“I’m not going to get in…anywhere?”
It was September when I heard a student say this. Late September. The thick of application season. And it was only our 2nd meeting together.
“Is my GPA really that low? Man. I guess I’m not going to get in…anywhere?”
He felt super dejected. He’d finally taken an honest look at his unweighted GPA, and it was lower than he thought. Too low to expect admission to most of the schools he’d hoped for. And in that moment, I saw him panic.
But the fact is: the game wasn’t over for him. Not at all. Here’s what we did:
1) We got flexible.
“Your GPA isn’t competitive for these 5 schools you originally loved? OK. What made you fall in love with them in the first place? Let’s make a list of your top 5 priorities.”
2) We made a deal.
“We’ll still apply to those original 5 schools. We’re just adjusting our expectation. Now we know they’re not Match schools, they’re Reach schools.” Spoiler: he was still admitted to several of them.
3) We balanced his list.
“Here are 5 more schools. They each hit 4 of your top 5 priorities. And they’re within your academic range (GPA, rigor, SAT/ACT). These are your new Match schools. PLUS, here are 3 schools that hit 2-3 of your top 5 priorities and are a little below your academic range. These are your new Safer schools.”
4) We crafted his application to acknowledge, contextualize, and outweigh his academics.
This is how he gained acceptance to 7 schools that were above his academic range. We crafted an Additional Information response that acknowledged the semesters/classes that had tanked his GPA. We contextualized them, explaining the circumstances around them (including the steps he took to resolve circumstances within his control & the upward trend in his grades that followed). Then, we focused on crafting his Activities List, Common App Personal Statement, Supplemental Essays, and letters of recommendation to showcase his unique value proposition. We worked hard to make sure they showed how his true strengths/characteristics outweighed his early academic fumbles. A transcript could never capture these, we said, but a college needs them on their campus. In the end, many colleges agreed! Now he’s enrolled at a school he’s pumped about (whose application we worked especially hard on!)
Honestly, this one still blows my mind sometimes.
Even I was a little surprised when he received so many acceptances to Reach schools. Let alone the Match schools. It’s easy to forget that something good can happen, when my Insta feed seems full of bad news. So I’m sharing this good news with you, to remind us both.
Can you relate? If you want to hear more about how we turned this student’s application around, message me anytime. If you want it for your own aplication, you can also schedule a video chat here, too. Until next week.
Peter
