College planning doesn’t have to mean expensive consultants or overwhelming timelines. After 16+ years coaching over 4,100 families, I’ve identified seven simple strategies that any family can implement today. These low hanging fruit tactics, from visiting nearby schools to mastering study habits, deliver outsized results with minimal effort and zero cost.
Most families think college planning requires some grand strategy, expensive test prep, or years of careful orchestration. Here’s the thing: after working with over 4,100 families and 16+ years in this space, I’ve found the opposite is true. The biggest wins come from simple actions that anyone can take today, this weekend, or this month. I call these the low hanging fruit of college planning, and I’m going to walk you through all seven of them.
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Visit schools nearby, even if they’re not on your list
A lot of families come to me and say, “Jack, I don’t want to have to get on an airplane” or “I’m not sure if this school aligns with my child’s vision.” They start getting into this mental cycle that’s difficult to get out of. Here’s my advice: just start visiting schools nearby.
You’re not committing to anything
These visits don’t have to be anywhere close to making your child’s final school list. The goal at the start isn’t to assess whether that specific school is “the one.” It’s to assess different types of schools so your student can figure out what environment they actually want.
There are six mix-and-match categories to consider: big or small, urban or rural, campus or no campus. There’s a very different vibe when you visit NYU in New York City versus Williams College in Western Massachusetts. NYU has you walking around the city with no traditional campus feel. Williams is very much a campus environment. Some students are going to love the NYUs of the world. Others need that campus environment.
Make it easy on yourself
Take a couple of road trips. Make them all within three hours of driving distance. Get in the car on a Saturday, sign up for the information session and tour, and just go visit a few colleges. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. It doesn’t require a flight or hotel room.
If you do this three or four or five times at nearby colleges, even if those colleges will never make your child’s final list, I can tell you confidently your child will have a much better understanding of the type of environment they want to be in. Then you can take those nuggets and say, “Based on these visits, what did you like? What did you dislike?” Now you can actually start building a school list with real information.
Build a relationship with your guidance counselor
Every high schooler across the country, unless they’re homeschooled, has a guidance counselor assigned to them. These guidance counselors vary in terms of caseload. I’ve seen as few as 40 students to one counselor. I’ve seen as many as 600 students to one counselor. But there’s something important to understand.
They’re there to help, but you have to show up
In most cases, the student must proactively seek out that support. If a student actively seeks it out, two things happen. First, that guidance counselor says, “Oh, this student is in front of me, I’m now going to help them.” In a lot of scenarios, it’s just difficult for them to keep track of 300 or 400 or 500 kids. The student who shows up gets the attention.
The letter of recommendation factor
The second reason this matters so much: the fall of your child’s senior year, that same guidance counselor will write a letter of recommendation that goes to every single school your child applies to. That letter will have your child’s name at the top.
I can guarantee you if your high schooler develops a relationship with their guidance counselor over multiple years, starting sophomore year, through junior year, and into senior year, that letter of recommendation will be much stronger. When a guidance counselor is writing hundreds of these letters, most are going to be pretty generic, pretty template. But if your child has developed a relationship with that individual, they’re going to make sure that letter has a little more thought in it.
These days, things like that can be the tiebreaker between getting accepted and getting waitlisted, or getting waitlisted and getting rejected.
By the way, I didn’t do this. A lot of the tips in my program come from what I did incorrectly. If I had a stronger relationship with my guidance counselor, I know that letter would have been stronger, and I would have gotten a lot more free advice along the way.
Take the Saturday Morning Test
The Saturday Morning Test comes from one of the greats, Cal Newport. Here’s the hypothetical scenario: you wake up on a Saturday morning. There’s no homework to do. You cannot turn on screens, meaning no TV, no internet, no TikTok, no phones, nothing. You can’t go back to sleep. What would you do?
Why this matters for college admissions
The answer to this question is something your student should start exploring immediately. Colleges care about interests. A lot of students get hung up saying, “I’ve heard extracurriculars matter and things I do outside of school, but I’m just not really sure what to do.” Here’s my advice: just start exploring things you’re interested in.
Instead of thinking about the end result of how this will help with college applications, just start exploring. What’s going to happen is the snowball effect. It’s going to get bigger and bigger. Next thing you know, if you’ve just taken a liking to something you actually enjoy doing, the answer to your Saturday Morning Test, it’s going to snowball into something that could be presentable and impressive in college admissions.
A real example from my program
I had a student years ago who was very interested in fantasy football. I said just start exploring, just dive into it. Next thing you know, years later, he had an entire blog related to his math on picking lineups, how to optimize his lineups, everything. If on day one we had said, “Okay, you’re going to create an entire blog with algorithms on your lineups,” he wouldn’t have had that. Eventually he had it, and it became super impressive and was the part we highlighted in his college applications.
But at the start, I just said explore fantasy football. Start exploring how you can be a better fantasy football player if that’s your Saturday Morning Test answer. It was amazing to see where he ended up.
Not sure where to start? I created a free tool called The Saturday Morning Test that walks you through this exact exercise. It’s the same one I use with every new family in our program.
Take both the SAT and ACT to establish your baseline
I think it’s really important to understand that standardized tests, if done well, represent the second most important characteristic in all of college admissions behind your grades. The sweet spot here is the standardized test because the input is typically six to nine months of consistent but not crazy levels of studying, compared to four years of high school grades. The input is relatively low, the output is still relatively high.
Why you need to try both tests
Here’s the low hanging fruit: get a baseline score on each test. It is silly to continue taking both tests after you figure out which you prefer. It is smart to take both tests to figure out which you prefer. Take each test once, figure out which one you preferred, which is ideally the test you scored better on, forget about the other test, and go all in on the one that works for you.
In 16+ years of doing this, seeing thousands of students come through my program, it’s about 50/50 between SAT and ACT. Colleges do not care which one you submit. There’s a bias on the coasts where families say, “Don’t colleges really want to see the SAT?” No. That is a myth. They don’t care. SAT or ACT, just figure out which test is right for you.
How to get started
Sign up for each test, take each one. If you get a zero, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to submit your score to any colleges. Just get that baseline. If you’re interested in getting a baseline but don’t want to sign up, pay for the tests, and sit for four hours in a gym, you can go to collegeboard.org or act.org. They have free practice tests you can download and take on your own.
Just know it’s a lot harder to simulate a testing environment in your bedroom or kitchen. But the low hanging fruit is to figure out which test is for you, and then you can mentally block off the other one.
Master two study habits that will change everything
I’m not going to go on a rant about study habits, but there are two that if you embrace them will change your life. The first is airplane mode. The second is 50 minute chunks. This is the 80/20 of study habits, meaning the 20% of study habits that give you 80% of the outputs.
Put your phone on airplane mode
In 2010 when I was a senior in high school, smartphones hadn’t really existed yet. I still had a phone, and even then I remember discovering how important it was to just keep my phone downstairs in the kitchen when I studied in my bedroom.
Now in 2025, we have a computer in our pocket. We have a constant distraction device. I tell my students in the first week of my program to study one night with their phone on airplane mode. That means airplane mode, in a drawer, away, gone. You cannot be contacted, you cannot access the internet, nothing.
Here’s why this matters: it’s not just about the distraction. It’s not just about the 10 seconds to respond to a text or the five seconds to watch a TikTok. It’s about the after effects. Studies show it takes your brain many minutes to get back into that deep studying state after a distraction. By even associating your brain with distraction and then engaging in it, you’re costing yourself a lot of time in terms of deep study.
Study in 50 minute chunks
The human brain studies most effectively in small bursts with tiny breaks. This is amplified when you’re dealing with teenagers whose frontal cortexes haven’t fully developed yet. The most efficient way for teenagers to study is in 50 minute chunks with 10 minute hard, real, actual breaks. 50 minutes on, 10 minutes off.
If you can combine that with airplane mode, it makes it much more like you’re actually studying for those 50 minutes. Set a timer. If you get bored at the 30 minute mark, sorry, you’re going to have to sit there. The point is you’re training your brain.
Here’s the beauty: it’s not like you’re telling a high schooler to go in for a four hour marathon of studying and not come out of their room until they’re done. That doesn’t work. A four hour slog is a slog, and at the end there are diminishing marginal returns where you’re just not getting value out of studying.
Make the breaks real
That 10 minute break should be a real, legit break. Get up out of your chair. Walk around. Go down to the kitchen. Get some food. If you want to turn your phone off airplane mode and respond to that Instagram DM, go for it. If you want to go hug your mom and eat some food, go for it. Walk around the block. Make it a real, complete separation from the desk, from studying, and enjoy the break. Set that timer for 10 minutes. When that 60 minute cycle is complete, reset.
You would be shocked if you do two or maybe three of these sessions in a night just how productive you will be and how much you will get done.
If your student feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day, grab my free High School Time Audit. Most students find 5+ hours per week they didn’t know they had.
Spend 10 minutes thinking about your future
I did not do this when I was in high school. Take 10 minutes as a high schooler, sit down, and the only goal is to actually think about your future and what you might want to study in college.
It’s okay if you don’t know
If you get to the end of these 10 minutes and still have no idea, that is okay. But here’s the thing: high schools don’t really have students do this that often. If I had spent just 10 minutes in high school thinking about what I might want to do in college, I think it would have vastly helped my eventual college applications.
Instead, I never once thought about this ever. I applied to college undecided. The most common major high school seniors submit to colleges is undecided. I got kind of lucky. A lot of my teachings are based on what I wish I had done.
Working backwards from your story
If you think about your future for even 10 minutes and decide you might want to major in something, let’s say economics, great. That becomes your shining star at the end, and you can work backwards. You can start saying, “What things can I do throughout high school to align with that story?”
If you want to be an economics major, is there an economics journal you could write an article for and submit? Is there a small business you could create that aligns with economic concepts like supply and demand? Or maybe it’s as simple as finding the most popular economics book of all time and reading it.
Even partial clarity helps
Some students will sit down at the end of 10 minutes and still have no idea, and that is okay. But from a low hanging fruit perspective, my guess is a significant portion will at least for the first time be asked to think about it, and it’ll help them think about the next steps.
Even if you don’t have a major decided, if you’re interested in a couple of areas, you can work backwards. You can say, “Maybe I don’t know my major, but if I’m interested in this thing and that thing, what activities or experiences line up with those?”
These days, with college admissions at record low acceptance rates, it has never been more important to have a clear, concise story. The students who have great grades and test scores and are getting rejected? My guess is they’re the ones with no clear path. When college admissions looks at their application, it looks like a bunch of scattered things with no correlation.
This is the low hanging fruit to at least get closer to a clear, concise path. Spend 10 minutes with your teen. Sit them down at the kitchen table and just have a brainstorm.
Want to know if your student’s current profile tells a compelling story? Take my free College Story Audit. It’s a 15-minute assessment that shows you exactly where you’re strong and where you have gaps.
Bonus: Understand early decision
I have a whole video about this, so I won’t go into all the details. But here’s a quick example. My alma mater Vanderbilt: if you apply in the regular decision window, the most recent data is 4.6% acceptance rate. If you apply in the early decision window, meaning you just check a box saying it’s your commitment, you go from 4.6% to 24% acceptance rate.
This is low hanging fruit. Using this tool wisely can dramatically change your odds. Yes, there are restrictions and nuances to understand. But when families are asking whether to put a period here in the essay or how to phrase an opening sentence, my first question is always: what window are you applying in?
If you’re not quite sure what the application windows are, I strongly encourage you to review what schools offer and the insights into early decision. Understanding this tool is the bonus low hanging fruit.
Start with just one of these today
Here’s what I want you to take away: you don’t have to do all seven of these at once. Pick one. Maybe it’s having your student put their phone on airplane mode tonight while they do homework. Maybe it’s looking up which colleges are within a three hour drive for a Saturday visit. Maybe it’s sitting down at the kitchen table for a 10 minute conversation about what your student might want to study.
The families I’ve worked with who see the best results aren’t the ones who try to optimize everything at once. They’re the ones who consistently do the simple things that most families overlook. These low hanging fruit strategies have helped our students earn over $4.4 million in scholarships in recent cycles, with the average family receiving $116,502.
The hard truth is that most families don’t realize this. They’re so focused on the complex strategies that they miss the basics.
Ready to take the next step?
If you want help building a strategy like this for your student, one that focuses on what actually matters and cuts out the noise, book a free intro call with our team. We’ll talk through your student’s situation and map out the next steps together.
And if you’re not ready for a call yet, start with my free Saturday Morning Test. It takes 10 minutes and helps students discover what they’re genuinely interested in, not what they think they should be interested in. It’s the same exercise I walk through with every new family in our program.
Frequently asked questions about low hanging fruit in college planning
How early should we start visiting colleges? Start as soon as your student shows any interest. Even freshmen can benefit from understanding the difference between large and small schools, urban and rural settings, and campus versus city environments.
Does it matter if my student doesn’t know their guidance counselor’s name? That’s exactly why you should start building that relationship today. Pop in during office hours, ask a question about course selection, anything to get on their radar before senior year letters of recommendation.
What if my student’s Saturday Morning Test answer seems unimpressive? There are no unimpressive answers. One of my students’ answer was fantasy football, and he built that into an algorithm-based blog that became a centerpiece of his application. Start exploring and see where it leads.
Should we pay for SAT or ACT prep before taking baseline tests? No. Take both tests cold first to establish which one naturally suits your student better. Then invest in prep for only that test. You’ll save time and money.
How do I get my teenager to actually put their phone on airplane mode? Start with just one homework session. Frame it as an experiment. Once they see how much more they accomplish in 50 focused minutes, they often become converts.
Is early decision worth it if we need financial aid? This requires a nuanced conversation about your specific situation. Early decision is binding, so you need to understand the financial aid implications before committing. But for many families, the acceptance rate boost is worth exploring.
