Gone are the days when a student receives all A’s and is accepted into a top 25 university. Students now are competing against tens of thousands of others for a few coveted seats. In 2024, Harvard University received over 54,000 applications (yes, that’s 54 THOUSAND) for less than 2,000 spots. So, how can students increase their likelihood of being one of those 2,000 admitted? What can students do now to make themselves more competitive for colleges later?
This is where strategy comes in! Finding the right college admissions strategy can set a candidate apart from other applicants and increase their chances of getting into their dream university.
Keep reading to learn how Zenith Prep Academy, the #1 College Counseling Company on the Inc. 5000 list, crafts compelling college application strategies that showcase student personality, ability, and unique life experiences.
The college playing field has changed. Ready to stand out?
The Offensive Approach for College Admissions
Typically, students start prepping their college applications in 11th or 12th grade. They focus on their academic grades and write essays highlighting their interest in the colleges they’re applying to. The overall outcome is a nice, defensively strong application.
Isn’t that enough? Unfortunately, no.
A strictly defensive strategy doesn’t give universities enough reasons to admit a student. While grade point average (GPA) is a key consideration for admission, most applicants will have similar scores. The same goes for the SAT or ACT. So, to stand out to admission officers, you need an offensive strategy, too.
The offensive approach involves going beyond just doing well on the assignments that are set for you by classes and tests. Offense is all about being proactive with your activities and showing that you can be a creative, thoughtful, and compassionate leader. Universities and colleges aren’t looking for good students–they’re looking for people who will take initiative in flourishing careers after college.
To demonstrate this potential to colleges, a student doesn’t just need great GPAs and test scores. What they need are intangibles–those things that get admissions officers talking. When admissions officers are talking about who they want to admit, intangibles sound like this:
- “Hey, what about that student that started an urban farming initiative to grow food for their local food bank?”
- “I can’t forget the student who created a series of Youtube shorts about the physics of yo-yos…”
- “That one student who is doing quantum computing research has been going around to middle schools and offering talks that make the topic accessible to youngsters!”
What these intangibles have in common is that they are based on a foundation of normal academic and community work: knowing how to start and manage a farm, having a deep understanding of physics, getting deep enough into computer science to understand its cutting edge. But then that foundation is utilized in a creative way that engages a larger community.
Benefits of an Offensive Approach
Every choice a student makes impacts their college application, so it’s important to ensure their time is used strategically to build an offensive-minded profile that gives universities a reason to admit a student who might otherwise be indistinguishable in a sea of similar GPAs and SAT scores.
The offensive approach is even more vital for students with a lower GPA. Most top universities look for a GPA of 4.0 or higher, while others are fine with a GPA above 3.0. If an applicant is aiming for a more prestigious university but has a lower GPA, the student can use the offensive approach to boost their application and partially make up for their grades.
How to Apply the Offensive Approach
Curious about how to apply this offensive approach to the college application process? Use the advice below!
1. Start Preparing Early
They say that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” So, do not spend a mere day on college applications! Starting as early as possible is the most vital component of the offensive approach. Zenith Prep Academy recommends that students begin as young as 12 years old. An early start gives students the time to explore their interests and build the foundation that will help them craft a unique profile in the future.
Students who are further along in their educational journeys can still do a lot to prepare. A student who is already underway in their high school extracurriculars can find ways to step up into a leadership role or get creative about starting a new initiative. There’s also a lot of work to do around optimizing course selection, building a college list, and getting those essays done. These are all things that Zenith Prep Academy can help with.
2. Understand Admissions Expectations
Every university has its own admission requirements. These often include academic transcripts, standardized tests, personal statements, and recommendations. They may also require interviews, portfolios, or even a graded paper from the student’s high school career. To learn more about admissions requirements, visit the university’s admissions page or the Common App.
Along with application requirements, each university weighs the different parts of the application differently. For example, Princeton’s Common Data Set from 2024 states that they do not consider an applicant’s level of interest (demonstrated interest) when deciding admissions. However, for a school such as Northwestern, it is considered. Another thing to note is that the Common Data set reports how much colleges care about those intangibles. “Character/Personal Traits” and “Talent/Ability” cannot be easily read from a GPA or a test score. It is the unique passion and dedicated values that students show over time in their profile that give colleges a window into those intangibles.
Of course, the Common Data Set is only a partial overview of what colleges look for in an application. Particular programs at individual colleges often have their own preferences and expectations that are not clearly laid out. And no amount of data is going to relay exactly how a college will respond to a unique and compelling profile. That is where Zenith’s counselors can help!
Knowing admissions expectations from the start will help students figure out where to focus their energies!
3. Develop a Unique Personal Narrative
Most universities require applicants to submit an admission essay or personal statement. With limited words, the student must convince the university why they are a particularly compelling applicant.
The personal statement is the most critical application essay and should speak about the student’s unique individuality: a learner, a carer, a scholar, a teacher, a risk-taker, or whatever they pride most in themselves. Throw out any preconceived ideas about what a good personal statement looks like (it’s not a cover letter!) and leave any questions about what admissions expect from these essays at the door. Don’t write what college admission teams want to see; write about what is most important to show. This is the one place on the Common Application where an applicant gets to tell admissions who they are (and who they hope to become) in their own words, with their own voice. Anxiously emulating examples of “successful” personal statements or prompting ChatGPT to pop out something will almost always result in a statement that is inauthentic and not unique to the individual student.
4. Enhance Extracurricular Involvement
Extracurricular activities will help an applicant stand out. However, choosing activities that complement their academic and personal interests is essential. Paired with their personal statement, targeted extracurricular activities will showcase an applicant’s “mission” and support their claims for being accepted.
There is no one “right” kind of extracurricular activity. The key is that no matter what students do, they need to be involved in something for a number of years and they need to show that they can grow into a creative and thoughtful leader in that activity. For example, one trajectory of growth might be going from dropping a spinning mace at the start of a freshman drumline show, and going on to become the Varsity/Lead Drum Major of a school’s 300-student marching band. The key here is that the student shows resilience and commitment. Just doing a large number of random activities can make a student seem unfocused. No one can do everything: students show their values by virtue of what they choose to do.
5. Dive into Community Engagement
Universities also value community, and they like to see their students show that value in the activities and interests they pursue. Whether volunteering or helping with community events, engaging with a community is an experiential way to show the admissions committee that community is important. Doing so will positively reflect the applicant’s character, giving them a leg up in the application progress. For example, highlighting an applicant’s neighborhood soccer team, composed of a nineteen-year-old Ukrainian refugee, a forty-two-year-old Mexican father of three, two Senegalese cooks, and a multilingual Pakistani Saudi-American high schooler, shows more than just soccer. It shows the respite from daily life, the years of camaraderie and friendships that give the applicant an intimate and culturally-competent take.
6. Collect Credible Recommendations
Recommendations are considered the best evidence regarding an individual’s character and achievements. However, their effectiveness depends on selecting the right people to write them.
Most higher education institutions request one recommendation from a school counselor and up to two recommendations from core subject teachers (math, science, history, world language, or English). Additionally, some universities allow applicants to submit an “other recommendation” from a coach, employer, or research mentor.
At the end of the day, it is essential to choose someone who knows the applicant well and understands their personal story. Students sometimes hustle to get a letter of recommendation from an “impressive” person (like a school principal or state senator) who doesn’t know the student that well. But the best recommenders will always be those people who can speak about a student’s unique offensive spark from direct personal experience.
7. Build Academic Strength
While grades aren’t everything, they’re still essential. Universities want to ensure their students can meet the demands of coursework and student life. However, they’re interested in more than just a number.
Colleges will look at the trajectory of a student’s grades and check to see if they are taking a rigorous course load–especially in the areas that are crucial for a student’s planned area of study. A student who is planning on doing engineering might want to take additional math classes at a community college in order to advance past the all-too-common AP Calculus BC class. A student who is planning on studying international relations will still want to take the required math classes, but it will be much more important to advance their study of different world languages. The course load that is right for a particular student depends on the overall shape of the student’s profile.
Stand Out With Help From Zenith Prep Academy
Need help with this college application process? Want to start the process early? Zenith Prep Academy stands among the nation’s elite preparatory institutions and has earned features in Forbes, USA Today, Bloomberg, and Nasdaq, with particular praise for a pioneering STEM curriculum and 98% college placement rate at top-tier universities. The dedicated team of college counselors is here to provide personalized college and career planning, guidance tailored to an individual learning path and pace, and a strategy to build an offensive approach to college applications.
If you’d like to learn more about Zenith Prep Academy and its offerings, book a free consultation today!
