What Seniors Should be Doing in February

Your hard work is paying off! This month should yield more admissions decisions (especially closer towards the middle to end of the month). Below, we have listed a checklist of ways you can keep up to date on all outstanding items this month.

1. Please inform me of any admission or scholarship results. If you have received an admission result (accept, defer, deny, wait-list), please send that information along, as well as we need it for statistical purposes.

2. Please take time to thank the hardworking, caring teachers who wrote your letters of recommendation.

3. As you ponder college admission and enrollment matters, keep in mind the importance of having a family conversation about affording college. If you have questions for me, feel free to reach out. Additionally, bear in mind that all the colleges have financial aid counselors you can consult via their admissions website. Their advice will very likely be comprehensive, current, and accurate, and it will certainly be free of cost!

4. Later this month, your school's Academic Office will prepare an updated senior transcript and cumulative, weighted GPA that they send to colleges where you have active applications.

5. Please bear in mind that all offers of admission or scholarship are contingent upon successful completion of your senior year, as judged by the awarding institution upon receiving your final transcript. Further, if you make significant changes to your second semester courses, you need to reach out to your colleges to ensure that is acceptable to them.

6. If you would like to do some very helpful reading (that's not graded), I recommend to both seniors and parents two excellent, engaging books by Jeffrey Selingo: Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions and There Is Life After College.