A Recap of My College Admissions Journey - From Current Senior, Jack Beecher

Originally written in spring 2023 by CC.us student Jack Beecher (Now, current student @ Dartmouth)

It’s over. The culmination of the last four years of my high school journey ended the other night as I opened my final decision of the twenty-two I received (sadly, a rejection from Stanford.)

So now is probably the best time to give a complete recap of my experience at each stage of high school to assist your family with your own journey. Plus, at the end of this blog, I’ll give an updated acceptance/rejection chart post-Ivy Day and break it down to help you understand how to tackle college admissions in the increasingly competitive and complex world.

Freshmen Year:
When I was a freshman, although college was on my mind, I did nothing to increase my chance of admission besides working hard for good grades, so if you're a family with a freshman, you’re already well ahead of the game just by reading this.

Here are some important things to consider:

-Classes Matter a LOT
Grades and the rigor of courses you take is the number one factor in college admissions. They are a requirement to even be considered at top-level universities. Of course, like all things, there are exceptions to that, but not many. So give it your best.

-Explore
In no way will you know what you want to do with your life, let alone the next year of high school, so explore. Spend time joining clubs and sports teams, taking different classes than usual, and toying with your interests. When I was a freshman, I was pretty set on being an astrophysicist. Now, I’m a wannabe computer scientist, so expect your passions to change, but that’s why you explore.

Sophomore Year:
This was a year heavily impacted by COVID for me, but it was also the first year in which I started giving some serious effort toward academics. I took difficult classes, used my exploratory tip and signed up for computer science courses, and worked hard to stand out on the golf course. But still, at this point, I was doing nothing to set myself up for college admissions success.

Learn from my mistakes. Here are some things you can do:

-Get a feel for different colleges
One thing I wish I did sooner was visit colleges. Although COVID was a factor, I could’ve at least done the bare minimum and spent like 10 minutes a week watching some YouTube videos or going on online tours. It’s good to have a feel of what you want in mind, so you can understand what you need to do to get there during the rest of high school.

-Focus on a Subject
Freshman year is the year to explore, and of course, continue exploring during Sophomore year, but move it a little to the side. Start to investigate an academic passion deeply. Colleges love to see students with a deep knowledge of a specific field. So begin to narrow in on what field you want that to be (it will almost certainly change, but that’s part of it.)

Junior Year:
During Junior year, it starts to get serious. College is knocking on the door, classes are getting hard, and it’s time to dig deep into extracurriculars. But if all that stresses you out, just know, during my Junior year, my main focuses were golf, friends, grades, and the ACT. I didn’t have a million things on my mind. I kept it simple, and you can too.

-Standardized Testing
Jack Delehey has shared tons of tips regarding the ACT and the SAT and how to approach them, and Junior year is when you should start giving those tests your all. Although they are less important than they used to be, having a good score on them almost certainly increases your chances of admission. So explore the resources Jack Delehey has put out and work hard to achieve a great score (it’s not easy, but it’s very very doable.)

-Find your "Passion Project" There are a lot of names given to this extracurricular activity that will make you stand out for admissions, but the name hardly matters. The important thing is to find an activity you're passionate about and go all in. Don’t focus on the 10 different groups you joined freshman year; try to focus on 1 or 2 things and really stand out. It’s the same as in academics. Colleges love to see a student excel in a specific area. (For more information, join the free College Confidence Community and watch Section 2.2 Different > Difficult, pictured below)

Senior Year:
There’s not too much to say here. Continue with the great work from Junior year and start grinding out some applications. If you want more resources for actual application support, I’d highly recommend joining the program. It’s benefited me immensely. (Link and more info at the bottom)

Okay, now let’s look at how it all ended for me.

I applied to 22 schools and was rejected by half of them. But as weird as it may sound, I think that’s the beauty of college admissions. It’s like rejection therapy scaled up to the max. Then, after all the ups and downs of rejections and waitlists, you get the acceptance you’ve been imagining for months, maybe years.

I think it’s important to really take in the current state of admissions. Your family will deal with rejections from great schools. That’s the thing about the program, it will push you to apply to schools you might not get into. A successful application period isn’t about going 100% and getting accepted to every school you apply to; it’s about challenging yourself and searching for failure because that means you gave it your all.

Overall, I’m more than thrilled with how my application process ended. Although I was rejected from many schools at the top of my list, I was accepted into several of my other top-choice schools, including Dartmouth and Vanderbilt. I can't even imagine how that graphic would’ve looked if I had joined the program earlier (I was late and joined last summer), but I don’t really care. Sure, I might’ve gotten into several more fantastic schools, but I already have more than enough. (Now, the challenge is deciding. I'll keep you posted.)

As always, thanks for reading. I hope that your family can extract some value from my experience. If anyone has any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out and email me at jack.beecher@collegeconsulting.us. If your family is interested in a free 45-minute call with CC.us to discuss potentially joining the program, schedule one here. And finally, if you want more free resources, including the aforementioned "different > difficult" video, join the new College Confidence Community dedicated to helping families navigate the changing admissions landscape.

Best of luck,
Jack Beecher