Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process

Inside the Black Box: How College Apps are Evaluated in 2025

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In today’s episode, we’re bringing you a special replay of our recent webinar, where I dive into the intricacies of the college admissions process with expert insights from Joanna Graham and James Hayashi. Together, we explore how admissions officers review applications, the role of test scores and AI tools, and what truly matters in crafting a standout application. If you’re navigating the college admissions journey, this episode is packed with tips, strategies, and behind-the-scenes revelations to help you feel confident and prepared.

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Joanna Graham is a former Georgetown admissions officer (and ex-Chief) with over 20 years of experience guiding families and assessing applications.

James Hayashi has been advising students for a decade and reading applications at University of Southern California for 4 seasons. He loves sharing insights that help students put their best foot forward!

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Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

James Hayashi:

I tend to look at the transcript first, because I use the transcript in many ways as my as my roadmap for the rest of the application. So really wanting to get a sense of again, based on, based on what the school offers, has the student opted to challenge themselves? Have they taken additional coursework?

Sheila Akbar:

You Hi folks, welcome back to the podcast. Excited to have you, and I'm so excited about today's episode. So last week, we held a panel discussion with former admissions officers and application readers to talk about what really happens inside an admissions office. And this was such a great discussion, I even learned things, and I've been doing this for 20 years. Of course, I've never worked in an admissions office, so of course, there was a lot for me to learn about that side of the desk, and I'm excited to share it with you today. So let's jump right into it. What we're here to talk about today college admissions consulting. And we've got some great experts in the room, Joanna Graham and James Hayashi, and I will let them introduce themselves in a in a moment. Now. Joanna has been with Signet for, I think, two years now, but has been in admissions for very long time. James is a new friend of Signet, so we have a lot of friends in common. So I know he's going to share great information with you as well. So before we get into the the actual what happens in the black box, we know that this is a complex process, and it's made even more complicated by dealing with teenagers who you know are at varying levels of communication or confidence or surety about what it is they want to do and where they want to study and things like that. So we want to give you as much help and assistance as we can, and please stay tuned to our events page. You know, we do one of these sessions every month, meant to be helping you guide your child through through the high school process and college process. And next month, in February, we'll be doing a session on the new changes to standardized testing. There are some upcoming changes to the act. I want you all to understand what they are, where they're coming from, what it means for your college process, if anything. And we'll cover the changes that happened to the SAT last year and what we've learned about them as well. Okay, that's my housekeeping. Let's start with some quick introductions, Joanna and James, if you could just tell us a little bit about your experience in admissions, where you've read applications and how long that would be great, Joanna, let's start with you. So

James Hayashi:

Hi everyone. My name is Joanna Graham. I'm based in Northern Virginia, just right outside of the Washington, DC area. I had been working in the higher ed admissions, admissions adjacent space now for 23 years. I built a whole corporate career as a chief marketing and product officer in the education and nonprofit space. But before that, I worked both on the standardized testing side as well as in admission. I read applications at Georgetown for a couple of years, and in more recent years, I've read both undergrad and grad applications at a handful of universities, both in California as well as the state of Florida. I've been a part of the Signet team now for I think Sheila said, I think it's been I think I'm in my second cycle now, but I've been advising both high school students as well as young professionals on both college and pre MBA admissions now for 23 years, and so delighted to be here with you all and share a couple of insights.

Sheila Akbar:

Thanks, Joanna. James, let's hear from you.

James Hayashi:

yeah, I guess in kind of similar to Joanna, but maybe a little bit less time and duration, been helping students with their applications for about the last decade or so, and of the last four years, I think, on the admissions reader side, been looking at USC applications, undergrad first year and transfer applications.

Sheila Akbar:

Excellent. You're gonna have, both of you are gonna have great perspectives to share from different ends of the country, and you know, slightly different types of institutions which we do want to keep in mind, the process is not exactly the same at any college. So we're really only representing the institutions we know. And sort of will give you general information about how the process works, and all of that from from based on that information. So I would like to start with some like, real basics. I know we've got some junior parents of juniors in the room. They may know a little bit more about this process. But, you know, just speaking very broadly, when we say, Read an application, what are you actually reading? Joanna, let's start with you.

James Hayashi:

Thank you. Sheila, for you know, for caveating everything by saying it is the process is different at multiple universities, and admittedly the schools that where I've read applications, the process is varied in terms of committee size, but by and large, when you think about sort of what is being read, most universities are employing what they call a holistic approach, and so they're looking at everything that a student is submitting the application includes starting. With your transcript. So all of your grades, from your high school courses, any additional coursework we've taken, they are going to look at test scores. So whether it be SAT, ACT, AP, exams, things like that. And then obviously, the, you know, the big thing, the big elements in the room that everyone talks about the essays. And so obviously, you know, the essays are a big component. How they're evaluated as going to vary school by school. We'll get more into that, ensure the conversation, but then also, they're going to take a look at things, at other and other supplemental things too. So letters of recommendation are going to be incredibly important. If the school like Georgetown offers students an opportunity to interview, they're going to look at that interview report as well, and then really, just anything, any the other pieces, I would say the ancillary pieces are things like the activity list descriptions. Again, those are going to vary school by school, whether you're applying to a common app based school or a school like like the UCS where, where activity descriptions vary a little bit, but at a high level, that's, that's essentially those are all the major components of the application that are being evaluated.

Sheila Akbar:

James, anything to add to that long list?

James Hayashi:

I think because we're all looking at the same pieces, like Joanna alluded to, every school is going to wait to different pieces a little bit differently. But if you're a private school, or even a public school, in certain cases, you'll be looking at the common app. So the pieces are essentially the same because you're submitting that same application. The only thing I would add is, I kind of go essentially front to back through the common app. So my tip would be, especially if you're a parent, you've never gone through the application process yet create, like, maybe a fake common app or UC account, just to see what information you're putting in there, because that's exactly what we'll be seeing. I saw it because I go front to back. I start with actually, the demographic stuff. So I'm finding out what major is a student interested in and that kind of is a filter that I look at the whole application through parent background information, like, what are the parents professions and is that related to the kids major career interest are the parents recently divorced? And that gives me, you know, insight into potential turbulence in the household in the high school years. Yeah. So just thought that demographic stuff, where does the student come from, in terms of your school, their school district, their neighborhood, because all those pieces are kind of in there, and I just use that as a background as I'm looking through everything else that Joanna mentioned.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. I love that you went into that level of detail. And that tip is so essential. I have a fake common app account where I pretend I'm the student. You know, when you go to create an account, it'll ask you if you're a parent, a student or an educator. I always pretend I'm the student because I want to know exactly what the student is seeing and what they're responding to. The other tip that I would give you that's related to that is to look on the common app website at the list of forms that need to be submitted. You won't submit them. You won't need to, like, print them and then fill them out and submit them. Everything that you need to submit will go through the Common Application, but then you can see the kind of questions that your students, teachers will be responding to, their counselor will be responding to, the kind of questions that they need to answer about, you know, the size of the school and whether they rank, and, you know, all of these other things. So that can be really helpful for a parent to just be aware of, right, that this is all information that gets communicated to the office. So, yeah, great. Thank you for that addition. Okay, now either one of you open it up when you read an application, what are you doing? Are you just reading and, like, reserving judgment? Are you taking notes? Are you annotating on a piece of software? Like, how are your thoughts as an admissions reader getting logged

James Hayashi:

So at USC, we have our own little platform. I'm sure every university does, and I have a little card in which I could put any notes that I'm going to pass along to the next group of people who will read. Maybe for our context, I'm a first round reader, so when I'm looking at application after I'm done, I have three buttons I can push. One is consider for scholarship. The next is go to the next round, and the last one is likely to deny. And so I have a little electronic notepad that I'm taking notes on anything positive, negative, or just that just stands out in some other way that I pass along to the next group of people that will look if the student makes it that far, I would say the transcript. And a lot of people think of it as GPA, but it really is transcript, right? Meaning, not just what's that three point whatever, or four point something, grade that you're looking at, what classes has the student taken relative to what's offered at their school? How do those classes kind of inform or interact with the students potential major? Is there a trend in grades going up or down? And also what's like the level of rigor? And then I look at all the pieces that Joanna just talked about, and kind of make notes again. Anything that stands out is interesting that I'd want the next person to pay attention to

Sheila Akbar:

That's so great. You're full of juicy nuggets, and we're definitely going to get into the process. So I love hearing that there are those three buttons. But before we do that, Joanna, what's it like for you? How are you leaving your thoughts?

Joanna Graham:

So usually it's, you know? So at Georgetown, there's a multi person. Committee that's reviewing every application, and so you review your review applications in a silo, essentially. And so that way, you can't be swayed by your peers when I read applications. I've always been super old school. I mean, I like taking handwritten notes. I process information better when I'm able to do that, quite frankly. But it's up to it is up to the reader in terms of how they're going to log that and catalog it. The things that I'm typically looking for very similar to, you know, I'm going to echo what James said here too, you know, looking for trends, or looking for things that sort of stand out as inconsistencies. That's one of the first things, you know, I I tend to look at the transcript first, because I use the transcript in many ways, as my as my roadmap for the rest of the application. So really, wanting to get a sense of, again, based on, based on what the school offers. Has the student opted to challenge themselves? Have they taken additional coursework, if there are some blemishes or some weaknesses, then immediately looking to see if there's a supplemental statement that they've included with their application to explain some of that? I think admissions officers oftentimes get a bad rep for looking for reasons to say no. And the reality is, and I tell every family this, you know, admissions officers are typically looking to give you the benefit of the doubt. You never want to sort of leave it to them in that little bubble to make an assumption or to make a decision based on something that feels really ambiguous. You want to walk that fine line between over communicating. And I always tell students, you know, there's a fine line between explaining something and either providing an excuse or kind of going over the top, but you do want to provide context. If there's something that just looks funky or there's something that looks off or inconsistent, take the extra space. There's a reason why there's that additional info session on the common app for students to be able to include some additional context around really, just life is really the way I always explain it to families, and believe it or not, admissions officers really do have a heart and do have a heart and do have a soul and conscience and are looking for reasons to be a student's cheerleader.

Sheila Akbar:

Yes, they're, they're real people, but at the same time, like, I feel like you're sort of superhuman people, because I know you're reading lots of applications and Joanna, if you like, writing by hand your notes, and then you're probably gonna have to communicate those notes to somebody else, but that takes a long time. So two questions here, and we'll stick with you. Joanna, how long do you spend on a single application? And I don't know if you have an exact number, but on average, how many do you read in a given season?

James Hayashi:

So when I read applications at Georgetown, I was reading specifically for the College of Arts and Sciences, and I was reading anywhere between 15 103,000 applications a cycle. And there was obviously an extended period of time over which I covered those, and they were broken out and chunked out into different tiers, and obviously the different phases. So for parents, maybe who are earlier in the process, most schools are going to offer some version of either early action or early decision, and then you'll have regular decision, which is a later cycle that typically starts in January. So they are spread out in some ways, but typically over the course, we give the cycles anywhere from 1500 to 3000 had varied. There were five readers for each application. In total, there were two student readers, one admissions officer and two faculty. And everyone, everyone received an equal vote, which I always thought was a fascinating model. Not every school does it this way, but that was the model. When I read the other thing I would say, you know, is that in terms of time, it would vary. There were some applications you moved through very, very quickly. And when we get into sort of an integrating process, we can certainly talk about what some of those things were. But to truly get through an application on average, and I always hate to tell people this, because I know how much time kids spend working on applications, but it was typically less than three minutes on an application. And admittedly, I mean, there is a good bit of training that goes into you, into sort of prepping people on how to get through an application again, that would say that's an average. If there was an application that really was incredibly thoughtful, comprehensive, which deserved a little bit of a deeper dive, you would spend a bit more time, but on average, I would say the average was around three minutes. Typically. The other thing that I will mention too, and you know, I think, in terms of just giving families guidances, and I tell this to students all the time, is that you want to believe that the person reading your application is going to be doing so at 9am on a Monday morning, when they have a cup of coffee, they're well rested, they've had a lovely weekend, and they're fully caffeinated and they're bright eyed and Bucha tailed. And the reality was, given the sheer volume, oftentimes the person reading your application, it might be three in the morning on a Friday night, and you are the 300th application they've read that day. It's just, it goes to that say, you know, I always, I always tell folks, it's, it's so important to think about how to make yourself stand out, how to you know how to write in a way that's going to capture someone's attention, because you want to believe that the person reading your application is doing so 9am on a Monday morning. But the reality is, you may be getting someone who's a little bit fried at the at the end of a very long week, and so anything that you can do to try to stand out, to make your intros a little snappier, to capture their attention is certainly going to help as much as possible.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, give them a little gift. And, you know, referring to your like, average three minutes. I've seen, you know, two or three minutes to, you know, five to eight minutes, maybe per application. I think it really does depend on the load. But the thing that I always tell students when they hear that number and they're like, crushed. Like I spent months on that essay, and they're gonna spend a matter of seconds on it is, I remind them their favorite novels, their favorite poems. It might take them, you know, a matter of hours to read, but it certainly took more than a matter of hours for somebody to write that masterpiece. Right? We have to put a lot of time and thought and craft into creating the impression you want to create for it to land in a minute or two minutes, or whatever it is, right? So don't be too discouraged by that number. James, anything to add there in terms of how long you spend on an application or how many you typically read?

James Hayashi:

Yeah, so we're told about 15 minutes is what we're for, so maybe a little bit more time, but that is an average. So there are some applications that it's a lot less, if I can tell you know, the student just is not ready for the type of rigor that USC expects of its applicants. And then sometimes it could be a little bit more than that. In terms of numbers, all of the part time seasonal readers are given 50 a week. So it's about 200 a month. So that's about 800 season, give or take in we can ask for more when we have more time, and we could tell USC, we're taking fewer if we're busy during week, but it's about 50 a week.

Sheila Akbar:

That's helpful context. Do you want to explain also what a part time seasonal reader is versus a full admissions officer?

James Hayashi:

Sure. So the full time team, most of them, I think pretty much everyone, unless your director is like a regional territory representative. So during the year, they're traveling to places. They're representing SC at school fairs and talking to students, and then they're spending that's their full time job. During reading season, they're in their office reading applications for probably 39 of the 40 hours a week, seasonal people like me come in just for you know, November to about January, February, for USC and read. And we typically have some other job and maybe related to admissions and maybe not, but we all have some kind of experience in that arena. So they let us come in and supplement, because schools like I see get so many applications. So at the end of whenever it is January, February, when they when the bulk of the applications are in, I kind of go away and wait till the next October, November, before I start reading again.

Sheila Akbar:

Great. And this is a great place to pivot into, actually that process, right? So I'm sure the process was very different at both of your institutions. But James walk us through what is the typical like process. And you know, where are the selection points that would happen for an average application?

James Hayashi:

Yeah, so many of you may know the early action, early decision, kind of distinction and regular decision. So we start, of course, in November 1, all of the early action applications are in for USC, so right after that, they assign it to us. We start reading, and I go through the parts that I had mentioned. And as I said, there's like, three different options for those early applicants that I can decide from either consider for scholarship. I'd say like maybe two to 5% of the kids, I'll put that in, and then move on to the next level, because SC has about in the last few years, a nine 10% admit rate. I do like maybe 15% of the applications that I'm pushing through, and I figure the team will kind of, you know, make the final selection for who that last nine or 10% is, and then the rest are likely to deny. Let's see. After that, I look at their regular decision pool. So once all the early action kids are done, we look at the regular decision students, and for USC, those students are no longer eligible for a scholarship, so I just have consider for next round or likely to deny. And then after that, we look at transfer students once the first years are all in.

Sheila Akbar:

If a student gets the consider for next round, do you know what happens then?

James Hayashi:

I believe that they go to the department read so the department, whatever major that the student has chosen, the department will look at them. The process is like slightly different for the portfolio programs, so dance music, architecture, any of those categories, the department usually looks at their materials first, including their portfolio. Then if they really like whatever artistic or architectural material the students produced, they'll send it to the academic readers. And we have to say, like, yes, the student looks academically ready. Or no, you know, their art might be great, but we don't think they're academically qualified, so the process is a little reversed if you're in a portfolio type program. So that's the only distinction there.

Sheila Akbar:

That's helpful. So my understanding is that at many schools, or maybe, I don't know if we can quantify it, as most colleges that use a holistic review system, which means there's, like, no formula, there are no cut offs, right? Everything is really considered in the context of each student's background. What we're expecting the process to be is that there is a like, sort of a first reader, there may be a second reader, there may be two people reading it at the same time, and they kind of weigh in. And then, based on the region, you know, the. Applications are assigned to certain people to read it right. These are the people who are like, as you said, traveling. They're very familiar with the schools in that state or that couple of states that they're in charge of, so they really understand the context. And then after that, they go to a committee meeting where it's less regional, but those regional officers are sort of presenting the applicant, and then there's some discussion, and then maybe an up or down vote. Joanna, is that your experience?

James Hayashi:

Yes, yeah. No, you've covered it well. And I think that that also underscores, I think, the importance to if you're and I saw a question pop up in the chat about Council recommendations, I think it's really important to make sure that, when you think about that secondary school report and really how to leverage your counselor as an advocate, this is, really is a key area, I think, for students to be proactive, particularly if you're looking at more selective schools. Obviously counselors are going to be handling portfolios and accounts for a wide variety of students and so but if you're looking at some of the more selective schools where and especially if you have a especially if you have a high school, you know that has sent students to a particular institution, I think that that is a place where the where the secondary school report, where the counselor recommendations, certainly can can weigh a little bit more heavily, if that makes sense, because that it is important to give the admissions officers from that context around the rigor at that particular school. I know for a fact that there have been a couple of institutes. Institutions where when admissions officers or regional folks leave an institution after a certain period of time and are replaced by new folks, there can be a little bit of an adjustment period while the new folks coming in are getting sort of used to are getting to know the schools in their particular territory. And so again, I think it's just it's incumbent on the students to make sure that you're liaising with your counselor, to make sure that they are being an advocate for you as much as possible.

Sheila Akbar:

Thanks for tackling that question. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it's like in that, like, final decision Committee? It sounds like at Georgetown there were a lot of voices in the room, but, like, but what's happening

Joanna Graham:

Or so, I mean, it varies, you know, and I think you captured it well. I mean, there typically are going to be folks who are going to be advocates for a particular students, and then you may have folks who feel differently. And the beauty of it is, you know, at every institution where they have some type of model like this, is that the diversity of the committee is designed to create that discourse and that conversation, because each individual is going to bring a unique perspective to the table. Each individual around that table is going to be looking and valuing very different things. So even though every member of the committee has had sort of the same training, they're innately going to value sort of different things and looking at an applicant. And so it is, you know, when you have folks who are lobbying, who are advocating for students, you know, I try to explain this to students. You know, you want to build your application in a way that is so that you're conveying the most important things to you, the things that you know that really sort of make you uniquely you. But you also want to think a little bit about, if you have someone in that room who's advocating on your behalf, what's the headline? So if they're presenting you to committee, how are they going to describe you in one sentence? And so, you know, again, help. Help them. Be your advocate. Essentially, in many ways, when you're thinking about putting together your application, I think it's a it's a common question that we oftentimes get from families too, that, you know, is it, is it better to be a generalist and good at a lot of things, or is it better to be a specialist? Is it easy to write that headline if you have a child who's, you know, who's a specialist in one or two things, and not saying we have to tackle that. That's probably a topic for an entirely different webinar. But I do think that it is helpful. When you are the student you're putting together your application, though you don't go too broad and too shallow. You want to make sure that you know, if someone is trying to give a recap of who you are in your application, there should be a headline, essentially, because in more cases than not, the person who is advocating for you in that room is is going to have to come up with a headline or sort of a quick executive summary on who you are and what, what is the value that you bring to that university?

Sheila Akbar:

That's very helpful to think about. Okay, so let's move kind of out of the nuts and bolts into maybe the little bit more of the evaluative preferences. I have heard from various members of our team, former admissions officers from, you know, many different kinds of schools, about what they like to read first. And almost everybody has a different answer. And there's no sort of prescribed order you have to read it in. I've got people who like to look at the transcript first. I got people who like to look at the essays without any content. Context first or maybe even the activities list. So for each of you, knowing these are just your particular preferences, and it's not necessarily standard, what are the things you like to look at first, and how do you reconcile that first impression from whatever it is you were looking at with the other information that you will gather from, you know, reading the other parts of the application.

Joanna Graham:

So I start with the transcript. But I think I had mentioned this a little earlier. I use the transcript as my as my roadmap, and so I'm looking first off to see, did the student challenge themselves? What courses did they choose to take? And I think, James, you mentioned this a little bit earlier. I'm also looking to see, does the transcript align with. Know, potentially, what is the student, you know, which school is the student applying to within the university? What major are they potentially declaring? Are there consistencies, you know, are there trends and patterns? Essentially, does the transcript back up what, what they're declaring in the rest of their application? And then, and then I go to the essays, that's the next piece that I look at, because the essay is really the place where, where the story comes to life. And so you look for, again, some of those trends, those kind of, those consistency do, the things that you see in the transcript are those reflected in in the essay, the students, hopes, dreams, activities, how they've connected things, or if they're not. Is there an explanation in the essay Why? You know, maybe, maybe you have a student who spent the first three years of high school thinking that they were going to pursue STEM and and then maybe did up their summer program after junior year, and all of a sudden realized or decided that they don't want to pursue them. They actually have, they're in love with humanities and want to be a history major or something. So then I'm looking for a bit of an explanation and a little bit of the why. So, you know, so as I mentioned earlier, you know, so much of this is you you want to give admissions folks are trying to give students the benefit out, like, let's you know, help me. Help me understand what was happening in your brain when you made these decisions. Why did you choose to do the things that you did? Why did you choose to pursue the courses that you that you did? And then how does that translate into into the university, you know, first, say, for students who are undeclared, I'm oftentimes looking for, you know, again, a bit probably, then a bit more diversity in the transcript and some explanation in the in the application, explaining why did you choose to take all of these different courses? What were the things that you were hoping to learn? What have you learned from that, and how has that influenced what you might want to study in college, or at least the direction that you're headed? So again, it's all about. It really is all about sort of thinking about the entire application, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. So every piece of the application sort of plays a very distinct role, and they all should be there should be enough tangential overlap that when you look at it holistically and together, it all makes sense, but each piece really should present a slightly different aspect of the applicant's job and in a slightly different and unique way.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, and those pieces have to fit together, like you're saying, right? Which is, you know, a difficult job, but that is why we think of the application actually as a portfolio, right? Like all of these pieces, need to speak to each other and tell a really compelling story. James, what do you like to look at first and how do you, you know, manage that impression of a student?

James Hayashi:

Yeah. So as I mentioned, I sort of go front to back through the common app, and the first sections are parents, occupation and educational background. I also just, again, for those of you who've never looked at the app, you can request a fee waiver if your income isn't high enough to pay for the application. So that also just gives me a little bit insight into the family's financials if they've requested the application fee waiver. So I go through all the kind of demographic pieces. It's maybe three pages of different questions the students answered, and then the very next thing I look at is the transcript, because that helps me know, like I said, all those pieces in terms of not just what are their grades, but what courses have they taken? The transcript usually comes with maybe, like, a one to five page document about the high school. So even if a person is not familiar with that high school, yet they can look and see what's the average SAT score, what's the average number of AP classes? How many AP classes are offered? What's the average GPA at this high school? So I get a little bit of background on who is the student in the context of what their high school is, what their high school offers. And then, kind of to round out the academic part, I look at test scores. So sat if they've submitted that, because USC is test optional, and then AP scores, I am looking there for, like, if you've taken two AP classes and you don't have any AP scores, I'm like, well, that's probably fine. If you've taken like, 10 AP or IB courses and you've submitted like, no scores, that's like, just a question I have. And like, Joanna said, We don't like questions, we like information, so there's a reason why the student has taken 20 AP classes but zero tests or isn't submitting any test scores. It's good to let the let us know that, and then the additional information just explained. And then I'm, of course, particularly interested in if there's an AP test or score that's relevant to the student's major. I'm focusing in on that to say, like, what does this standardized assessment say about the students relative ability in whatever area, English or history or something? Then after that, I look at activities, which I think is kind of one of the, maybe the underrated parts of the application. I always tell students and families, if you think about your life and you divide it into school and not school, not school is the majority of your time, because it's evenings, weekends, afternoons, summer vacation, winter break, so it's a big chunk of time. And we just want to know, like, what are you doing with that time? It doesn't have to be a school sport or a club or some official volunteering, but I'm like, what do you do? Do you help your family because your grandparent is elderly and needs assistance. Do you just really love reading? And you do two novels a month, like, just how is the student using their time? After that, I look at the personal statement, and obviously, as we were saying, it may, or it probably will, overlap with some parts of the activity list, but I'm looking for new information that I didn't already get. Sometimes, a student just sort of reiterate. Writing, but I can already see in the activity section, I like to know, like, not just what did you do, but why did you do it? I think that that's a good use of that personal thing. Like, why did you do it? What did you learn? How did you grow? Maybe you decided you didn't like this thing anymore, and that was a lesson, and that's helpful for me to know about you too. So all of that, and then the USC supplement. Our typical question is, how are you going to pursue your first and or second choice majors at USC? So I'm looking for the student to talk about their interest in the major, but also showing me they've done their homework on the school and they know specifics about why they want to study that thing at this particular college. And then lastly, I look at the letters of recommendation that will usually like in the best cases. It supplements everything. I've kind of thought that I knew about the student, like, the student seems really generous and social, and the counselor will say the student is generous and social. I'm like, okay, great. There's a person who actually knows this kid, and they're saying everything that I picked up from the application. Sometimes they give me new information circumstances. The student didn't mention, clubs or activities, the student didn't say so it's really helpful. I think that there's some adult somewhere, whether it's a teacher or counselor, kind of on the back end, giving me all this extra stuff that I can work with, and then put it into my little report.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. There's so many little nuggets coming out here. I want to ask two more questions, and actually, I'm going to switch the order that I'm going to ask you them because of the comment that we got about test scores in the chat here since test optional started, I think, but especially since COVID When, you know, 95% of colleges went test optional, and so many parents were like, skeptical, oh, wait, are you really test optional? Or do you really want to score? And you're just saying you're test optional. You know, I think over 400 colleges came together to say, No, we really are test optional. We assure you that if you apply without a test score, you will not be disadvantaged in any way. It has actually created more questions, I think, than answers, because a lot of people are like, well, if one student you have this piece of information, another student you don't have this information, how can you not even just, you know, subconsciously, prefer the student who gives you more information about, you know, their academic ability. So I'm curious if either of you have anything to share about what it's like reading an application with a test score and what it's like without a test score, and how you kind of manage to not disadvantage or overly advantage, you know, one or the other of those

Joanna Graham:

So I will say, when I read applications at Georgetown, this was, it was pre COVID, but Georgetown also is one of the schools that does require test scores those and in some ways. So I'll, I'll weigh in actually, because a couple of the schools that I read applications for in the last two cycles are test optional. So I'll kind of speak from those University lenses. You know, one of the things that I find, at least, that I that I found in my experience, is that when when admissions committees are evaluating international applicants, so oftentimes in the US, there's a bit more consistency across across high schools, the types of courses students are taking and the level of rigor and things like that. What I found when I was reading applications from international applicants, in many ways, those test scores, it's a little bit of a double edged sword. Those test scores sometimes are more important, because in some ways it allows, it gives admissions officers an opportunity to feel like they're kind of comparing apples to apples. So if you studied at the, you know, at the University of Myanmar, how do you compare that level of rigor to a student coming from a university or from coming from a high school, you know, say, in Shanghai or Singapore or Des Moines, Iowa, and so for many, for many admissions officers, you know, when, when there isn't, always an easier, intuitive way to sort of compare those types of applicants. And granted, and in many universities, those applicants are also being put into different buckets, so international students are being compared to other international students. But I think overall, when you really start thinking about, are students going to be able to handle the rigor at a particular university, those test scores and those data points can provide some additional insight to give schools a sense of, do they have the potential? Do they have the academic capability to perform well in the classroom here. Now I will say, you know, and I have some interesting exposure here on the grad site as well, too. Because I think on the grad side of admissions, you tend to see more studies psychometric studies on correlation, basically between test scores and first year GPA and things like that. I'm not a psychometrician. I will start by saying that, but I'd like to think I play one on TV if I were ever to be cast as one. But just kidding. But the reality is, of it is, you know, in undergraduate admissions, I think there's most folks will tell you that there is less of a correlation between performance in the classroom and performance on the SAT or the ACT, as opposed to, say, a graduate assessment. So that's, I realize that that's probably a lot of data that's coming from a couple of different sources, but I think it is important when you are thinking about, when you're thinking about the decision that's right for you in terms of, do you take the standardized test or not? Do you submit the standardized score or not? I do think it's important for students and families to really consider sort of the larger context, though, how is that score being. Used are, who are you going to basically, who is in your competitive set. And the other thing that I tell families too is, you know, if you are making that decision to invest time and energy in preparing for a standardized test, it's all about trade offs. And so what are you giving up in order to invest that maybe 20, 3040, hours into preparing for the SAT the act? Could that time be better spent doing something else that actually shows up on your activity list. And so again, those are, I think, to some of the questions, the broader questions for folks to consider, besides just the do I submit or not? How is it evaluated? Like, what's the weight? How many stars does you know? Does a 1500 on the SAT get me? So I just encourage families to think a bit more holistically and a little more broadly about questions like testing.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, and we'll definitely be digging more into this in our session next month. On on testing. James, how does test optional kind of play out at USC when you're reading?

James Hayashi:

Yeah, that's a good question. So if you look at the I just and for context, I love data. I think it's it's helpful beyond just the feelings we have or the intuitions. So if you look at the data for SC, in particular, the admit rate for students with scores and without scores is virtually identical. So you can kind of see there we say we're test optional, and we truly are test optional. If you just look at the numbers, there doesn't look like there's any advantage to submitting a score that said I want to see two or three years ago, my director said that they sent out a informal anonymous survey to all the students who are like, actually first year students, and they said, Did you take an SAT? And I think it was 99 98% of the students said, Yes, I took one. And it wasn't, certainly wasn't 98% who had submitted one. So we know virtually everyone is taking a test, and if you're submitting it, it's because you think your score is competitive, or you're proud of it, or maybe some people are just submitting it everywhere. So, and I think that's my intuition is, or my guess, and my hunch from talking to a lot of colleagues, is that's kind of true at most colleges, where they assume that most people are taking a score. If you're not submitting it at a test optional place, it's because you didn't want to. So you can't really get around the fact that people are assuming that you probably have a score that said I really like the piece of information Joanna gave her the advice to think about the trade offs. So I would say things like, how is that score being read at the schools that you're that you really want to go to, or you're applying into? I believe Chicago is still test optional. But if you go to their website and read their verbiage, it says, we expect that the vast majority of students of students are taking a test, and, you know, in parentheses then kind of and probably submitting one. So they are test optional, but they really prefer to see one, right? And so think about the schools. And also, what could you be doing with that time if you know you're just not a great test taker, and it's going to take a massive amount of energy and effort to get your score up. It might be better spent doing something, one, that you're really going to like, and two, that's going to advance your application in ways that a test score may not and if you're like in a 1570 and you just really think you want to get a 1600 again, think about how much time and energy that's going to take, and what you could do with that instead?

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. A lot of times it's just, it's time to stop. There are better things you can do with your time and to answer Dave your question. Specifically, every school is going to treat a test score differently for almost every student, depending on what the strengths are in their application, right? They're, you know, students applying to the same school, to the same major, who have different rigors of the general high school classes they've taken or taken more AP classes, or have done something more significant with their summers that really shows their academic ability, or something like that. So a test score is going to be a little different in your particular case where your daughter has a really good ACT scores, but not perfect grades and limited extracurriculars. You know that score is probably going to help them in the process, just because it's going to assure the admissions officers will go this student is actually capable. There may be some other story going on with the grades that you may want to tell in the application, but I don't want you to think that having even a perfect ACT score is going to completely overshadow, you know, mediocre grades, right? It's not like a trade off in that sense. Well, we could have gone on forever, and I'm sure we'll do another event like that, where we get really wonderful insights from admissions officers and readers, and I hope that you will submit your questions. We are doing a couple of episodes in a Q and A format. I've got a couple of episodes coming up that are in the live coaching format, where we are working directly with a student or a parent. And if you would like to submit a question or come on for some coaching. We would be glad to have you. You can check the show notes for how to do that, and hope to see you next time with another great episode. Thanks everybody and take care.