Get Started on the Easy Parts of Your College Application

Last week you did your research about applications for each of the colleges on your list, so this week you are finally ready to really get started on completing those applications. I know you expect that this is when we’ll suggest you get going on the essays, but not just yet.

Why?

Two reasons.

First, the applications for your coming admissions cycle have not gone “live” yet, meaning that most colleges have not yet released their essay questions and won’t do so until early August.

Yes, we know that the Common App and the Coalition App have announced their own personal essay topics, but you want to draft those essays with the OTHER essays that will be required in mind (the college-specific “supplemental essays”) — that will save you a LOT of time in the long run, because you’ll be able to combine essays for different schools in a strategic way — so you need to wait a couple more weeks to avoid wasting time.

Second, you’ll generate better topics for the essays once you’ve seen what information is shared in other places on the application. You want to use every question on the application wisely, and that means revealing as many dimensions of yourself as you can – so there’s no reason to repeat something in an essay that you’ve already been able to feature sufficiently elsewhere in the application. So you’ll want to see how much you can showcase in the “form” part of the application before you decide how to use the essay portion of your applications. Again, this is all about strategy.

That’s because admissions officers don’t evaluate your essay(s) in a vacuum, and you shouldn’t work on your essays in a vacuum either. That’s what a holistic admissions process is all about. Your best essay will be the one that fits into the rest of your application taken as a whole. That’s one of the more important things to understand when it comes to thinking like an admissions officer.

What are you going to do then in the meantime? All the “easy” parts of the application: your contact info, your family info, your educational background, and your activities.

They are easy because they require information that you can easily get, and they don’t have to be answered in essay format. But they are important to get right, and attention to detail is very important. And when it comes to activities in particular, you want to include the information that admissions officers actually care about (more on that below). These questions contain information that is vital to improving your chances for admission, so they are worth focusing on now.

A bonus: If you do these easy parts now, you can get them perfect and you won’t be sweating them at the last minute, which is always a sure way to botch it.

WEEK 27 TO-DOS

THIS WEEK

• Register on all the application platforms used by the colleges on your list – Common App, Coalition App, each college’s own app, any others. You do this online and you’ll have to create an account with a valid email address and choose a password.

• Complete the non-writing parts of the application. Those sections are usually the first sections you are asked to complete. For example, on the Common App those sections are labeled Profile, Family, Education, Testing, Activities. Some colleges also use the Common App’s Self-Reported Transcript section. (The answers you save in your Common App account now will “roll over” into the forms for the coming application cycle, and you can always edit them later as needed.) On the Coalition App, those sections are labelled slightly differently, and with colleges that use their own applications, they may be divided into different parts of the application. Georgetown, for example, has you complete and submit the “Georgetown Application,” which just asks for the most basic information, and then you work on the “Application Supplement,” which contains the questions about activities and essays.

• If you are using the Common App, do NOT start working on college supplements yet, because the supplements for this coming season haven’t been released yet. Most supplements on the Common App are released in August, and some straggler colleges don’t post their supplements until after August.

• IF YOU ARE APPLYING TO A PERFORMING OR VISUAL ARTS PROGRAM and a portfolio or audition is required, or you have researched it and determined that submitting supplementary materials like these is beneficial, begin working on them now. The pandemic has made auditioning in person particularly problematic, so check each college’s website to find out how they plan to handle auditions for the coming year. Pay close attention to the technical requirements for portfolios and auditions, as well as special deadlines, and focus your efforts on works or audition pieces that meet these requirements. Admissions officers either flat out refuse to consider things that don’t meet the requirements, or they have a negative bias towards them (and by extension the applicant).
  
  

THIS WEEK AND EVERY WEEK

• Check your email, voicemail, texts, and snail mail for any communications that relate to applying to college. Read them and take whatever action is necessary.

• Update your parents about what you’re doing. This regular communication will work wonders in your relationship with your parents during this stress-filled year.

TIPS & TRICKS

1. Check that you've filled out the factual questions about yourself accurately and to your advantage.

What are those factual questions? These are questions asking you about you and your family: your age, your gender, your state of residence, your citizenship, your languages, your ethnicity or race, and your veteran status. If you don't feel as if the boxes on the application really represent who you are, check the ones that come closest, and then use the Additional Information question of the Writing section of the application to elaborate. Also make sure to use your legal name on all your college application documents so that your name is consistent (that will save you lots of headaches later). Follow the U.S. format for dates (month/day/year). Use a reliable snail-mail and email address. Proofread!

2. Check that your activities list conveys the Core Four.

Go back to the work you did in Week 25, and as you review your activities list in the application, make sure you've communicated all the activities that tell your story, and that you've conveyed the Core Four (don't forget impact in particular). Also make sure you've made use of the space available to you in the activities list. You can read more tips for these sections in chapters 3, 6, 7, 8, and 14 in our book.

3. Restrain yourself when it comes to optional supplementary materials in the arts.

What are optional supplementary materials in the arts? Portfolios, videos of performances, creative writing samples, etc. Many well-meaning people will advise you that these kinds of optional supplementary materials are the key to a standout application, and the more the merrier. We don’t agree. Once upon a time (like almost 30 years ago), this was the conventional wisdom. Hours and hours were devoted to thinking about how to send exactly the “right” supplementary materials. But that was then, and this is now. Supplementary materials are now considered much differently. What once might have impressed an admissions officer is now often a somewhat irritating distraction for admissions officers trying to process and evaluate tens of thousands of applications.

The takeaway for you?

More is not always more. More is only more if it really, truly adds something to your application.

Furthermore, more is only helpful if your supplementary materials are welcomed and considered by the college (you can find that out by checking their website).

So do yourself a favor and exhibit restraint when it comes to optional, supplementary materials in the arts. Plan to submit supplementary materials only if (1) they truly add something, and (2) they are both welcomed and considered by that college.