. So you want to make sure to, to be able to do that over the course of your applications. And I'll go a step further: if you're visiting the campus physically, going on a tour, make sure to be nice to the security guard, the front desk person. I can't tell you how many horror stories I have of people who are perhaps a little rude or not very nice, That stuff does make its way into the application. So be fully aware of that. And of course, just being kind, being nice, all that stuff really does go a long way. So what are college admissions officers looking for? I will reiterate what Shellee mentioned earlier. The academic profile is king. That has to make sure that it pops in your application. How well have you done in your high school courses? Have you taken advantage of the courses that are made available to you at your school? Schools have representatives that are specifically assigned to territories throughout the United States, and that person that is assigned to your territory knows your school really well. They likely know the guidance counselor, the college counselor. They have a relationship with them. They can simply pick up the phone and ask any questions. It's that type of relationship, plus they are charged with knowing your school. Uh, your school may have a letter grades or percentages the counselor that reads the files will know that. One thing that I strongly recommend all families to do— each school throughout the United States has something called a high school profile, school profile. In that profile, it shares some very basic information: how many students are enrolled, does the school rank, are grades letters, are they percentages. Every school has that, and if you apply to a college, your high school will be sending that school profile to that school to have a better sense of what's available to them. So if you're a student at a school that offers 20 APs and allows you to take 2 per year starting your sophomore year, and you've taken 1, that's probably not going to bode as well for you because you don't have the rigor there. So all the more important to be scheduling something with Shellee Howard to make sure that you have the right profile set up and making sure that you're taking advantage of what's available at your school. And whether colleges or high schools want to admit this or not, there are schools that are better than others. Simply put, um, that's just the reality. A B at a certain school may be an A at a school 5 miles down the road. There are strong public schools out there, there are weak private schools out there, and schools are overcrowded. Some others have fewer students per class. Your admissions counselor will know that. There are some schools that will even get you give you more points on your GPA if you go to a certain school. That's just the truth. Now, just because you go to a school that's considered good quality doesn't mean you're sure in. For example, let's say you go to a school that offers all those APs and honors courses, but you haven't taken very many. Again, that's not going to bode well for you. But I'll make sure to share with you how you can improve your chances. If your school may not have that many resources, there are ways that you can go ahead and improve your profile. And again, If you're at a school that only offers 2 APs and you've taken those 2, that's going to be a good thing, and your college counselor will know that, the person reading your application. Now, like I said before, schools are not looking for robots. Well-roundedness is absolutely important. So especially at the most competitive schools, they're looking for a hook. You need to be involved in things like leadership, activities, sports, arts, community service. You have to be passionate about something. That is outside the classroom. And every school I looked at, there was no one activity that was looked favorably over others. So, so long as you contributed to your community in a positive way with activities, that's going to be looked at as a good thing. Now, I will say that when a student had a job during the school year or during the summer, that was really impressive. Not many students had jobs when I was reading applications, and I would say that it's probably gotten fewer and fewer over the years since I've been out of college admissions, but something like that can really pop your application. It shows responsibility, financial acumen, and maturity. Your review will be holistic. Colleges won't just focus on grades. They will look at your rec letters. They'll look at your test scores, your grades, interviews, the academic profile. And again, as Shellee Howard mentioned, although a school may not require test scores this year, it's possible that they do so in the future. In fact, You look on at the newspapers or on LinkedIn, there are a number of schools that have gone back to making tests mandatory. And of course, if you're looking for those scholarships, that's probably going to be required. Things to keep in mind, colleges are looking for ways to admit students. They're not looking for reasons to deny. One of the deans that I used to work for kind of put it best when he said, imagine you're a talent scout. So you're an admissions officer, imagine you're a talent scout. You're scouring the country for the best and brightest. You're looking for gems, really. You're looking for students that will positively contribute to our community. Uh, what is their potential? How will they make a difference at this school? Remember, it's the students that make the school, not the other way around. And I really like the way that he put it because it's absolutely true, 100% accurate. Uh, admissions offices are looking for reasons to admit your student, not to deny your student. The importance of that academic profile. You know, your GPA is going to be important. The GPA that's reported by your high school is not going to be the GPA that the college is going to take. They're going to break things down and build it back up again. So if you've taken some, you know, easy electives to boost your GPA, they're going to be able to see right through that. And again, course rigor is important. So are you taking those APs? And a lot of schools have gone away from APs. And maybe some honors courses, but there are still courses that are noted as being more rigorous than others on that school profile, and colleges will definitely be taking a look. You wanna make sure to prepare for those standardized tests. They, they are difficult. I was not necessarily a good test taker, but I got some support and was able to improve my scores, and they do make a difference. So again, even if a school is, you know, test optional, that may not be the case in future years, and you'll certainly wanna use that for scholarship opportunities. Extracurricular activities— get involved in things. There is no one particular activity, like I mentioned. Just make sure that you're passionate about something outside of this, uh, of your classes. And of course, make sure to take a look at that school profile that your school provides, because that's exactly what college admissions offices around the country are going to be looking for. So maintaining a, a healthy balance. You want to find ways to kind of bridge those things with academics, extracurricular activities, and personal interests as well. In terms of the APs and honors courses, which ones should I be taking? You should be taking the ones that you're most passionate about. Don't just take them for the sake of trying to impress a college admissions officer. They'll be able to see right through that. And make sure you're taking things that you're really passionate about. Also, be mindful of the major that you're applying to. Are you applying to an engineering program? Chances are that you'll be required to take a course load that's heavy in math and science if that's the case. Or maybe you're a student that's applying to a school that focuses on music and dance. That's great. And if you're that student, maybe you're not that big of a fan of mathematics, but you want to take AP Calculus. Simply to impress a college admissions officer. I would recommend against that. Probably not a good idea. You can use that class period to take something that you're actually passionate about. Maybe you really like Shakespeare. Maybe you really like, you know, a literature course that's different from that. You want to be able to take those because you're actually passionate about that, and that'll also demonstrate your academic rigor by taking those different courses. You want to make sure you're preparing for the major appropriately, and they're going to be able to understand that by looking at the courses that you've taken. And they're also going to ask themselves, how has the student prepared and cultivated interest in that particular subject? They're really going to be on the lookout for that. Rigorous key. Uh, they'll know what rigor is and what is made available to you because of that school profile, like we talked about. And if you need a course that may not be available at your current high school, Holston is always happy to help. We offer over 300 courses, many of which are honors and APs. If you're in California, for those folks in the California state, we do cover A through G requirements as well. And if you're an athlete, our courses are also NCAA eligible. Extracurricular activities, you know, make sure to do them. Don't just do them to check things off the list. Do them because you actually care. That's going to be really important and things that college admissions officers are going to be taking a look at overall. The benefits of summer courses for academic enrichment. Colleges will also be taking a look at what you've done over the summer. It does not have to be academic in nature. Simply put, I would do something and stay busy over the summer. Maybe you're passionate about a community service project that you and a group of friends have been working on during the school year and you want to continue that on to the summer, I would encourage you to do that. Maybe you're participating in basketball camps to try to make the varsity team. Go ahead and do that. Whatever it is, make sure that you're participating in something and make sure that you're showing progress over the course of those summers. Some students will choose a portion of their summer, maybe not necessarily the entire summer, to get ahead, and that's okay. So some students with us, for example, will go ahead and register for a geometry course over the summer, the first semester, or maybe the year-long experience to get ahead in their school following in the fall. That's totally appropriate, especially, you know, for example, we talked about engineering earlier, but let's say you want to apply to a literature program and you want to get ahead in writing. You can go ahead and take a writing course over that summer to get an honors or advanced placement course in the fall. That's totally appropriate, so long, again, as you're passionate about it. If you're simply doing it to check things off the box and be more impressive or boost your GPA, you'll get your GPA boosted, but again, at what expense? You're giving up a portion of your summer simply to impress an admissions officer in that way. Probably not a good idea. And I can't tell you how many times students have done that, thinking that was the right move. It really isn't. You should enjoy your summer. You should enjoy your time. Be balanced, be healthy. It's not all about doing academics or doing something specifically to improve your college application. It's about having fun as well. So make sure to take care of yourself on that end. But if you did want to bolster your academic profile, or maybe you didn't have such a good 9th grade year and you want to improve your grades, a school like Holston— we're just one option. We know that there are many wonderful options out there, and you should take a look at all of them. But I'm biased with the fact that I work at Holston, and I think we have wonderful teachers here that can really help bolster your academic profile with some online courses, whether it be a core course, an elective, honors, or AP. Those things can be made available to you here. And I did want to share with the group my 5 tips for colleges. So again, I was in college admissions for about 10 years, worked at a number of different schools, And along the way, whether it was a small school like Bates in Maine or a large university like USC in Los Angeles, there are things that are definitely in common that college admissions officers will be looking at. So plan your summers early, plan ahead, plan ahead with your courses that you'll be taking. What do you think you'll be doing? Time goes very, very fast, especially once you start getting into your junior year. You want to make sure to have a plan. Have you researched the schools that you are thinking about? Geography— how much of an importance will that play for you? You know, we have students who may not do well in a cold climate, may not want to be in a very hot climate. All those things are really important to explore and have a discussion with your child about, because that's going to impact their happiness and how they'll— how good they'll do academically. All those things really do matter. I've worked with students who really had to have a large, you know, football presence at their school. They wanted to go to a Big Ten school, or maybe, you know, the now defunct Pac-12. But those things do matter. Keep in mind that they are students between the ages of 18 and 22, and those things are important. So go ahead and plan ahead. Make sure to put a plan together and execute it over the course of the summer and the fall. It'll make it— it will make things more streamlined. I want to be careful about using the word easy because applying to colleges is not easy. It's going to take some work, but it'll make things more streamlined once you're ready to apply, especially your senior year. You're going to plan things like homecoming, prom, semi-formal. You're going to want to enjoy the time with your friends. So it's important to plan ahead of time to make sure that you're executing it correctly. Once the fall, before your college applications are due, you'll be ready to go. Keep a journal. I can't stress the importance of this, and perhaps because I was an English major in college, but writing is really important right now so you won't have to do that later. And what I mean by that is, let's say you go on a trip, you go to camp, you have this wonderful experience, journal about it because chances are those journal entries that you do may help support you when you're ready to write your Common Application, when you're ready to write your supplemental essay for that dream school that you've been thinking about. And it'll certainly help you prepare if a college offers interviews or requires those interviews as part of the scholarship process. All that writing can really help you out, streamline your thinking. It'll help you be that much more prepared when you are getting ready to interview or when you are getting ready to submit that application to that school that you've been thinking about for a number of years. Begin exploring colleges now. I don't think it's too early, whether you're a 9th grader or maybe you're getting ready for your summer between junior or senior year. Start looking at websites. There are so many schools that have put out great content allowing you to meet with a current student, talk to a professor, attend their webinars. The truth is, you may not be able to go to that school specifically in person, and that's okay. There's so many things that, you know, looking at the silver lining with COVID so many things have been brought online. So you may be able to do an interactive tour online. You may be able to do an information session with the current student. Go ahead and explore those websites to see what's available. So you wanna make sure to take advantage of that and get a better sense of, do I see myself as a good fit for that particular school? It'll really help you out once you start applying to schools. Stay involved outside of academics. Again, we did emphasize academics earlier. That is very important, and you want to make sure to do things outside of school as well. Uh, schools are looking for students that are doing more than just academics. They want leaders. They want people who are making a difference in their communities, participating in sports, in the arts, whatever it may be. Find a passion, something that you're passionate about. That's why those assessments that Shellee Howard was talking about earlier are so important. Make sure you're doing that so you have a plan ready to go once you're getting ready to apply for these different schools. And, you know, it's at the end, but I would say it's pretty important: treat yourself with kindness. Your students are going to be applying to a lot of schools and will dedicate a lot of time to these college applications and essays. Make sure to be kind to yourself as a parent. Make sure that your students are being kind to themselves as a young adult and a student. This is challenging. It's difficult applying to all these schools and keeping track of everything. So make sure to celebrate the little wins. Make sure to stay upbeat and stay positive. Again, colleges and universities do not define the students. It's the other way around. It's the students that ultimately make the school what they are, and they get that from the student body. So again, make sure to treat your— yourself with kindness. So with that, I've come to the end of my portion of the presentation, and I'll stop sharing my screen. And Shellee, I will turn it back over to you.

Thank you so much. That was really, really awesome. I'm going to go ahead and jump into the Q&A, and I'm gonna start with— let's see, admissions can't tell if you're taking courses over the summer to get ahead, do they? No.

So they can tell that you're taking the courses, which is a good thing, but they don't necessarily understand that as a way of, oh, this student's only doing it to get ahead. No, that's— that wouldn't be the case. It would be looked at favorably if they're doing something at their current school or outside the current school, whatever it may be. Just make sure that you're keeping track of it, that you have a transcript available to send to those colleges. And make sure things are balanced. You know, I work for a school and academics are really important, but I tell this to students all the time, whether they're my students or other students, make sure to maintain that balance and have some fun over the summer. That's the time that, that you won't get back as a young adult.

Right. I'm going to add a little story to that because I think sometimes that illustrates. So the question of how do I spend my summer really is as unique as your own children. So if you're a parent with multiple kids, you realize that that's not the same summer plan for each one of them. So with my firstborn, um, it happened to be that he was able to take Spanish in 8th grade. And so he had already taken Spanish 1, and we're thinking, well, which should we— should we go back and take Spanish 1 all over again in high school? That doesn't make much sense. But that's what his high school counselor recommended. And so when we were reviewing his 4-year academic plan, we realized that if he had taken Spanish over the summer, he could have taken other classes that he wanted to do more. And so sometimes— is not just to get ahead. Sometimes it's just to balance the workload, because you can only have so many APs until your head's gonna blow up, right? So sometimes we do encourage students— either, "I wanna try this Algebra 2 or Geometry. I wanna try it before I get stuck in a year-long edition of it." And so one thing that's really critical is you want to go to your high school counselor and make sure that the high school will accept it. It's not a guarantee that just because you go down the street and take a class that they're gonna, that they're gonna honor it. And that's why I asked Oscar to be here with me, because their program is accredited. What that means is it is a class that will check a box for you to keep going on. And there are so many times where I'll get a student, maybe their sophomore or junior year, where they have done so many classes, either dual enrollment or a college class or an online— I mean, there's so many different things. And then they've gone back to the high school after the fact and they go, oh, no, no, no. That won't work. We won't take that. Sorry. And the student's like, I just wasted my whole summer. So, Oscar, you're shaking your head. Is this something that you agree with?

Absolutely. 100%. And thank you for pointing that out, Shellee Howard. We are WASC and Cognia accredited. And whatever program you're looking at, whether it's Holston or somewhere else, make sure it's accredited. And also talk to your high school. Is this an approved program? Will I get credit for it? Some schools will give you a certain amount of classes that they allow. You know, there are school districts in the Bay Area that I work with, for example, that will allow students to take up to 6 courses or maybe even 8. There are some schools that may only allow you to do 1 or 2. So long as you know before you sign up, that's important because we have some students who have maxed that credit out at their home school districts, but will take it for enrichment, and that's okay. Uh, we'll go ahead and send the colleges directly the transcript, or we'll send it to them directly, and that's totally fine to do.

So I love this one. Um, thank you, Heather. This is honestly the most valuable call I've been part of. Extremely valuable. Thank you. You know, that made it all well worth it. So I thank you. Thanks for being here. All right, we have another question. Um, can you give advice for homeschoolers?

Absolutely. Happy to jump in here. So, um, when I worked at a couple of different colleges in the past, I was actually one of the people responsible for homeschool applications. And I will tell you that those did not take 10 or 20 minutes. Those— they knew that those homeschool apps would take 30 to 40 minutes, so they cut back on the other applications that I had to read so I had more time to give to that. And the reason being is that they have a portfolio or they have different transcripts that they've taken with some unaccredited institutions and some accredited. But the truth is, I will say that I never— I rarely ever saw a student with a GPA lower than about a 3.5 when they were a homeschooled student. And the truth is, it's because their parents are grading their work, and that's okay, we understand that. But you want to put a portfolio together that's exhaustive. And so you want to make sure to include certified letters. Did they participate in outside activities? Make sure to get letters of recommendation. Those things will be scrutinized a lot more heavily than they would for a student who goes to a brick-and-mortar school. And I will say, if you're a homeschooler, chances are that the school may require you to do standardized testing even though it's not required for other applicants. I know for a fact there are a handful of schools out there throughout the US that will require that because they need some sort of barometer. They need to be able to compare you to other students. Unfortunately, that's what admissions is. They're comparing you to other students. They can't compare you to the students that are coming from your same high school because you're the only one at your home school. So make sure to detail everything, portfolio everything if you can, especially over the summer. Because that's a good time. Take classes that are accredited, whether again it's through Holston or maybe dual enrollment credit. There are a number of wonderful colleges out there that offer dual enrollment credit, which will give you college credit, save you some money, and in addition to that, because it's something that's certified by that college, they'll be able to transcript it, and that'll make your application that much more competitive, especially if you're a homeschooler.

Great answer. I will take the next one. I also wanted to let you know I put in the chat, um, if you have questions that are more specific to you than to the whole group, I'm gifting you 30 minutes of my time where I can speak specifically to your situation. You may have questions on the FAFSA, the CSS Profile. It may be on where the best merit scholarships whatever it is, it's specific to you. So I put that in the chat, and I also put it in an answer. Can you talk about how to help your child stand out relative to other students in their high school who are taking similar courses, have similar test scores? Can colleges, um, do compare them? Yes, they do. Not all, but majority do. Some say they don't, but I still think they do. So what we're just going to go with Yes, they do. This is the best advice somebody gave me. And, you know, my son, he was salutatorian. He was the first student at his high school in 25 years to go Ivy. So put that in perspective for a moment. It's not that his school was like, woohoo, we have a ton of— it was a large public school. Graduating class was like 3,800. Ridiculous. And so don't always assume that the school is going to carry the weight to get them in. That's the first thing. The second thing is, as salutatorian, the difference between him and valedictorian— she started Spanish 2 her freshman year and he started back with Spanish 1. Every other class was exactly the same. They both got straight A's. They both did dual enrollment. I mean, they were best friends. She, she and my son, totally platonic best friends. They both went to medical school. They're both doing awesome. She went to Johns Hopkins. My point is, it's okay if students are brilliant and they're competing against other great students. Don't look at it as they're only gonna take mine or theirs. Because there's so many great colleges all over the world that they may not both be applying to. That I kind of wanted to, to make sure you understood that. Now, to answer your question, so when you look at the, the competition, if you will, you need to look at the rigor, the amount of challenging classes they take. You need to look at the test score. Then you need to look at the Passion with Purpose community service. Let me speak to good, better, and best. All service is good, but I've never heard— and you can correct me, Oscar— somebody in admissions go, wow, they tutored. I am so impressed. Oscar, you want to weigh in?

I'm in agreement with that, definitely.

So when you think about community service, They know if you're signing up, showing up, and checking a box. That's tutoring. Unless you want to be a teacher, that aligns perfectly fine. You love teaching, that makes sense. But not a lot of other reasons. Now I have a student who tutors families that are coming from Korea and teaches them English because he did that coming here. Ding, ding, ding! Right now you know about his heritage. You know about his passion to help. You, you see how it all, it all comes together for that student. And then what's amazing is when your student creates it and leads others to create change. It doesn't have to be massively huge. But it shows initiative, it shows leadership, it shows everything that you're trying to wrap up. So our students have an opportunity to earn 8 national awards and 4 leadership certifications. That's about as good as it gets. So even if you're competing at the high school, that's not really all you need to be thinking about. Because in our world, we have students all over the world., and we're looking at who's coming in and who's going out and how are these two people from California going to apply to Stanford versus Harvard. And, and we help students get into San Diego State versus Long Beach State. So it really is about making the student the very best they can be. That's how you be competitive. You stay in your lane. And guess what? Isn't that really what we want from our children, is to set them up to be the best they can be? Óscar, you want to add anything?

No, I'm in complete agreement with that. It all has to tie in together. Does your application make sense? If you're doing a one-off thing like tutoring and you're just doing it to check a box, that's really not going to be helpful. You're wasting your time. You may not be really passionate about it. And you could be doing something else, something more fun or something more fulfilling with your time. So I agree 100%.

I love it. Do you want to take the next one, or shall I?

Absolutely. Uh, can you also speak to what it means if your child is interested in applying to colleges that historically your high school has not sent many students to? Example, they want Stanford, and no one from your high school has ever gone there. I would say that would make it more interesting. And from my perspective, at schools that I've worked at, there's no quota system or anything like that for colleges. We need to take this many students from X school versus this many students from Y school, otherwise it's not going to be good for us. It doesn't work out that way. We had, uh, when I worked at Bates, for example, there was a school that would send us, you know, 20, 25 students per year, and then one year it really dropped for whatever reason, whether it be the childbirth rate or the interest of geography. People didn't want to be in a cold climate. That happens too. And so one particular year there was only a couple students that went, and then there were some years where we had a school that didn't get any students admitted, and then the following year there were 5. So I would say that's not something that would negatively impact your student. What it comes down to is what Shellee Howard and I discussed before— the plan, the academic profile, the passions that you followed. Uh, schools don't have quota systems or anything like that., when it comes to the high schools that they're taking students from.

Great answer. What's better, dual enrollment or AP, and can you explain? I would love to do this from a scholarship perspective, and maybe you can add another twist to it, but if we're talking about return on investment of an education, if your student— and not every school offers dual enrollment, just to be clear, that it is a, a gift if they do. My son was able to take several. What does that mean? They're taking a college-level course taught by a college-level professor, teacher, however you want to put it, at the high school, and they're getting dual credit. They're getting college credit and they're getting high school credit. Why is that important? When you graduate high school, that college credit costs you hundreds of dollars. When you're taking it in high school, at least for us, it was free. So I want you to think about it from that perspective. And then Oscar, if you want to add on to that, I'm sure you have another perspective.

Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that because one, I agree with that, and two, You also want to make sure that you're balanced, and I say that because if you take too many dual enrollment courses, that might affect your status as an entering freshman, which may ultimately impact financial aid. So definitely look at the fine print, and if that's the case, you take the AP course. Keep in mind, with the AP course, there's also a test in May that your student will be asked to take.. So if they prefer not to have that major test, you may want to go with dual credit. Or if your student tests really well and they get a 4 or 5 on that AP exam, that can really bode well for you in the college application. And not only that, those 4s and 5s can give you credit, so you don't have to take that course in college, and you get to save yourself quite a bit of money. So I would say there's no real right or wrong answer, but definitely look fine print and look at the return on your investment, as Shellee mentioned.

And just one little piece, if you want to, I'll let you do the last one, Oscar. Another thing to consider when you're trying to decide, you know, well, first you need to decide, does your school offer dual enrollment? Again, it's not a given across the board. But if you're offered it and you don't take it, now there's a whole nother can of worms. That they're thinking, well, if they're that good at AP Calc, why are they not doing dual enrollment? The other thing to consider is if you decide you want to go to a top-tier school like an Ivy, they don't care how many APs you take. You still have to take those darn classes when you get there because college is a business and they want your dollars. So there's a lot that goes into it, and we put together a strategy for the student. You don't want to sink their ship and take all their GPA down because you have a dual enrollment. So I wish I could simplify it, but it really does depend on the student.

Absolutely. I agree with that. It's not one size fits all at all. All right, happy to jump here with the last question. My son is with an online accredited high school while doing full-time pre-professional dance training. Training. So he is not attending a brick-and-mortar school. Will his academic profile be judged like a traditional school? Yes, it will, um, so long as it's accredited, which it is. And that's important, right? That's why it's so important to be at a— at an accredited school, whether it is a brick-and-mortar or an online school. There are plenty of schools out there that are not accredited, unfortunately. And that accrediting body tells the colleges and the schools, hey, this place is legitimate. So just because it's an online school doesn't mean it's any less than a brick and mortar. In fact, given the situation, pre-professional dance, that's amazing. And so you need something that's highly flexible and that you can take at your own time, which I imagine brick and mortars don't provide you. Actually, I don't imagine, I know, uh, if that's the route that you want to take, and that's okay. In fact, that's a pretty interesting scenario. I want to read that college application to see what that course has been like, you know, what is— what have you done during that pre-professional training? That, that seems really cool. So going back to the question, your academic profile will be looked at the same way as a traditional school so long as it is accredited.

I will add one thing to that, and that is if your student wants to apply to a UC, a University of California school, they have to meet an A through G requirement. Online schools are not looking at making sure your child is going to meet the A through G requirement. So now it's up to you as the parent, or us as the consultant, to call that out. Because I, I can't tell you how many times I pick up a student as a junior or senior and they haven't met the requirements, and their dream school is UC Santa Barbara. And I'm like, unless we can figure out how to catch up, they're, they're not going to even look at you. That is the hardest thing to tell a student. So please always ask and always get a wet signature because that person may not be there the next time you go, and that could be devastating for your child. So we are going to call it a wrap. We have met our quota, and we are good to go. So, Oscar, any last words you'd like to share?

Yeah, absolutely. Happy to help any families out if they're looking for summer courses or classes during the school year that are A-G approved, honors, AP courses, or fun electives, as somebody mentioned earlier. I'm going to go ahead and drop the link to our website in the chat right here, or I'll drop it— is there a way to drop it in the Q&A? And if not, if you go to holstonacademy.org and you click on our course catalog, you'll be able to easily find it. So it's actually right here in the, in the screen that you see behind me. That's how you spell it, Holston Academy. If you Google it, it will be the first link right there. Otherwise, holstonacademy.org. We're happy to help you with any courses, over 300 courses in our catalog.

So incredibly important. Get support. Double-check everything. Work with accredited. There's nothing harder for me to tell a family other than, I'm sorry you wasted your time over the summer taking a class that doesn't count. Oh, that is so terrible. So on a positive note, you know how to reach Oscar. You know how to reach me. We are grateful for your time. Thank you so much. And we wish you all the best in your college admissions journey.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, everybody.

Thank you for joining us.