Common Misunderstandings of the College Admissions Process

You need a near-perfect GPA to get into competitive colleges.

In addition to grades and standardized test scores, college admissions officers review applications holistically and consider other factors such as extracurricular involvement, fit for the college, research experience, internships, personality, recommendation letters, and answers to essay prompts. A well-rounded profile may even help you make up for lower grades in some cases!

You have to decide on a major before applying.

Many colleges offer an "undecided" or "undeclared" option that allows students to apply to college without deciding on a major beforehand. If you are accepted, you can take general first-year courses and explore your interests before settling on a major in your second year. 

Only highly competitive institutes (i.e. Ivy Leagues) provide good education and future prospects.

Although Ivy Leagues are prestigious and getting accepted into them is a great feat, it does not mean that other institutes don't provide good education. Many schools are known for being good for specific majors, so you should look at what works best for you in terms of the major you want to study. For example, if you want to study business and College A is ranked higher overall than College B, but College B is ranked higher in business/economics than college A, it would be a better fit to choose College B over College A as College B is better for your intended major.   

Financial aid is only available if your family makes low income.

Mnay schools offer a wide range of financial-aid packages. Even if your family is not low-income, you may still be offered financial aid (eg: 50% scholarship rather than 75 or 100%). You may also be given financial aid through loans rather than grants. Although you still have to repay loans, you can choose to repay them in the long-term which spreads out the cost and lessens the burden.

Your college essay must be on a grand or highly impressive topic.

Your college essay should be on a heartfelt topic of significance to you - e.g. a meaningful experience you've had in your life that helps you best answer the prompt. It does not necessarily need to be something grand and can be something small as well.

You should have a large number of extracurriculars to stand out.

Colleges want to see quality over quantity. It would be better to have a few extracurriculars that you were deeply engaged in rather than a long list of extracurriculars with only limited engagement.

Grades are the only thing that matters.

As mentioned above, the college application process is holistic with other factors like extracurricular involvement, fit for the college, research experience, internships, personality, recommendation letters, and answers to essay prompts being looked at to provide you with an admissions decision. As such, grades are not the only thing that matters.

Submitting more recommendation letters will increase your chances of getting in.

Recommendation letters should be a meaningful assessment of your character. Providing a handful of references is good as it shows close, meaningful connections who can speak to your character. Including too many references is not advised as it could be questioned whether all of them know you thoroughly enough to speak to your character and skills.

Applying early decision will help you secure a spot at your target college.

While Early Decision (ED) rates might look higher than Regular Decision (RD), this is simply because the ED applicant pool is so much smaller than the RD applicant pool. In reality, ED might be just as (or more) competitive than RD as it is a binding application so you will need to provide a stronger explanation of why you want to attend this college so badly.

Attending a summer program at that institute guarantees acceptance to undergraduate programs.

While attending a summer program at a college you are interested in is a great way to check out the campus and get a feel of how their courses function, it does not guarantee acceptance to an undergraduate program. This is because the undergraduate admissions process is often more competitive than applying to summer programs geared towards high schoolers. However, participation in a summer program is a good extracurricular and can be a great way for admissions officers to see you are passionate about attending their institute.