Rising Seniors: Hire a College Admissions Consultant Now
As college admissions consultants specializing in top-tier schools, IvySelect has successfully advised many students in the achievement of their educational goals. We prefer to begin early in a student’s high school career. However, rising seniors who wish to attend an Ivy League university or other top-tier institution and who have not yet hired an admissions expert are not too late. You should retain a college admissions consultant now. Further delay will impact the ability of the consultant to provide the full benefit of their expertise. More importantly, procrastination beyond May or June may reduce your chances of acceptance at the elite schools of your choice.
The best time to start working on your college applications is during the summer. It’ll be too late to start this process in October and devote the time necessary to brainstorming, drafting, redrafting and polishing your personal statement and supplemental essays, as well as pulling together everything else you need to do, if you’re applying to a school Early Decision or Early Action. It’s also actually late in the game to begin the application process for your dozen or so Regular Decision schools beyond early October. No doubt you would prefer not to spend your days in the last summer of high school crunching your way through essays and exam prep, but, as the sneaker people say… just do it!
How you spend this summer may be critical to your chances for admission to highly selective institutions. As you return from summer programs at elite universities, service-related volunteer programs, research in labs, internships or working a job, you may have had a significant experience that you can speak about in your personal statement. It may be the culmination of, or highlight, an academic or extracurricular passion that can serve as the basis of an interesting and meaningful essay. At this point, in the latter part of summer before school begins, now that you are armed with new perspectives, you should begin working with an admissions specialist to develop the admissions strategy that will help you to achieve your educational goals.
Your college consultant can help you understand and master the complexity of college applications, especially the essays. Your counselor will also help you prepare for interviews, determine which people to ask for letters of recommendation, discuss whether you should take the SAT or ACT again, and develop and/or refine your college list.
You should seek expert guidance now in setting a plan for this summer. Since you’re going to want help sooner or later in optimizing your applications, we strongly advise that you contact IvySelect now. Don’t wait until the admissions deadlines are imminent. This may seem obvious, but thousands of students, even those who ardently aspire to the Ivy League and other top-tier institutions, fall into the procrastination trap every year.
At IvySelect, we use a proven methodology with our students. We start with discussions with you to learn about your interests, aptitudes, preferences, talents, goals, and academic record. Using this profile, we work with you to develop an admissions strategy that enables you to present your best self. The approach may be slightly modified for each target school based on our knowledge of unique aspects of each school admissions criteria. We’ll guide you through essay development, interview preparation, letters of recommendation, course selection, choosing extracurriculars, talent (“hook”) optimization, and other key aspects of the admissions process.
Every college and university is different. The extent of the differences among elite colleges is especially broad. A key advantage to retaining IvySelect is that our consultants apply their personal knowledge of the nuances of each college’s admissions process. This is why we are best equipped to successfully guide you through the complexities of admissions.
