How do I Apply to College?

The College Application Process: Fall of 2017

Download These files:

1. Senior Brag Sheet

2. Fatal Flaws for the College Essay

3. Common Application: Explanation for Terms used to classify College Admission preferences

4. Master List of all common Application Colleges, and their Admissions Requirements

5. The Common Application Essays, as well as some suggestions on addressing the prompts

6. Brief but helpful guide to the Common Application

7. Early Action vs. Early decision: what do these two terms mean?

8. Graphic Organizer for the Common Application Essays

9. Three Step outline Graphic organizer for the Common Application Essays

10. How to use the College Board Site to search for schools that will be a good fit.

11. PowerPoint on writing your Personal Statement - The Common Application Essay

12. PowerPoint on navigating and filling out the Common Application

13. Some Big Ideas concerning the Common Application Essay

So...how do I approach the process of getting into college???

• You should have a College Brag Sheet put together = (Download) This will allow you to get all of your data and accomplishments in one place and it will also help you when you're asking for Teacher Recommendations. In other words, the brag sheet will allow a faculty member to write a more detailed recommendation because they'll have more information about you.

  • You should also remember to ask for a recommendation as early as you can in the school year.

    • Do not place teachers in a position where you “need it the next day.”

• You should have all of your standardized test scores, SAT, SAT Subject Tests, AP’s and ACT’s in one place.

  • You're going to need the scores when you start doing your college searches, because colleges will have particular admission baselines for these exams.

• I would highly suggest that you establish an account at the College Board Website. (open this link) There there are tons of resources available and this will also help you in the next step, which is to set up a list of colleges that you're interested in.

• Use this powerpoint if you are wondering how to compile a list of colleges that you're interested in. (download the preceding PowerPoint) to begin to search for particular schools if you are unclear about how to establish a list of potential colleges: Reach, Target and Safety schools.

• The basics of this college search would be to use your academic data as a filter to find colleges that match your accomplishments.

• You should have already opened up a Common Application account. (click on link)

• The Common Application is an online pdf file that is used by hundreds of schools.

  • The idea here is simple: filling out this application will allow you to send your college admissions information to 10 or 15 schools without doing individual applications for each of them.

  • It is critical that you spend a great deal of time filling this out the Common Application accurately because sending out one common application with mistakes means you send out all common applications with mistakes.

    • Use this PowerPoint as a guide to filling out the Common Application.

• Part of the Common Application is also your response to the Common Application Essay questions. There are 5 Common Application Essay Prompts and you should always have two of these prompts “working” at the same time.

  • The Common Application Essays have a 650 word limit, so you have to, literally,  choose your words wisely.

  • Here is a PowerPoint that gives you the Common Application essay in a “Big Picture” format.

  • Here are the common application essay prompts along with basic organizational format that I think would be helpful for you.  

  • Use a graphic organizer that you can use to start putting your ideas for the essay together.

  • Here is a link to Common Application Essays written by FDA alumni.

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Day to Day concerns. Fall Testing:

1. 2016-2017 SAT ® Test Dates

   1. November 5, 2016                Registration: October 7, 2016

   2. December 3, 2016                Registration: November 3, 2016

2. ACT Registration Test Dates

   1. October 22, 2016    September 16, 2016

   2. December 10, 2016    November 4, 2016

Day to Day concerns. Being a student:

1. Feed your GPA Every Day.

   1. Don't assume that colleges are only going to be looking at your grades from freshman to junior year.

   2. You should keep in mind as well that after college admissions letters are sent they will pay attention to how you finish your senior year.

      1. If colleges detect a fall off in your grade, they can easily pull your application.

      2. This means that you work until the final bell, and that includes may and June

2. You should be considering getting a recommendation from two teacher: one from math and Sciences and the other from the Humanities.
3. You should also consider getting a letter of recommendation from someone outside of school who knows you well: this could be a boss from a job, a professor from a summer class, a clergy member from your house of worship, or a mentor from a program that you have been a part of.
4. Deadlines matter in this "business"...that applies to fees for the SAT/ACT as well as application dates for your college admissions.
5.