Find Your College
Check out Mrs. Holt and Mrs. Finnegan's advice on applying to colleges.
Not sure where to go? Bigfuture.org has the best search engine for narrowing down your choices of colleges! As you rate each criterion as a "must have," "want," or "don't care," the results of matching colleges are sorted accordingly by relevance. Once you have your final list of colleges, you can use the drop-down menu at the top to sort them by distance, size, cost/ aide, and selectivity (since the search engine automatically sorts results by relevance).
Not sure where to go? Bigfuture.org has the best search engine for narrowing down your choices of colleges! As you rate each criterion as a "must have," "want," or "don't care," the results of matching colleges are sorted accordingly by relevance. Once you have your final list of colleges, you can use the drop-down menu at the top to sort them by distance, size, cost/ aide, and selectivity (since the search engine automatically sorts results by relevance).
Complete Your Application, and Write Your Essay
Once you have found colleges you like, check the Common Application list to see whether any of your schools use Common Application. Sharing a mission of improving students' access to colleges, 488 colleges from 46 states and several countries allow students to apply by filling out this single application.
When applying to any schools that are not on the list above, you will need to fill out their application and write any essays they require (both of which can be found on the admissions page of their website or under the college's "application" section on the BigFutures search engine). If, however, any of your schools use the Common Application, you should register for a free Common Application account and save the application as you go. Do not submit the application until you have completely finished all parts of it.
The Common Application requires an essay with a 650 word limit in which you, as a writer, have two purposes: to acquaint colleges with your personality and with you as a student (apart from scores and data), and to demonstrate your ability to logically and articulately organize your thoughts and express yourself. Your target audience is a person who works in a college admissions office and reads thousands of essays that basically say "I am a good person who is involved and who tries hard," so you need to be specific (perhaps through clever anecdotes and personal voice/ tone) in order to make yourself stand out as a deserving candidate for acceptance. For advice on the three main types of college application essay prompts (the "describe yourself," the "why us?," and the "discuss an issue" questions), check out this brief and excellent essay advice from the College Board. Also, be sure to revise your college essay using this revision checklist.
When applying to any schools that are not on the list above, you will need to fill out their application and write any essays they require (both of which can be found on the admissions page of their website or under the college's "application" section on the BigFutures search engine). If, however, any of your schools use the Common Application, you should register for a free Common Application account and save the application as you go. Do not submit the application until you have completely finished all parts of it.
The Common Application requires an essay with a 650 word limit in which you, as a writer, have two purposes: to acquaint colleges with your personality and with you as a student (apart from scores and data), and to demonstrate your ability to logically and articulately organize your thoughts and express yourself. Your target audience is a person who works in a college admissions office and reads thousands of essays that basically say "I am a good person who is involved and who tries hard," so you need to be specific (perhaps through clever anecdotes and personal voice/ tone) in order to make yourself stand out as a deserving candidate for acceptance. For advice on the three main types of college application essay prompts (the "describe yourself," the "why us?," and the "discuss an issue" questions), check out this brief and excellent essay advice from the College Board. Also, be sure to revise your college essay using this revision checklist.
Obtain Your Recommendations from Teachers and Guidance
You will need to obtain two to three teacher recommendations and a recommendation from guidance.
Two weeks before you need their recommendation, you should hand or email each teacher a personal letter you wrote to them (a template for which you can download at the bottom of this page); and a typed resume (a template for which you can download at the bottom of this page). Also, make sure each teacher and counselor has access to your application through Naviance.
Your resume should list any activities, jobs, and community service that show your intelligence, motivation, creativity, civic-mindedness, leadership, or any other qualities colleges may want to see. Use these instructions to create your resume:
In addition to giving your recommending teachers a letter, your resume, and access through Naviance, you should also give these your guidance counselor along with any other forms they require within the amount of time they specify.
Two weeks before you need their recommendation, you should hand or email each teacher a personal letter you wrote to them (a template for which you can download at the bottom of this page); and a typed resume (a template for which you can download at the bottom of this page). Also, make sure each teacher and counselor has access to your application through Naviance.
Your resume should list any activities, jobs, and community service that show your intelligence, motivation, creativity, civic-mindedness, leadership, or any other qualities colleges may want to see. Use these instructions to create your resume:
- Classify your activities by type.
- List the years in which you participated in each.
- Include any leadership positions you held, and explain any activities you helped plan or took part in.
- Use bullet point fragments starting with vivid action verbs to make yourself seem more active and to help your teachers easily write you a good recommendation.
- Only include high school experiences on your resume, though you should include the year you started them to reflect the length of your dedication. (For example, if you played basketball in high school, but started it in 6th grade, you would put the year you started to reflect how long you committed to basketball.)
In addition to giving your recommending teachers a letter, your resume, and access through Naviance, you should also give these your guidance counselor along with any other forms they require within the amount of time they specify.
Remember:
1. Choose your top 3-5 colleges, and know why you want to go to each. You should apply to ALL of these since you may be able to talk colleges into giving you more money if you have also been accepted to similar schools.
2. Write the Common App essay with a 650 word limit, or an essay specific to your college.
3. Have two teachers and your counselors write you recommendation letters. Give them:
- A personal letter or email requesting a letter of recommendation from this teacher. (See files below.)
- Your typed resume including action verbs (See files below.) Use this example resume as a template by saving a copy of it to your Google Drive and changing it.
- Access in Naviance
Remember to ask for recommendations two weeks before you actually need them.
College Essay Revision Exercise:
Want to avoid common mistakes made on college essays? Use the revision checklist to revise each draft of the college admissions essay below. See if you can make changes to improve each draft, then look at the next draft to compare and contrast your changes with Mrs. Holt's changes. You will definitely see improvement when you do this with your own essay!
- First Draft Essay
- Second Draft Essay
- Third Draft Essay
- Final Draft Essay (an essay submitted by a South High School graduate who was accepted into Harvard...I backwards worked this essay into hypothetical drafts; however, all this student showed me was her final essay.)
Files to Help You:
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