*Author’s note. This blog post refers to the uniquely CHRHS “Red Folder,” the organizational system through which we scaffold student responsibilities within the college application process. It is intended for rising seniors and their parents, although all are invited to read on!
As much as we want for you to get some down time and decompress over the summer, if you’re a four year college bound (FYC/SLC) rising senior–especially if you plan to apply to highly selective/lottery colleges–you’ll be doing yourself a favor by chipping away at your Red Folder (RF) this summer.
Think of it this way. The college application process is the equivalent of having an additional class in your schedule. As in all classes, you have a choice of selecting the level appropriate for you. If you choose to apply to colleges with higher acceptance rates, it’s like taking the CP version of a class. If you apply to selective colleges, it’s like taking the Honors version. Highly selective/lottery? You guessed it; like taking the AP version. AP classes have summer homework. AP classes move at a faster pace. AP classes require dedication and the ability to self-initiate and self-motivate.
If you're applying to schools with a sub 5% acceptance rate, you’re going to have to work for it.
All other options, DWF (direct to workforce), WFD (workforce development), MIL (military service), and CCT (community college/trades) will need to complete your RF in due time, but it isn’t as pressing for you right now.
Counselors will be back the week of August 21 if you need help.
Here’s a possible RF game plan for the summer
1) Finalize your application timeline and strategy
Early Decision, Early Action, Regular Decision, Rolling Admission, Open Admission... It used to be simple to figure out when applications were due, but that went the way of the typewriter that Gen X used to fill out our three college applications...
Here's a primer:
Early Decision: Think of ED I (one) as asking a college to marry you. If they say yes, you have a legal contract drawn up between the two of you and you shall forsake all others. In other words, if they accept you, you're going there, and you have to withdraw your applications from your other schools to ensure that that is the only place you can go. In rare instances, you can wriggle out of the contract if your financial aid package isn't up to snuff, but you can't count on that. As with getting married, you want to be REALLY sure before you say yes. You can only have one ED I school.
Early Action: Think of EA I (one) as asking someone to go steady (not sure what the Zennial concept is for exclusive relationships; dating?). You agree to get together, but you don't HAVE to go through with it if you change your mind. That being the case, you can actually ask more than one college to go steady, like a poorly scripted TV dramedy. So, while you can only have one ED I school, you can have more than one EA I school.
RC/SC Early Action: Restricted Choice/Single Choice Early Action mashes the two different early programs. Like ED, you can only choose one. Like EA, it’s not binding. So you get the best of both.
ED II and EA II: Many schools offer this additional option. This is a “sleeper” choice that may actually get you in. Kids put a lot of thought into their EDI and EAI choices. They get their results back, then what? If you had a close second to your primary ED or SCEA, think hard about picking an ED II/EA II choice. The acceptance rate is often much higher than the ED I/EA I round and many people lose out on this choice.
Regular Decision: For those of us that have been around a little while, this is your parents’ plain, old, boring application deadline of yesteryear; you apply by the due date, and you get an answer in a couple of months.
Rolling Admission: Simply means that the college acts on your application when it receives it. You typically get an answer within a month.
Open Admission: Is a college that accepts all applicants provided that they have or will graduate from high school. Most community colleges are open admission.
You're especially likely to run into a lot of different categories of admission if you're applying to highly selective schools with low acceptance rates (the Ivies and Little Ivies). Typically, you have a higher percentage chance to get into one of these schools if you apply through an early application, so it is in your best interest to leverage this advantage.
But don't kid yourself that the colleges are doing you a favor by letting you apply early. It's all about them. They love to have as many students locked in to the following year as they possibly can so that they can predict their yield. It's not uncommon for 50% of students who apply early to get in.
So if you're applying to schools with precipitously low acceptance rates, you want to have a strategy.
It could look something like this:
October 15: ED I school deadline. One school.
November 1: EA I schools’ deadline (you can apply to more than one, but don’t overdo it)
December 1: Priority application deadline for UMaine. As a state school, UMaine has much less scholarship money to give relative to its private counterparts; you need to be in line on time or you miss out. If MAine is or will be in the mix you need to hit this deadline.
By this point, you will have heard back from some of your previous applications and you have some decisions to make.
If you didn't get into your ED I school, you can pick another school and apply ED II. Still just one school.
EA II is also a thing. And you can pick more than one of these as you could EA I.
You should hear back from all of our schools by April 1, which gives you a month until Decision Day, May 1. Of course, you can make your decision before this day, but students often take it down to the wire in hopes that the school that they really wanted to get into that previously waitlisted them realizes their heinous mistake.
There are a lot of moving parts in this scenario, which is why you want it mapped out ahead of time.
2) Build the family's college application infrastructure
a) I highly recommend that the student create and use an email specifically for college applications and nothing else. Students' high school accounts are flooded with emails from Schoology daily, to the point that many (most?) kids just stop reading them. Not a good plan for a process that runs on deadlines (and while we're talking about deadlines - deadlines are deadlines in the college admissions world. 12:00:01 AM on the day after they are due is too late). A point of negotiation is who has "the keys" to this ‘college application’ email account. It might be advantageous to share the password so that parents can check things on their own at 2 AM when they are awake running lists in their heads and keep the anxiety-induced nagging to a minimum. You do all have to live together for a little while longer after the process is over, after all.
b) Which is why you want to have a calendar specific for college applications. Set up a Google Calendar (or alternative) that all members of the family can add to and check. Plug in your application deadlines. Plug in your Red Folder deadlines. If you need to fill out the CSS Profile, get that due date in there as well. Set up your notifications so that you have a few days' notice before something is due.
c) Consider creating a spreadsheet for each school that you're applying to. Use it to leave notes about what's coming up next, what progress has been made; again, to aid communication amongst all parties.
3) Help us help you--primary source documents for writing your letter of recommendation (LOR)
Counselor letters of recommendation (LOR) play a particularly instrumental role in the college application process. It is exceedingly rare for a counselor LOR not to be a mandatory element, and is sometimes (as in the University of Maine System for example) the only letter that admissions folks mandate.
Teacher letters have a specific, singular purpose–to explain and convey the student as a learner: their habits of mind, habits of scholarship, contributions to the classroom, etc.
Counselor letters are expected to be much more comprehensive, painting the big picture for each student; we address academics, but as one element of many. Counselor LORs are like any piece of good scholarship. They utilize multiple primary source documents to develop a coherent narrative that tells the story of you, using just words to create a vibrant, three dimensional, multi-faceted image. A lofty task, but it’s actually a lot of fun to suss out the best way to convey the essence of each of our kids.
As with writing a CER, we can't just say something about you without having facts to back it up. That could be written off as merely a baseless opinion; we want much stronger than that. This is where the Red Folder documents factor in. Have your parents fill out the Parent Brag Sheet with lots of narrative that we can quote (all parents are welcome, in fact encouraged, to do their own; typed preferred so we can read it). Fill out the Student Brag Sheet (completely, not just 5 minutes before your Senior Visit appointment) with lots of narrative (typed, if possible) that we can quote from. Be thoughtful about who you ask to do Feedback forms and ask for as many as needed to paint a complete picture of you. As with the Brag Sheets, we’re looking for quotable narrative. We would rather have more than less; we never know where the inspiration needed to capture your essence will come from.
4) Write your essay(s). Or at least have a finished draft(s) to have your favorite English teacher look over with you when you get back to school.
Common App Essay prompts are available here
This is the hardest part of the application, so do it first. You can fill out the rest while binging on your favorite streaming series (you don't have to think deeply about your address and phone number, after all), but your essay should get your complete attention, your best effort. It's your chance to tell the story of you, in your own words, and is the crux of your application. You may have only six weeks when you get back to school before your October 15 deadline; don't shortchange yourself with a rush job.
5) See number 4
We fully recognize the dynamic tension between our suggestion that you work on your RF this summer and our simultaneous wish that you take some time to enjoy your summer. Ultimately, each of you will need to decide how much to work ahead and how much to leave for later; this might come down to your personality type. Kids that get anxious when stuff isn’t done yet probably want to get to work this summer, while those of you that rely on the energy burst that comes from waiting until the last minute probably aren’t going to see advantage in starting early. Just remember that deadlines are deadlines in college world. 12:00:01 AM the day after it’s due is too late.
And if you do all that and are looking for more, create your Common Application account and get started on that!