college list

What You Can & Can’t Control in College Admissions

As discussed in our previous blog post on Holistic Admissions, there are many complex pieces to consider in the college application process. Each college has its own unique review factors and priorities, making it challenging for students and families to predict exactly what colleges are looking for. The desire to control every aspect of the process can feel overwhelming.

In truth, having that level of control in the admissions process is impossible. While there are certain aspects of the process that students can control, others lie entirely out of their reach. By recognizing and understanding what students can and can’t control, we can reduce some of the stress of application season.

In this blog post, we will dive into the elements of the college application that students have the power to control. Additionally, we will shed light on the factors beyond a student's control. Our aim is to help students focus their energy on the areas where they can truly make a difference and let go of factors beyond their influence.

Factors Students Can Control in the College Admissions Process

The College List

No one tells you where you must apply to college (though parents may have some “strong suggestions”). Students have control over their college list. They can apply to a list of ultra-selective colleges that admit less than 10% of their applicants (please do not do this!), or they can apply to a well-balanced list of schools where they have high, medium, and low chances of admission. Students cannot control their admission decision at each school, but they can apply to a strategic and balanced list of colleges.

Academic Performance

Academic performance during high school is one of the most critical factors in the application review process. Students should challenge themselves by taking rigorous courses, explore subjects that reflect their interests, and work to maintain strong grades.

Standardized Test Scores

While many colleges now have test-optional policies, students can impact their college applications by preparing for the SAT or ACT. Students can test more than once to take advantage of a superscore across test dates. There are also a number of test prep resources (including free resources!) to help students learn content and testing strategies to improve their test scores.

Extracurricular Involvement

The college application highlights four years of extracurricular activity, and this is one area where students have almost complete control. While many students have work or family responsibilities, there is still the opportunity for students to pursue their interests in their free time. Colleges are looking for students who are genuinely interested and committed, regardless of whether it's a sports team, a debate club, volunteering at a local shelter, or participating in a cultural organization. Use your extracurricular involvement to tell a story about who you are and what matters to you.

Essays

The personal statement and supplemental essays are entirely in the student’s power. Crafting compelling and authentic application essays allows students to showcase their unique experiences. Students should take their time when writing their college application essays. This is a great opportunity to reflect on your journey and tell your story the way you want it to be told.

Letters of Recommendation

Recommendations are partly within a student’s control. It’s true that someone else is writing these letters, and students waive their rights to view them as part of the application. But students have control over who they ask to represent them in the admissions process. Building strong relationships with teachers and mentors can lead to impactful letters of recommendation. Request recommendations from individuals who can highlight your skills, character, and potential to contribute positively to a college community.

Factors Students Have No Control Over in the College Admissions Process

Institutional Priorities

Colleges have specific institutional needs and priorities. We like this blog post from Georgia Tech that explains institutional priority, or IP (Georgia Tech calls them the two most important letters in college admissions). Factors such as demographics, geographical distribution, and family connections to a college (just to name a few!) play a role in their admissions decisions. Academic departments may also have specific requirements. Institutional needs are constantly changing and are rarely public knowledge. Don’t spend your time trying to predict what you think a college’s institutional priorities will be.

Competition & Numbers

College admission seems to get more competitive each year, especially at highly-selective colleges. One thing no one can control—not students and not the colleges themselves—is how many students apply each application cycle and who those students are. Application numbers swell due to large things (like a college joining The Common App or enacting a test-optional policy) and small things (like not having any additional essays or even winning an athletic championship… yes, really!). No matter how many students apply, each college only has limited spots. Many colleges could admit a qualified class of incoming students several times over from their applicant pool. With so many strong applicants, colleges often lean on things a student cannot control, like institutional priorities.

Admissions Decisions

Students can put their best foot forward, but at the end of the day, they cannot control the admissions decisions they receive from each school. Trust that you’ve done your best work throughout the application process, and trust that things will work out for you in the end.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

Be Authentic

Rather than fixating on trying to predict each aspect of the college admissions process, focus on personal growth and authenticity. Pursue your passions and interests, develop intellectual curiosity, and cultivate qualities that will serve you beyond college.

Build A Balanced College List

Decide what criteria make up a strong college fit for you, and build your college list from there. Thoroughly research schools that are a strong academic, social, and financial fit for you. As you build your college list, ensure that you are applying to a balanced list of schools where you have a good chance of admission.

Seek Guidance & Support

Use your resources! Whether it’s your college consultant, your school counselor, your teachers, or other resources you have available, you don’t have to go through this process alone! Seek guidance from those who can give expert advice and support you throughout the admissions process.

As you go through the college planning and application process, it's important to focus on the factors within your control and understand those that are not. Embrace authenticity, emphasize balance, and seek out support to confidently navigate the college admissions process.

Remember, your worth extends far beyond any college admissions decision. This journey is about finding the right fit for your future aspirations and goals.

We support students through the entire process & help them present their best selves in the admission process.

3 Steps to Finding Your Best College Fit

When it comes to building balanced college lists, one thing drives our process: fit.

College fit is how well an institution meets a student’s unique wants and needs for their best college experience. It’s entirely student-driven and entirely individual. If I’m working with a student on their college fit, we aren’t talking about what their older sibling, their friends, or even their parents wanted in a college experience. It’s all about that student. Their unique wants and needs.

We’re big believers in college fit for many reasons, but a few of them are:

  • Fit gives you a place to begin the college search - There are thousands of colleges out there, and searching can get overwhelming if you don’t know where to start! College fit gives students criteria to look for when learning about different colleges. In that way, fit can help guide college research beyond the admissions website.

  • Choosing a good fit saves time, money, and resources - Too often, students have a primary reason for choosing a college and haven’t fully considered its other factors. It could be an academic major, a sport (that they will be playing or enthusiastically supporting), name recognition, location, or some other reason. But when they get to campus, something changes. A student may want to change their major (most do!) or no longer wish to continue playing a sport. If the college is not a good fit for other reasons, they may need to consider transferring, which can add additional semesters or years, additional tuition, and so on.

  • A better college fit leads to happier students - And happier students are more engaged on campus! They’re taking advantage of opportunities, pursuing experience, and having a fulfilling 4 years.

So how do you find this elusive “best college fit?” This blog post will walk you through 3 factors—Academic, Financial, and Social—to find your best college fit.

But first, a disclaimer: the three areas of fit will not be of equal importance to all students and families. And that’s perfectly normal! One student may know that the cost of college is a key factor in their search process, so financial fit may outweigh social or academic fit in this process. Another student may be interested in pursuing a major not commonly available at many colleges or need support from their college with a learning difference, so academic fit may matter more. To give you an experience from my own college search: back in the day, I attended what was then the largest high school in North Carolina. From that experience, I knew I wanted a small college, so social fit was a significant factor for me.

No part of college fit is more important or valuable than another, but just to drive that home, we’ll tackle each piece alphabetically!

Step 1: Assess Academic Fit

When considering academic fit, start by asking yourself how your academic profile matches the average freshman at this school. Is the school an academic fit for you right now?

But don’t stop there! Will the school still be an academic fit for you after you enroll? Do they teach the way you learn best?

Here are some things to consider when you assess your ideal academic fit:

  • What is your ideal class size?

  • How much access to your professors do you want/need?

  • What level of career and/or academic advising would you like?

  • What major(s) and/or minor(s) are you considering?

  • Would you like to have academic support or tutoring available?

  • What’s your ideal class style: lecture, discussion, hands-on?

  • Are you motivated by a competitive academic environment?

  • Do you want to pursue research, an internship, or study abroad in your major?

Before you start looking into what colleges offer in relation to these kinds of questions, determine what your unique answers are. Then, when you do your college research, you can assess if a college is a good academic fit.

Step 2: Find Financial Fit

While college fit is specific to a student’s wants and needs, financial fit is often a family conversation. For many, college is a family investment. Money can be a tricky topic to discuss in some families, and often, there can be a lack of communication about financial fit between students and parents.

These conversations look different from family to family, but I encourage parents and students to talk about how your family plans to pay for college at the beginning of the college planning process and not at the end so that everyone has realistic expectations about how financial fit should play into college fit and, ultimately, into the student’s college choice.

Here are some key factors to think about as part of financial fit:

  • What is your family’s budget for one year of college?

  • Will your family qualify for any need-based financial aid?

  • Are you, or your parents, willing to take out loans to pay for college?

  • Do you think you might qualify for any merit-based financial aid at certain institutions?

  • Have you considered what else beyond tuition will cost money (for example: room and board, transportation if the college is far from home, books, club dues, etc.)?

Financial fit can really influence a college list because the cost of college can vary so much from school to school. It can determine if a student keeps their college search closer to home to benefit from in-state tuition at public colleges or how balanced that final college list is. A student hoping to receive a lot of academic merit aid offers should be aiming for more Likely schools.

Here are a few more resources as you find your financial fit:

Step 3: Specify Social Fit

We invited family to the table for Step 2, but Step 3 is back to a student’s unique wants and needs.

Many students identify this step as “the fun part” because we talk about football and weekend life. And while yes, these will be some of the most social years of a student’s life, and we do want students to have fun, social fit is important because so much of the growth students experience in college takes place out of the classroom. College is more than waking up, absorbing knowledge like a sponge, and going to sleep. That’s where social fit comes in!

As you consider social fit, ask:

  • What does your “dream college” environment look like?

  • Do you prefer a smaller college with a close-knit community or a larger college where you can constantly make new friends?

  • How important is the college athletic scene?

  • Do you want to attend a faith-based college?

  • Is campus diversity important to you?

  • Do you want many campus clubs or activities to join, or do you see yourself pursuing other social outlets?

  • Are you interested in fraternities or sororities?

  • Is the campus environment: Creative? Outdoorsy? Full of school spirit? Political? Social justice-minded? Regional? International?

The complete “college experience” happens in classrooms, dorms, the dining hall, the student center, the football stadium, and beyond. Consider the environment where you want to spend an exciting four years and the types of people you want to be around!

Next Steps

As you go through academic, financial, and social fit, make a running list of the things that are important to you. Once you have a list of your unique college fit criteria, decide which factors are your “must-haves” versus things that would be nice to have in a college but are negotiable.

(A quick tip: if you have too many must-haves, you might end up looking for a college that doesn’t actually exist!)

At the same time, make a note of anything on your “no way” list—criteria your ideal college would not have.

Keep these lists of college criteria—must-haves, would be nice to have, and no way—by your side on college visits and when doing college research. Before you add a college to your college list, compare it to your fit list and ask yourself, “How well does this college fit me?”



Building A Balanced College List

April was a transition month for students at Advantage College Planning.

Seniors have their college decisions. And while some have been writing Letters of Continued Interest in hopes of coming off of waitlists, many others have attended admitted student days, made their college choice, and put down enrollment deposits. We’re so excited and proud of what our seniors have accomplished this year!

Juniors are looking ahead and preparing to step up to the plate. Most of our juniors are busy researching colleges and focusing on fit—not name and rankings—to determine their next steps. College lists are a work in progress right now. The goal is that by the time application work begins in earnest, rising seniors will have a balanced college list made up of well-researched schools that fit them academically, socially, and financially.

But what do we mean when we say a “balanced” college list?

We’re talking about selectivity, and given admissions trends over the past few years, a balanced list is more important than ever. 

We divide colleges into three (and a half) categories when it comes to selectivity: Likely, Target, and Reach. Let’s take a closer look at each category and discuss our best tips for building a balanced college list.

LIKELY

Likely schools should be the foundation of every college list. These are colleges where the student applying has a high chance of being admitted based on the college’s acceptance rate and the applicant’s academic profile. 

Every student should apply to a few Likely colleges that they can get excited about and see themselves attending. 

Here are a few tips about Likely colleges:

  • Likely colleges may come with some extra opportunities like merit scholarships or admission to honors colleges. 

  • Don’t overlook Likely schools in the college planning process. Include Likelies on your college tours to learn what makes them unique college experiences!

  • We recommend applying to at least one in-state public Likely college for financial fit as well. 

  • Parents: What is “Likely” has changed over the years! Just because a school was less selective several years ago (or even recently…) doesn’t mean it’s a Likely school for your student.

Lastly, you may have heard the expression “Safety School” before. I want you to forget that phrase ever existed. Why? Because when someone is talking about a “Safety School,” they usually don’t mean it in a positive way. They mean it in a backup, last-resort way. That’s not what we’re doing here. 

It’s important that Likely colleges are just as strong a fit for a student as any other college on their list. Likely colleges are great places to get an education. Students need to like their Likelies and parents need to support them as much as the rest of the college list!

TARGET

A Target school is a college where a student’s chance of admission is around 50% based on the college’s acceptance rate and the student’s academic profile. The student, academically, falls somewhere in the middle 50% of what the college generally admits. 

Because students fall in that middle 50%, it’s easy for students to confuse Likelies and Targets. But Target schools will sometimes admit applicants with a profile similar to the student’s. And sometimes they won’t. 

Here are some tips about Target schools:

  • Keep a close eye on changing acceptance rates from year to year. With changing factors like test-optional policies and a rise in applications at many colleges, what may have been a Likely or Target when a student started list building can change by the time they apply to college. For example:

    • Auburn University had a 155% increase in Early Action applications this year. Their overall acceptance rate for the 2020-2021 cycle was around 81%. We’re still waiting for the final numbers to shake out for the overall acceptance rate for 2021-2022, but the early action acceptance rate was only 24%!

  • Some schools may appear like Target schools based on their acceptance rate but are actually Likely or Reach schools in disguise. Here are two types of schools to look out for:

    • Public Universities - Most public universities admit in-state students at a different rate than out-of-state students, and that may give students a slight advantage or disadvantage in the admissions process. For example, at UNC Chapel Hill, 82% of seats in the incoming class are reserved for students from North Carolina. So for UNC’s Class of 2025, the overall acceptance rate was 19.2%, but the difference between in-state and out-of-state was huge. North Carolina applicants were admitted at a rate of 42.2% while out-of-state students were admitted at a rate of 10.5%. 

    • Colleges with Early Decision - If a college has an Early Decision admissions deadline, those numbers can skew its overall acceptance rate and make a school look less selective than it is for students who are applying Regular Decision. Colleges often have a higher acceptance rate for Early Decision because they know those students will attend if admitted (read more about the different types of application deadline types here), and some colleges can fill half of their class or more from Early Decision. Here are a few examples from the Class of 2024:

      • American University -  Early Decision acceptance rate: 83.5%, Regular Decision acceptance rate: 36.4%, Percentage of class filled from ED: 51%

      • Davidson College - Early Decision acceptance rate: 46.9%, Regular Decision acceptance rate: 16.5%, Percentage of class filled from ED: 59%

      • Washington & Lee University - Early Decision acceptance rate: 52.6%, Regular Decision acceptance rate: 21.3%, Percentage of class filled from ED: 59%

REACH 

A Reach school is a college where a student’s chance of admission is low. The college generally admits students with a higher academic profile than the applicant. The college might also have a lower acceptance rate. A combination of the two is often common for reach schools. 

If a college list runs into trouble, it’s usually because of reach schools. When students aren’t thinking about building a balanced college list, they tend to add too many Reaches, and the list becomes unbalanced. And when students aren’t thinking about fit, they tend to add more and more Reach schools based on name or ranking regardless of whether or not they would be happy attending college there.

Just like Likely and Target schools should be a good fit for students, so should Reach schools. Students should consider whether the Reaches on their list are an academic, social, and financial fit for them. 

Here are some tips for Reach colleges:

  • Don’t let Reach schools take over the college list. Apply to a few that are a good fit, but this should not be the majority of the college list!

    • Often, I hear from students that they are comfortable applying to mostly Reaches with one or two Likely or Targets thrown in for “safety” (remember how I feel about that concept?). If that’s you or your student, think for a minute about the spring of senior year. What will it feel like to open up “no” after “no” (which is, realistically, the most probable result from a Reach school)? Even if there are a few acceptances sprinkled in there, that’s a lot of rejection for a teenager to face at the end of a successful high school career. I don’t recommend it.

  • Financially, families should recognize that even if a student is admitted, they will likely not receive any merit-based scholarships (and many highly selective don’t actually award scholarships based on merit).

  • Students should LOVE their Reach schools and be excited about learning more about them, researching them, writing about them, etc… If any of these things feel like a drag or you think of an answer to the “Why Us?” essay, ask yourself why you’re applying and if it’s for the right reasons.

WILDCARD

At the beginning of this blog post, I said there were three and a half categories when it came to college selectivity. That’s because some colleges are a reach for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are, what your GPA is, what your test scores are, or what you wrote your essay about. It’s still a reach. I call these Wildcards.

For me, it’s any college with less than a 20% acceptance rate. When colleges are this selective, admission is unpredictable.

Along with the Reach tips above, here are some additional tips for Wildcard colleges:

  • Fit is always important. But perhaps the most important when applying to a Wildcard. These colleges have no shortage of applications, so they can really be picky and admit exactly the type of student who’s going to be a great fit for their campus community. Apply to Wildcards where you are truly a good fit and can demonstrate that you understand what makes the college unique.

    • Can you fake it til you make it? Probably not. These admissions representatives read thousands of applications each year. They can spot a genuine fit for their campus.

  • Applying to more Wildcards will not increase your chances of being accepted. That’s not how math works. You do not have a higher probability of being accepted by one Ivy League college if you apply to all of them. Find your fit. Find the colleges you truly love.

  • Your admissions decision at a highly selective college says very little about you, in the end. Let that be liberating! They receive and reject hundreds of applications each year with perfect GPAs and test scores. It’s not about “not being good enough.” It’s about not having enough dorm rooms. Many of them would admit many more students if they could. So much is out of your control with a Wildcard school. Know that you put your best self forward, trust that the process is playing out as it should, and love the colleges who love you back!

BUILDING THE LIST

On average, students apply to a range of 6-12 colleges. 

Students with fewer Reach and Wildcard schools may be more comfortable at the lower end of that range. If a student is applying to more highly selective schools, they should make sure to have plenty of Likely and Target schools as their foundation.

We work with rising seniors in all phases of college list building, from discussing college fit to building suggested college lists to ensuring a student’s self-made list is balanced and realistic. To get support with building a balanced college list, reach out for a free consultation!