By: Deborah Jensen

Senior year of high school is about to begin for some nieces and nephews and they may ask if you can help them get their college applications into the best possible shape. Here are my top three tips to help your niece or nephew get their college applications completed so they can really enjoy their last year of high school.

Narrow the Field

First, talk to your niece or nephew about what they would like in a university, and help them narrow their options. Students should look for a so-called safety school, i.e. a school with an almost definite acceptance. Nothing would be more heartbreaking than to be rejected from every school. A safety school should meet their core requirements but might be easier to get into due to your niece’s or nephew’s performance in high school or admissions tests.

Just as your niece or nephew is going to have a school that is their “worst case scenario,” they need to dream big. Encourage them to apply to that school that they don’t think they will be accepted to—sometimes they have exactly what a school is looking for in a student!

There are numerous sources they can use to help narrow their choices such as Unigo and Niche. These sites provide rankings based on statistics and on the opinions of the students that attend the universities. Important factors to talk to your niece or nephew about would be their ideal location (e.g. rural versus urban campus), campus size (e.g. small liberal arts versus sprawling university), their preferred college major, and cost (e.g. state university versus private school).

Look for schools that accept the Common Application to reduce the amount of paperwork! This program is a not-for-profit organization aimed at easing the application process for students. By responding to this one set of essays and uploading their resume to the site, your nieces and nephews can apply to over 600 universities that accept the application. I suggest you help them apply to around four to eight schools.

Get Organized

The college application process has multiple steps that must be completed to ensure your niece’s or nephew’s applications are processed in a timely manner. Every application has a different deadline and some schools even have more than one. Encourage them to use their digital calendars to set notifications for deadlines and have a running spreadsheet. The spreadsheet should keep track of the following:

•    Login Names and Passwords
•    Deadlines
•    Recommendations
•    Test Scores
•    Transcript
•    Essay Progress
•    Supplement Information
•    Fees

Remember, having an easy-to-use document that evolves will help your niece or nephew ensure they get everything done and get it done on time. If they want you to be really hands-on, look into sharing a Google Doc so you can check in on their progress and prod them if they need it.

The Universal Essay

The essay topics for various schools seem to run the gamut. Unless your niece or nephew is exclusively applying to Common Application schools, they might feel overwhelmed by the number of essays they must write. Not to worry: most schools ask the same thing in different ways. You can encourage your niece or nephew to write one universal essay, or an essay that demonstrates the student’s ambitions, talents, or worth and can be edited to fit the distinct writing prompts or questions posed by each school. Many schools, for example, will ask candidates to explain why they want to attend and why their strengths make them a good fit. Since schools they are looking at will most likely be similar, a student can write an essay that highlights their strengths and then match them to the programs and benefits that each university provides.

In order to write a universal essay, take some time to talk with your niece or nephew about what makes them special. You know all about them and know what really makes them an asset. Help them see that a special piano song or humanitarian trip to Costa Rica can be tailored to fit a variety of essay topics. Once they have their essay written, make sure you offer to edit it for typos and grammatical errors.

Their college essay should go through several iterations and should custom fit the writing prompt requested by each school. Sometimes changing a sentence is all that will be necessary to make it fit a prompt, but some prompts will require a complete rewriting of several paragraphs. Have them keep the original essay and then save each new version as a separate file and remind your niece or nephew to double check that the right version is attached before they hit send.

Your niece or nephew is preparing to embark on a great adventure. Your love over the years and your continued support will help ensure that they are able to pursue their passions.

Deborah Jensen is a tutor for Score at the Top. She has been working to help students get into their dream schools for five years.

Photo: AntonioGuillem
Published: August 4, 2015
Republished: September 6, 2017