• Information From/For Your High School Counselor
There is a huge disparity from one high school to another regarding what they provide students about colleges, admissions, and/or the high school counseling program. Some high schools start giving their students information about college admissions when they are 9th or 10th graders; others barely give out information when students are seniors. Some high schools have extensive questionnaires that they ask juniors/seniors to complete for their high school counselor; others do nothing. Because you want to take seriously whatever your counselor gives you — and especially not lose it — create a special place (manila envelope, or open ended folder, binder, etc.) for anything your counselor or the high school counseling office gives you.

• Books And Other Materials
It is the rare student or parent who doesn’t buy (or borrow) at least one book about college admissions. Many families end up with quite a few. Designate one space in the house as the college admissions place for whatever books you get, so that whenever someone wants to read or consult them, you’ll know where they are.

INSIDER ADVICE, COMMON SENSE AND WHAT MATTERS RE APPLICATIONS
As you complete your applications, here are a few things to keep in mind:

A. Keeping Your Audience, The Admissions Officers, In Mind

1. College admissions officers read hundreds, if not thousands, of applications, many of which say the same things year after year. After awhile, this can become a mind-numbing job. What you want to do is offer something that is a little different and better than the ordinary application.

adMISSION POSSIBLE® TIP! No matter who you are or what you have done, admissions officers only know and make decisions about you by what you and others say in your application. If you leave out something, they will never know.

2. There is no such thing as a perfect applicant or a perfect application. However, every person has the potential to put together an application that captures the attention of, entertains or delights admissions people.

• In general, admissions people look for applicants who in their academic and extracurricular pursuits demonstrate such characteristics as intellectual curiosity, honesty, persistence, ability to deal with challenges, leadership, energy, maturity, resourcefulness, creativity, and especially a good sense of humor.

• They also want people who show unusual talents or involvement in anything ranging from the arts to athletics, community service to student government, writing to computer programming, and also esoteric pursuits such as gourmet cooking, sky-diving, orchid-growing, car restoration, trapeze flying, you name it.

• Mostly, colleges want to know who you are and how you and their college are a good fit.

3. Admissions people also look for a well-rounded class that includes individuals from a broad range of personal, geographic, socio-economic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, each one of whom will take advantage of what a campus offers, as well as contribute to the campus.