52 Weeks to College: Week 11
What can you do to make your school counselor your best ally and advocate?

March 13, 2023
What can you do to make your school counselor your best ally and advocate?
March 13, 2023
Your school counselor has a big job, and part of that job is helping you (and all of your classmates) navigate the college admissions process. In that way, your school counselor is your ally.
But that is not all your school counselor does in the college admissions process.
Your school counselor can also be your best advocate through their counselor recommendation and conversations with admissions officers. Many of you do not appreciate how much influence your school counselor can have on the admissions officer’s evaluation. Admissions officers place a good deal of weight on what school counselors have to say about an applicant.
Tip #1. Do your part to make their job easy. School counselors work with LOTS of students, and the only way they can do that effectively is to use tools and systems to handle the load. You need to do your part by educating yourself about the tools and following the rules. Does your school use Naviance or Scoir or some other online tool to help you with making your college list or handling your applications? Log on and explore what’s there. Are you required to turn in forms on certain days? Turn them in on time and fully completed.
Tip #2: Help your school counselor get to know you. It is easier to be an ally and an advocate for someone you know. So help your school counselor get to know you. If your school counselor offers individual appointments, schedule an appointment and meet face-to-face or virtually. If your school counselor distributes questionnaires, fill them out completely and thoroughly. If your school counselor holds group sessions, attend them and participate. They make these opportunities available for a reason.
Tip #3: Communicate any special requests respectfully and with as much lead time as possible. School counselors want to help you — that’s why they got into this profession. So even though they are busy, they are usually willing to grant special requests if you ask respectfully and give them as much lead time as possible. Respectfully means recognizing that your school counselor is obligated to follow policies and the law. Lead time makes it possible for them to squeeze a request into an already packed schedule. Need a recommendation for a summer program? Ask as soon as you know, not the day before the application is due!
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
Can’t afford the time or money necessary to visit colleges in person? No worries – take a virtual visit with these online resources.
March 6, 2023
Can’t afford the time or money necessary to visit colleges in person? Or is Covid still messing with your travel plans? No worries. You can make a virtual visit! Just follow the virtual tour directions below. It should take you a couple of hours and by the end you’ll feel like you’ve been there!
You’re going to start your tour by imagining you are on-campus right now. The easiest way to do that is to google images for the college. It never fails that the iconic buildings on campus will come up. For example, if you google images for Princeton, the first images that come up are those of the Tower on the Princeton campus. And, of course, you can imagine you are there on a picture-perfect day because those are the images that you’ll see.
Now that you are on-campus, orient yourself by downloading a campus map and marking where you are starting. You can usually find good ones on the college’s own website. Sometimes there is not a downloadable map, but instead an interactive map. If so, keep a tab open with the interactive map because you’re going to come back to it at each stop, so you can get a feel for navigating the campus. Google maps have also gotten much more detailed for college campuses, so you can check those too.
Stop 1. The Registrar’s Office. What’s a registrar and why are you going there first? Well, the Registrar’s Office provides support for your academic life. And since college is first and foremost an academic experience, we’ve made it your first stop. You’ll find a page for the Registrar’s Office on the college’s website. Explore and see if you can find out a few key things:
Hint: The answers to these questions can ALWAYS be found in the University Bulletin (a bulletin is an official legal document that the university is required to maintain and it will include this information). For example, here is the current Bulletin for Duke.
Stop 2. A Classroom Building. Now that you know the basics when it comes to your academic life, you’ll want to see where you are going to be taking your classes. You can choose a classroom building at random OR you can visit the building where one of the three classes you’d be excited to take is being offered (you’ll have to find the class schedule to do that). Again, google images for the particular building. See if you can find interior shots of the classrooms.
Are they large lecture halls (auditorium style), smaller “desks forward” classrooms, small seminar style classrooms, or a mix? Try to imagine yourself there with other students. For you science types, also find out what a lab looks like.
For example, here is a picture of a 140-student auditorium style classroom at USC’s Taper Hall where the Principles of Microeconomics class often meets.
Stop 3. A Professor’s Office. You want to find out exactly how accessible your professors are. Why? Because students who engage with their professors are generally more successful. Frankly, the campus grapevine is the best source of information for professor accessibility: the online version of the campus grapevine on this issue is the Professor Accessibility information found in the campus topics section of the Unigo page for the college. What you find might surprise you – for example, see how Columbia stacks up against Harvard. If you really want to dig into this topic, you can research some of the professors at the college and see if you can find their office hours. It is often found on their web page or on a syllabus for a particular course (which you can often find linked to the course listing that you located on Stop 1).
Stop 4. Campus Life. Your next stop is the hub for campus life – usually it is a student center, but sometimes it has a different name or things are spread out across campus. For example, at the University of Chicago, there are several hubs for campus life, but the hub for the student organizations and campus-wide social events is the Center for Leadership and Involvement. Locate the list of active student organizations (or clubs). Now pretend you are at the involvement fair and every organization has a table and a couple of representatives there to talk with you. Which tables will you visit? You’ll no doubt have an opportunity to attend a fair like this in the fall of your freshman year – almost every college has one. If you want insight into the arts culture, Greek life, sports, or political activism, go back to Unigo and look to see what students have to say by looking at those headings under campus topics. For example, you’ll see that University of Chicago is a place where arts and politics dominate campus life, sports aren’t their thing, and Greek life matters only to a small minority.
Stop 5. A Freshman Residence Hall. Even if you only end up sleeping at your residence hall, you’ll spend at least one-quarter of your freshman year there. So you owe it to yourself to check it out. Freshman living accommodations vary widely – some are housed together without upperclass students; some are housed in “live and learn” communities where you share interests and coursework as well as living together; some are in traditional single-sex dorms and the list goes on. For example, at Georgetown, freshmen live in one of four residence halls or in one of five Living Learning Communities (LLC). Read up on the options for freshmen and take yourself on a tour. Look for floor plans, interior images, and details that bring your future home to life. And when you’ve finished checking things out, head over to the ratings on Niche.com and see how recent and current students rate the on-campus housing. In our experience, these particular ratings are usually pretty spot-on. For example, Georgetown, despite it’s A+ for location, only gets a C when it comes to dorms.
Stop 6. The Dining Hall. Now that you’ve seen where you’ll live, it’s time to find out where you’ll eat. Unlike days of yore, “the dining hall” is usually a collection of on-campus eateries where you can eat using your meal plan. For example, Notre Dame offers its students two traditional dining halls, along with several restaurants, express eateries, and a food court. And its meal plan includes an option where you can buy "Flex Points" to spend at select off-campus restaurants. Check out the places you could dine and find out what’s on the menu. Does it sound tasty? Meet your dietary needs? Again Niche.com is your go-to source for getting a feel for the quality of the food. They give Notre Dame an A.
Stop 7. The Fitness Center or a Sports Field. Sleep, food, now exercise. Yes, we think it is important that you stay healthy at college! What activity are you going to do? Work out, play sports, some of each? Every college will have opportunities for you, and most colleges have gotten very serious about promoting student wellness. For example, at Yale you could workout at Payne Whitney Gymnasium (described as a fitness enthusiast’s dream), play an intramural sport, or go the Good Life Center and do some meditation to reduce stress.
Stop 8. Participate in a College Tradition. Nothing says more about a college than its traditions. Google the name of the college and the word “traditions” to see if you can find out a few. Often you’ll find descriptions of traditions on the college website, on a Wikipedia page, or in articles from the school’s newspaper. Here’s a good rundown on traditions at Penn — who knew toast throwing was a thing? — from the “new student orientation issue” of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
That’s it. Your virtual college tour is done – and you didn’t have to leave the couch!
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
It’s the week before the March SAT, otherwise known as “Build Your Test Mojo” week.
February 27, 2023
It’s the week before the March SAT, otherwise known as “Build Your Test Mojo” week. IF you are taking the test (do NOT put your health at risk to do so), these are our favorite tips for things to do throughout the week to maximize your performance on the test.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
A break from school is ahead, plus extra time to catch up & get back on track. Seize the opportunity to build momentum with these tips!
February 20, 2023
Yay! Spring is coming, bringing you a break from school and a little time to catch up if you’ve had a tough time staying on track in January and February. Seize this opportunity to build momentum by getting these things done in March.
1. Keep your eye on the prize when it comes to your grades. Do what you need to do to put yourself on track for the end-of-year grades you want. Analyze your performance thus far and see what you need to improve. More timely submission of homework? Better performance on in-class quizzes or tests? A little extra-credit work you could do over the break? Whatever it is, now is the time.
2. Work your plan for standardized tests. If you are operating on the schedule we suggested, you’ll either be taking no tests at all, or taking the SAT in the middle of the month, or doing final prep for the April ACT. Keep working your plan and look for our post coming soon that has tips for how to find your test-day mojo.
3. Review your activities and see if there is an opportunity to do something by year-end that would add to your “impact.” When it comes to activities, admissions officers are on the lookout for impact. In admissions-speak, you’ve had an impact when you’ve done something that has contributed something positive to your community – whether that be your family, your school, or your town, your country, or even the world. Where do you have an opportunity to contribute something positive before year-end? Focus your energy there. If you want to learn more about how your activities will be evaluated, take a look at this video.
4. Make your college visits – in person or virtually. For those of you who are lucky enough to be making in person college visits while on break, be sure you make the most of them. For those of you who can’t swing in-person visits, you can use the time to go on virtual visits by digging into some online research. Look for our upcoming post on how to take yourself on a virtual tour of a college.
5. Familiarize yourself with the college admissions resources offered by your school and, if possible, make an appointment to meet with your school-based counselor in the next month or so (either before or after break). Your high school has resources to support you through the college admissions process, and you owe it to yourself to find out everything you can about what those resources are. Educate yourself by poking around on your school’s website, visiting the counseling offices, and attending college planning events offered by your school. Find out if your school-based counselor schedules one-on-one appointments with juniors. If they do, sign up for one — this is an important first step for establishing a positive and productive relationship with your counselor. Read our post coming soon with more tips about working well with your school-based counselor.
6. Work on locking in your plans for summer. What you do this summer is important. Check out our previous post on how to make the most of it.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
Organizing a college visit isn’t like planning a vacation. It should be fun, but take our strategic approach with these tips.
February 13, 2023
Planning a college visit isn’t like planning a trip to Disney World or some other vacation destination. Sure, it can and should be fun, but there's a definite strategy for getting the most from these visits.
If it’s safe for you to travel again – and if you have the opportunity to visit colleges in person – you have two objectives. First, you want to learn as much as you can about what it would be like to study and live there for four years of your life. Second, you want to take advantage of any opportunities you might have to get a competitive edge in the application process. So how do you achieve those objectives?
1. Learn about the college on and off the tour.
You definitely want to do the official information session and tour: they are really the most efficient way to get the basics. If you are interested in a particular program and there are specialized information sessions or tours for that program, then do those too.
But if you really want to figure out whether this college is right for you, you want to go off the tour and gather more information. Here are the things we recommend:
2. Getting a competitive edge.
There are several ways that a well-orchestrated college visit can give you a competitive edge in the application process.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
It's already time to lock in summer plans! What will you achieve between your junior and senior year?
February 6, 2023
Summer is coming, and it’s time to start locking in your plans. In order to make the most of your summer between 11th and 12th grade, you’ll want to be focused on giving your credentials that extra boost and getting a head start on the college application process.
1. Do something that adds to either your academic or activity credentials in a meaningful and distinctive way.
A meaningful and distinctive experience during the summer gives your credentials that little extra something and that ultimately makes you a stand out as an applicant. Don’t let the words “meaningful and distinctive” throw you. You don’t have to cure cancer or travel across the world to do something meaningful and distinctive. You just have to do something that adds to the credentials you’ve been building for the last three years. Here are some questions that should help you determine what you could do this summer that would be meaningful and distinctive:
2. Get a head start on college applications.
Taking time during the summer to get a head start on your college applications is the key to a sane fall of your senior year. We’ll have a full list of everything you can get done in a separate post that will come out in the late spring. For now, you just need to be aware that you’ll need time to work on your college applications throughout the summer. One other heads up: if you have colleges on your list that offer on-campus interviews during the summer, you’ll want to take advantage of this opportunity if your schedule and budget permit. Otherwise, virtual visits are fine too.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
College admissions officers use a three-prong analysis to evaluate academic records. Your senior year will count, so prepare accordingly!
January 30, 2023
For most of you, it’s time to choose which courses you will take in your final year of high school. While it might be tempting to dial it back academically, you really can’t do that if you aspire to get into a selective college. Here’s what you need to know:
College admissions officers use a three-prong analysis to evaluate your academic record:
Your senior year will count in that evaluation, even for those of you who apply and get in early. Admissions officers get periodic reports as you progress through senior year, and any offer of admission will be contingent on completing the courses you showed you were taking on your application, AND getting grades consistent with your prior performance. So, for example, if you have a 4.1 GPA going into senior year, they expect you to finish senior year with pretty much the same GPA.
1. Start researching your class options for senior year and make a plan. Meet with your counselor to discuss your choices and make sure your planned schedule is doable.
2. Check with your school counselor about visits from college admissions reps. Add any college rep visits to your calendar.
1. Curriculum: You must take English and Math and at least 3 other academic solids.
Even though there are now multiple college prep curricula out there, selective U.S. colleges are steadfast in their expectations about the coursework that high school graduates will have completed (and the knowledge they will have acquired) before they begin college.
Four years of English and Math are non-negotiable. If you have already taken every English and Math class you can at your high school, take a course at a local community college or nearby university. If that isn’t an option, take a for-credit online course.
Along with English and Math, you should take at least 3 other academic solids. An academic solid is a course in one of these 5 core areas of study:
Note that you can double up in English and Math if you are really engaged by those subjects. For example, you could take AP English and a Journalism elective if you’re really into English.
You’ll see that music, visual arts, and performing arts are not listed above as academic solids. That’s because colleges are split about whether they count those as academic solids. So if you want to make choices that give you the most options, don’t include those when counting up your 5 academic solids. Luckily, most of you get to take at least 6 courses, so you can add music, visual arts, or performing arts into your schedule without a problem.
For those of you intending to pursue music, visual arts, or performing arts as college majors or careers, you may find it hard to take the courses you need to take if you do not count music, visual arts, or performing arts as academic solids. In that case, contact the colleges where you will be applying and get their advice about what courses you should take in your senior year. All admissions officers are happy to give this advice and would much rather help you now than deny you later!
A note for international students: High school curricula vary greatly worldwide, and U.S. college admissions officers understand that. Generally, the curriculum mandated by your home country will be acceptable to U.S. colleges, but you should consult with colleges where you are planning to apply just to make sure.
2. Rigor: Create an overall schedule that either maintains your level of rigor or takes your rigor up a notch.
The rigor of your schedule is determined by the level of the courses you are taking. Your high school probably has some way of distinguishing the courses that are harder and more academically demanding.
Courses that are more advanced in particular subjects are considered more rigorous, so Spanish V is harder than Spanish IV. Accelerated, honors, AP, and IB courses are also considered more rigorous than regular courses.
So if you are taking 3 courses this year that are more rigorous, then you want to take at least 3 courses next year that are also more rigorous. It’s even better if you can take your rigor up a notch and include 4 courses that are more rigorous.
Why do admissions officers care about rigor? Because they want students who are ambitious learners and who can manage the increased rigor of college courses when they arrive. College is harder than high school, and they want you to be ready for the challenge.
3. Performance: Choose courses in which you can maintain or improve your grades.
Most of you put more emphasis on this third prong than you should. You are probably on the quest for the easy A in the hope of bumping up your GPA in your final year.
But here’s the reality:
A high GPA that you earn by avoiding academic solids or by reducing the rigor won’t help you. Admissions officers aren’t dumb. They know that an A in ‘Beginning Guitar’ or in ‘French for Travelers’ isn’t the same as an A in Honors Physics.
That being said, you can use this third prong, performance, as a tiebreaker when it comes to making choices that are equal in terms of the first two prongs. For example, let’s say you are choosing between AP Statistics and AP Computer Science. If you think you are going to nail it in AP Statistics, but will struggle in AP Computer Science, then by all means, take AP Statistics.
One thing you should definitely take into consideration is the interaction between rigor and performance. Should you take the more rigorous course if you will get a lower grade? For example, should you take AP Physics and get a B, or take regular Physics and get an A?
Our recommendation is that you take the more rigorous course as long as your grade is likely to be no more than one grade lower than your grade in the regular course. B is one grade lower than an A, so in this example, take the more rigorous course (and of course do as well as you can). But if your grade is likely to be a C in the more rigorous course and an A in the regular course, then take the regular course.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
February is almost here! It’s a short month, but there's plenty to do. Juniors, here's how to tackle
January 23, 2023
One of the few silver linings to come out of the pandemic is that schools have finally embraced virtual visits (first out of necessity, now by choice!), and our guess is that they are here to stay.
So if your budget and schedule (and life more generally) enable you to visit colleges in person, that’s great! If not, you have a lot of virtual options now, and you absolutely should take advantage of them.
1. Think broadly about which schools you want to investigate, and schedule your virtual or in-person visits.
Those visits will help you identify what you do or don’t like about different colleges, where and why you might might want to learn more, and discover more about your own preferences. That in turn will help you make better choices about where to apply when it comes time to build your college list. You’ll save yourself wasted application fees, and long term can also save you from wasting your tuition and your time on a college that isn’t the right fit for you. You can always narrow down your lists later. You’re just in the exploration stage!
Also, your chances for admission at many colleges will be higher if you “demonstrate interest” in that college, and a college visit is one really good way to do that. Colleges track who attends them.
2. Check with your school counselor about visits from admissions reps.
Representative from various colleges might also be coming to your high school or town or region to meet with students in person. If and when that’s the case, make a plan for attending those events, if possible. Those are usually hosted by your high school, so stay in touch with your school-based counselor about what that calendar looks like.
P.S. Want this 52 Weeks to College series to land in your inbox every week? Sign up for our 52 Weeks newsletter here.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
Whether and when to take standardized tests
January 16, 2023
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, standardized tests like the SAT or ACT are still a major part of the college admissions process at some colleges. And a small number of colleges are test-blind; those college won’t look at your test scores even if you have them.
Most colleges, though, are test-optional, which means you don’t have to take the tests in order to apply, and if you do take the tests, you have to figure out whether your test scores help you and are worth submitting.
The list of test-optional colleges continues to grow, and while some are truly test-optional, full stop, with many colleges there’s a lot of fine print. They might identify and market themselves as “test-optional” but still require standardized tests for certain majors, scholarship eligibility, international status, homeschooled students, or other categories of applicants.
If you are going to be taking tests, what you need from us is ruthlessly practical advice about how to get the scores that will serve you well when applying to colleges. But we’ll say it again: Your health matters more than these tests, and that includes your mental health. Many colleges don’t require standardized tests at all, and they will seriously consider you with or without test scores.
In this post, we’re focusing on which tests to take, how many times to take them, when to take them, and how to prepare for them.
1. Make your schedule for any standardized tests that you decide you need or want to take, and plan for test prep that starts at least 8-10 week before your scheduled test.
1. Which tests should you take? The only way to know about college admissions requirements is to do your research. Visit the colleges’ websites and see what their policies are. (And they are fluid! Whatever they were last year might look different this year or next year.) READ THE FINE PRINT to check whether or not you’ll still have time to take tests, even if the college is otherwise “test-optional” for most applicants. If you want to maximize options, we have this general advice:
2. How many times should you take the tests?
3. When should you take the tests? We recommend the following schedules for taking the tests, but you can and should adjust this schedule for personal or school conflicts and for the Covid situation. Also, be aware that not all tests are available everywhere and at all times.
4. How should you prep for the tests? You should not take these tests without preparing for them, but HOW you prep for the tests is largely a matter of time, resources, and personal preference. At a minimum, you should take advantage of the free resources provided by each testing agency and follow the advice we gave in Week 2 on proven strategies for improving scores. If you want to do more prep, then you’ll need to invest in study materials (either paper or online), group courses, or one-on-one tutoring. Here are some free resources:
P.S. Want this 52 Weeks to College series to land in your inbox every week? Sign up for our 52 Weeks newsletter here.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.
Applying to college requires some big decision making. However, it’s all about working smarter – not harder. Get our tips & tricks...
January 10, 2023
Conventional wisdom about how to improve your grades and test scores goes something like this: Buckle down, work harder, and devote more time to studying. But conventional wisdom is just plain wrong. You don’t have to work harder; you have to work smarter.
Pick 1 or 2 classes where you could bump up your grade with just a big more focused attention.These are the classes where you have the B that could be a B+, or you have the B+ that could be an A-. Figure out what it takes to get the higher grade and start doing that. If you have no idea what it would take, go and talk to your teacher. Trust us, your teacher will be very happy to give you some suggestions to help you perform better.
Why do this? Your grades in the last half of 11th grade are the most recent evidence that college admissions officers will have about the kind of student you are. So better grades are very helpful. Plus, they contribute to an upward grade trend, which is also impressive. Finally, it lays the groundwork for outstanding recommendations from the teachers in those classes where you demonstrate your commitment to performing to the best of your abilities.
1. Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. One study showed that college students who increased their nightly sleep from 6 hours to 7 hours showed a whopping 10% boost in exam performance. That’s a big improvement for just giving your brain the sleep it needs! For great tips on improving teen sleep, check out this article from Dr. Craig Canapari, director of the Yale Pediatric Sleep Center.
2. Take practice tests. According to this article in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, taking practice tests is a far better way to study than highlighting, rereading, or summarizing (the most common ways students study). What kind of practice test should you do? Ideally, you use a practice test that is as similar as possible to the real test. So if you will have a multiple choice test in your Chemistry class, then ideally you would study using a multiple choice test that has previously been given in that Chemistry class. What if you don’t have access to a prior test? Doesn’t matter. It turns out you will still benefit from practice testing as long as the practice test addresses the same subject matter. So where do you find practice tests?
3. Set a study schedule that includes shorter sessions over time rather than a giant cram session. After comparing what scientists call “distributed practice” to “massed practice,” the results were pretty clear that distributed practice wins. Great. But what does that mean?
Distributed practice is a fancy way of saying that you break your studying into shorter sessions over time, rather than cramming everything into bigger, less frequent sessions. (Also the same approach you’re taking to your college applications in this series!)
Based on our experience working with students, here is what we suggest:
P.S. Want this 52 Weeks to College series to land in your inbox every week? Sign up for our 52 Weeks newsletter here.
Anna Ivey is one of the founders of Inline. An experienced admissions consultant and a frequently cited media expert on the topic of college admissions, she is also co-author of the college admissions bible How to Prepare a Standout College Application. Learn more about Anna's background here.