grwm while i talk about things NOT to do in your college apps

grwm while i talk about mistakes to avoid during college applications. so, i've been a college counselor for the past year. i've counseled like 30, more than 30 students, and it taught me so many things on what should be avoided and what you can do to enhance your college apps. and a lot of my students got into like T10, like even T5 colleges. like, i had a student that got into Stanford REA, UPenn Wharton, Berkeley Haas, a lot of good schools. and honestly, there's like so many things that students don't realize that they're doing that kind of impact their application. the first thing i would say is with students that are prioritizing prestige over fit for the school. so instead of actually researching what school is good for their major, a lot of students that i know are from like a competitive area tend to focus more on how much more well-known it is. and i would say when it comes to college searching, a factor that students actually do tend to miss is how the college like campus social life is, like how the weather is, and stuff like that. a lot of students just tend to ignore it, but essentially you're going to be living there for three to four years, so you kind of want to research in advance to see if that's something that you'll actually be interested in. another mistake that students should try to avoid is thinking that test optional means test blind. i personally think that if you have the financial means to go take an SAT or ACT, you should definitely go for it. just because it's test optional doesn't mean that if you submit an SAT or ACT score, they're not going to look at it. in fact, it might benefit your application more. i would say another mistake that a lot of students tend to make is being really anxious that their extracurriculars are not good enough and starting a passion project, startup, or club like during their senior year. but honestly, colleges can tell if you started something last minute just for the sake of college apps, because what's unfortunately true is that a lot of students will tend to just like abandon their projects once they're graduated from high school. next thing is lying or exaggerating on your apps. honestly, like a lot of students think that colleges can't see through your lies or exaggeration, but especially if it's not done well, like just don't do it at all. honestly, it risks like a greater merit on your end, and you don't want the colleges to think that your entire entire college app is full of scam and lies. last but not least, a lot of students tend to make the mistake of copy-pasting the same essay for like all their colleges. i know that's like the easier route to take when it comes to applying to a lot of colleges, but at the end of the day, colleges still want to see that your essay is going to be a little more personalized and like customized towards that specific university. so it definitely helps to like do some further research beforehand instead of just like literally copy-pasting the whole thing. ok bai. thanks for listening.