Getting the Details Right - Prepping For the College Application

Level 5 - Ivy League

Welcome! One of the questions we receive is how do you stand out as an applicant in college admissions.

The answer to that could literally span several books and is ultimately what our clients pay us to help with them with.

But a more interesting and valuable question is - what are the details that matter?

What we will attempt to do is explain the details that truly matter in college admissions and how to get them right.

But before we do that that, there are a few key concepts you need to be aware of.

What do we mean by “the details?”

If you think of a college application, it is typically thought of in sections:

• The transcript

• Test scores

• Recommendations

• Essays

• Extracurriculars

That is helpful, but that is not what we mean by the details.

A more useful way of thinking of a college application is to put everything into two categories:

• The basics

• The details

The Basics

The basics are the things that every applicant does and are the foundation of your application. For example, a good GPA is a basic component of any application. If you are getting straight Ds in high school, there are no details. You are simply not competitive and most likely will have serious considerations for college.

The Details

The details are what you build upon the foundation. For example, the basics would be having a 4.0 GPA. The details are what courses you took to get the 4.0.

Use two students. Both have the same unweighted GPA. But Student A took regular and college prep level courses, while Student B took AP level versions.

Student B will be the stronger student in that scenario. But the details do not always matter.

When do the details matter?

Details have a direct relationship with the selectivity of the college.

The more selective the college, the more the details matter.

Go back to the same scenario as before. If you are applying to Western Kentucky, with a 97% acceptance rate, the difference in details does not really matter if both students have strong unweighted GPAs.

But if you apply to Stanford, where the acceptance rate is much lower, the difference in applicants becomes much more significant.

Now apply that to the overall applicant pool - you would expect the applicant pool at Stanford to self-select for stronger applicants than Western Kentucky.

That means Student A is likely not applying to Stanford, but more people like Student B are.

This is a critical concept to understand - most people look at selectivity and simply assume that the same type of individuals are applying to every school.

That is not true.

Therefore, selectivity is really two-fold:

1. Fewer admissions spots versus number of applicants

2. Applicant pool self-selects to be more competitive

So when we say selective, we mean both of these components togeher dictate how important the details are.

That being said, lets focus on what actually matters.