Hello!
This past admissions cycle:
- NYU received 120,000 applications and had an admissions rate of 8%
- USC received 81,000 applications and had an admissions rate of 9%
- Duke received 49,469 applications and had an admissions rate of 6%
Alarmed? You’re not alone. College admissions have become hyper-competitive. “Safety” schools are becoming a thing of the past.
Fortunately, there is something you can do to not fall behind: start early. Let’s go over 5 key benefits of starting early.
Benefit #1 – Consistency
Sometimes students will do activities for only a few months at a time, before jumping to something else when they lose interest.
What does that say about the student’s ability to commit to something? What does it say about their understanding of themselves and what they want?
The answers aren’t good.
Put yourself in the shoes of a college admissions officer. Would you want to admit a student that was deeply committed to their activities for several years? Or the one that never committed to anything?
Colleges love consistency. It shows that you’re disciplined. You know what you want. And you’re willing to put in the work over an extended period of time. These are all traits you’ll need to show to be a successful applicant.
When you start planning for college early, it gives you the time you need to show consistency. Doing an activity from 9th-12th grade is much more helpful than only doing it for a few months in 12th grade.
Benefit #2 – Depth
I’ve worked with students in the past that thought that it was enough to be a member of a club and go to monthly meetings. Nothing more. That counts as extracurricular involvement, right?
Wrong.
Colleges like NYU are receiving 120,000 applications. They will discard applications that don’t have in-depth involvement in their extracurricular activities.
Colleges can easily tell when you don’t have much to show for your activities. This will hurt you on your applications.
You need to be able to show depth in your activities. Let’s give an example:
Say you are a member of your robotics team. Attending monthly meetings and not doing anything else isn’t enough.
Instead, you can get involved. For example, you can lead a new initiative where you develop a curriculum to teach younger students about robotics. This becomes your commitment for the next several years and you continue to build on it as time goes on.
That is showing depth. That will help you on your applications.
Start early to give yourself a chance to develop depth in your activities. It takes time and isn’t done overnight.
Benefit #3 – Leadership
Colleges want to see leadership from competitive applicants. How have you demonstrated leadership throughout high school?
Start early to give yourself enough time to take on leadership roles in your various activities.
Let’s say you are on the swim team. Eventually, you’d like to become the captain. Your chances of success are much higher if you join the team in 9th grade.
You can become involved and respected over time, so that by 11th or 12th grade you will be captain. If you join the team in 12th grade, you’re far less likely to be able to take on a leadership role.
Start early to increase your chances of securing leadership roles in your activities.
Benefit #4 – Organization
When students first come to me, they often report feeling overwhelmed. The process can be extremely complex.
It isn’t easy to juggle various extracurricular activities, sports, volunteering, and classes. That’s why organization is critical.
The later you start your planning, the more chaotic it’s going to feel. There are too many things that you need to be thinking about and doing.
Start early and create a plan that will outline each step you need to take throughout high school. We help our students with this, and they report it makes a big difference in helping them stay on track.
Students are sometimes confused or frozen in the face of the mountain of things they need to do. Staying organized helps you move past this and achieve your goals.
Benefit #5 – Minimize Stress
When I start working with a student, they often tell me how stressed they are about the process.
To be a competitive applicant, they are going to need to put in a lot of work. But, they don’t know where to begin. That’s where the stress begins.
One of my main goals is to minimize the stress around the admissions process for my students.
How do I do this? Through years of experience, I have learned many highly effective strategies. Today, I’ll share the most important one with you (I’m sure you see where this is going).
Start early.
By starting early, you can slowly build up to all the different things you want to put on your applications. Combine this with a clear plan to get a low-stress college admissions experience.
Research shows that too much stress makes you perform worse.
Starting early can radically reduce the stress you feel throughout the process. This will improve your quality of life and allow you to perform better when it matters.
Every student is in a unique situation. Plenty of my students still do great even when they come to me later in high school. But the trend that I’ve noticed is that the earlier you begin, the higher your chances of success.
This isn’t a groundbreaking discovery – it’s true of most things in life. There’s a reason everybody is familiar with the saying: the early bird gets the worm.
At NYU, over 120,000 applicants were competing for an extremely limited number spots.
If you were applying, would you rather be somebody who started their process early? Or not?
Don’t get left behind. Reach out to us today to schedule a free initial consultation. There, we can get to know each other and explain how we can help you maximize your chances of admission.
We hope this has been helpful!
American College Counselors
P.S. We also offer one-on-one writing tutoring. If you need help brainstorming, outlining, or editing an essay, feel free to reach out.