Applying for college feels like a march toward a kind of judgment day. Are you smart enough? Are you talented enough? Are you likeable enough? No wonder high school seniors approach each application with a sense of dread. Instead, they should think of the college search as a courtship. The trick is finding the right match—and putting your best face forward.

 

College admissions officers will sift through your application, trying to get a sense for who you are, what your strengths are, and whether you would be happy and successful on their campus. “We’re not the office of rejection. We’re the office of admission. What we’re trying to do is admit students,” says Nancy McDuff, director of admissions for the University of Georgia.

 

Yet the University of Georgia can’t actually admit everyone who would be a good fit. Some 17,000 seniors applied for about 9,300 admission slots last year, and the number of applications continues to rise. Other universities have even tougher odds. Marlyn McGrath, director of admissions at Harvard College (the undergraduate program at Harvard University), estimates that more than 85 percent of applicants could handle the high-level academics. Yet the college has space to admit only 9 percent. About 300 students of the 1,675 entering Harvard won admission based mainly on unusual academic achievement as their chief distinction, she says. “Everyone else fights for a place based on some achievement. We’re always looking for forms of real excellence—people who have taken whatever talent they have and overdeveloped it,” says McGrath. “People who are overachievers are the people we’re impressed by.”

 

But don’t panic if you’re not a virtuoso, an inventor, or even an A student. Just keep your cool and remember that there are thousands of colleges in the United States. The key is to find the right place for you.

Lucy Flournoy, eighteen, fell in love with Yale University and dreamed of getting a degree from the ultraprestigious school’s drama program. She was a stand-out student at Brookstone School, a private school in Columbus, where she racked up a 4.5 GPA and scored a 2210 out of 2400 on the SAT. She participated in monologue competitions and performed in musicals, dramas, and one-act plays. She founded the Relay for Life team at her school to raise money for cancer research. She ran track and was the vice president of her senior class. Although she admits she was disappointed when she was wait-listed at Yale and Brown University, she ended up being thoroughly happy on the tight-knit Davidson College campus near Charlotte. She is studying international theater in the school’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, where she can blend her interest in foreign languages and drama. “It’s all about the right attitude,” says Flournoy. “You have to be who you are. If the college doesn’t take you, life goes on.” Or, as Westminster Schools college counselor Nancy Beane says: “If one door closes, be ready to run into another door.”

 

Getting into college has become more unpredictable than ever. Seniors with great stats now find themselves rejected by colleges that once were on many applicants’ “safety” list. But the college application is the part of the process that is in your control. This is your chance to tell the colleges why they should accept you. We asked college admissions officers, college counselors, other experts, parents, and students to share their secrets of a successful application. Here is a step-by-step guide:

The Transcript

Your transcript tells the story of your high school career. Did you take hard courses and push yourself to make the grade? “The number one factor in admission is the overall grade point average,” says Jean Hague, an independent educational consultant in Atlanta.

 

But admissions officers also look at the nuances. They want to see the effort to excel in rigorous courses. They look for patterns. “Colleges expect your train to be going uphill,” says Neil Clark, a former college admissions vice president and current dean of college counseling and guidance at The Walker School, an independent prep school in Marietta. “You may have one difficult semester or one difficult class, but as you go on they expect you to take tougher classes and improve a bit.”

 

Good numbers can carry an application. A high GPA and strong test scores may be all it takes to win acceptance to large state universities. For example, the University of Georgia accepts about 40 percent of its freshman class in a numbers-only review each fall.

 

But if you have some weak spots, don’t just ignore them. “The worst thing a student can do is have a negative issue and not tell us anything about it,” says David Graves, senior associate director of admissions at the University of Georgia. “Many students will have some minor little issue, [such as] some slight drop in the grades.” For example, if your grades dropped one semester because you were seriously ill or your parents divorced, mention that in your application, he advises.

Tips: Don’t count on a boost from nonacademic courses. Some colleges will recalculate your GPA without them. Do take advanced placement courses. They gain extra points in your GPA. Because they have a standardized curriculum and tests, advanced placement courses may be considered a greater sign of rigor than joint enrollment in a local college.

High test scores alone won’t get you into the college of your choice, but they can help. Hague recommends taking both the ACT and SAT; if one is much higher, submit that one, but if they’re close, submit both. The SAT is more analytical than the content-based ACT, so some students excel at one or the other.

 

Henri Hollis, nineteen, of Atlanta, a sophomore at Georgia Tech, made a 1250 out of 1600 on the SAT, a good score but not one that he felt assured him a spot in his top-choice schools. Colleges provide a profile of the incoming freshman class with the range of scores and GPAs for the middle 50 percent of the students. “I felt like I was kind of on the edge with my SAT score,” he says. He took the ACT and scored a 32 out of a possible 36, which was equivalent to an SAT score in the 1400s. “If people aren’t getting a score they’re happy with on the SAT, I would definitely encourage them to take the ACT,” says Hollis, who graduated from Lakeside High School in Atlanta.

 

Universities use test scores in combination with the GPA to predict academic success in college. Some colleges also will ask students to take SAT Subject Tests, which test aptitude in math, literature, sciences, history, and foreign language.

 

Test prep courses can help you achieve your best possible score, but you don’t necessarily need to pay for an expensive class. Georgia high school students may receive a password for free online SAT preparation from their guidance counselors.

Tips: At some colleges, submitting SAT or ACT scores is optional. You may want to zero in on those if you aren’t good at standardized tests. A high GPA with a rigorous curriculum also can counterbalance less than stellar test scores.

Here’s your chance to tell the admissions officers what you want them to know about you. “I always tell students, ‘You have control over your essay to be thoughtful, to be technically correct, and to be yourself,’” says Arlene Cash, vice president for enrollment management at Spelman College in Atlanta. “Present you. Don’t have someone else write it.”

 

Yes, some students do find essays on the Internet, or they have their parents write them, or they even pay someone to do it for them. College admissions officers often can tell that those essays are not authentic. Besides, that defeats the purpose of essays—which is to reveal something personal.

 

A good essay can raise your application above the stack. Cash recalls one young woman who wrote about being the oldest of five children, the one her parents “experimented on” to learn how to parent the others. Her essay had a touch of humor but also provided a window into how the student developed responsibility, leadership, and compassion. “That was a winner,” says Cash. “At the end, you feel as if this is someone you want to be part of your community.”

 

Tips: Write your essays over the summer months when you don’t have the pressure of schoolwork. It’s hard to be creative and clever under stress. Smaller colleges are likely to put the greatest emphasis on essays, but admissions officers pay attention to your words even at large universities. “There are people behind this process who really care about every student,” says Cash.

Your extracurricular activities can define you. Go for depth over breadth. If you produce a list of dozens of activities, admissions officers may wonder when you ever manage to sleep and eat—but they won’t necessarily be impressed. Instead, admissions officers like to see students who expressed an interest in an area (being a veterinarian, for example) and then aligned their activities accordingly (such as helping in an animal shelter). “They haven’t just listed something, they’ve been exploring it,” says McDuff.

 

Admissions officers will look at the context of your activities. Perhaps one student has traveled abroad, attended summer educational programs, and participated in sports, while another worked and helped with the family’s finances. Colleges realize that having a job may be a necessity—and may leave the student little time for other high school activities. “We always ask ourselves, ‘What has she done with a particular set of opportunities?’” says Harvard’s McGrath.

 

Think about how your activities and interests fit with the priorities and atmosphere of the college. “If the college is very service-oriented, put forth the things you’ve done for service,” advises Cash.

 

A college may pick some students to fill specific needs—an oboe player for the band, a soccer goalie to boost the team. But you can’t predict just what those needs are. And you shouldn’t pursue activities just to place them on a resume. “You want [your children] to enjoy high school, not just to be a package a school is looking for,” says Amy Wynn of Roswell, whose daughter is a junior at Furman University in South Carolina. 

In fact, that is part of the problem with the college admissions process, asserts Lloyd Thacker, editor of College Unranked (Harvard University Press, 2005) and executive director of The Education Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve the college admissions process. Students shouldn’t ask what a college wants, Thacker says. Instead, they should ask, “Who am I as a student? What do I want to learn? What am I curious about? College will come not as a result of me playing a game, but me being true to who I am,” he says.

 

Tip: Start keeping a list of your high school activities when you’re a freshman. That’s what Lucy Flournoy did. “By the time I needed a resume, it was easier to remember,” she says.

Think carefully about which teachers know you best and will share some of your positive qualities. If you were chronically tardy or turned in work late, expect them to be honest about that. “Occasionally we do get some negative ones,” says Graves. ”I got one last year from someone who said the student slept in the class.” Schedule time with the teacher and tell her about your college choices. Give her a copy of your resume to serve as a reminder about your interests and what you do outside the classroom, advises Hague. “It will be a stronger recommendation if the teacher understands what the student really wants and what she has to offer to the college,” she says.

 

You can add recommendations from other adults who know you well, such as Scout leaders or a coach. But don’t overdo it. As Clark says, “A thick file is not a good file.” If you have a remote family connection to a famous or influential person, resist the temptation to ask for a recommendation. It won’t count for much, and the person is apt to say, “I was asked to write a letter for this student and here it is. I do not know this student at all,” says Graves.

Tips: Ask for recommendations in plenty of time before your application deadline. You don’t want to submit an incomplete application because the recommendations didn’t arrive. Then send your teachers thank-you notes.

If the college offers interviews with an alumnus or on campus, take advantage. Visit the campus, if possible, and sign up for a tour. You may even be able to spend the night, as Hollis did with the Connect with Tech program. Taking part in that was when he realized that Tech has a campus life beyond the library. “The reputation of Tech is that it’s so tough and there’s no downtime,” he says. “I got to see Tech students relaxing. They would do homework and it didn’t seem much more than I was doing in high school.”

 

If you’re interested in a particular field of study, e-mail a professor to ask questions about the program. “Perceived interest really can be very important at some schools,” says Westminster’s Beane, who is past president of the Southern Association for College Admission Counseling. If your credentials are essentially the same as another applicant’s, but you have shown greater interest, that may give you an edge. 

 

If you have discipline or honor offenses in your background, assume that the college will know about them. Be open and try to explain the circumstances.

 

“You should not assume that anything that happened in your life is going to be a death blow,” says Beane. “Could it keep you out of one school? Sure. But there are plenty of other schools that could be a great fit.”

 

Tip: Don’t be consumed by your rejections. “Ninety percent of the students who are rejected from college could probably do just fine, but there often aren’t enough seats for everyone who would want to be there,” says Cash. “You’ve got to read the letter and close it and know [you’re] still great, that this rejection does not define [you].” If you truly think the college made a mistake—as when a high school confused the transcripts of two students with the same name and sent the wrong one—ask about the procedure for appeal.