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[quote=Anonymous]There's five big parts: grades, resume building, test taking, list building, essays.

1. Don't let grades weigh you down. Get a tutor for any subject that is a struggle. Do this from 9th. find a reasonable math (or whatever) tutor and use them weekly for years. We didn't do this and should have.

2. Does your kid need a passion project? Nope. But resume building is important and either starts early or the "story" has to be built in retrospect (my kids both did that). look at kids activities. look at kids major. Can you combine the two? medium good 3 seasons sports athlete + lawn care business = sports management with focus on women's sports marketing fill that out a little with an research project since internships would be too hard to get and manage social media for high school girls teams. or NSLIY + debate = asian studies with focus on women's development. etc.

This is actually the most important step. Consultants can be helpful but you can often do this on your own. Some kids think this isn't "authentic" so you may need to start explaining why this is important earlier than later.

3. test taking - self study, tutor, or a class. But take the tests. There's no real strategy, whatever is best for your kid. I prefer back to back tests in fall of junior year. Study summer before and knock it out.

4. Look at your high school's school profile. For most kids, the college they end up at is among the usual suspects from your high school, either high end, medium, or low end. But maybe you have a kid who would be interested in an Edinburgh? Or is a super star compared to peers. Then you'll need to do a lot of work. But .. assuming your kid is a regular standard strong student at a standard strong high school - this is an easy and fun exercise: take the list of 5 yr matriculations from your high school and sit with kid and cross out all the "I'm 100% sure I'm going here" colleges. And then make a strategy to visit some things that pop out. You'll have a long list of 20 colleges before you know it. Moving for 20 to 10 will take shape as kid and resume mature.

5. Essay writing. Either a parent or aunt or teacher can help with this or you need an essay coach. My kids benefitted by them/me renting an Airbnb for a few days in late summer and writing/editing a bunch of these. These stack up  so whatever the plan, make it happen.

That's it. I think the "story" is really what matters. It makes essay writing easier too. But every step is important. Just take it piece by piece. [/quote]

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