Lessons learned: 2025-2026

[Anonymous]

most kids can't write more than 7-8 really great apps. unless you're applying to schools with very minimal supps. limit the list - cut out all the safeties and a few of the targets. 1 safety and then 7 targets and reaches is gonna give you the best result

[Anonymous]

Work on RD essays before EDs come out. It allows winter break to actually be a break, and, chances are that if your child is applying to a highly selective school, they might get pushed to the RD round. Fingers are always crossed, but if an ED acceptance does come through, the time spent on writing RD essays will be at the very back of your child's mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Understand the role of institutional priorities and how few slots outside of that actually remain in regular decision. Lots of old links on here.

If you are early in the process, think about how you can hit a double or trifecta with some of these priorities: (legacy/donor/undersubscribed major/geo diversity/demo diversity/qualities to directly match new university programming/centers)

Here's info on institutional priorities:
https://ingeniusprep.com/blog/athlete-legacy-admissions-advantage/

A Simplified Example: How a Class of 100 Might Be Allocated

Priority Category Approximate % of Seats

Recruited Athletes 10%
Legacy / Donor / Faculty Kids 12–15%
Full-Pay International 10%
First-Gen / Low-Income 10–15%
Underrepresented Majors 10%
Mission-Aligned Profiles 10%
Academic Standouts 25–30%

I do think one of the reasons my kid got into a T10 RD (legacy) last cycle was because DC hit 4 IPs (donor; legacy; underrepresented major; mission-aligned priorities).

In your experience, what does "donor" mean for this purpose? Six figures? Seven figures? Lifetime total? Or entirely new pledge?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. people spend too much time "building the list". there are no secret schools. you know the list. or 90% of the list. move it along

2. people spend too little time on the apps. each app takes weeks. each apps needs the right mixture of intellectual heft with humor/humility/nice guy touches.

3. your soundbite is the most important thing. how are you described in a committee room, the applicant from Brooklyn whose love in physics started with bowling

4. ED to your favorite. dont game it. that leads to regrets, even if your kid doesn't express it to you

Agree with all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trust that you know your kid best and really be honest with yourself about what will make them thrive and be happy. Put your own shit aside. It may not be the “best” school that they can get into. Don’t give much weight to friends, family, neighbors etc that are guided by their own opinions/anxiety/judgement. You are your kids best advisor. Don’t focus on the same 15 schools everyone else is trying to get into. Let go of your own need for prestige and praise around their process.

Yes to this! Fit over prestige. It’s silly to look at the US News ranking for selecting schools.

DC will seriously consider Colorado even though it’s ranked low. Love the block plan. Premed.

I’d be nervous sending my kids there with the recent issues of suicides on campus.

Suicide occurred at University of Colorado, Boulder.

Colorado College is in Colrado Spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. people spend too much time "building the list". there are no secret schools. you know the list. or 90% of the list. move it along

2. people spend too little time on the apps. each app takes weeks. each apps needs the right mixture of intellectual heft with humor/humility/nice guy touches.

3. your soundbite is the most important thing. how are you described in a committee room, the applicant from Brooklyn whose love in physics started with bowling

4. ED to your favorite. dont game it. that leads to regrets, even if your kid doesn't express it to you

factor in time for editing, writing supplementals (and oh yeah to watch confetti for a minute or two). If kid is taking six classes in Fall, the 7th class and sometimes 8th class is applying to college (no matter if they started working on apps before senior year)

[Anonymous]

Figure out how to effectively recycle supplementals from one school to the next. Operative word is effectively. This both takes and saves time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) Test optional is not really test optional.
2) High stats are only a baseline for admission to highly selective schools.
3) Unhooked students must be both academically competitive AND compelling.
4) Female applicants are disadvantaged in the admissions process at most selective schools (due to the growing gender imbalance in college applicant pools) and when feasible should apply early.

I think test optional applies mostly only to hooked cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Test optional is not really test optional.
2) High stats are only a baseline for admission to highly selective schools.
3) Unhooked students must be both academically competitive AND compelling.
4) Female applicants are disadvantaged in the admissions process at most selective schools (due to the growing gender imbalance in college applicant pools) and when feasible should apply early.

I think test optional applies mostly only to hooked cases.

+1 If you're white or Asian and from an affluent suburb with plenty of high achievers, you need to submit the scores.

[Anonymous]

Don't stress too much about college matriculations. It's not a verdict on your parenting or your student. It's just a scarcity problem for the most well-publicized colleges, but your child will get an equal education elsewhere.

More importantly, your stress and anxiety can have a more lasting and deleterious affect on your child's mental health, and your marriage or relationship with other kids. Making sure your own baggage and anxiety doesn't impact their self-worth is more important than where they go away to college for just 4 years. It's just 4 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Test optional is not really test optional.
2) High stats are only a baseline for admission to highly selective schools.
3) Unhooked students must be both academically competitive AND compelling.
4) Female applicants are disadvantaged in the admissions process at most selective schools (due to the growing gender imbalance in college applicant pools) and when feasible should apply early.

I think test optional applies mostly only to hooked cases.

+1 If you're white or Asian and from an affluent suburb with plenty of high achievers, you need to submit the scores.

For T25 only.
Except Michigan, Vandy, WashU, USC and Emory (at least this year, given no longer need blind). Provided not a STEM major.
At least per our non-DMV privates CCO.

[Anonymous]

Class of 2025 parent chiming in just to say that I wouldn't count on:
-a ED deferral turning into an admission. At many top universities it's under 5% and it seemed to be even lower around here.
-RD decision results being great.

Having seen an admissions cycles from start-to-finish I would contradict a previous poster who said not to ED2. In retrospect I wish my child had. They were so in love with their ED1 school (Dartmouth) but Dartmouth basically strung them along (and a half dozen other kids at their school and many other kids we know across the DMV) for 9 months. No one ever got in and they wasted so much emotional energy. It was brutal and unnecessary and then they lost out on an ED2 chance at places like Bowdoin, Vanderbilt, WashU etc. Once you get into RD at these schools you're looking at a <3% chance of admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Class of 2025 parent chiming in just to say that I wouldn't count on:
-a ED deferral turning into an admission. At many top universities it's under 5% and it seemed to be even lower around here.
-RD decision results being great.

Having seen an admissions cycles from start-to-finish I would contradict a previous poster who said not to ED2. In retrospect I wish my child had. They were so in love with their ED1 school (Dartmouth) but Dartmouth basically strung them along (and a half dozen other kids at their school and many other kids we know across the DMV) for 9 months. No one ever got in and they wasted so much emotional energy. It was brutal and unnecessary and then they lost out on an ED2 chance at places like Bowdoin, Vanderbilt, WashU etc. Once you get into RD at these schools you're looking at a <3% chance of admission.

Where did your child end up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Figure out how to effectively recycle supplementals from one school to the next. Operative word is effectively. This both takes and saves time.

I agree. This is especially important if your kid is applying to 10+ schools, each with multiple supplemental essays.

This part of the process was MUCH more difficult than DD (and then we, her parents) expected!!

Next time (with DC2), we will help him up front in ways that should not be necessary, but I think are . . . by creating a chart of some sort showin EVERY supplemental essay for the schools on his list, and helping him strategically figure out which ones line up and which ones are truly unique.

It seems absolutely ridiculous, which is why it never crossed our mind to consider this with DC1. They applied to 12 schools, each with at least 2 supplemental essays, some with as many as 5. The idea of STARTING the process in August with a chart that included 40 essays to be written would have caused DD's head to explode. But I do think it would have helped save time and effort in the long run . . . .

More details for those who are interested:

While it seems at first that there are only a few types of supplementals (Why X college, Tell us about a community you're a part of, Describe a life experience that impacted you and will influence your involvement at X college) every school finds a way to put their own spin on it. And schools mix and match their questions in different ways such that straight cut-and-paste from other applications doesn't really work.

Sometimes the topic is almost exactly the same but the word limit is 200 instead of 500 (or the reverse), which means a ton of editing to the point that it becomes an entirely different essay.

Sometimes the topic seems to be the same on the surface, but is actually asking for something different. (I'm thinking of one supplement that asked about community, but on closer read it actually focused on CONVERSATION - something about how the kid learned to engage with others in conversation etc. So the straight-up community essay from School X was not at all a fit because the examples were completely off topic.)

And sometimes a school has two supplements are similar to those your kid wrote for other schools, but they overlap in weird ways, so your kid needs to deconstruct and rearrange parts from multiple essays to make it all work as a whole. Again, complete pain in the butt.

Bottom line: If your kid is applying to 10+ schools, each with multiple supplements, ENCOURAGE THEM TO START EARLY!!

And consider having them create blocks of ideas/examples that can be moved around independently to serve different purposes. It involves a level of forethought and planning that is truly ridiculous, IMHO.

(The other option is to apply to fewer schools . . . or to seek out schools with fewer or no supplemental essays. There are some great schools that fall into this category. A quick Google search will bring up lists of supplement-free applications. Just double-check (ALWAYS) on the school's website AND the Common App to be 100% certain. Sometimes schools "hide" a supplement in a weird place - DC almost missed a few because they didn't show up in the same section of the common app as the others. Again, ridiculous.)

[Anonymous]

Yep, 11:23 much of what you said what a ride.