In this episode, we cover many factors—including costly mistakes, myths, and traps—related to students’ school selection. In particular, we address the following:
School Visits
- Why it doesn’t make sense to visit highly selective colleges before mid-11th grade
- Prioritization of best and best-fit colleges for visits, especially schools that offer binding/restrictive early plans (such as Early Decision)
Decision Plans
- Different types (ED1/2, REA/SCEA, EA, RD) and how much each improves your admissions odds
How your decision plan may improve/hurt your odds of admission more than any merit-based factor (GPA, course rigor, test scores, resume, etc)The Myth of School List “Balance”
“REA/SCEA” Schools
- 7 schools whose early plans are the highest-risk
- The “top college with the worst decision plan”
How ED and Decision Plan Selection Can Make or Break Your Candidacy
- Measuring risk vs reward
Admissions Traps
- Yielding: how overqualified students get rejected
- Shell Plans: decision plans used by colleges to lower acceptance rates/increase prestige and under which students have no real chance of admission
The “Game” of College Admissions: How Colleges Outmaneuver Students Via Targeted Marketing, Tracking, & Forecasting Intent to Enroll
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“The Game” is hosted by Sam Hassell and brought to you by Great Minds Advising.
Great Minds Advising’s unique, hands-on mentorship program and its deep strategic insight into the application review process have earned the company a nation-leading track record of excellence, with 100% of its students gaining admission to a top-choice school in the 2024–25 application cycle.
Its students have recently gained admission to Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Northwestern, UC-Berkeley, and WashU (among many others) and are admitted to the Ivy League at a rate 14x the national average (90% when applying early).
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