Understanding The College List: Planning For Success
Doing research and road trips to visit colleges can be the funnest but also the most tedious process in planning out your child’s college journey. Of course you want the best fitting school for your child, but what does that really mean? As a transitional and executive college coach for thousands of students nationally and internationally, the majority of my clients have an idea but really do not fully understand the choices until we talk and navigate what the university will provide for the client.
What are the steps for college admissions success?
The first step: How will you create your college list? Do you have a plan to decide on your reach, your target and your anchor universities to be sure that your child has choices at the end of this process? And more fundamentally, what are the unique skills sets that your student is looking for to be sure that their next four years are an incredible journey with a competitive education, powerful activities, and lifelong friendships?
Creating a powerful, personalized college list
For my readers who do not know the terms: Reach, Target and Anchor universities - this is the list that divides up the difficulty level of entering each college. Prior to the last two years, the reach schools’ acceptance rates were approximately 13% or less. But from this last admission cycle, the university acceptance rate can rise as high as 25% depending on the students’ chosen majors. The target universities are universities that match your child’s GPA or slightly higher and comparable SAT or ACT scores for colleges that factor acceptance rate using these test scores. The anchor schools can still be great schools, but should not be a lot of work for your student to enter. Most state colleges fall in this category, except for CSU San Diego, some majors at San Jose State, Long Beach State, and definitely Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. This college oftentimes is a Reach campus due to its engineering, computer science, and other STEM majors. The campus also has a bottoms up curriculum, which means that the student enters their major immediately freshman year. That being said, the student cannot switch majors once they have been accepted unless it is in the umbrella of the major they have picked.
Choosing the best major with your student
I highly recommend that as you work with your student, you set up this list. The goal is to build a list that includes what is important for your child. In my conversations with admissions officers that consult with EYHLifeCoach, the list can be critical for your child’s success. Also if your child has many interests, a liberal arts education may be the best choice. This choice will not limit your child in entering the medical profession or be an engineering specialist, but it will support the uniqueness of your child.
Oftentimes, the student following their passion and their talents makes the student much more competitive than cookie cutting the typical road.
EYHLifeCoach has a team of experts that are here to guide you in this process. If your child is in high school, no matter what grade, we can help you through this process to empower your child’s successes. We look forward to hearing from you.