"It is important to understand that rankings are general statistics which means that they apply to different individuals in different ways. For example, up to 42% of a college’s rank is based on graduation rates. Nonetheless, college rankings are so deeply entrenched in our collective psyche that we will undoubtedly continue to recite them, and even depend on them, despite their shortcomings. There are certainly much better ways to rank...

This is what you likely don’t know, but definitely should know, about elite college admission: CHARACTER MATTERS – A LOT! If admission into some of these elite colleges is your goal, then you have to pay as much attention to exhibiting the eight elements of character as you do to having impressive grades, test scores, and activities.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In a recent College Application 101 Workshop I held in Newton,...

“ Now that the Supreme Court has made it illegal to use race as a factor in college admission, many students belonging to classes that were previously disadvantaged in the elite college admission process now have increased chances, although the difference may not be as significant as many believe.“

Now that the Supreme Court has made it illegal to use race as a factor in college admission, many students belonging to classes...

Over the past 5 years, internships have become very popular for students applying to highly competitive colleges based on a belief that an internship alone may be a ticket to elite college admission. The truth is that there is no one factor, not even an internship, that will ensure admission into a highly competitive college. Put into context, an internship can be a wise and valuable use of time, providing a student with work experience,...

Ivy Day—the day when Ivy League admissions decisions are handed out, is right around the corner at the end of March. As you know, applying to Ivy League schools can produce three different outcomes: acceptance, rejection, or waitlist. None of these three outcomes is based on absolute data. As you can tell by analyzing scattergrams on Naviance, it takes more than test scores and GPA to get in to an Ivy League college, though those factors...

At Avalon Admission, we specialize in making strong cases for Ivy League acceptance by presenting students as individuals likely to make a positive difference in the world. We expertly weave together seemingly disparate elements of a student’s academic accomplishments and life experiences into a cohesive narrative that encourages a sense of confidence on the part of Ivy League admissions committees.

For high school seniors who recently received notification that they are on one or more college waitlists, the uncertainty can be palpable, causing confusion and even anger. Indeed, along with self-doubt and wondering “what did I do wrong,” a few questions may percolate to the surface

“Wouldn’t it be better to just be rejected?”

“Isn’t this the colleges’ way of letting me down easy?”

“Isn't it impossible to be accepted off...

As you wind your way through the Common Application, one of the more confusing and important aspects is choosing the right admission plan. Many colleges give you the option of applying more than one way. Of course, all colleges offer regular admission. Many other colleges offer something called Early Action (EA), which is a non-binding, early-notification option. Still other colleges offer one or two rounds of what is called Early Decision...

In this article, college admission expert Neil Chyten explains the differences between Early Decision, Early Action, and Restrictive Early Action programs, and the advantages and disadvantages associated with each.

It seems counterintuitive that any early admission program offered by Harvard would not be binding. However, it is not binding! Restrictive Early Action, or REA as it is widely referred to, is the same as any Early Action...

How About Cornell, CMU, Rice, WashU St. Louis, UCLA, USC or Wake Forest?

Here are three representative student case studies and predictions using data from the amazing MyCollegeList.com program

Student One:

Adrianne is an Asian female who attends one of the most competitive private schools in America. Both of her parents attended college. She hopes to study Computer...

There are some who believe that applying to college is simply a matter of submitting applications. The reality is that hundreds of decisions made between 9th grade and 12th grade will contribute to a student’s admission success. Furthermore, admission factors at top colleges are evolving. What was true 10 years ago, or even five years ago, may not be true today. For example, the legacy advantage has all but disappeared. One’s ethnicity...

The college admission process does not begin in twelfth grade; it begins in ninth grade or even earlier. Yet, according to a NACAC survey, most school counselors spend more than 80% of their time on non-college related activities. Even if your school has a dedicated college counseling staff, chances are that each counselor has a caseload of hundreds of students. In fact, the average caseload for each counselor in the US is roughly 500...

The secret to successful elite-college admission is not what you think. It is not about having an exceptionally high GPA and test scores. It is not about having 100 activities squeezed into 10 spaces on the Common Application. It is not about having 10 AP test scores of 5. It is not even about having excellent teacher recommendations. All of these things are already assumed if you are applying to an elite college. However, you should...

Over my 40 years of training students to prepare for college admission, I have come to understand that there is magic inside of every student just waiting to be unleashed. Somewhere along their 12-year academic journey, students who are fortunate enough to encounter a gifted teacher or dedicated counselor who recognizes and ignites this magical spark may reach their college potential, and then achieve even greater happiness and success in a...

Every day, students must make decisions that range from the mundane to the sublime, from which socks or stockings to wear to which summer activities to choose. Many high school students, particularly those who are focused on boosting the impact of their college applications, choose activities that fit into neat categories on the Common Application’s activities section. This is a good idea. However, there is an even better idea: choose...

Whenever students and parents discuss the common application and other college applications, all they seem to talk about is the personal narrative and college-specific essays. While these essays are critically important parts of a student’s application, the truth is that there is a lot more to an application that must be addressed if a student is to successfully navigate the college admission process.

If you are submitting excellent ACT or SAT scores to colleges, or SSAT or ISEE to private schools, does the movement toward test-optional admissions hurt your chance of admission? The answer is simple: Yes, it does. But how can this be so? Won’t my excellent test scores make me stand out from those who are not submitting any scores? The answer to this question is: no. If all this seems counterintuitive to you, that is because colleges and...

Everyone seems to know that admission to top colleges is more competitive than ever. It is simply a matter of numbers. More applications means a smaller percentage of acceptances. Furthermore, the rules are constantly changing. Now, first-generation counts more than legacy. In most cases, standardized tests are still optional, and everyone claims to have the winning formula for writing the perfect Common App essay. But in this maelstrom of...

Some students and families have an implicit and unwarranted bias against public colleges and universities. In some cases, they may feel that states simply don’t have the funding or resources to dedicate to their public college systems. They may feel that state colleges are designed to provide the most basic level of higher education to citizens of that state. In many cases, these beliefs are true. Clearly, not all state college systems are...

With so much information about college application essays available on the Internet, it is difficult to differentiate good advice from bad. Also, it is important to understand that an essay that works for one person may not work well for another. Your application essays, both the personal statement and college supplements, must reflect your values rather than someone else’s. If you try to emulate another person’s essay, even if that person...

The Five Best and Worst Activities for Summer

Summer is when high school students can engage in meaningful activities that greatly enhance their college applications. Since college applications contain information about a student's record from 9th through 12th grade, it makes sense to plan advantageous summer activities for the three summers that precede a student's entry into college. The summers after 10th grade and 11th grade are...

When considering your high school accomplishments, big or small, accomplished over time or in a moment, you must also consider how they will play to your audience: college admissions officials. Furthermore, you must consider how they collectively contribute to an overall narrative that is appealing to that audience. To further complicate matters, what is appealing to one school may not be appealing to another. It goes without saying that MIT...

Measuring the Unmeasurable

It is easy to understand the allure of simplicity in college admission. Using strictly objective factors such as SAT or ACT scores and GPA (even though it could be argued that GPA is far from objective or standardized) a simple computer algorithm can easily select candidates to make the cut for the next incoming college class. Yet, it is widely believed that such objective factors only begin to tell the true...

If your test scores are good, they will certainly help your case for admission. If they are not very good, then by all means do not submit them. The choice is yours, and having a choice gives you an advantage in college admissions. Take advantage of it while you still can!

Click below for Avalon's Free resource for creating a college list and predicting your chance of admission.

MyCollegeList.com

It is time again for rising 11th graders to start thinking about their college list, and for rising 12th graders to solidify theirs. So, where does an intrepid 11th grader begin, and a slightly behind schedule 12th grader turn for help? The truth is that most...

A preponderance of strong and highly advantageous activities begun early in high school will dramatically improve a student’s chance of receiving offers of admissions from elite colleges. The issue is not whether the right set of activities will improve a student’s chances. The question is which activities will do so, and which ones are just a waste of time and money. In order to address this question, one must understand a basic premise of...

There are many colleges in the US named Columbia. The most famous of these is in New York City and to avoid confusion is often referred to as “Columbia College in the City of New York.” You know you are on the right website if you see a king’s crown next to the name. Columbia College is the undergraduate part of Columbia University that includes 17 graduate and professional schools. It offers a very robust core curriculum, over 100 majors and...

Pomona College shares a campus with four other colleges. Collectively, these five colleges make up the Claremont McKenna College (CMC) consortium. If you are fortunate enough to be accepted at Pomona, you will have the unique opportunity of taking classes at four other excellent colleges without ever having to leave the one-square-mile campus. Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, and Pitzer each has superb courses and performance...

Cornell is the largest of the Ivy League colleges, both in campus size, which is 745 acres, and undergraduate population, which is 15,000. For comparison, Colombia’s is the smallest Ivy League campus at merely 32 acres. Cornell is located in the very rural town of Ithaca, in upstate New York, and is considered to be a campus school. In other words, virtually all social activities take place on campus. If you want to take a long weekend in New...

To say that the Harvard campus is iconic is a dramatic understatement. Even the Harvard name conjures up familiar images of traditional brick buildings, and stressed-out students walking through Harvard Yard and touching the bronze toe of John Harvard for good luck. It also brings up images of world-class professors conducting world-class research. Most Harvard freshman live in suites that are quite ordinary but sufficient for comfortable...

Of course, Williams has the reputation of being a small New England liberal arts college. Indeed, it lives up to that recommendation. However, students on campus do not feel hindered by the environment. In fact, they say there is lots to do both on campus and in the community. There are many restaurants around town, as well as many outdoor activities such as hiking, equestrian, golf, skiing, and opportunities for volunteer work. On campus,...

The CMC Consortium, as it is known, is made up of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate colleges that, in effect, all share a single campus in Claremont, California. All seven colleges are located in a 1 square mile area. Students at each of the five undergraduate schools can take classes in any of the other four, and even fulfill a major at any of the other four. Quite literally, it is a two-minute walk from Harvey Mudd to Pomona, or...

CMU is a mid-sized city campus recently enhanced by new buildings including the Tepper Quad and the TCS Hall. The Tepper Quad is interesting because it is the home to the CMU business program and literally and figuratively connects to the other seven colleges on the university campus, thus making a statement about dedication to its highly ranked business. TCS hall is the new home of the graduate level computer science program and designed to...

It is a fact that five out of the eight Ivy League colleges give college credit for AP exams in which students have scored at least a 4, or in some cases, the score must be a 5. While the AP credit policies vary from school to school, they can also vary from department to department within a school. In all cases, earning high scores on AP exams helps you earn admission to top colleges. It also allows students to circumvent certain basic...

We have seen it hundreds of times—well-intentioned parents following questionable advice they get on social media. “Just because one student got into Yale after writing about her favorite pizza, and another student got into several Ivy League colleges after writing about shopping at a wholesale club, does not mean that a similar strategy will work for others.” According to Avalon Admission founder Neil Chyten, colleges look at the whole...

One very effective strategy for writing compelling college essays and making a strong impression during your interview is to conduct research on each college you are applying to. In short, the more you know about the college, the more effectively you can make the case that you will make a significant contribution to the campus and that the college will help to further your life goals. Use the following suggestions to guide your...

No high school research activity is ever going to hurt a student’s college admission chances. The only questions are how much will it help and is it worth the time and effort? Four years of high school certainly seems like a long enough time to develop a strong list of meaningful activities. However, four years is not as long as it seems. High school years are full of responsibilities. Students must maintain high GPAs and that alone takes a...

Finally! Your senior year of high school is about to begin, but it doesn’t even count, right? After all, colleges only look at your grade 9 through 11 transcripts, right? For your early action and early decision colleges, the choice of who gets in and who does not will be made before your 12th grade transcript is even available, right?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It is a basic human tendency to look beyond tomorrow all the way to the...

When we start working with college admission candidates as early as 9th or 10th grade, we often ask them what they are passionate about or which subject they are most interested in. When we do, we understand that preferences and passions can change quickly, due to one great teacher, an interesting summer experience, or even a simple field trip to a lab, a museum, or a historical site. Nonetheless, the information is useful to us because it...

While most students think that the college interview is intended to provide information about you to the college, in actuality, the interview is more evaluative than substantive. In other words, colleges are not trying to learn more about your activities and accomplishments; they are trying to evaluate some of your intangible qualities. In particular, colleges are very interested in evaluating your leadership, your resilience, your...

With so many ways to cut down the cost of college, including through various types of scholarships and financial aid offers, only those few super wealthy families whose students are admitted into highly ranked “dream schools” need to pay full price. Even for families who do fall into this group, there are ways to cut down the costs of tuition.

Let’s begin with families who are not super wealthy. For families whose collective income is...

In college admissions, buzz words rarely survive the time it takes to utter them. In the swiftly moving cat-and-mouse game between admissions officers and counselors, as well as the multitude of organizations that prey upon students caught in the middle, the rules are continually changing. “Legacy” has given way to “opportunity.” “Well-rounded student” has been replaced by “well-rounded student body.” “Statistical analysis” has departed and...

In 2022, Harvard received over 60,000 applications for less than 2000 seats. Of those 2000, approximately 700 are reserved for students with special talent in fields such as music, sports, acting, writing, as well as for those with striking accomplishments such as Olympic gold medals, best-selling books, creation of multimillion dollar corporations, or ideas that have left indelible mark on the world before the age of 20. The rest of...

Whenever students and parents discuss the common application and other college applications, all they seem to talk about is the personal narrative and college-specific essays. While these essays are critically important parts of a student’s application, the truth is that there is a lot more to an application that must be addressed if a student is to successfully navigate the college admission process. In this series of articles, we will...

Summertime is a great time to visit college campuses, sit in on summer classes, speak to students, check out dorms and dining halls, and meet with an admissions officer. However, like everything else in life, the careful planning of the college visits is imperative and crucial. Think of the college visit as an extension of the application process and while most colleges do not require a visit or an interview with an admissions officer, it...

Everyone wants to get into a top-choice college but simply wishing for it won’t make it happen. Everything about college admission is strategic, and each individual strategy combines into a comprehensive plan of action that begins as early as ninth grade. However, it is never too late to begin. Whether you are in 9th grade, 10th grade, or 11th grade, there are several things that will increase your chances of getting into one or more of your...

There are advantages and disadvantages to applying to college using the early decision (ED) option. The two big advantages are that you can increase your odds of admission and you get the decision as many as three months earlier than regular admission. Knowing in December where you will attend college in the fall can alleviate the stress that is typically felt by high school seniors and their families while waiting for college decisions. The...

In this article, college admission expert Neil Chyten explains the differences between Early Decision, Early Action, and Restrictive Early Action programs, and the advantages and disadvantages associated with each.

It seems counterintuitive that any early admission program offered by Harvard would not be binding. However, it is not! Restrictive Early Action, or REA as it is widely referred to, is the same as any Early Action (EA)...

There are lots of things that you can do in 45 minutes but providing students with all the advice and information they need to successfully apply to college is not one of them. Yet 45 minutes is the amount of time, on average, that college counselors spend with students over the entirety of their four years of high school. Please don’t misunderstand—this is not an indictment of your school’s college counselor. It is simply a statement of fact...

Is it a good strategy to opt into the ACT Writing Test? While the answer to this question can be somewhat complicated, the simple answer is, “Yes, but only if you are an excellent writer and you are familiar with the format of the test.”

Only a few years ago, we at NC Global posted an article in which we provided a list of colleges that required or recommended the essay portion of the ACT or SAT. Even then, the list of colleges had...

• How many students do you work with each year?
• Where do most of your students matriculate?
• How many years of experience do you have?
• How much essay writing assistance do you provide?
• Do you help with international college admission as well as US college admission?
• Do you help students with their teacher, counselor, and “other” recommenders?
• Do you provide advocacy for students with special...

The importance of an internship as a standalone activity has been severely diminished. Internships that serve no purpose other than to take a position on a college application will not positively impact a student’s candidacy. In fact, they could have the opposite effect of red flagging an application that is being padded or stuffed by overzealous parents or by concerned students to cover up a weakness. In contrast, internships that fuel a...

On the Common Application under the Education tab is a subsection entitled “Honors.” It begins with the following question:

Do you wish to report any honors related to your academic achievements beginning with the ninth grade or international equivalent?”

What counts as an academic honor? The answer is rather murky and open to interpretation. Basically, any honor you have received based on any subject or group of subjects you have...

When I was in fifth grade, I loved to play football and baseball and watch the Boston Bruins. I had just switched from Bowen School to Countryside School in Newton, Massachusetts, so I was busy making new friends and taking interesting classes. During the summer, I went to Camp Manitou, an overnight camp in Maine. There, I learned volleyball, archery, riflery, swimming, and waterskiing as I also enjoyed the traditions of Color League and...

How proud of your child would you be if she qualified for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) program? How proud would she be of herself if she were part of this highly regarded program? How impressed would colleges and/or private schools be, knowing that she is a gifted and talented student? The fact is that the Johns Hopkins CTY program is one of the most prestigious programs that students can attend. Being accepted into the...