College Crunch: Navigating the New Frontier with College
Admissions Advisor Julie Kelsheimer
Lisa Hassler
Welcome to The Brighter Side of Education. I am your host, Dr. Lisa Hassler, here to enlighten and brighten the classrooms in America through focused conversation on important topics in education. In each episode, I discuss problems we as teachers and parents are facing and what people are doing in their communities to fix it. What are the variables, and how can we duplicate it to maximize student outcomes? In this episode, we discuss the changing landscape for college admissions. What are the current trends, as well as the academic steps needed to help students reach their college goals? Most college students report improved job prospects and financial security as a primary reason for college attendance.
But the benefits of a college education extend beyond financial gains. In the study Education Pays 2019 The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals in Society, researchers reported these main personal and societal findings. First, individuals with higher levels of education earn more, pay more taxes, and are more likely than others to be employed. Second, having a college degree is associated with a healthier lifestyle, potentially reducing health care costs. Adults with higher levels of education are more active citizens than others and are more involved in their children's activities as a nation, more young adults aged 18 to 24 are investing in college.
The percentage of those young adults who enrolled increased from 25% in 1978% in 2018. So how can we help more students make the leap from high school to college? The ever changing application process can make the road to college acceptance overwhelming and confusing. Here to help is college admissions advisor Julie Kelsheimer. She works with Great Minds Advising, which is the remotely based college advising wing of the tutoring company Westchester Prep, located just outside of New York City. Welcome to the show, Julie.
Julie Kelsheimer
Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for having me.
Lisa Hassler
So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into college? Advising?
Julie Kelsheimer
Sure. So I spent about ten years educating middle schoolers and high school students in the private realm. And I oftentimes found myself assisting, especially the high school students during their application process, or doing things like getting their resume ready to submit to a school, getting some higher value pertinent activities on there, and then, of course, through the essay process and the recommendation process. And then I also taught at two universities as a professor for eight years. So I do think that I kind of have a unique perspective being on both ends of that spectrum, seeing the middle schoolers and the high schoolers before and during that application process, and then working with the actual college students after they've crossed that finish line and they're successfully into college.
Lisa Hassler
So now you say there are seven steps to the college application process that parents and students should be aware of. Can you talk a little bit about those?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah. I like to think that there are seven main topics to cover or things to achieve in order to pursue a successful application cycle. So the first would be narrative or resume building. So this has to be kind of the first step in the process. Sometimes it's referred to as a story building, and what it means is a student starts to really decipher, what am I interested in academically? Where do I thrive? What sparks my interest? What am I finding myself reading about or watching outside of the classroom that I'm really, really drawn to? We start to discover what that narrative is so that we can build the activities and the courses and everything else around that story.
The second topic to cover would be academic strategy. And this essentially involves what courses am I selecting? It's really, really important that students focus on a high GPA because colleges primarily are going to be looking at that as the first or one of the first items of business to cover with the students. So you want to pick courses that are going to allow you to keep mostly A's if possible, or the highest GPA possible. Ideally, after you've discovered your narrative, the courses that you're choosing are geared towards that narrative or that primary academic interest first and foremost.
It also depends on the type of goal that you have for a college. So if there's a student that wants a top ten or top 15 university, they not only have to have courses geared towards their interest, but they have to be the highest rigor possible. So those are the types of schools looking at AP or IB courses. And again, are you taking a high rigor schedule and maintaining all A's pretty much for that tier university? That's what they're going to be looking for. For a student who maybe is like, I'm interested in top 60, 70, top hundred schools, the rigor itself might not be as important, so maybe not as many APS or IB type courses.
But again, you want to be taking a course schedule that is going to show that you can achieve that high GPA. So that would be academic strategy followed by testing strategy. So today we live in a very test optional world. So a lot of colleges are not requiring students to submit their act or Sat scores. But you do have to be a responsible student and say, okay, I'm going to look either on the common data set, which you can find online, or on individual university websites. I'm going to look and see what is the grade range for the Sat and or act for the students who achieved successful admission to that school.
And if we always recommend the student do take a test, either the act or Sat based on where their need lies, but look at your best score and say, okay, if I fall at or above the 50th percentile of students who were admitted to that school, I'm going to submit it. It's going to be worth your while to submit that score because it could make or break your admission versus somebody who maybe is equal in profile but didn't submit a test score or submitted a lower test score. Yeah, that would be testing. Again, strategy. It's all strategy.
So the fourth thing that's really important are the letters of recommendation. So every college or university is going to require a rec letter from a guidance counselor, and then most often, they will require two teacher recommendations. Some schools will let you go beyond that and say, you can have a supplemental rec letter from somebody not involved in your school or a mentor elsewhere. But guidance counselors write on every single student's behalf, mostly showing the ways that that student has contributed to the school community. So how have they contributed outside of the classroom? For students that have undergone, like, significant hardship or there's an illness or a family situation, something that has really affected their grades for a semester or a year, whatever the case may be, that would be the opportunity, if appropriate, for the guidance counselor to speak on their behalf in that way.
The teacher recommendations. Usually we recommend that students pick two teachers from core curriculum subjects. So one humanities and one Stem leaning student. Ideally, if a student has decided my narrative is in physics, I really love the study of this. Ideally, it would be a physics professor or an AP physics professor. But again, you have to be sure that the person or people you're asking to write these rec letters for you are people that you have good relationships with, a great rapport with inside and outside of the classroom, and that you've actually succeeded in their class. You want somebody to be able to say, this is an excellent student.
Here is specifically what they brought to the table in my class, and here's why I would highly recommend them for your school. So again, it's the strategy of who do I choose for these rec letters? The fifth topic would be school selection or college list creation. So I think that there's a common misconception that we need to evaluate quantity over quality sometimes when it comes to these school lists or college lists. Meaning? Okay, I need to be sure I have this amount of reaches, this amount of targets, and this amount of safeties, and I'm going to apply to them all because I want to be sure that something works out.
I think the reality is, in today's current landscape, a lot of schools are offering early admit cycles. So this would be early decision, early action. There's a couple of other options that schools offer as well, and it has proven that for schools who offer those options, the percentage of people they're accepting in the early rounds is sometimes far greater than the percentage that they're accepting overall. Oftentimes, if a student is willing to submit and be considered early at a school, they do have a little bit of an advantage in doing so. So again, coming back to strategy, I think the smartest thing for students to do is to say, okay, rather than considering this 20 plus school list, what school do I really want to go to, and how am I going to do everything that I can do to try to get an early admit to that school?
So it's really focusing on the two to three schools you might apply to early, as opposed to the gamut of school.
Lisa Hassler
Okay. Yeah.
Julie Kelsheimer
And then the 6th topic would be personal and supplemental essays. So in the application, every school is most schools are going to require the personal essay. This is essentially the statement of who you are. It's the glimpse for a college or university into who is this person outside of their metrics. In an ideal situation, you're taking a part of your life or a specific story from your life, and you're connecting it back to that academic narrative that you've been cultivating to show how you're going to take who you are as a person or the experiences you bring to the table.
And you're going to use the academic interest you want to nourish at that college for the benefit of that campus and for the benefit of the world after graduation. And then the supplemental essays would be individual schools asking specific things. Why do you want to study here? Why do you want to choose this major at our university? Usually things like that.
Lisa Hassler
Yeah.
Julie Kelsheimer
And then the final thing that's really important is the strategic positioning or the major declaration per school. So when you're on the common app or whatever the school's application is, there's usually going to be a spot where you have to declare your major or pick what major you're going to study at that university. And again, it's strategy. So if you are a student who's done very well, you have mostly a's you've got a fairly good resume, you meet most of the, if not all of what that school is typically going to need for admission. That's great.
But you need to consider, is it going to be wise for me to declare a major that is the singular most popular major at that school? If you're, like, off the charts and the things that you have to offer are just nobody else can touch. Okay, yeah, maybe that makes sense. But to declare psychology at a school where that is the single most popular major at the school, and it's maybe a more elite or a top ranked university might not work to your favor.
Lisa Hassler
Wow, I never thought about that. That's interesting because you would think, oh, I need to go there because that's what they're known for. And so I want to get into that pool. And then your chances might be less because you have so many more candidates.
Julie Kelsheimer
Wanting to do that well. And like I said, if you really are off the charts in every single possible way. Okay, there's a case for that. MIT is one of the most difficult schools to get into for computer science. I think the acceptance rate for that major is under 6%. So it becomes a question of, okay, am I going to declare that major at that school, or am I going to say, what other major can I pick? That's going to essentially give me the same courses. I'm going to be able to kind of study the same pathway, but it's going to be not like the top pick major for that school.
Maybe something like data science in that situation. So it's just definitely, again, a strategy of something to consider when applying.
Lisa Hassler
So a couple of things as you were going through that, I didn't want to interrupt you, but resume building. When you say resume building, it's like these kids are applying for a job. There's a lot to it. And so when you hear that and you think about application, it's not just fill in the blank. It's really building a resume just like we would for a job. And they want to look at all those different parts of our lives to say, is this person the most qualified and has maybe the most potential and experience to give to our school?
And the other thing I was thinking about was the school list creation. So if you don't get to your top school that you really, really wanted locally, sometimes people will say, if you really wanted to get into UF, for instance, and you didn't get in there and you have this really strong desire, and that's the only school that you want to go to. And if you didn't get into it, something you can do is go to the community college near like, you know, some kids will say, well, I'll go to Santa Fe then and transfer in after I have my that. Is that common?
Does that happen in other places around as well? Or is that something that you would recommend to a student that maybe had their heart set on one school only?
Julie Kelsheimer
Well, I think it ultimately comes down to goals, like I was saying. So if a student's goals is, this is where I want to go to school, and I'm fully accepting that if I don't get in, I am going to try again, or I'm going to do a two year community college until I can get into that school, then that is that student in that family's prerogative.
Lisa Hassler
Right.
Julie Kelsheimer
We as advisors would recommend, okay, if you're meeting the metrics for that school and you have a competitive profile, then that's when we would do one of those early decision type rounds or early action, depending on what the school offers, in hopes that that would end up working out. And if it doesn't, that's where we advise students. Okay, what would be your second option, perhaps your early decision two option? What would be your early action options? Hoping to find a school that could suit that need. But again, it's student goals.
Lisa Hassler
How many colleges can you apply for early? Is there a limit?
Julie Kelsheimer
Well, early action, you can apply to as many as you want. So early decision is binding, and you can only apply to a singular early decision one school, meaning that you're pretty much putting it out there that this is where I want to be. I'm applying early decision one to you. And I understand that if I'm accepted, my college search is over. I'm going to your.
Lisa Hassler
Oh, so again, I did not know.
Julie Kelsheimer
That sounded a strategy.
Lisa Hassler
Yeah, and then I was thinking about GPA. So sometimes when students are faced with, do I take an AP course? And I know this is going to be a really tough class. I'm not sure how I'm going to do in it, but I want to take it because it's an AP course. But I could take the general class that is given within the normal high school curriculum. You would recommend they take the one that they feel as though they could get the A in?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, absolutely. Students should be primarily concerned with their GPA now. They can look at their track record and see, okay, if I took regular biology or earth science or whatever, and I was getting A's and A pluses, and I'm feeling confident, that's a subject I feel strong in, especially if that's where their narrative is leaning, then yeah, you might consider that. You should consider that AP or that advanced honors course, but if it's something you're not historically doing well in, or it brings you a lot of anxiety because, you know, this is not your strong suit, pushing yourself into the AP might not be strategically wise.
Lisa Hassler
And I could see with sometimes these kids are taking three and four AP classes and they're involved in extracurricular things that that might be a heavy load, especially in your junior year, your senior year. That just might be a lot to be placed on your shoulders. What is the most important year when it comes to high school?
Julie Kelsheimer
Well, frankly, they all matter. I think what colleges are primarily looking at would be that most recent year, that junior year. But I will say they're looking at the freshman year and they're looking at the sophomore year. And what they're also looking at is how did you progress or not progress? So while the junior year is the most recent, they certainly are going as far back as that freshman year.
Lisa Hassler
So what's the best time then to start planning for college?
Julie Kelsheimer
It really depends on the student. I think that it all comes back down to that narrative or that story building. So in my opinion, the earlier a student can start identifying where their interests are, where potentially their strengths are, the more time they give themselves to then develop a really strong profile. What I mean by that is a strong set of extracurriculars, a strong idea of which courses year by year, they're going to be selecting to serve that narrative. It's a little bit of a tangent. The reason that I keep coming back to the narrative is because with how competitive today's landscape is in college admissions, that admissions officer wants to see that they are accepting into their school somebody who's already kind of an expert and a prodigy in whatever that area of interest is.
Not somebody who dabbles in it, perhaps, and really beyond that hasn't done anything. Again, it does depend on the level of school, but that is typical. So that being said, I do think that students who work with us in our company find a lot of success if they start as freshmen or sophomores because we really can help them from the ground up, build some good tools. If a student approaches us and they are a junior or they're a rising senior, say it's summer before senior year, they certainly can find success because maybe they've done some of this on their own.
Maybe they're coming to us saying, I know what I'm interested in. I've already taken it upon myself to build my courses to suit that, and I already have built my extracurriculars or internships or et cetera to suit that. And then we can meet them where we are in finesse. There are some that come to us as juniors or rising seniors and say, well, I don't know. I've dabbled in a little bit of everything. So what we do then is we find the trends. We say, okay, let's look at your courses, let's look at your GPA, let's look at that resume.
Are we spotting a trend to show us where your interest actually does lie? And then how do we maximize the time we have left to feed that narrative and to strategically apply to the schools that are seeking out you?
Lisa Hassler
And I think that that's something because even as a parent we spoke earlier, I have seven kids, and so I've gone through this process seven times, and it's gotten more difficult as the years have progressed. And there's gaps in what I know and what I don't know and how I can help them and even how far their high school advisor can help them. And I think that's the difference between parents limitations as to what do we recall, how it was for us and what kind of changes we're seeing in the landscape. And there are the high school advisors there to help those students.
So what's the advantage for a parent and a student to go outside and to seek a private advisor compared to just staying within their high school?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah. So if you think about the role of a high school guidance counselor, they have a lot of kids that they are considering, especially there are some public schools that it's hundreds of kids that they are responsible for the benefit to a private advisor. Like what I and my team do is that we are individually working with that student on the specific narrative they are telling, sometimes from 9th grade on. So we are keenly aware of their metrics. We call these hard factors. So your GPA, your test scores, if you're choosing to pursue that, your course rigor or your course load, we are keenly aware of those metrics.
But more importantly, we're aware of what we call soft factors. So the soft factors are not quantifiable. They're things like your personal essay, your resume, your letters of recommendation, and the quality of those. So we are keenly aware of how to help you get the best out of those soft factors to suit your college goals. And as professionals in the field, we're also aware of is this competitive at your school that you want to go to? The metrics are a little more easy to determine. If you're competitive there the soft factors that can be more difficult.
So the private advisor is just so keenly aware of you as an individual that that's where the benefit comes in oftentimes.
Lisa Hassler
So what are some things to consider in high school to add to your resume then that weren't there 2025 years ago? Something that parents may not be aware of beyond those soft factors?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, so like I said, you had mentioned this earlier too. College admissions is almost like a job interview process or a job application process. So most resumes that we see have a variety of activities that we categorize as high value, medium value, and low value. So high value activities typically are those that are most related to that student's primary area of interest or primary narrative. And they're a little bit more prestigious or even professional in nature. So oftentimes these high value activities are ones that are done or accomplished outside of just high school. This would be like a student who's interested in business or entrepreneurship that already has their own successful business.
This would be maybe a biology. Oh, yes. It's amazing what kids are doing and can do. This would be someone like a biology major who has already pursued or is pursuing professional level research with a university professor off campus. It's amazing. It's inspiring, really, it really is. But these are what we call high value because, I mean, just your reaction, my reaction, it says it all. It's like, wow, okay, this is somebody who's going to be contributing massively to our college and to our world.
Lisa Hassler
I feel like such a slacker in high school now. I look back and I'm like, lisa, what were you doing? You were starting private companies and working with professors on research.
Julie Kelsheimer
It's so and I just think it's because those opportunities are so available. Like, if you seek know, and especially with access to the there's, there are the opportunities to pursue. So that's what we call high value. Okay. Medium value would be activities still related to that narrative, to that primary academic interest. But a lot of times it is not quite as professional in nature. So it might be confined to high school or to the students intimate community. This would be something like, I'm interested in journalism and I'm the editor in chief of our school newspaper. This would be somebody who maybe is interested in childhood psychology and they founded and are the president of the school's mental health club.
So it's a lot of leadership, a lot of innovation. But again, related to the primary interest.
Lisa Hassler
These are go getters.
Julie Kelsheimer
Oh, yeah, I'm impressed. Yeah. And then the lower value are things that are maybe not showing the level of innovation or the level of leadership. Maybe they're related to the narrative, maybe they're not. This would be things like being a high school athlete. If you are not going to be a recruit specifically, this would be maybe doing community service. That has nothing really to do with your interest. It's just something you enjoy. So high, medium, low value activities, the higher your school goals, the more top tier these schools are, the more high value they want to see.
And then, of course, as you progress kind of down the ranks, it can be a little bit of all the activities that are more commonly accepted.
Lisa Hassler
Well, something that I definitely did not have to consider when I was applying to colleges way back when was social media. Is that an urban myth? Do colleges really look at social media? Can they get into trouble for something they did in 7th grade naively posted? Or do you recommend, like, hey, you might want to go through your social media and pull out any questionable activities?
Julie Kelsheimer
The reality is, anything any of us put on the internet, anybody can see. Right. And that is true for colleges. So admissions officers have the same ability to go online and to look at your social media presence that you or I or anyone else does. Actually, it is possible for colleges that you have been accepted to and have confirmed that you're going to be attending. It is possible, and it does happen, that they can revoke that acceptance. Yikes. And a huge part of why sometimes is the social media presence. So as parents be aware of this and as students keep everything clean, you want to go to college, not just get accepted to it, and then nothing beyond that.
Lisa Hassler
That is true. You put your best foot forward, right?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, exactly.
Lisa Hassler
So with the increase of AP program access in many high schools, GPAs are often weighted. Is it normal for parents to be concerned about considering this when they're choosing even the high school that they attend?
Julie Kelsheimer
So when considering which courses to take through high school, like I said, the students need to be concerned with the GPA. The college often will look at the GPA on an unweighted scale, so they're trying to see things as equally and fairly as they can. The college admissions officers also will receive your individual high school profile. So they will know exactly what GPA scale you were on, exactly which courses you could or couldn't take, and whatever you did pursue or did not pursue. And then how your GPA falls on the scale of what your high school GPA is, and then the unweighted scale.
So I would say it's not something to be concerned about, but it is something to just understand. Okay, in my high school, given what I am offered, how can I keep my GPA high, and if possible, depending on the tier of school, my course, regular high, and that will read accurately to the admissions officer.
Lisa Hassler
So if a school does not offer AP classes, let's say, is that held against them when they go against students that did have a potential IB program or AP classes available to them? Just wondering how the admissions officer would take that into consideration and know then that this is the highest GPA that they were allowed and this is what was available to them and not discriminate based on that.
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah. So like I said, the admissions officers will get the profile for your high school, so they will be aware that, okay, these programs were not available to the student.
Lisa Hassler
Okay, good.
Julie Kelsheimer
But did the student do the best of what they could with what they were offered? And that is going to be more important than well, so and so at the other school took ten APS because they had those available and you didn't. Sorry. They'll look at what you could do in the confines of what you had. Students can look outside of school, too. They can say, I'm going to take it upon myself to maybe take this class at the community college for college credit, or do this summer program that involves coursework, so they can also get outside of the high school walls to pursue that rigor if they choose.
Lisa Hassler
Oh, I didn't know that. So you could go to the community college and you could apply even if you don't have your high school diploma yet.
Julie Kelsheimer
Well, you wouldn't be necessarily an enrolled student with that community college, but you could take college credit level courses. Oftentimes these are offered in the summer and you could get some bonus material, bonus classes in there if you choose.
Lisa Hassler
How does the baccalaureate program weigh in on all that? One of those your IB program, what do admissions officers do with it's?
Julie Kelsheimer
It's essentially the AP IB. It just shows that there's an advanced level rigor there. And they're just going to understand that if that was offered at the school and that school was an, and, you know, if the students are considering took those and succeeded in them, it will work to the same advantage that like an AP level rigor would at another school.
Lisa Hassler
Oh, okay, good. Is there a higher GPA for. That? I don't know. None of my kids did. IB?
Julie Kelsheimer
No. I think it depends on school, honestly, for school.
Lisa Hassler
Well, with affirmative action being struck down by the Supreme Court in June, how does this change the college admissions process? Any changes you know of?
Julie Kelsheimer
Well, that was definitely a big news item this summer, and we don't know yet, because August 1 is the date that the common app, which is the most common of applications that the schools use. It's not until August 1 that that changes over for the new admission cycle. What that means is every college that has their application on the common app will have submitted whatever their new essay prompts are. Any additional materials that they're adding or changing will be updated August 1. There's speculation that maybe some schools are going to be adding supplemental essays to allow a student to reflect a little bit more on who they are, their cultural history, how they have uniquely contributed to their communities, et cetera.
So essentially, there's some speculation that schools might be able to gather a little bit more about students and who they are. But again, until we see that turnover, we're not going to know quite yet.
Lisa Hassler
And then I know that with Chat GPT, this is like, to some, a gift that fell from heaven, where it's like, woohoo, I could give my essay. They could do that. What are colleges doing with this whole Chat GPT thing with their personal essays?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah.
Lisa Hassler
Is it a factor?
Julie Kelsheimer
It's an interesting thing to discuss because Chat GPT is not inherently bad. There is really no inherent issue with Chat GPT, and in some circumstances, it's worth knowing about using, depending on the scenario when it comes to college applications, to use something like Chat GPT to write your essay or to write your materials for you is dishonest. And there are certain apps like Turn It In or Zero GPT that are becoming very efficient at deciphering who is writing their actual essay and who's using artificial intelligence. And if you are kind of caught using their artificial intelligence for your essays, you could ruin your chance at admission to that school or consideration by that school.
Lisa Hassler
So not worth it.
Julie Kelsheimer
Not worth it. No, not in my opinion.
Lisa Hassler
Definitely not. What's the best time to apply for colleges and how many do you recommend students apply to?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, this kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier. So rather than quantifying a list and saying ideally you're applying to 15 to 20 schools, really the focus should be on the two or three schools that you're going to put in early applications to. Specifically, that ed one. Ed two, meaning early decision one round, early decision two round. Some of the top five universities have SCEA single choice early action. There's other schools like Notre Dame and Harvard that have rea restrictive early action. These are schools that you also can apply to early. Just that school early.
Those two plans are non binding, but so what you're wanting to do is say, what are my goals? What school or schools am I really going to see myself being happy at and succeeding at, and how can I structure my application at the best chance of getting in there? Because if you do that's it. Then by December your process is finished, you're into whatever school you chose and that's it. And then if not, that's why we have the Ed two and the EA, et cetera. I have a couple of stats if I can give them to you, just to give you an idea of how much more of a chance some students have in these early rounds.
So for NYU, in the most recent cycle, they accepted 27.8% early and 8% overall. So that's a large gap. Tulane it was, 67.9% were accepted early and then 13% overall.
Lisa Hassler
Big.
Julie Kelsheimer
So I mean, for some of these schools, we're talking like well over half of the people applying in these early rounds are getting that admission, where maybe ten to 13% are getting it overall. So again, the college list, if done strategically and wisely, really should be focused in on those early applications.
Lisa Hassler
Yeah, that's good to know. When do you apply for something like that? Is it like September, October? When should you have those resumes ready?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, most of those very early rounds are due by November 1.
Lisa Hassler
Okay.
Julie Kelsheimer
In most schools, and then typically in the month of December, they're finding out if they got admission.
Lisa Hassler
So there's like a month gap. I was wondering that was the next question was how long do you usually wait to hear? When are they making those decisions? So it's about a month later or so.
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, typically they know and for those schools, like early decision, it is binding. So it's like, okay, I got in and I'm going.
Lisa Hassler
Yay, everyone gets a great Christmas.
Julie Kelsheimer
I know what a nice and enjoy.
Lisa Hassler
The rest of your year.
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, exactly.
Lisa Hassler
So what professional advice can you leave with parents about the college application process? Any hidden factors that admissions officers look for?
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, so I think the best and oftentimes the kindest thing that parents can do for their student is understand that the landscape that your child is applying to school in today is significantly different than five years ago, than ten years ago, much less two or three decades ago. So it's really important to understand that maybe what worked for a parent or what helped that parent find success is not going to be the same type of thing that's going to help your child find success today. So it's going in with an open mind and understanding that, again, I do think that's where private college advisors come in, it's because they are abreast of this current landscape and how to find success. The other thing parents can do, I think, is help their child start early.
So if you're starting to notice an interest, or your child is showing interest within and outside of school in something nourish. That help them find somebody that can help them hone that in and connect them to professionals or to opportunities that are going to feed that interest. And then as far as any hidden factors, I don't know if I know the entire answer to that. I think it's per school, per admissions officer. But I do think that you can take opportunities to demonstrate your interest. So if there are schools you're interested in, do the official campus visit.
Have your name on as many pieces of paper and sign up forms and documents as you can. Oftentimes, high schools will host college fairs and various colleges will come in on different days to give official talks or presentations. Go to it, sign up, put your name on it, stay afterwards, introduce yourself, ask questions that weren't addressed in the presentation. All of this is documented. For some schools, it matters more than others, but it certainly can't hurt to make your presence known to them ahead of time.
Lisa Hassler
Yeah, you were saying something about you sign up for their newsletter. They actually can see if the student has opened that newsletter.
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, they can see who is receiving, obviously, who's on the list serves, who's receiving these, and then who is actually engaging with them.
Lisa Hassler
So open up the newsletter.
Julie Kelsheimer
Open them up. Yeah. Take your email. I know it's annoying, but it will.
Lisa Hassler
But so many times students are more apt to texting and so they're not opening up these emails we're seeing. Or when they do, there's like, oh wow, I had so many, I didn't even know that they sent this to many. Definitely read the emails and open them up. Well, thank you Julie, for joining me today to discuss the college admissions process.
Julie Kelsheimer
Yeah, thanks Lisa, for having me.
Lisa Hassler
To connect with the Great Minds Advising team or to work with one of their advisors, visit www.westchesterprep.com or visit them on Facebook or Instagram for daily college admissions insights. And you can also visit their website or join their newsletter. The call to action is to stay abreast on the changes in college admissions and to be engaged in the process earlier for better chances at getting into the college of your choice. If you have a story about what's working in your schools that you'd like to share, you can email me at dr lisarichardsonhassler@gmail.com or visit my website at www.drlisarhassler.com and send me a message.
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