1. Help students with their state university applications. In California, the Cal State and UC applications came online October 1. Both must be submitted by November 30. The Cal States can be submitted October 1-November 30, while the UCs can be submitted November 1-30. Both applications have students self-report their course and grades, so they need access to their transcripts. Please help them with their application completion. Other public university systems are all online. Help students!!!

2. Encourage seniors to apply for EOP and other support programs. These programs provided amazing support for low-income students throughout the admissions, college readiness, and college survival process. The Cal States have a separate EOP application with several short responses and two required recommendations. As space is limited, have students apply as early as possible. http://www.csumentor.edu/AdmissionApp/eop_apply.asp

On the UC application, students just have to check that they want to be considered for EOP.

3.  Inform students about college application fee waivers. Students who qualify for free or reduced lunch qualify for fee waivers for most college applications. The Cal States and UCs allow students to apply to four of their campuses for free. Private colleges accept NACAC or College Board fee waivers or will waive fees if counselors, teachers, or students request them for students. http://professionals.collegeboard.com/guidance/applications/fee-waivers

Undocumented students qualify for fee waivers for most colleges, except for the Cal States and public colleges in Arizona and some southern states.

4. Hold college application and college essay workshops before, during, and after school. Your students need help with their essays. These essays make them pop for college admissions officers who are desperate for your students. Make the essays requirements for English or hold workshops after school. Help them read great samples and see ways to use their essays more than once. They need to tell unique stories that grab reads from the first sentence. See our ten tips that we have attached with this email. Read the article about our approach in the New York Times. http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/nacac-essa/

5. Remind seniors of upcoming standardized tests. Yes, students can still take the SAT, ACT, or SAT Subject Tests. They can qualify for two fee waivers per test. Encourage them to keep trying as their scores usually go up.

SAT/SAT Subject Tests (http://sat.collegeboard.org/register/sat-dates)

• Nov 5 (Oct 9 registration). Listening part of foreign language tests offered.
• Dec 3 (Nov 8 registration)
• Jan 28 (Dec 30 registration)

ACT Tests (http://www.actstudent.org/regist/dates.html)

• Oct 22 (Late and walk in registration)
• Dec 10 (Nov 4 registration)

6. Help students learn more about colleges by attending college and non-profit events in your area. Colleges are in your area in October. Find out where they are or take your students to a college fair. If your high school doesn’t have a college night, perhaps you can crash one at a local public high school in your area. The Hispanic Scholarship Fund is holding free Steps for Success on Saturdays this fall in key states. http://www.hsf.net/workshops.aspx

7. Continue to encourage students to research colleges online. Colleges want your students. But students need to apply to match colleges. The Center for Student Opportunity (CSO) has a great guide that features colleges that welcome diverse students and free resources. http://www.csopportunity.org. You University offers great video tours of colleges. http://www.youniversitytv.com/ Take advantage of College Week Live. This free website offers amazing webinars and workshops for students applying to college. http://www.collegeweeklive.com/

8. Write great letters of recommendation. Please write recommendations that make your students pop. Follow our Into-Through-Beyond approach so that you can help colleges see why these students belong on their campuses. Give details about their academic performance if you’re a teacher. Highlight their leadership and initiative if you’re a counselor. If you can’t remember or just don’t know them, have them submit detailed brag sheets. These letters can make or break an admissions or scholarship decision for a first gen student. PLEASE WRITE YOUR LETTERS ONLINE!!!

9. Connect with current college students. Keep ongoing contact with your graduates. Ask these students to write tips for your students and post them around the classroom and college center.

10. A PLEA…Help homesick college freshmen. We send out students away, and in October they begin to get very homesick. Their parents often can’t visit them, and they are beginning to struggle, at times, with their workload. So please keep in touch with freshmen. Send them care packages. Or just FB message or text them. They need your ongoing support.

Advice to juniors:

Juniors! Start the college admissions process early! Ignore the friends who call you lame and say that you don’t need to start early, because you do.

Once the Common Application comes out (or any online application), definitely take the time to fill in the basic information stuff. When you are close to the end of your application, the smallest jobs will stress you out, so there’s no reason to add that to your list.

Next: Make a list, with all the kinds of schools you can see yourself at. If that list ends up bringing together liberal arts schools with polytechnic institutes and large, state schools, so be it! As your interests change, the list will become smaller. Eventually, it will reflect where you really see yourself, and it’s totally fine to have that level of diversity in type of schools you are looking for.

Don’t be afraid to set standards for yourself. If you want to be in an environment that is at least 40% students of color, then go for it! Find the things that mean the most to you in a college experience. Out of the hundreds of schools to choose from, some of them will fill your needs.

Most importantly—work on essays, and start them early! Your essays really do hold so much potential. It’s your only chance to create something completely individual to yourself, and your slacking off freshman year can’t ruin it (the way we all claim our GPA was lowered). I know if your school requires five four essays, it might cause you to have a mini freak out, but keep this in mind: the more essays they ask for, the more opportunities you have to talk about yourself. The five essays I had to write for my first choice took me a long way. In fact, I got into my first choice! And since then, my admissions officer has sent me letters quoting parts of my essays. So trust me, when you search yourself and find the motivation and effort to write your essays, they will notice, as long as you write the story that  “only you can write,” something a wise woman once told me.

And here’s one more thing. In the midst of your college application process, find something you love doing—whether it’s singing, dancing, or sleeping, and do it. Make sure that your first semester is more than just stress. Try and make it enjoyable for the times when you aren’t working on college apps. It’ll keep you alive.

Good luck guys!

Makshya

Firs generation college goer

Admitted Early Action to Stanford University, Class of 2015

Adrianna gives great advice about how to start your UC essays.

Tip 1. College essays are fourth in importance behind grades, test scores, and the rigor of completed coursework in many admissions office decisions (NACAC, 2009). Don’t waste this powerful opportunity to share your voice and express who you really are to colleges. Great life stories make you jump off the page and into your match colleges.

Tip 2. Develop an overall strategic essay writing plan. College essays should work together to help you communicate key qualities and stories not available anywhere else in your application.

Tip 3. Keep a chart of all essays required by each college, including short responses and optional essays. View each essay or short response as a chance to tell a new story and to share your core qualities.

Tip 4. Look for patterns between colleges essay requirements so that you can find ways to use essays more than once. This holds true for scholarship essays.

Tip 5. Plan to share positive messages and powerful outcomes. You can start with life or family challenges. You can describe obstacles you have overcome. You can reflect on your growth and development, including accomplishments and service. College admissions officers do not read minds, so tell them your powerful life stories.

Tip 6. Always write in the first person. Remember, these are autobiographical essays, even when you talk about other people. Remember the colleges are looking to accept you, not your relatives. So use the one third and two thirds rule. If you choose to write about someone or something else, you must show how it affected you for the majority of the essay. Your essays show colleges why you belong on college campuses and share how you will enrich diverse communities.

Tip 7. Tell unique stories that only belong to you. Follow Dr. Joseph’s Into, Through, and Beyond approach. Lead the reader INTO your story with a powerful beginning—a story, an experience. Take them THROUGH your story with the context and keys parts of your story. Make sure the reader understands your initiative, leadership, development, and continuity. End with the BEYOND message about how this story has affected who you are now and who you want to be in college and potentially after college.  The beyond can be implied in many pieces that are so strong that moralizing at the end is not necessary.

• It is not just the story that counts.
• It’s the choice of qualities a student wants the college to know about herself

Tip 8. Use active writing: avoid passive sentences and incorporate power verbs. Show when possible; tell when summarizing.

Tip 9. Have trusted inside and impartial outside readers read your essays. Make sure you have no spelling or grammatical errors.

Tip 10. Most importantly, make yourself come alive throughout this process. Write about yourself as passionately and powerfully as possible. Be proud of your life and accomplishments. Sell yourself!!!