Introduction

12th Grade Resources

Two Parts of a College Application
All college applications have two parts: the Student-Completed Portions and the School-Completed Portions. The exact contents of these portions vary, so your applications may or may not include all of the items listed below. For actual instructions on how to make sure these items are submitted to your colleges, please see the “How to Apply” tab.

Student Portion

  • Online Application
  • Essay
  • Writing Supplement
  • Resume
  • Other Supplement (i.e. Portfolios)
  • Test Scores

School Portion
Note: the school portion of the application still requires the student to complete certain tasks.

  • School Profile
  • Transcript
  • Teacher Recommendation Letters
  • Counselor Recommendation Letter
  • Secondary School Report

Early Action, Regular Decision, or Early Decision?

Many schools offer more than one application deadline. It is recommended that CMIT students apply by the early deadline for ALL of their colleges. Many schools have higher acceptance rates for their early deadline and hold less spots and less scholarship money for students who apply later. Applying early also usually means getting a decision early, which can help in making decisions and applying for scholarship funding to close any gaps in financial need.

There is an important distinction to make regarding the early deadline, however. Early Decision (ED) applications are binding and can only be done for one school. A student who gets accepted to a school they applied to as an ED applicant is legally required to attend that college. Early Action (EA) means applying early, but is not binding. Students who apply EA get their admissions decision early, but do not have to make a commitment to attend until National Decision Day on May 1st. Early Action is what CMIT counselors recommend for students.

Applying early often means competing with fewer applicants and increasing not only chances of acceptance, but also sometimes means consideration for specialized programs and the potential to receive better financial aid / scholarship packages. As an example, the University of Maryland has a November 1st Early Action deadline, from which they take 90% of their incoming class. It is also the deadline they use to choose students for Honors, Scholars, and living-learning programs.

For more information, please read: https://professionals.collegeboard.org/guidance/applications/early

Searching for Colleges

How to Conduct an Effective College Search

Think about your priorities for what you want in a college before you begin using a resource like CollegeBoard Big Futures. Do you care about:
– Size of School Population?
– Location / Distance from Home?
– Cost of Attendance?
– Athletics?
– Class Sizes?
– Diversity?
– Specific Extracurriculars?
– Majors and Minors of Interest?
– Selectivity?
– Percent of Financial Need Met?

Search for colleges using the things that matter most to you. You may want certain things, but if they’re not a deal breaker, make sure you don’t cancel out colleges that have most of what you’re looking for.

Match and Fit
Values Worksheet

Note: One thing that should definitely matter to you is whether they offer one or more majors you are interested in. It would be a waste to go to a school only to find out that they don’t offer what you want to study. This would mean either transferring schools or settling for a major you didn’t want.

Aim for 15-30 colleges INITIALLY. If you end up with more than 20 colleges in your results, add more factors or play around with the level of importance of certain factors. If you get fewer than 15, you may be being too picky.

Narrow down to a strategic list. At CMIT, we want our seniors applying to a minimum of 4 colleges, but don’t recommend applying to more than 10. Application fees are expensive and applying to too many schools makes the decision making quite a challenge.

– 1-2 Safety Schools: schools that have a higher acceptance rate or have a middle 50% SAT/ACT/GPA that is below yours
– 3-4 Target Schools: schools that have an average to high-average acceptance rate or have a middle 50% SAT/ACT/GPA that is right around what yours are
– 1-2 Reach Schools: schools that have a lower acceptance rate or have a middle 50% SAT/ACT/GPA that is a bit higher than what you have

Once you get your CollegeBoard Big Futures list, go to College Greenlight. Read more about each college and compare them to others from your list. What is the “fit” percentage for each school? If it’s below 80%, you may not be happy there. What is your “chance of admission?” This will help you determine if this school is a safety, target, or reach school. What is the average amount of financial aid given? This will help you determine if you’ll be able to afford going to that school or if you’ll need to apply for a lot of outside scholarships.

Visit schools when you can. Sometimes a college looks really good on their website, but when you visit the school, you realize it’s not what you thought it was. Maybe the food isn’t so great or the campus is a lot bigger than you had seen online. Maybe the students aren’t friendly or the weather isn’t what you would want to live in for four years. Maybe the residence halls looked bigger online, but then you find out that the freshman dorms are way smaller or don’t have air conditioning. These are things that you want to see in person and can really help you determine if a school feels right.

CollegeBoard Big Futures:
– Use to start researching colleges

College Greenlight:
– Use to see if the school is a good fit based on what you are looking for
– See how likely you are to get accepted based on test scores and GPA
– Find other colleges that are similar and compare them to each other easily

College Rep Visits and Profiles

CMIT North High School Virtual Visits Calendar
Students can access the calendar here using their CMIT email accounts.

How to Apply

Two Parts of an Application

School Portion

Note: the school portion of the application still requires the student to complete certain tasks.

1. School Profile/Secondary School Report
2. Transcript
3. Teacher Recommendation Letters
4. Counselor Recommendation Letter

Student Portion

5. Online Application
6. Essay
7. Resume
8. Test Scores
9. Other Possible Sections: Writing Supplement, Portfolios, etc.

Breakdown of Every Application Component

1. School Profile/Secondary School Report

  • The “School Profile” is something that your counselor will upload and send through Naviance. It will be sent to all of your colleges through Naviance eDocs and will be included in