Getting In: A College Coach Conversation

Summer is a very important time in the college process. Two very important items to focus on: planning and making the most of college visits, and getting started on your main essay. We'll talk about both in this week's episode. We'll also explain how refund policies work, which is important to understand if you find yourself unable to attend for a semester for some reason.

If you're considering Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC for short), don't miss this week. We welcome a recent program graduate and her mom to discuss how she decided this was the right program for her, how mom felt about the decision then and now, and things to consider from both the application and finance perspective. In Office Hours, we're answering your questions on college admissions and finance.

In last week's Getting In, we discussed the importance of a distinguishing excellence for those students hoping to be admitted to the most selective schools in the country. This week, we walk you through the best way to present that DE in your applications. In Office Hours, we're talking about starting the activity section of the application and creating an application resume if necessary. For all those work study students out there or those that simply hope to get a job, we're offering advice on applying for on-campus jobs.

If you aspire to one of the most selective colleges in the country, you must have something that takes you from competitive to compelling. We discuss the concept of a "distinguishing excellence"—what it is and how you can get one. For graduating high school seniors and their parents, we go over the required steps and offer some tips for making a successful transition to college.

One year ago, NY State established the Excelsior Program offering free tuition to qualifying state residents at state institutions. As the program heads into its second year, we'll revisit how the program works and share information about how students can take advantage of it. For students and families who have made the decision to pursue homeschooling as an alternative to a traditional school setting, the college admissions process can be a bit more challenging. We'll discuss what you need to know to present the best possible college applications. Finally, in Office Hours we'll go over the potential impact of the senior slide (i.e., poor grades!) on your college acceptance and suggest steps for minimizing the impact.

Teenagers who are both talented athletes and strong students might be able to leverage those abilities in the Ivy League admissions process. We'll investigate how that process works from the perspective of someone who was both an Ivy League recruited athlete and admissions officer. We'll also explain how income-driven repayment plans work and talk through how to select a college major in Office Hours.

It's down to the wire for this year's seniors, with deposits due to the college of their choice by May 1. For those struggling with this decision, we'll offer tips for evaluating your acceptances and choosing the best option. We'll also answer listener college finance and admissions questions in Office Hours.

As the world becomes more global and a greater number of students look for college options farther from home, we're seeing lots of interest in the UK university system. We're going to explore some common myths related to applying to and attending university in the UK, and hopefully offer a better understanding of the reality. We'll also talk about the beauty of payment plans in helping families better budget for and pay for college. And in Office Hours, we'll cover some common questions related to standardized testing, including when to get started, whether or not you have to take subject tests, and others.

There are two important parts of every college lists: finding the best fit colleges where the student can get in and pay for. We'll devote two segments to those ideas this week, focusing on how to get started on the list and how to incorporate the paying angle into the search process. We're doing another segment on waitlists in Office Hours, this time from the perspective of the colleges. We'll share how they use waitlists and what that means for students who currently have waitlist decisions from one or more colleges.

We're tapping our colleagues' experience this week to offer insight into Goucher College and how they approach admissions and Babson's financial aid process. In Office Hours, we're offering advice about how to make the most of resources available at your high school to support you in preparing for and successfully applying to college.