Why preparation is key in the college application process (tips from an NYU undergraduate admissions ambassador)
If you and one other person have the same background, same scores and the same extracurricular activities, but one of you did your research, asked the right questions and took the time to edit their essays multiple times; the person who prepared would always win.
I stand by the words above, but how can they be true?
I am an undergraduate admissions ambassador at New York University and I get questions like, “What extracurricular activities should I be in?”, “How many times should I take the ACT?”, and sometimes even more detailed questions like, “How long are the most successful essays?”…
While every applicant is different and takes different steps to complete their college applications at their own pace, the common theme of great applications is the pace at which they were completed. It is clear they were not done at the last minute. Preparation is key if you want to put your best foot forward in the college application process.
Putting your best foot forward means giving yourself enough time to do your best work. Whether that means starting your SAT test practice in your sophomore year of high school or finding a college mentor to help you organize a list of potential schools, taking steps such as these makes you a well-prepared applicant.
Preparation is a separating factor and it almost always comes through in the writing.
Ideally, when you begin to draft the college application essays, you would have found your high school counselor or college mentor, finished the standardized tests of your choice, toured the colleges at the top of your list, and visited as many info sessions as you could. You should still have plenty of time before the deadlines to brainstorm essay topics, write several drafts and go through rounds of revisions.
However, if you have not done all of the above by the junior/senior year, you are in a time crunch. Unfortunately, such unpreparedness will be evident throughout your application package, most likely in your writing.
Here’s why:
Typically, the initial stages of the writing process are some form of a brain dump, where you are trying to get all of your ideas out of your head and into the essay. The pitfall of the brain dump is that, sometimes when you have a time crunch and a word restriction on the essay, you tend to over-write, which can hurt more than help. This is because you have a lot of ideas, and not as much time to focus the essay’s direction.
University counselors can tell the difference between an essay that has been given time to breath and gone through multiple edits and one that was rushed. Be careful not to give yourself more barriers to success than needed.
Here are three tips on how to best prepare your college applications:
- Participate in Extracurricular Activities, But….
I used to get a lot of questions about the *wink* “right” extracurricular activities on my tours and even on the phone, when I talked to parents, counselors and applicants. From my experience the college application process requires the applicant to do a deep dive on who they are as a person. What do they like? What are they proud of? What do they think they want to do for the rest of their life? Why? Your college application, given time and an editing process should tell a story about who you are, what you want to do and why this school is right for you. The extracurricular activities you take help you tell that story.
If you are only in National Honors Society or your school’s Debate Club because you heard a statistic that would make a school favor you for being in it, you probably are not very passionate about that club. I have always heard counselors say that you should be able to tell us how the club impacted you. There is little point to listing 15 clubs on your application if you can say very little about any of them.
2. Visit as Many Schools as Possible, Or…
I think that visiting colleges and universities are so important. Sometimes your dream school is not what you would have imagined, and other times places that you never even thought about become contenders after a visit.
That being said, not every person is able to see every or any school they want to go to in real life. My tip for every applicant is to take advantage of the college’s resources. At NYU we had virtual tours of every residence hall online. They also have videos of the most popular buildings on campus, so that you could get a feel for the environment. I would also recommend searching for student made videos of the campus on Youtube or other social media sites.
Last but not least, you should talk to college mentors studying at your target schools to get a feel for their campus life, community culture, and social scene. This way, you can make sure that they are the best fit for you and explain why in your application package.
3. Application Essay: Review, Edit and Edit Again
I would highly recommend getting at least one other pair of eyes on your paper. This is for two big reasons:
- On more occasions that one might imagine, I have heard about students forgetting to change the name of the school they were applying to in their essay. If you are applying to Michigan University, a paper that reads, “Ever since I was five years old I have always wanted to attend Penn State” does not bode well for the admissions counselor.
- Sometimes, because you have read the same paragraph for the 10th time you miss errors that you would normally never make. Small things such as formatting and using the wrong homophone get lost in the mix. For example, the use cases of, “their, they’re and there” is very often incorrect in essays.
Mistakes like this might easily go unnoticed by the writer because they are not grammatically incorrect, but unfortunately, as counsellors have thousands of applications to read, those mistakes may cost you your admission’s decision. The more time you have to spend on your essay the more depth and detail you can add to your story.
These are just some of the reasons why I think preparing for the college application process is key. University counsellors can tell the difference between an essay that has been given time to breath and gone through multiple edits and one that was rushed. They know the difference between an application that has been reviewed and amended to include more detail and structure and one that has not. As you are probably only applying to university once, why not give it your best shot.
Danielle is a content contributor at Mascot. She studied Business & Political Economy at NYU and worked as an undergraduate admissions ambassador for four years.
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