In the last post, we went over FAFSA Checklist, how to fill it out, and what you need!

This girl knows whatsup, use her advice in this video on how to fill out the activities section!

Quick Facts:

Common App: The Common Application is a form that over 900 colleges, including CUNY, use to evaluate students for admission. It has the same questions and personal statement prompts and can be used to apply to a bunch of schools all at once, making it super easy.

Even if you are applying to a college that does not take the common app, chances are the questions will be similar enough for you to recycle your answers.

Application Fee Waivers: You will need to talk to your school’s college admissions counsellor/office for this— it’s the same people you get the SAT fee waivers from as well.

Student Hack:

-Always create a separate google doc with your answers to write (and re-write and revise) your answers before putting them into the forms on the application websites. This way you can recycle your answers across your applications and scholarship applications.

-For this week, you can also download the PDF of the Common App form and fill it out and share it with me. But always make sure to save a copy for your records.

Your Mission This Week:

1) Create a Common App Account: https://www.commonapp.org/apply/first-time-students The directions on this website include videos and just require your patience to walk through them— which is good because this is exactly what you’ll need to get through all the tedious portals and submission procedures required to get you the F into college. So, get used to it. Practice deep breaths, and take your time— this is your future after all.

2) Beginning this week, we will work on getting your short answers perfect and ready to go. This means you will create a google doc titled:

“LAST NAME, FIRST NAME Common App Short Answers 2020” which you will share with me so I can look over them and give you feed back.

**You should be able to answer these questions in one or two short paragraphs and no more than 250 words. This is super important, especially for all my wordy nerds out there, the reason why we are spending 2 weeks on the short answer is so that you can practice editing and revising until your answers are clear, direct, and to the point.

You want the college admissions offer reviewing your questions to be able to scan them in 30 seconds or less and get the basics of who you are, what your accomplishments are, and of course, why they should let you into their college.

In order to get these short answers clear enough to be read in 30 seconds, you have to spend at least a week on them revising them and tweaking them— we’ll address this in Thursday’s meeting.

3. Here are the questions— remember to share with me your short answer google doc by Wednesday at Midnight so I can review them before the meet-up on Thursday:

Click on the above link or here and you’ll see the pdf version of the form you’ll fill out— it begins with personal and family information, and then you will need to fill in your information from your transcript and other academic accomplishments.

This week, you’ll be filling out the “Extracurricular Activities and Work Experience” in your google doc (so you can reuse in case some schools don’t take the common app— they’ll all ask this info).

The directions are: List your main extracurricular, volunteer, and work activities in order of importance to you. Feel free to group your activities and paid work experience separately if you prefer. Use the space available to provide details of your activities and accomplishments.

Things to add:

-If you help out around the home with cooking, childcare, whatever, list it— that counts as labor and demonstrates you are a team player and committed to your family.

-Any extracurricular clubs you do— here’s where I’d also count any hobbies like cosplay, making music, etc—in addition to any official clubs you are signed up for at school.

-Work experience: any and all here.

-Volunteer: I’m just gonna be real, a lot of the volunteer stuff that high schoolers have to do is kind of b.s. and easy— but there is no need to tell colleges that— this is the art of b.s. — and we’ll go over it more on Thursday.

I’ll be looking through each of y’alls to catch typos, proof-reading errors, and most of all, making sure you’ve explained things clearly and with action words.

Here is a video to help explain what I’m talking about!

In the next post, Jane goes over her tips for making your list of colleges to apply to!