College App for Students: You Don’t Have to Wait Until the Fall to Start

0:00:01.4 S1: As you begin working on your college app for students, you don’t have to wait until the fall of your senior year to begin, there are multiple steps that you can take in the spring of your junior year… In the summer before your senior year. From getting all of your information together to actually begin that college application, the steps you take right now are going to help you with balancing time as senior year starts up, this can help you with managing stress, can help you with you and your student being able to enjoy the time that you have…

0:00:35.6 S1: And today we’re going to talk about what you need to have ready before you actually begin working on that at college application and the steps that you can take right now.

0:00:47.8 S1: Hey there, I’m Courtney and I’m the founder of confused to College Ready with over 15 years experience as a mental health therapist turn school counselor, I am bringing my experience and expertise to help you navigate the college search experience. My goal is to serve students and their families and unlock the secrets to college searching, stay to…

0:01:14.0 S1: Alright, so today we are actually celebrating our 25th episode and almost 500 downloads of the confused a College Ready podcast. I cannot thank each of you enough for those that have listened to our episodes, those of you that have shared them, left reviews and provided encouragement. It is really exciting that this dream that I had and being able to give support has turned into 25 episodes already, and what I want to do to be able to celebrate this is I’m actually going to give away a free 30-minute coaching call to discuss your pressing questions. So what we’ll do is the winner, I will send you a survey of some of the things that you want to discuss, we will set up a time that works and make sure that you have 30 minutes that are jam-packed with giving you everything that you need, if you go to our Facebook group and the website is confused to college ready dot com group and comment on the post in there about the free coaching, then we are going to draw a winner from everyone who come in for that free coaching session, and we will make sure to tag you in the group and then we will set up that time, I am super excited for this, and again, just thank you all so very much.

0:02:38.2 S1: If you have also enjoyed the show, I would love if you would share the podcast with others, and then also if you would leave a review that will just help other people be able to get connected… To be able to learn about what we have to share, and it would just mean the world to me if you would be able to share… I love seeing the reviews and seeing how things have been helpful. So let’s go ahead and get started. When I have worked with students before, the ones who… And I’ve referenced this before in some of our previous episodes about students who had done work over the summer, those were the students that going into their senior year were the most confident, they were the most relaxed, and they had more time to really be able to make sure, that they had what they needed. And they just felt better going into that senior year, and also with some of them, they were able to spend some more time on scholarship applications, so that they were able to get a little bit more money even for their upcoming freshman year. So what I want to do is just we’re going to review several different ways that you can apply to schools, we are going to talk through what you need to have before you start filling out the application, and then several other pieces to help give you all some steps.

0:04:07.0 S1: Now, let me say this, if you are listening to this episode and you’re already in the fall of your student’s senior year, or it is summer, and you think, Oh my gosh, we’re behind, you’re not behind where you are and where you’re starting is just fine, and you’re going to be able to get the steps done that you need to, but if you’re in the spring of your student’s junior year, then these are some great things that you can work on. So let’s go ahead and start talking. First, the first thing that I want you to do is to write down that there are several different ways that you can apply to colleges. So one of them is that you can apply directly to the college, most of those are not going to open up until the end of the summer, so beginning of August, middle of August is when those direct college applications will actually come out for you to start working on those… With that being said, there are a couple of other application types that you can complete where you can start working on that for some of them as early as your freshman year, so we have the common application, there is the coalition application, and then another one is the HBCU common application.

0:05:22.9 S1: So common application has a pretty… They actually have a wonderful layout on their website of all of the different steps that you can take, and if you all link there, all of the different application types, I will link them in the show notes. But these are some really great things that you can do to get ahead of a head on that application timeline, now, you’re not going to be able to finalize and submit applications until the application rolls over for the fall of the year that you’re applying. So right now, when you go look at the common application, it might be that it’s open for… So today is May 8th, it is actually, I’m recording this on Mother’s Day, so happy Mother’s Day. To those who are moms, grandmas, mom’s heart, those who are serving in the capacity of being a mom, happy mother’s day, so with the applications, when they… If you go log in right now and you have a student who will be graduating in May or June of 2023, that application is going to be for the current seniors, so if you have a student who’s a junior right now, you can go in and fill in that application, and then it will end up rolling over to the application for the fall of 2023 students, so you can enter the information, you will want to go back and review everything that is in the application and make sure that there haven’t been any additional questions added or formatting changes or anything like that.

0:07:09.3 S1: But you can go in and enter some of that information right now, which is going to save you a tremendous amount of time, so let’s talk about the second thing, let’s talk about what you want to do before starting to fill out that application. On previous episodes, we have talked about having one email account for students so that you can organize everything, if you set up a Gmail account and you have access to Google Drive where you can have your Google Docs, you can have spreadsheets. That’s something that everyone can access. And when you have that one account to be able to organize everything that’s related to that college search and application, it’s going to make it a whole lot easier to have everything in one place, so within that email address and Google Drive, you want to have your list of activities, you want to have your list of different accomplishments and honors, your academic information, so transcript, GPA, class rank, test scores, any kind of college credit information where if that is applicable for your particular student or your situation. Now, when I talk about activities and accomplishments, that is not just, Hey, I was involved in these 500 different things, you want to make sure…

0:08:34.1 S1: And it doesn’t have to just be groups, it doesn’t just have to be individual things, it can be how… Maybe your student or you as the student, had some particular times where you needed to be able to help out with things for your family, so this isn’t just school stuff, this isn’t just out-of school things, it can be anything, honors, accomplishment, awards that you have received. That’s where you want to be able to have a list of all of those topics, all of those things that you want to make sure that you can share, that also is going to make a difference when you are looking at your short answer of what activities have you been involved in and what are some of the things that are important to you so that you can make sure that you’re speaking to your unique story. So when you look at… Excuse me, when you look at the common app, they do a really good job of walking students through the steps that you need to take, so they will have you gather all of that information, they will have you create your account, they’ll have you start entering those demographics and all of the different pieces, when you create your account, make sure that you are saving your user name and password, make sure that it is something that you are not going to easily forget and something where everyone will be able to access things with ease, whether it be…

0:10:05.3 S1: That your student is at school and you’re needing to work on something while they are not at home or whatever that might be, you just want to make sure that there’s easy access. Alright, so the third thing that we want to do is in… Or by the spring of junior year, you want to start working on that application, so you’re looking at your demographics, so age, your name, where you live, all of those pieces, date of birth, demographics, you also want to go ahead and add in any of those activities… Honors accomplishments in your senior year, the summer before senior year, if you get done with entering those demographics and other pieces, you can go ahead and get started on your essay, common app has a list of all of the different essay prompts that are available. Now, let me go back a second. If you were applying directly to the college, you’re not going to be able to get in to start working on these things until that college application opens up, but if you… And today, I’m really specifically talking a lot about Common AP, but it’s the same thing with the other application platforms that we discussed, so you want to be able to work on…

0:11:20.7 S1: See what those essay prompts are, and find the one that’s going to be the best fit for your student, it doesn’t have to be the one that’s the hardest, it’s the one that is going to speak the best to your student as an individual. The other thing that I would encourage our students to do is to ask for a copy of your transcript. At the end of your junior year, please know when you do that, that your class rank is subject to change by the fall, that rank that you’re going to have in the fall is the one that you should actually be submitting to colleges that is going to be based on the current enrollment, you might have students that leave when the school year, maybe they’ve moved, maybe there’s something else that’s happened, and you want to make sure that the rank that you’re presenting is the most up-to-date, or you might have a student who’s moved in and that can make a difference. So you want to give the correct number of students as of your senior year class, so in the summer, we’re going to work on those essays, we’re going to work on getting that information, the short answer pieces, all of that ready to go.

0:12:24.4 S1: So when you’re doing that college at for students, you’re working on submitting everything and preparing, that is not something that you have to wait until your fault to be able to get started, so I hope that has been helpful. We will link a lot of the different pieces in the show notes as far as the common app and the coalition app, HBCU comment app. We will make sure that all of those things are linked. And again, I just wanted to remind you that as we are celebrating our 25th episode, that we are doing a giveaway for a free 30-minute coaching call to discuss any of your pressing questions, so please go to our Facebook group at confused a College Ready dot com. Group, if you haven’t joined already, please join and then you can comment on the post and we will draw a winner for that free coaching session. Also, if our show has been helpful to you, we would love for you to leave a review and share the podcast with others, if there are any specific questions that you would like us to cover in future episodes, please send me an email at admin, it confused to ready dot com, or you can comment or post in the Facebook group and I will make sure to address that question in future episodes, as always, I am here to serve you and your student, and I look forward to talking with you soon.

0:13:49.9 S1: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast, please subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook it confused to ready and download our free guide on how to start or expand your college search at confusedtoready.com/howtostart.