5 High School Strategies to Boost College Acceptance

Students hoping to gain acceptance to a highly competitive college need a “proactive approach” and a “strategic mindset,” according to Forbes. The highly regarded business-oriented publication cites five steps that students should take, beginning in their freshmen year of high school.

 

From the onset, students should immerse themselves in a myriad of activities, both within and outside their school, that pique their interest. The purpose is to identify their field of interest and the activities in which they find purpose and will ultimately assume a leadership role.

 

Starting in sophomore year, students should narrow down their commitments to those that are most fulfilling and then deepen their engagement with these specific activities. Students, and their parents, often believe that colleges favor applicants who are involved in a wide range of activities. That’s a myth. Colleges seek specialists: students who have found their niche, contributed to their school or other community, and assumed leadership responsibilities.

Successful High School Students’ College Timeline

Students (and their parents) often wonder what they should be doing during each year of high school to avoid the stress of an anxiety-filled senior year. The truth is that much can be done, starting in the early part of freshman year, to set students on the path of success. Colleges admire students who show longevity in their activities, so the sooner students identify their clubs, sports, volunteer work, or other activities of passion, the longer they have to build a track record of accomplishments.  
 
Freshman year is the perfect time to take on a new musical instrument or sport that might make a student particularly attractive to colleges. Or, students can get involved in an academic-oriented activity, such as Robotics, Model UN, or Science Olympiad. Or, they might join student government, the yearbook committee, the debate team, or the marching band.  
 
By sophomore year, students should map out a tentative four-year academic schedule.  If they hope to get through Calculus in high school, are they on track to do so? If not, they may want to double up on their math courses or take a course during summer study. Sophomores should also prepare for the October PSAT^® and actively pursue the activities they joined the previous year, gaining increased expertise.

Last Chance for Current SAT: Big Changes Ahead

The SAT exam, administered as a paper test since its inception on June 23^rd, 1926, is joining

the age of technology as of March 9^th, 2024, when it will launch as a digital, adaptive test.

Students have until October 24^th to register for the November 4^th SAT, and until November 21^st to register for the December 2^nd SAT.  High school students may want to take advantage of these final opportunities before becoming the first group to have to deal with Reading, Writing, Math, and technology all at the same time.

 

Students who take both forms of the test are allowed to pick and choose which scores to use on college applications. Colleges do not know how many times a student has taken the SAT, so students have unlimited “do-overs” and can ultimately control which scores they want colleges to view.

5 Misconceptions of the College Application Process

When it comes time to engage with the college application process, many students and parents struggle with common misconceptions. 

1)   Ivy League universities, and other elite institutions, are not beyond the financial reach of families. In fact, they are the most affordable. These schools have such incredible endowments that they are able to meet the full financial need of all their students, not requiring anyone to take out loans. The struggle is not how to pay, but how to gain admittance. Colleges and universities on this list include Amherst, Davidson, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Stanford, Swarthmore, Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, and University of Chicago.

  

2)   College acceptance is not a “numbers game.” There’s a rhyme and reason as to who gets accepted where. So, applying to a greater number of colleges is not going to give a student an advantage over applying to a smaller number of target schools – colleges where one’s SAT scores and GPA are in line with those of current students.  If a student has not taken a rigorous course load, with a great number of AP courses on which they scored a “5” on the end-of-year exam, and earned impressive SAT scores while engaging in a “passion project,” the likelihood of gaining acceptance to Princeton is miniscule. Adding Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale or UPENN to the list is not likely to improve one’s outcome.

2023 Top 10 Most Popular College Majors

Students immersed in the college application process, as well as those looking forward to it, would do well to identify their major. That’s the field in which they will earn their college degree and, most likely, pursue their future career. Once a college major is chosen, it becomes much easier to identify “best fit” colleges as students can research the schools that offer the strongest program in their chosen field.
 
There are very specific fields attracting college-bound students.  Niche.com recently listed the Top 10 most popular college majors: (1) Business & Management (2) Nursing (3) Psychology (4) Biology (5) Engineering (6) Education (7) Communications (8) Finance & Accounting (9) Criminal Justice (10) Anthropology & Sociology. The number of degrees conferred for Business & Management (289,384) was more than double that awarded for the next most popular major – Nursing.
 
Students can use a multitude of resources to identify colleges with strong programs in their chosen field.  One popular resource is the “Best Colleges” annual guide published by U.S. News and World Report.