Is there a secret sauce?

There are lots of college consultants out there who love to say they’ve cracked the secret code to help you gain admission to the most competitive and elite colleges. We’re not those consultants. Because we don’t believe there’s a secret formula. Is there strategy? Yes! Are there things you can do to position yourself better to get that chance to show up at your dream school with your XL twin sheets in tow? Of course. But we’ll tell anyone and everyone that there’s no secret sauce. What there are are the pieces of your application that tell the story of you. And a really balanced and strategic list. 

The core of your story looks like this:

1. Grades + Strong Curriculum

2. Test Scores*

3. Personal Statement

4. Activities

5. Letters of Recommendation

6. Balanced List

All of these add up to college acceptance letters. (To read more about how to think about each year of high school if you hope to attend a highly selective college, please read our blog post Aiming Elite.) 

We’ve said it before, and we’ll just keep saying it like the broken record we are: the most important piece of your application is your transcript and the strength of your curriculum. This means earning the best grades you can in the hardest classes that make sense for you. If you go to a high school that offers a million APs and you only take one per year, that puts you in a completely different category of Reach/Target/Likely from your classmate who took one AP as a sophomore, three as a junior, and five as a senior. And that’s totally okay! You just need to build your college list understanding this. (And we can help with course selection and with list building.)

The one piece of your application that you have complete control over in the moment is your Personal Statement. You can write an amazing essay that is a breath of fresh air for those poor admissions officers locked in their offices reading 400 essays a day, 397 of which talk about what a great student and hard worker the applicant is. No thanks. Our clients’ essays engage their readers. Some make the reader laugh, some make them tear up a little, some do both. Most importantly, they show who our clients are beyond grades and numbers. But please remember, writing an amazing essay won’t get you into a different reach category than where your grades and curriculum place you. It can, however, help you get a spot over another applicant with similar academic qualifications.

And this brings us to the all-important list: please, for the love of the baked potato bar, build a balanced list. Start from the foundation: find three safety schools (you’re in the top 25% of their stats) where you would be okay if the sky fell and applications quintupled at your dream school; next– find at least 3 target schools (you’re right in the middle of their stats, but closer to that upper end); and then as many reach schools as you want. Keep in mind, any school with below a 25% acceptance rate is generally a reach for everyone (yep, even valedictorians with 1600 on the SAT get rejected from schools with a 17% acceptance rate). 

We love helping students build balanced lists and create authentic and strategic applications. If you’re a 9th or 10th grader and want to talk about what classes to take next year, what activities to try, and if you should get a summer job (YES), give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com. We would love to partner with you

*We wish we could say test scores don’t matter, but the truth is complicated and depends on many factors such as how long a school has been test optional. An excellent score on the SAT or the ACT can make a big difference for certain schools. We’ll help you strategize which test is a better fit for you, and talk about the different pieces of test prep that result in a score you can submit. 

Why work with a college consultant?

It’s a good question. Your high school probably has a handful of guidance counselors. If you attend an elite private high school, you may have more than a handful, or even a comprehensive college admissions curriculum. When you’re beginning the college search, it’s important to understand what an independent college consultant can do for you and what makes them distinct from high school guidance counselors. 

Here’s a rundown of what makes May First special: 

Attention: According to the American School Counselor Association, the ratio of students to counselors nationwide was 415 to 1 in the 2020-2021 school year. Guidance counselors have a tremendous amount of responsibility, including supporting students’ emotional health, keeping student records, managing student behavior, and advising students on course selections. And unless your high school is an exception, the counseling office is likely understaffed (and don’t even get us started on woeful guidance counselor pay). Through no fault of their own, your school’s guidance team is not equipped to identify the needs and best-fit options for each student in your graduating class. 

At May First, we are able to spend as much time as we need getting to know you and your family. Through our personalized work, we learn what your interests are, what kind of learner you are, what you like to do in your free time, what makes you anxious and what makes you excited about college. Because we limit the number of clients we take on for each graduating class, we are able to focus on you from the moment we meet to the moment you commit to your best-fit school.

Prioritizing you: Your school’s guidance team is interested in you and your needs, for sure. But they are chiefly concerned about their own numbers and data. They want as many successful applications as they can get, period, and that means they aren’t necessarily invested in helping you get into your best-fit school; they just want you to get into a school. To that end, you might find that students from your high school seem to apply to and attend many of the same colleges year after year. That’s because your high school has relationships with particular colleges, which is helpful to applicants. But there are 4,000 colleges in the United States. Your best-fit school may be one your guidance counselor has little familiarity with. At May First, our only priority is you. We work to identify schools where you will be challenged, inspired, supported, and most of all, happy.

Expertise: For the most part, high school guidance counselors do not receive formal training around college advising or the college admissions process. Combine that with staffing shortages, mounting responsibilities, and a shifting and competitive college admissions landscape, and it’s no wonder high school guidance counselors aren’t able to guide individual students as effectively as they might like.

Hiring an independent college consultant means you have access to up-to-the minute admissions data, trends, and strategies. Better still, we use this information to identify schools that are right not just for kids coming from your high school, but for you personally. In most cases, we’ve actually visited the colleges you’re applying to. How are the restaurants? Eclectic and international. What outdoor activities are there near campus? Cool hiking and running trails, but no water. What’s the feel of the campus? Tight knit, lots of on-campus activities.

We know colleges, and we know how to help you gain acceptance to your best-fit school. The personal essay is an important piece of that puzzle. High school guidance counselors and English teachers will often steer students away from the kind of creative, personal work we advise for the personal essay. But we know from experience, research, and from listening to what college admissions readers have to tell us, that students who balance a unique approach with sincere personal reflection are more likely to end up in the “consider” pile.

Stress Management: Your high school guidance counselor only has so much time to instruct you on the admissions process. By necessity, they’ll hand you a list of important dates and deadlines, and if you’re lucky, they’ll check in once or twice a semester.

At May First, we use the grossest, most old-timey expression ever: eat the elephant in small bites. Our approach is to take on a little bit at a time so students and families don’t get overwhelmed. The college admissions process shouldn’t just be an endless stream of due dates and check boxes. It should be exciting and fun, and this really can happen with a strategic and measured approach. 

Strategy: Sadly, there is a strategy to applying to colleges. We work with families to help them understand the advantages and disadvantages of Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision. We advise students on how to approach -- and whether or not to submit -- standardized test scores. We guide students on how to craft an application that tells a consistent and compelling story about who you are and why colleges should want you. 

Most importantly, when you have a question, a concern, a freak out, or an idea, we’re here to answer the phone and talk you through it. We’d love to work with you and your family as you begin the exciting process of finding your best-fit school. Send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617-851-9975) and let’s get started.

Aiming Elite?

I love summer. Being outside. The sun. The long days. But there’s a big part of me that always gets excited on the first cool morning with a hint of Fall. We haven’t had that yet (hello continuous heat wave!); but we’ve got other signs it’s coming- school supplies and book lists are out, trips to Target and Staples have happened, the last beach day is on the calendar. At May First, our seniors are putting their final polish on their personal statements and turning their attention to supplemental essays. Our juniors are thinking about their dream schools and how to be in the best possible position to gain admission a year from now. And our phones are ringing off the hook with questions from parents. With the crazy stats and dramatic headlines still coming out from last year’s cycle, parents want to know what their kids can do to make sure they have the greatest number of options when it’s their turn to apply. 

Here’s what we tell them:

Grades and Strength of Curriculum: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it a thousand times more– the most important piece of any application is a student’s grades and the strength of their curriculum. Basically, how they did in the most challenging classes they could take. (This is worth a conversation- for some students, taking all honors and APs is the right fit. For others, it’s not. It’s crucial to understand how these course selections will impact college applications, and we’re here to help break it down.) Consistency--another word you’ll hear us say on repeat-- is pretty key here. Barring an intense disruption, keeping grades consistent from class to class and year to year matters. 

While high school is about so much more than grades, if an elite college is the goal, then it starts in 9th grade. In addition to paying attention to grades and strength of curriculum, here are some ways to think about each of the four years of high school and the opportunities they present:

9th Grade: Activities! We know, 9th grade is overwhelming and a huge transition for most kids. It’s also an amazing opportunity to start activities that you can stay involved with for all 4 years of high school. Colleges love to see this! But they can also spot resume-stacking (adding a million disconnected activities just to say you’ve got them all) from miles away. So be thoughtful about what you try. Do you enjoy writing or editing? Sign up for the newspaper (and then move up the ranks from contributor to staff writer to section editor to Editor-in-Chief; or just write a sports column for all four years if you’ve got other demands on your time). Thinking that a career in medicine might be your future? Join the science club and keep an eye out for any internships your school might support. Love theater? Try out for the school play; if you don’t get a part (because not all 9th graders do) join the stage crew or help build the set or design costumes. And hey, if you sign up for an activity as a 9th grader and hate it, it’s totally fine to opt out and find a better fit. This is a great year to experiment and see what you love, and what you don’t. (p.s. We love sports as much as the next guy, but you can’t limit yourself to just being an athlete if you’re aiming elite.)

10th grade: Consistency! Here’s that word again. If you took our advice and found some great activities in 9th grade, keep them going in 10th. If you’re a little light on activities, try out a couple new ones and decide what you enjoy most and then keep those going. And try to visit at least two colleges over the course of the year. Start with one urban campus and one self-contained campus. Go on tours at each, and see how you feel. There are a lot of factors in college fit, and starting to think about location now is helpful.

11th grade: List-building and exploration! Junior year is when you’ll want to start thinking seriously about the factors of a college that are most important in finding your best fit. Remember, there’s no perfect college out there. They all involve some compromise, so think about your deal breakers now. Start building a list of colleges to explore (15-20) that are a range of competitiveness, and start thinking about when you can visit. And if you’re still a little light on activities, it’s not too late. Be thoughtful- add activities that are in sync with your interests or are led by a favorite teacher. Be wary of resume-stacking! 

12th grade: Applications! We wish we could say that when you reach senior year, you can focus solely on your applications. Colleges are increasingly looking at grades and strength of curriculum in 12th grade to differentiate between applicants. Did you take 4 APs in 11th, but are only taking 1 in 12th when your school offers more? Did you cut back on your fall activities to focus on applications? This is a chance to break away from the pack: take hard courses (high school is 4 years, not 3!), take on leadership positions in your activities, and put the time into building an authentic and strategic application. (Our best advice? Get as much of your application done over the summer as you can- write your personal statement, finalize your activities descriptions, and narrow your list so that you’re ready to tackle supplemental essay questions.) Oh, and visit the schools you’re most interested in. 

We know, this feels like a lot. But, we really mean it when we say that if you’re aiming to attend an elite college, it starts in 9th grade. At May First College Consultants, we think the more you know and plan, the less stressful, more strategic, and more fun your process can be. Give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email (info@yourmayfirst.com) and let’s chat. 

Humor and Perspective

Okay, okay. We know- the college search and application process is really, really, really stressful. This seems like an undeniable truth- like the sky is blue, weather in New England is ludicrously changeable, and the Celtics will be a rollercoaster ride until the bitter end. We respectfully disagree, (well, maybe not about the Celtics), and want you (and your parents!) to know that it doesn’t have to be this awful process everyone (and their lovely aunt) predicts for you. Sure, there will be moments of stress- those are just a part of life. But the overall experience doesn’t have to be ulcer-inducing. It shouldn’t make you want to hide under your covers eating cheetos and watching the squirrel ninja video on YouTube. 

In our early meetings with our clients and their families, we talk a lot about how to minimize and manage stress. We start by taking what feels like a huge and overwhelming process and breaking it down into manageable (and achievable!) pieces. We emphasize that we’ll have fun working through these pieces by starting with getting to know you and building a fantastic college list to explore. Inevitably, parents ask what they can do to help with the stress. There are some easy answers like carving out nights when college talk is completely forbidden, running interference when well-meaning family members start to express lots of opinions, and completing all the parent paperwork on time. In fact, we have a lot of great advice and we’ll save some of it for another time. Instead we want to focus on two of the most important things we can all do: keep perspective and have a sense of humor. 

There’s no doubt, choosing a college is a big and important decision. But is it the most important decision you’ll ever make? Probably not. Your future holds so much, how could it be?! 

You know that you want to attend a college where you will be engaged in amazing academics and participate in extracurricular activities that light you up and introduce you to cool and interesting people. Simply put, you want to thrive. It is all too easy to fall in love with one school and become convinced it’s the only place you could possibly spend four years. But the truth is that we are fortunate to live in a country with an abundance of colleges (nearly 4000!). More than a few of those 4000 schools will offer you everything you want. 

This  is where perspective comes in: yep, it’s a big decision. It’s not, though, the biggest. It’s not irrevocable and permanent (33% of college students transfer to another school). And it’s not only about the end result. It’s about the journey- all the ways you’ll get to know yourself and learn to thrive. 

Besides keeping perspective, it’s a pretty universal truth that anything in life is better with a sense of humor, maybe especially the stressful things. Taking time to laugh with friends and parents about the absurdity of the headlines around college selectivity can be a great stress relief. Remembering to laugh at yourself when you realize you’ve written the opening sentence to your personal statement nine different ways all saying the same thing is a great way to diffuse stress. In the end, this should be a fun process. You get to be Marco Polo, discovering hidden things about yourself (“I always thought I wanted a huge campus, but I realize I’ll thrive better at a school where my professors know my first name); exploring some amazing colleges (“That class on the intersection of politics and popular culture sounds amazing”) and campuses (“That is literally the most beautiful campus on earth!); and ultimately building a list of schools where you’ll grow into the next evolution of yourself. 

At May First, we love to laugh and we love to build amazing college lists for our clients and help them create authentic, thoughtful, and dynamic applications. If you’re a rising sophomore or junior, give us a call at 617.447.0186 or send an email to info@mayfirst.com and let’s get started. 

It’s getting crazy out there.

“This Year's College Admissions Horror Show”

“Record Applications, Record Rejections”

“She Scored 1550 on Her SATs. Top U.S. Colleges Still Rejected Her.”

These headlines are designed to scare us, and they sure are effective. We may be college consultants, but we’re moms of teenagers too. We know first hand from our kids and their friends that the current college admissions landscape is causing students a lot of anxiety.

But it doesn’t have to. 

Things have changed; that’s true. Elite colleges are accepting fewer students, and even some tried and true “safety schools” have become more difficult to get into. But while the landscape may have changed, our mission at May First is the same: to understand our clients; to be a resource for families in understanding the admissions process; and to position students to apply to schools where they will thrive. 

Here’s what we know: there is an accessible, best-fit school out there for every student. And in order to understand what is and is not a best-fit, it’s important to have a broader understanding of college admissions in the current moment.

Warning: Some of this information is going to freak you out. We’re here to help.

Over the past 15-20 years, college admissions has become increasingly confusing, frustrating, and anxiety-causing. The 2022 admissions cycle in particular--and the frantic news coverage that has come along with it-- is bound to stress out any family. 

In case you’re unfamiliar with just how bananas things have gotten, check out the decline in acceptance rates for a handful of well-known schools (years represent date of high school graduation):

Amherst College: 2020 14%; 2021 8%; 2022 7%

Boston College: 2020 29%; 2021 19%; 2022 16%

Dickinson University: 2020 52%; 2021 48%; 2022 35%

Lehigh University: 2020 50%; 2021 45%; 2022 36%

Northeastern University: 2020 20%; 2021 18%; 2022 6.7%

So why the decline in acceptance rates? The easy answer is that students are applying to more colleges. Twenty years ago, a student with her heart set on Princeton might apply to two Ivy League colleges. Today, she’ll apply to all eight in addition to some Claremont and NESCAC colleges, increasing the total number of applicants for a limited number of spaces.

There are other complicating factors as well. Students who took a gap year in 2020 or 2021 due to the pandemic are back in the admissions pool, and students who struggle on standardized tests are seeing new pathways to elite colleges, many of which are now test-optional.

What do these low acceptance rates mean for me? The answer is, it depends (I know, we say this all the time), but here are some things to keep in mind:

Somewhere around 70% of students accepted to Ivy League colleges (and their well-known peers like Stanford and Duke) have some kind of hook: they are athletes or the children and grandchildren of alumni, or they come from families with a connection to a trustee or other college leader or with the ability to make sizable contributions to the college. So that means that of the 2234 students accepted to Yale University this year, only 641 had no connection to the college at all. To put that into perspective, 50,015 students applied. 

Without that hook, any school with an acceptance rate under 20% is a wild card, no matter your grades, class rank, or SAT scores. And while you may have worked very hard in high school, grade inflation is real. Nearly 50% of all high school students will graduate with a 4.0 or higher. 

Elite colleges can fill their classes at least 3 times over with students that look just like the class they accept. A student with a 4.6 weighted GPA, a 1520 combined SAT score, and a long resume of extracurriculars might get into Duke (6% acceptance rate) but rejected from Notre Dame (13% acceptance rate) and never understand why. That same student may even get rejected from a school with an acceptance rate in the twenties or even thirties, which means that rejection is less about the applicant, and more about the school’s particular agenda in a given year.

Schools that may have seemed accessible thirty years ago when your parents were applying to college might be considered reach schools for today’s students (in 1990, Northeastern University accepted 97% of applicants, compared with just 6.7% today). In just the past fifteen years, schools like Villanova and Boston College have moved to a more elite status. Even some northeast state schools like UMass Amherst and the University of Connecticut--which had traditionally been viewed as safety schools for strong students-- have seen steep drops in acceptance rates.

Come on! Is there any good news?! From our perspective? Absolutely. 

For some students, an Ivy League college might be the best fit, difficult as it may be to get in. But the reality is that there are thousands of colleges out there that will challenge, inspire, and change you for the better, and they don’t necessarily fall under a 20% acceptance rate. In fact, some very good schools, including Wake Forest, Fordham, and American Universities, among many others, have acceptance rates that have remained relatively steady over the past twenty years. It’s still true that good students can gain admission to good colleges.

There is nothing we enjoy more than getting to know our students’ unique personalities and interests and introducing them to opportunities that meet their needs and expectations, especially at schools they might not have considered. So keep doing what you’re doing. Get those summer activities lined up. Register for and chip away at the Common App. Prepare for your SATs. And work hard in your classes.

There’s a great school out there for you. If you’re a rising sophomore or junior, give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let us help you find it.

How to plan for summer.

As a New Englander, I firmly believe that it’s never too early to start planning for summer. The second that first snowflake hits the ground, I’m making my summer book list. I can’t say this is the absolute best use of my time, but If you’re a freshman, sophomore, or junior in high school, dreaming about summer can be really productive.

We always remind students that the most important thing you can do to broaden your college options is to earn the best grades you can in the most challenging courses that you’re able to handle. But the other pieces—your extracurriculars, test scores, and summer activities—help to tell a story about who you are as a learner and as a person. When we’re working with students on their summer plans, our mantra is: get a job, have fun, and be you. 

Get a job: this is the single most important piece of advice we give our students about summer. Summer is great (literally the best, nothing better, don’t @ me skiers), and you deserve to enjoy it. But having a job communicates to admissions officers more than you might think. A teenager with a job is learning lessons about responsibility and the value of earning money, along with important life skills. If you work at a summer camp, it signals to colleges that you are likely to be patient and caring. A restaurant job reflects a willingness to get your hands dirty and work on a team. A job in sales or customer service indicates that you’re honing your listening and problem-solving skills. 

In other words, your job doesn’t need to be glamorous. And as you’re folding your five millionth pair of Gap jeans, you’ll feel better knowing that it demonstrates to colleges that you are a responsible person who understands the value of work (and crisp creases). 

Have fun: No, working at the Gap is not fun. But no one expects you to give up fun and adventure altogether in the summer. Remember, you’re still a kid! You should be accumulating experiences and enjoying this time. Have an opportunity to go to a baseball clinic? A surfing class? A camping trip? Is it your goal to read all of Jane Austen or fish every day? Do it! How you choose to spend your free time also tells a story about who you are.

Be you: Tackling a research project, engaging in community service, or taking a summer course just because it “looks good on a college application” isn’t the best way to plan your summer activities. If you love kids and soccer, why not volunteer to coach or ref in your local Special Olympics or Unified Sports program instead of organizing a clothing drive? If your primary love is music, think about substituting that summer course on computer programming for an online Intro to Music Theory course. We know this may be counter to what friends and family might advise, but it’s important to think about your college application as a story. One that reads like a laundry list of unrelated activities will appear unfocused to an admissions officer. A story about everything isn’t really about anything.

At May First, we believe that every student has a unique and interesting story. Give us a call at 617-851-9975 or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let us help you tell it.

Parents, it's going to be okay.

One of the most stressful moments of my parenting life was standing over my daughter Susannah’s shoulder as she stared at an unopened email from the admissions office of her first-choice college.

As a college counselor, I knew she’d end up at a school that made her happy, even if it wasn’t her first choice. But as a mom, all I could think about was the disappointment she’d feel if she didn’t get in. 

“It’s going to be okay, no matter what happens,” I said.

She reached out, grabbed my hand and clicked.

With some thoughtful list-building work, your child will receive at least one acceptance letter to a school they’re excited to attend. But the waiting period and notification process can be hard on kids, and almost as hard on parents. Navigating that space is a sometimes overlooked part of the process. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Rejections are a thing. That’s all there is to it. And they feel bad, for you and for your kid. Even if it’s from a school your child isn’t particularly thrilled about, a rejection inevitably causes them to ask, “why didn’t they want me?” Here’s where it’s important to have some perspective. Colleges are building classes, student by student. You’ll never know the calculus for how an admissions team develops a class in a given year. As parents, it's important to remind our kids that lots of students are rejected from schools they are qualified to get into. While it doesn’t feel good to be rejected, it’s also not personal. Trust the fact that somewhere out there an admissions officer is thinking, “this is such a great candidate -- I wish we had more spots available.” 

Waiting is the worst. That's why it’s a good idea to take a break from the college talk once applications are out. This is no time to second guess the process. No asking, “should he have applied Early Action?” or “why didn’t we encourage her to apply to more state schools?” 

Let it go, as Elsa says. Let. It. Go. Focus instead on celebrating being done with the application process and enjoying your kid’s senior spring. He’ll be off to his amazing college before you know it.

You don’t have to share. We tell our students that the college process is private. Their friends, aunts, uncles, and grandparents don’t need to know where they apply to college or where they do or don’t gain admission. We urge parents to adopt the same philosophy. This is an exciting time for us too, and sometimes we want to brag, complain, or freak out entirely. But keeping the details of the college application process within your family can prevent unwanted advice, questions, and pressure for all of you.

Something good will happen. My daughter did get accepted -- to Wesleyan University -- and it’s been a wonderful experience for her. This past week, four of her college friends came to our house for a visit (vaxxed, boostered, and PCR tested!). Out of that group, only Susannah had made Wesleyan her first choice school. But guess what? None of them can imagine being anywhere else. 

Trust us. It’s going to be okay. Virtual confetti will drop from a virtual email sky somewhere, congratulating your child on a job well done and inviting them to join a welcoming college community. Cheers to them! And cheers to you, too, parents. You deserve it. 

We’re always here to talk you through the process, help with that well-balanced list, and remind you to enjoy exploring college and the many amazing opportunities out there. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s talk about how we can help. 

Sophomores!

When I was a sophomore in high school, my two primary focuses were hanging out with my friends and trying to unlock the unknowable mystery of Geometry (to this day, I cannot manage to transfer leftovers into the proper size containers). But if I’d been planning ahead, I would have  started thinking about college. 

Beginning the college process as a sophomore will give you time to really consider what it is you’re looking for from your college experience. Engaging with a college counselor (like us!) can help you to plan the exploration process. In the meantime, there are a few things you sophomores can handle on your own:

Academics: The single most important factor in the college admissions process is your high school transcript. This doesn’t just mean earning As and Bs (which you should be working toward), but enrolling in challenging courses, like AP and honors courses. Colleges want to see that you are pushing yourself and taking the most rigorous courses your school has to offer. And admissions counselors are always on the lookout for academic improvement, so if you struggled in something like -- I don’t know -- Geometry, you’ll want to demonstrate improvement in math the following year. 

You’ll also want to be doing some SAT test prep. Khan Academy is a free test prep resource and a great way to get started. 

Activities: Most high school freshmen spend the year getting their bearings. Sophomore year is the time for you to begin zeroing in on your extracurricular interests. Love sports? Why not think about coaching or reffing younger kids? Love theater? How about becoming a stage hand? Interested in volunteer work? Think about what that means to you. Is it working with athletes with special needs? Organizing a diaper drive for young parents in need? Volunteering for Habitat for Humanity? Remember, you can volunteer anywhere, so you want to think about where you feel drawn to help and how your personality and skills might best be used.

Your activities say a lot about you. By the time you apply to college, your activities list should tell a story about who you are outside of school. Make sure it's a story you feel proud of.

Sports: If you are a serious athlete contemplating college athletics, sophomore year is an important time. College coaches can’t contact students directly until the summer after sophomore year, but athletes can put themselves on a coach’s radar in advance of that date. Depending on your sport, you should consider the following:

• Fill out the recruiting forms specific to the colleges you are interested in -- it’ll be located on the school’s athletic webpage.

• Attend college-specific ID camps.

• Email coaches to let them know the dates and times of specific meets, games, or matches you’ll be competing in in the spring and summer and invite them to attend.

• Develop an athlete profile on one or two recruiting websites dedicated to your sport.

• Hire a professional or ask a tech-savvy friend to produce a highlight real of your athletic performances to email to coaches and upload to recruiting sites.

While athletics may be incredibly important to you, you want to be able to choose the college that’s best for you, rather than settling for the college that chooses you. Starting early, and casting a wide net, helps you stay in control of the process. 

Summer: The summer before junior year should be time for fun and relaxation. And at this age, it should also include a job. Having a job -- even one you do for just a few hours a week -- will show colleges that you are responsible, hard-working, and value the significance of a paycheck. At May First, we encourage all of our students to find jobs that demonstrate these qualities to college admissions counselors. 

Your other summer activities will be a bonus, whether that’s babysitting your siblings, driving your grandmother to classes at the senior center, taking a challenging hiking trip, or learning how to paddleboard. How you choose to spend your summer helps tell the story of you.

At May First, we’re ready to help sophomores plan these next few months and then transition into that all-important junior year. Send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.851.9975) and let’s get started. 

Juniors: It’s time…

We know, this seems crazy. College is eons away and the whole process is insanely stressful, so why on earth would you start now?! 

There are many different reasons to get cracking early, but here are three that we think are really important: 1. it reduces stress; 2. it puts the focus on exploration and finding your best fit; and 3. it puts you in a position to have a significant portion of your application done before you start senior year. 

Let’s look a little more at how each of these reasons look IRL (in real life for the parents out there), and how we can help you with the process:

Stress! Inevitably, this is a stressful process. We hope that our last blog post helped with managing the frenzy, but there’s another strategy for reducing stress: getting ahead of the process. By starting now, you can have your list of colleges to explore built by January, plan some visits for next Spring, and head into senior year with a list of schools that is intentional and thoughtful and with most of your applications completed.

Best fit! A huge benefit of having this year to build a list and plan your college visits is that it seriously increases the likelihood you’ll end up at your best fit school. We have a great strategy for the entire search process-- you’ll learn a lot about yourself and what the college experience can look like, and then we’ll explore schools to find some great options for you.

Start senior year nearly done! After spending junior year exploring your big list and then narrowing it down to where you want to apply (reach, possible, likely), we’ll work with you over the summer to get way ahead on your applications. We’ll start by focusing on your personal essay-- it’s a fun process and when we’re done you’ll have an outstanding piece of writing that will catch the attention of admissions offices. After that’s complete, we’ll turn our focus to the rest of the Common App and any supplemental essays you’ll need to write. By the time you start your senior year, you’ll be nearly done with your applications and you can relax and enjoy events such as homecoming and fall sports seasons. (And try not to be too smug as your friends beg you for any ideas they can write about for their personal statements.)

We’re great at taking an overwhelming process and making it manageable, fun, exciting, and most importantly, all about you. Send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.447.0186) and let’s chat. 

Your friends are lovely. Please ignore them.

If you’re a junior, and especially if you’re a senior, it’s hard to get away from discussions about the college application process. This can be reassuring, right? You’re all in it together: you, your friends, your parents, your friends’ parents, your grandparents, your parents’ friends, friends of friends…

You get it. Everyone has something to say about the process, and each one of those very well-intentioned people has the potential to stress you out. But remember, this time is about you. It’s about exploring and applying to colleges that are the right fit for you and that make sense for your family. So guess what? You have permission to tune those voices out. 

Here’s how to identify and manage your reactions to the voices that aren’t helping you to stay calm and focused:

The Deadline Announcer. You know this person. She is your friend. She’s smart and keeps a paper calendar and is always on top of things. So unsurprisingly, every time you see her in the cafeteria, she’s listing deadlines like a walking, talking Common App. “SAT registration is September 10...Early Decision is November 1st...Regular decision for Boston College is January 1st…” And it can send you into a tailspin of worry if you’re not careful. 

How to deal: Set reminders on your calendar for important due dates, but keep in mind that there are really only a few important ones: early decision, early action, and regular decision. If you’re planning on taking the SAT, the College Board has all the information you need about when to take it and where. So when the Deadline Announcer gets going, just let her go. It’s making her feel better. The dates don’t change, and you already know what they are.

The Snooper. The Snooper has two motivations: to find out where everyone is applying to college and to announce the top schools that he is applying to. “I’m applying early decision to Brown, but if I don’t get in, I’m applying to Bowdoin and Middlebury. William and Mary is my safety school. Where are you applying?” 

How to deal: remember, students can apply anywhere they choose, and even the best high school students in the country will get rejected from some schools. The Snooper might get rejected from William and Mary and get into Brown. But here’s the other thing: he may not be applying to any of these schools. He might just be feeling pressure from his parents, or he may not have done much research on great schools that aren’t those brand names we’ve all heard of. Give him a “that’s great for you” followed by, “I’m still deciding.” Because even if he’s your best friend, you don’t have to tell him or anyone where you apply to college. Part of becoming an adult is learning what you should share and what’s just for you. The college decision? That’s all yours. 

The Personal Essay Expert: This friend is trying to help. Truly. They’ve worked with a tutor or obsessively Googled successful college essays (don’t do this!). “It shouldn’t be about your dog, your sports career, or your grandmother… It can’t mention Covid...It can’t be about personal trauma....It has to be about personal hardship...It has to have a metaphor...It cannot have any grammar mistakes…”

How to deal: This is a hard one. Everyone has something to say about the personal essay, including parents, coaches, and other people who know you well and want you to get into the college of your dreams. But keep this in mind: the personal essay is called “personal” for a reason. It’s supposed to reveal who you are to admissions readers. You, the person with a good sense of humor. You, who drove your little brother to school every day this year. You, who raises chickens in your yard. You, who taught yourself to knit. You, who will be an amazing member of the college community. 

Your personal essay is personal to you. Keep it that way. 

The Enthusiastic Alumni: this might be a cousin, parent, or family friend. This person loved their college so much they cannot even conceive of why you’d want to go anywhere else. “Northeastern was the best four years of my life. You really should apply. No place can give you that kind of career prep, and in the middle of Boston! You can’t beat it!” 

How to deal: Nod. Smile. Say, “I haven’t checked it out (even if you have) but I will.” The best thing you can do is appreciate that kind of enthusiasm and try to find a school that makes you feel that same way.

The Freelance College Counselor: This final one is difficult because everyone wants to help you find a college once they find out you’re in the search process. And these people can sometimes be helpful early on when you’re exploring potential schools. But once you’ve narrowed your list down, these are the voices that can make you second guess yourself, leaving you to wonder if there’s some stone you forgot to turn over, some perfect school you haven’t explored.

How to deal: Take a deep breath and have some confidence in yourself. If you began the process of exploring colleges during junior year, have been working with your guidance counselor or professional counselor, and have narrowed down your list according to region, size, culture, and likelihood to be accepted, your list is just right. For each of the 4,000 colleges in the U.S, there is someone who knows someone who had a good experience there. You cannot climb down every rabbit hole. By the time you reach September of senior year, you need the confidence to say, “I’ve done the research and I have the right list.”

At May First, we’re not just here to help you build your list and write your personal essay. We’re here to give you the confidence to say, “I’ve got this!” Send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com or call (617.851.9975) and let’s get started.

Reach, Target, Likely

Last week we wrote about decision rounds. This week we’re keeping the vocabulary lesson going by talking about the terms we use in list-building. It’s still a little dry... and still super important. 

When we build a list for a student, we break schools into three categories: Reach (2-3 schools), Target (2-3 schools), and Likely (2-3 schools). For some students we add a fourth category: Wild Card. The single most important thing to note for these categories is that the schools in them will be different for every student. What determines this? Mostly academic fit. Translation: a student’s grades, overall GPA, and test scores. (We know, does the SAT still matter?! The short answer is it’s complicated. The longer answer is that it still matters when we’re building a list.) 

So how do we define Reach, Target, Likely, and Wild Card? It starts by looking at a school’s statistics and asking, can this student get in? Or as admissions officers put it, is this student viable? And not only does GPA matter for this, but GPA in the specific high school’s curriculum matters… admissions officers know the difference between a 3.4 in all honors and AP classes at your high school and a 3.4 in general. 

For a Reach school, we say a student has a chance of getting in, i.e. is viable, if her GPA is at the bottom of the average range for admitted students. The important thing here is that her GPA is still in the range of those of accepted students. Someone with a 3.2 GPA probably won’t be offered admission to a school where the average GPA of accepted students is a 3.89.

A Target school is one where a student’s GPA falls right in range with the average of recently admitted students. That same student with a 3.2 GPA is much more likely to be admitted to a school where the average GPA for accepted students is between 3.1 and 3.3.

A Likely school is one where a student’s GPA is at the very top or above the average of the most recently admitted class. A student with a 3.7 GPA has a high likelihood of admission to a school where the average GPA of admitted students is a 3.0. 

The last category, Wild Card, is what we term Ivies and other uber-competitive elite schools; pretty much anything with an acceptance rate of under 15-20%. These are schools that could fill their incoming classes five times over with students boasting 4.0 GPAs, amazing activities, and brilliant personal statements. (Did you know that in 2019 50% of high school students graduated with a 4.0 GPA?!)

So where do test scores come in? Even though most schools are staying test optional for this admissions cycle, it can still be helpful to look at their average test scores when assessing a student’s viability. Again, looking to see where a student’s scores fall within a college’s range will help evaluate viability, even if that student chooses not to submit those scores. If I scored a 1060 on my SAT and the average SAT score for my dream school is 1400, well… that’s an indication that my chances of getting in are on the slimmer end. If my transcript (not just my grades but my grades in a challenging curriculum) and activities are outstanding, my letters of recommendation amazing, and my personal statement is well written, compelling, and tells a great story then admission is possible. And this is where we come in...

We love building lists for our clients and we love helping them put together their strongest applications possible. The best time to get started is in the fall of junior year... Send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com or call (617.447.0186) and let’s chat.

Decision Rounds- huh?

When I took my first biology course in high school, way way back in the ‘90s, my (amazing!) teacher began the course by explaining that learning biology was a lot like learning a foreign language- lots of new vocabulary. At May First, we think this is also true when someone begins exploring colleges and learning about the application process (and it’s way less fun than learning biology!). There are so many terms, things we’ve written about like holistic admissions and LTE factor. Another set of terms that is critical to understand is the different types of applications: Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision. We know, not super exciting… but super important. So let’s jump in.

Early Decision

Between 300-400  colleges in the US (out of nearly 4000 colleges) offer Early Decision (ED), a plan that is binding. Applications are generally due in November (November 1 or 15 depending on the school) and decisions are released a month later, with enrollment deposits usually due within two weeks. Students are only allowed to apply to one school ED and if accepted they are committed to that school and must withdraw applications to all other schools. 

The upside of applying ED is that it elevates a student’s chances of admissions significantly-- a school that accepts 20% of its entire application pool might accept closer to 50% of those applying ED. And it can be really awesome to sail into winter break knowing that the entire college application process is done. But there’s a big downside to ED… money. In all cases, ED benefits two groups: colleges and families that don’t need any financial aid. Because the decision is binding, an accepted student isn’t able to compare financial aid offers from multiple schools and doesn’t have any leverage to negotiate for additional aid. Colleges get to meet a lot of their financial goals by accepting students who can pay, and families who can pay have a better shot at getting their students accepted by elite schools.

Early Action

Early Action (EA) follows a similar timeline as Early Decision, but it’s not binding and in most cases students are not restricted in the number of schools they can apply to EA. Applications are due in November anddecisions come out a month later in December, but enrollment deposits aren’t due until the general May 1 deadline. Students can also apply to as many schools as they want in the regular decision round, and can then compare financial aid offers and negotiate with financial aid offices. 

With both ED and EA there are three potential outcomes: acceptance, rejection, and deferral. To be deferred simply means that the applicant is put into the regular decision pool and will receive a final decision during that time frame. 

Regular Decision

Regular Decision (RD) is exactly what it sounds like, the regular process and timeline of college admissions. Applications are generally due between January 1 and February 1 (unless it’s a school that utilizes rolling admissions) and decisions are released by April 1, with enrollment deposits due by May 1. Some schools offer multiple rounds of regular decision, but the general mechanics and commitments of the process are the same.

There is so much to consider when deciding whether to apply ED, EA, or RD. At May First we’re here to help. Give us a call (617.447.0186) or drop a line to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.  

Activities!

For many students, the Activities section of the Common App feels pretty high stakes. And it’s true, admissions officers do invest time in reviewing your activities to help give them a more clear sense of who you are outside the classroom and how you’ll contribute to the college community. 

But as with most things we talk about in our blogs, the activities list shouldn’t be cause for stress. Instead, see it as an opportunity to introduce yourself in a cool way: by giving them a peek into your actual life. 

Overview

The Common App allows you to list up to ten activities, ranked in order of their importance to you, from among the following categories:

• Arts or music

• Clubs

• Community engagement

• Family responsibilities

• Hobbies

• Sports

• Work or volunteering

• Other experiences that have been meaningful to you

In other words, whatever your interests are, the Common App has a place for them. And for each activity, there are 9 fields where you can provide some detail: 

1. Activity type (this is a drop down menu, so easy enough); 

2. Position/Leadership description (no more than 50 words); 

3. Organization Name (no more than 100 words); 

4. A description of the activity, including what you accomplished and any recognition you received (no more than 150 words); 

5. Participation grade levels (check box: 9th grade, 10th grade, etc); 

6. Timing of participation (during school year, all year, etc); 

7. Hours spent per week; 

8. Weeks spent per year; 

9. 8. Indication of whether you plan to continue the activity in college (yes/no).

If you’re like my own kids, this list can be anxiety producing. How should you rank them? What if the thing you care about most makes you look boring or selfish? Here are some ways to reframe some common worries:

I only do theater.

Maybe...but we bet there’s more to it than that. You may be involved in theater in your high school and in a summer program (2 different activities!). Maybe you mentor younger theater students (and, if you love theater and are a sophomore or junior, you might want to think about it). Maybe one of your hobbies is going to see one professional theater performance a year. These are all activities that tell a story about who you are. But don’t forget about the activities you engage in outside of theater. You may be an avid reader or work in a coffee shop or care for an elderly relative in your home. These help to round out an admissions counselor’s understanding of who you are.

I do too many activities to list. 

There are worse problems to have! When you’re a person engaged in a lot of activities, you first want to write them all out in a separate document. Next, group them by type so that you can think about the relationships among your activities, then rank them within those smaller groups. You’ll begin to get a picture of which are the most meaningful to you, and you can narrow the list from there.

Who has time for activities? 

If you’ve spent most of your high school years focused on academics or maybe an after school job, don’t worry. You still have room to develop a meaningful list. This is where the broader categories come into play: Family responsibilities, Hobbies, Work, and Other experiences that have been meaningful to you. 

Students with family and work responsibilities have a great opportunity to demonstrate that they are able to balance school with other demands. Students with interesting hobbies (kayaking, video game playing, D&D, running, traveling) can use the activities list to show they will be unique members of the college community. 

How am I supposed to rank my activities? 

Ranking is probably the most tricky part of the activities list, but it’s manageable if you approach it intentionally and honestly. Of course, your volunteer work seems like it should come first, but if you spend 10 hours a week on a TikTok account devoted to cake-making, guess what? Cake-making comes first. And that account says something meaningful about you: that you’re creative, tech savvy, committed, and that you will definitely be good roommate material!

We’d love to help you with everything from your activities list to college list building. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s get started!

Using your voice.

In the blog post Let’s talk about grammar! I counseled students to “Talk like you!” when it comes to writing the Personal Statement. Here’s a little more on what that means.

“Never use the first person in a formal essay.”

Sound familiar? In my 20+ years as a college professor, I’ve heard hundreds of first-year students repeat this common rule of thumb.

The problem is that it’s not really a rule. In fact, there will be many times in your college and professional careers when writing in the first person is acceptable and necessary. Still, many high school students are told not to as a way to prevent them from slipping into informal language and to help them sound more authoritative.

What often happens as a result is that students lose trust in their own voices. They begin to write in another voice altogether, one they imagine their teachers or professors want to hear.

I call this The Newscaster Voice.

The Newscaster Voice is not yours, but it’s something you’ve kind of heard before. The Newscaster Voice uses unnecessarily complicated words. The Newscaster Voice will never use one word when five are available. The Newscaster Voice is fussy and formal, and when students use it in their writing, essays inevitably become what is called stilted, which means stiff or unnatural. 

I’ve spent a lot of my career convincing students that their voices are worth hearing, and this is especially true when it comes to the Common App Personal Statement. My advice to students is this: your writing should sound like you. Not you hanging out with your friends, but a more cleaned up version of you. 

So how do you do that?

1. Use words you know. This is not the time to bust out the thesaurus. Even if you use the right word in the right context, you might choose one that’s out of fashion or too formal for someone your age, and this can be jarring for readers. 

2. Avoid turns of phrase that you don’t use in real life. Same advice as above. Some phrases that sound like they should be part of The Newscaster Voice’s repertoire are actually tricky on the page. In which? Of which? To which? These phrases have three different meanings. Unless you use them regularly in your writing, skip it ...which brings me to a question I ask students all the time when they’ve written something a little confusing...

3. How would you say this? Trust yourself. You communicate pretty well. Write it the way you’d say it out loud. You can clean it up later. 

4. Tell it like it is. Ask yourself, did I really feel like that? Was that my genuine reaction? Sometimes students exaggerate their responses to situations and events. Did you gasp? Really? Are you a gasper? Or did you freeze? Did you clench your jaw? Do you not remember? This is your story. Be honest with yourself and with your audience.

The best thing you can do in your Personal Statement is be honest. That means dropping The Newscaster Voice and being you. It’s who the admissions officers want to learn about, and as we’ve told you before, you’re kind of a big deal. 

Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let us help you find your voice.

Saint Michael’s College

Ask anyone to name the best college town in the U.S. and you’re likely to hear Burlington, Vermont as a top contender. With a population of around 42,000 it’s home to three colleges: Champlain College, Saint Michael’s College, and University of Vermont. I’ll visit Champlain and UVM in future posts; today is all about St. Mike’s.

Located about five minutes from downtown Burlington (and offering free bus transportation to downtown to ensure students can enjoy the city), Saint Michael’s is a small liberal arts college (1600 students) that is known for its friendliness and community. While it is considered a Catholic college, only about half the students identify as religious. Its campus comprises 440 acres looking out over Vermont’s Green Mountains and the state’s tallest peak, Mount Mansfield, as well as the Winooski River (a tributary of Lake Champlain). The campus is built around a central quad and features mostly red brick architecture, which many complain is a bit dated. Students are required to live on campus in the residence halls for all four years, ensuring a community focus for everyone who attends. 

Professors generally get high marks for their enthusiasm and engagement, and a low professor-to-student ratio keeps class sizes small (over 55% of classes have fewer than 20 students, facilitating discussion-based classrooms). The core curriculum requires students to complete four courses (First-Year Seminar, Fundamental Philosophical Questions, Study of Christian Traditions and Thought, and Junior Seminar) as well as general requirements in liberal arts and experiential learning. 

Saint Michael’s offers a diverse array of majors and minors. Among their strongest and most popular are business and marketing; biology; psychology; media studies, journalism, and digital arts; and environmental studies. Students are impressed by the academic support services, highlighting the Writing Center and Peer Tutoring offered through the Academic Enrichment Commons. In addition, there are opportunities to cross-register for classes at Champlain or study engineering at UVM (in a unique 3-2 program where students earn a BA from Saint Michael’s and a BS from UVM). There is also an Honors Program where strong applicants are invited to participate beginning in their first year. Enrollment in the honors program includes specialized housing and coursework, and requires a senior thesis. (About 15% of students are in the honors program. Students are also invited upon completion of their first year if they achieve outstanding academic success.)

Saint Michael’s believes in preparing its students for a changing and challenging world, and as part of this encourages students to participate in study abroad. As a result, these offerings are fairly popular with over one third of the student body heading out to one of more than 100 programs. Some of the most popular take students to Argentina, Tanzania, Thailand, New Zealand, and Denmark. 

Saint Michael’s is DII for athletics, and most of its teams compete in the Northeast-10 Conference. The most competitive teams are alpine skiing (men’s and women’s), men’s ice hockey, men’s basketball, and lacrosse (men’s and women’s). Athletes in other sports do complain about outdated training facilities and athletic fields. Students who choose not to participate in team sports are still active, keeping busy with intramurals and various outdoor pursuits (the Adventure Sports Center organizes outings throughout the year including white-water rafting and rock and ice climbing). 
Saint Michael’s is a small liberal arts college in a beautiful location with an exciting city only minutes away. It attracts students interested in doing good in the world and has a loyal-- and very generous-- alumni network. If you’re interested in learning more or wondering if it might be the right fit, give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.

What is the Common App?

If your parents applied to college way back in the ‘80s or early ‘90s, they probably filled out a few paper-based applications and sent them through the actual mail, with a stamp and everything. They also applied to fewer colleges than you’ll be applying to. Even so, filling out three or four different paper applications was a pain. 

Enter the Common App. 

The Common App is a college application platform used by about 950 participating colleges and universities. It’s designed to make the application process more equitable and accessible to a wide range of applicants. It’s free and easy, you can use it on your laptop or your phone (the app is actually pretty good), and the Common App website offers great resources to help you get started. 

If you’re a sophomore or junior in high school, you may not be familiar with the Common App, so here are the answers to some frequently asked questions:

Do I need a Common App account? Yes. Though there are some exceptions (Georgetown and MIT, for example), most, if not all, of the colleges you apply to will accept the Common App. 

How do I register? You can create an account at any time, but you’ll want to think about registering by spring of junior year. Common App makes the process easy, and as soon as you enter your information, you’re ready to start. 

What can I expect? Once you’ve created your account, you’ll see that it’s organized into five sections: Dashboard, My Colleges, Common App, College Search, and Financial Aid Resources.  The Dashboard helps you to get from one place to the next; My Colleges helps you manage your college list; Common App is where you enter common application details; College Search helps you explore schools; Financial Aid Resources helps students and families understand the financial aid process and opportunities. 

What does the application look like? The Common App is great because (unlike in your parents’ day!) you only fill out the information once. The application includes the following sections:

• Profile (address, demographic information)

• Family (parents/guardian/sibling information)

• Education (high schools/other colleges you’ve attended, grades, GPA, class rank, courses, achievements)

• Tests (SAT, ACT, TOEFL, IB, etc) 

• Activities (all the things you do outside of classes, ranked and including a 150 word explanation for each: clubs, jobs, hobbies, volunteer work, etc)

• Writing (here is where you’ll write the important 650 word Personal Statement either in response to one of several prompts or on a subject of your choosing; many schools ask for supplemental essays as well)

What if my high school uses Naviance? Naviance is a third-party vendor that links right to the Common App, so if your school uses it, no problem. If it’s too much to manage two different platforms at once, you can always opt out of Naviance as long as you haven’t already begun synching up your applications. 

The Common App will also help you manage your deadlines and recommendation letters, among many other things. The sooner you create your account the sooner you can familiarize yourself with how it works, and we promise, it’s organized and easy to use!

We’re ready for you, juniors! Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to  info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s get started building those application materials!

Common App: It’s Time

Hey Rising Seniors! The Common App updated over the weekend and is ready to go for the 2021-22 application cycle. (Juniors and junior parents-- if you’re wondering just exactly what the Common App is, sit tight. We’ve got a post coming for you next week.) There’s a new essay prompt (announced last February), and a new inclusive question about gender, but other than that it’s pretty much the same. 

It’s only August, so why should you care? Because it would be awesome to start senior year ahead of the game and not have to panic in October when the reality of applying to college becomes really time sensitive. 

So what should you do?

• Gather all the materials you’ll need to create your account and begin filling in your demographic information:

  • High school transcript

  • List of extracurricular activities (school and community), work, volunteer experience (there is some strategy to how you write and order your descriptions)

  • Test scores from the SAT/ACT (more about this in a minute)

  • Parent/Guardian information

  • Academic honors and awards

• Create your account:

  • As a senior, you’ll register for a “First Year Student” account

  • Add your demographic information

    • Name (make sure you enter your name as it appears on all your legal documents and transcripts so that everything matches up)

    • Home address

    • Date of birth

    • Phone number

    • Email address (make sure you enter an email address that you check regularly in case colleges need to get in touch with you; we often advise our students to create a gmail account just for college applications and check it daily)

Test Scores? Most of the colleges that went test-optional for last year’s cycle are staying that way for this year’s cycle. If you took the SAT or the ACT and did well, submit your scores (as we said in our earlier post it’s hard to know if this matters to merit aid- some schools stopped using test scores in their merit formulas, some didn’t and for the most part they’re not sharing that info).

What else should you be doing? Probably most important, you want to begin brainstorming ideas for your personal essay (who wants to be stressing over this in October?!), and looking through your college list to see if they require supplemental essays (more on that next week!). Lastly, you want to make a list of people whom you can ask for killer recommendations. 

If you’d like help on building your list, writing your personal statement, and all of the other important pieces of your college application give us a call (617.447.0186) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat. We’d love to help.

Tips for Considering Division III Sports

At some point in their high school careers, many serious student athletes focus on one basic question: should I play in college? 

For me, there was only one answer: YES. I loved basketball and I needed any financial help I could get to pay for college. I was incredibly fortunate to earn a full scholarship to a DII program. I was a first generation college student, and that scholarship opened up opportunities I’d never even considered, eventually leading me to a career as a college professor.

But as I noted in a previous blog, athletic scholarships are nearly impossible to come by, making DIII sports -- which don’t offer scholarships -- the most viable pathway to a college athletic career. In a way, this makes the decision of whether or not to play more complicated. If you don’t have to play as a condition of keeping a scholarship, you can really take the time to consider if you should. 

The Basics

Playing college sports is a big commitment, so think about the obvious stuff first:

• Do you have strong time-management skills? Will you be able to balance the demands of college sports along with your coursework?  

• You may be counting on an off-campus or work study job -- will you be able to manage that on top of practice, games, and school?

• Will you be comfortable missing social activities for games or matches?

• Will it be difficult to study abroad or engage in coop while you’re on the team? 

But there are some less obvious questions to consider too, and they can be just as important to your college experience:

Do the current players like the coach? If you choose to play a sport in college, your coach will be the primary adult in your life. If you don’t like them, it’s going to be a rough ride. If you have an opportunity to meet the team prior to the start of the season or academic year, pay attention to how the players talk about the coach. Do they respect her? Do they express frustration or anger about her policies or strategies? Players who respect their coaches are more likely to have a positive experience. When players relentlessly make fun of or complain about a coach, it’s a red flag. Be sure to notice.

Do the current players like each other? Again, if you can meet the players ahead of time, pay attention to how they interact with one another. Are they having fun? Do they seem like they respect and support one another? These are the people you will spend most of your time with; make sure you want to. A college team is like a family, and it should feel like one.

How many players on the current team play your position, what years are they, and do they get a lot of playing time? Let’s say you’re a lacrosse goalie and you’ve been talking to a coach who’s really interested in you. If that team had only two losses the season prior behind a freshman goalie who played every minute of every game, it’s likely you won’t be getting time for quite a while. It’s important to ask the coach what he thinks your role will be.

Can you handle being a bench player? If you were a strong high school player, chances are you don’t have a lot of experience sitting on the bench. But neither does anyone else on a college team. Your college teammates will be former high school MVPs and all-conference and all-state players. In other words, everybody’s pretty good, but somebody isn’t playing. It’s hard to sit on the bench. Think about how you might handle it.

The decision to play college sports at any level is a big one, and those are just a handful of things to consider. As questions come up during the decision-making process, ask the coach, the current players, or the athletic director for answers. Don’t leave anything on the table.

At May First, we want your college experience to be challenging, transformative, and fun. Playing a sport can be a meaningful part of that experience. We’d love to help you explore and apply to colleges that are your best fit both on and off the field. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to  info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat.

Does the SAT Still Matter?

I hate taking tests, always have. It didn’t matter how well prepared I was-- when the teacher handed out the blue test booklet or the multiple choice answer sheet, my heart would drop and my body would flood with panic. I had friends who loved tests, would sit up a little straighter with their sharpened pencils --that just wasn’t me. The panic would always dissipate a minute or two into the test, but I never could figure out how to skip that panic altogether. 

There are few tests that are as hyped, as panic-inducing, as written about as the SAT. It is a billion dollar industry (in 2017 The College Board--the “non-profit” administrator of the SAT -- generated over $1.1 billion in revenue. And that’s not counting all the private courses and test prep tutors that affluent families engage to improve scores). And for decades, The College Board and the elite schools that use the SAT to justify their admissions practices have argued that it is an essential part of assessing an applicant's potential for success. Their claim is that SAT scores are a better predictor of who will graduate from college than other factors. The truth is that there is a very minor correlation between SAT score and GPA and graduation rate, but the SAT on its own doesn’t actually predict much. 

A much bigger truth is that the SAT is fundamentally flawed and biased. Just Google “SAT” and you’ll find article after article examining its inherent bias and racism against black and brown students and its inherent favor for affluent kids. Go a little further and you’ll find that the data of The College Board shows these issues in clear black and white numbers. This has led to an ongoing movement to do away with the SAT and standardized testing in general. 

In the midst of the pandemic, almost all US colleges and universities went test-optional. Test date cancellations and testing center closings all but necessitated this. Most of these schools are staying test-optional for the 2021-2022 application cycle, in recognition that this year’s rising seniors faced immense disruption in their high school careers. And there’s also the not inconsequential truth that applications at competitive schools that normally require standardized tests went through the roof in last year’s admissions cycle (Colgate’s applications went up by 104%!). These record application numbers help out in the… you guessed it, rankings. (Though this is a bit of a catch-22 because rankings also love SAT scores.)

So when our clients ask us, “does the SAT still matter?,” we would really love to say no. Sadly, the answer, like standardized tests themselves, is murky. 

If you’re a rising senior, the SAT is likely to be optional anywhere you apply in the coming admissions cycle. We wish we could say that means don’t worry about it! But as we said above, it’s murky: most schools that were not test-optional prior to 2020 used the SAT for two purposes-- admissions and merit aid. They have secret formulas that they use to award merit aid, and SAT scores are almost always a factor. The murkiness comes from the fact that while they went test-optional for admissions, not all of them went test-optional for merit aid… and this information wasn’t shared. So there are lots of students who didn’t submit scores, got admitted to great schools, but were only considered for aid based on their FAFSA and other financial information, not their academic achievements and potential.

For younger students, it’s even more complicated. While the University of California system is no longer considering the SAT or ACT in its admissions process (this is a really, really big deal and advocates for doing away with the SAT and ACT altogether hope it’s just the tip of the iceberg), it remains to be seen if schools that went test-optional in the pandemic will stay test-optional long term. 

So what’s our advice? Well, that depends. Do you have a lot of test anxiety or are they no big deal? Are you likely to qualify for merit aid and is this an important piece of your college-funding plan? Are you planning to apply to schools that may start requiring SAT and ACT scores again? 

These are big questions and we would love to help you sort them out. Give us a call (617.851.9975) or send an email to info@yourmayfirst.com and let’s chat. 

College Rankings

I love to rank things. Favorite books (#1 Their Eyes Were Watching God). Favorite movies (#1 Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood). Best concerts (#1Michael Jackson). Worst concerts (#1 Death Cab for Cutie). Best sports to watch (#1-10 Basketball). Best sports to play (#1-10 Basketball).

Ranking is fun. It orders information, choices, and possibilities and makes them more digestible. If I want to learn about the golden age of rap and hip hop, I’m not just going to dive in -- I’m going to find myself a ranked list of the best songs and artists. 

When it comes to colleges, you’re probably most familiar with U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges rankings. Best Colleges ranks the best colleges overall; the best regional universities; the best regional colleges; the best colleges for veterans; the best HBCUs; the best undergraduate business programs; the best value schools -- you name it, it ranks it. It’s the place to which prospective college students and their families turn to help guide their college decisions.

Ultimately, though, ranking colleges is a lot like ranking your favorite songs. It’s subjective and it’s influenced by a host of factors, both seen and unseen. In a recent Forbes Magazine article, Susan Paterno explains that U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges is “an advertising and marketing powerhouse” that “manufactures competition to peddle products. Selling pseudoscience as an objective measure of academic quality, it leads worried and confused families to about 100 schools with the nation’s highest academic hurdles and lowest acceptance rates.”

This pseudoscience is the belief that there is an objective set of criteria against which to evaluate the overall quality of a college or university, or its suitability for a given student. 

So how does the magazine arrive at these rankings? It’s complicated. And it’s a secret. Malcolm Gladwell’s recent podcasts, “Lord of the Rankings” and “Project Dillard,” attempt to get to the bottom of things, but ultimately, all he reveals is that they rely on colleges’ self-reported data and on the subjective opinions of college presidents and provosts. 

In Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, Jeffrey Selingo explains a bit more about how the rankings have “signaled to students and parents what to emphasize when looking for a college--mostly the quality of incoming students rather than what undergraduates actually learned or what they did after graduation. Over decades, the rankings narrowed the view of seniors to focus on just a handful of schools.” 

Scrolling through the U.S. News and World Report rankings is going to lead you to the same set of selective schools over and over again. But consider this:

• The top 10 best value schools have an average acceptance rate of 11%. 

• The schools with the top 10 best 4-year graduation rates have an acceptance rate of 14%.

• Top 10 colleges that offer the best return on investment (ROI) have an average acceptance rate of 14.8%.

There are 4,000 colleges in the United States. If U.S. News and World Report is focused on the same 100 mostly elite and difficult to get into colleges over and over again, then what about the other 3900? The truth is, many are doing some really interesting things, offering innovative academic opportunities, and one of them might just be the right price and fit for you.

Just as Esquire’s list of the 100 best movies of all time should be taken with a grain of salt (I mean, Paddington 2 is on it), so too should college rankings. And just like the movies, the right fit will be determined by your own interests, values, and budget.

We’d love to help you sort through and narrow the list of colleges that are best for you. Email us at info@yourmayfirst.com or give us a call (617.851.9975) and let’s chat.