Things to do in order to boost up your college Applications

It is still crazy to think that soon I, along with my entire high school class, will be applying to colleges soon. In five short months we will be sending out all of the applications to potential schools and will have to decide where we want to attend for the next four years of our lives. I mean it’s a huge decision. You will be spending thousands and thousands of dollars on this school and you want to be sure to pick the right one for you so you don’t waste all the money. But first, you need to be accepted.

I have heard so many things about what college admission representatives are looking for when reviewing applicants and I think there are some things you can do to make your application stand out.

1)      They like to see that you tried and pushed yourself in high school. So when picking classes try not to go for the easy route, as long as you can maintain a decent GPA I would suggest taking harder classes to show that you have ambition and aren’t afraid of a challenge or working hard.

2)      Get involved in clubs and sports. Even if a certain club only meets like once a week, the more you participate the more you can add to your college application. You want to make yourself look as good as possible, so the more you are involved the better.

3)      Be careful when writing your essays. Make sure to go over them as many times as you can and give it to teachers, parents, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. to try to get as much feedback as you possibly can so that you are putting your best work out there for the colleges to see. Your college application is the reason why you worked so hard in high school, so you wouldn’t want a silly little grammar error keep you from your dream school.

4)      Make sure your tests scores are up to your standard. You can take the SAT and ACT more than once, so why not take them until you are happy with your score? I am pretty sure this is one of the first things colleges look at because when you look up colleges, sometimes they are ranked by their average ACT score.

5)      The goal of this application is to show the colleges what you are made of, you want to seem driven, hardworking, and ambitious. You work SUPER hard all of high school and you do not want to slack off when it comes to college applications.

6)      Try to get as many letters of recommendation as possible. You can get creative on who writes them because it doesn’t necessarily have to be teachers. You could try your employer at work, or your supervisor if you volunteer. I think the more unbiased opinions you can put in there the better, because it is one of the only parts of the application where you aren’t bragging on yourself.

I think it is important to note that if you are looking at the more prestigious colleges because you think they will make it easier for you to get a higher paying job in the future, I would tell you to consider other colleges as well. I think where you go for graduate school is going to be more important than where you go for undergrads. Yes, the argument could be made that if you get your undergraduate degree from a prestigious school it would be easier to be accepted into their graduate school, but you could save a whole lot of money if you consider other schools.

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