Tiger Tip 2: Building Your College List

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Hi guys. For those of you that have joined already, are you able to hear me and see me alright?

You can submit a a question to the chat.

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Yeah, so like I said, we're just going to give people a few minutes to allow more people to join. But in the meantime, if you want to introduce yourselves and say where you're from.

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Miami, Sierra Leone. Very cool.

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Diverse group.

So just as people join, I'll go ahead and explain what we're going to be doing. So welcome to tagger Tip #2. We're going to be talking about building your college search list so you all are rising seniors. And this summer, if you listen to the introduction, it's a great time to start thinking about how you want to go about applying to colleges so early on in that process.

One thing that you want to do is narrowing down your college list, building your college list. So during this tiger tip, I'm going to give you a few tools on how you can do that. And then mostly I'm going to give you time to ask questions. If you have questions about, you know, how do I do some aspect of narrowing down my list, building my list, kind of thinking about the type of colleges that I want to be applying to.

Um.

And yeah, like I said, we are going to have the chat box. So you can go ahead and submit things throughout the session. If you want to interrupt me during a certain part, you can go ahead and do that. I'll answer questions as they go. But yeah, if you have any issues with the video or the sound, normally you can try to refresh it. But if it's if it's persisting, go ahead and submit a question, let us know and we can try and figure it out.

Um, I'm going to give it one more minute just to see if anyone else would like to join, and then we'll.

We'll dive in.

Cool.

All right. I think we're holding studies, so I will go ahead and start. So first introduce myself. My name is Skye. I'm one of the admissions counselors with Swanee. I work primarily with students from Georgia, but I am an alum of the university, so I graduated in 2019. Whereas the politics.

Major I also participated in the club rugby team. I was involved in Greek life and then I had an off campus job at one of our restaurants in the Swanee village called Shenanigans. Like I said, today we're going to be going over how to build your college list. How to research colleges and universities to build that list and.

Why it's important is because you know you don't want to be applying to 30 or 40 different colleges. You have to narrow it down.

Well, Swanee does not have an application fee. A lot of schools might. So if you're applying to a lot, that could get expensive. And also you just want to make sure that you're focusing in on the right types of schools for you so you're not left, you know, when it comes time for May 1st, when you're making that decision with a bunch of just different types of schools that aren't necessarily related that maybe don't fit you super well.

So you can, you know, come into something like this is a really great resource. You can also speak to other people who maybe are currently in college, your counselor, your parents, if they went through the college admissions process, people that have done it before. You know, you can ask them like how did they decide what did that process look like for them. But the first step that I would recommend is to understand your goals and priorities. So it's really important to think about what you are looking for.

In a college experience, So these are some of the things that you can consider. What type of school do you want to go to? Do you want it to be a public school or private school? Are you looking for a single sex education or Co education? Do you want to go to a liberal arts school or a more science focused a research institution or a big university?

All of these things will make your college experience different. Swani, We are really located. So if you are looking to go to a school where you can go out and there's a lot of maybe nightlife or there is a big kind of area outside of the school.

We might not be the school for that, but if you're looking for.

Hiking opportunities and you are very into the outdoors and things like that. Then maybe you don't want to necessarily go to a school in the city and somewhere like Swanee would be right for you.

Also, think about what you'd like to do after college. I know it's sort of early to start thinking about that, but the type of school that you go to can affect the opportunities that you have postgrad. So if you are looking for a vocational degree, going to a liberal arts school might not be the best choice if you are looking for a broad liberal arts education. If you are very interested in having like a diverse range of experiences, then liberal arts would be better.

The main thing to consider I would say, is your academic. So when you're looking at what schools can I get into, look at your look at yourself, look at what you prefer and then look at what the school offers. So I'm going to speak from personal experience. I knew coming in that I was a student that benefited from discussion based classes. I'm not the type of person that can sit in a lecture hall with 400 other students and find that a successful academic experience.

You're successfully learn in that environment. So when I was looking at schools, I was looking at small class sizes.

Umm.

Think about whether or not you already know what you'd like to study. So a school like Swanee, you can come in undecided. The majority of our students, actually, when they apply it, are undecided. And then you have your first two years to take a an array of different classes before you pick a major. But at certain institutions you might have to come in already knowing what you want to study. So if you are really don't have a clue, then you know that's something that you want to be aware of if you do need to be decided.

Already.

Are you? Like I said, class size is important. Look into the schools research opportunities, what type of internships they have, what type of alumni network they have. That's something that you might not think about. But as you graduate from college, when you're getting to your third, your 4th year, the alumni network of a school becomes really important in getting internships and then once you graduate, getting jobs and getting research physicians, even things like grad school letters or recommendation.

So social factors also play a role. Again, depending on the type of school, there will be different social environments and different expectations for campus life and residency. So think about look at if they require a meal plan, where do students tend to eat? If you are happy to come and eat in the dining hall for all three meals, that's something to consider, or if you prefer.

Eating out or buying groceries or cooking. Also something to consider living situation if housing is required or not required. At Swanee, 99% of our students will live in student housing, university housing for all four years. So if you really do not want to live in housing with the university or live with the other students all four years, that might be an indication to look at a different kind of school. But if you're looking to have a real like campus community environment.

Then Swanee would be a good place for that.

Greek life could be a factor. Do you want a school with Greek life or do you not want to school with Greek life? All of those percentages normally you can look up. So Swami, we do have a Greek life community and if that's something you're interested in, this could be a really great place to do that. And then also look at just like intramural sports, campus activities, clubs and things like that. Normally there will be a list on the school's website of what type of clubs that they have and you can see maybe some of the activities they do throughout the year.

Generally what they're up to and what participating in a club would look like.

Umm.

For non intramural sports, if you want to play a varsity sport, consider the division of the school. So is it a D1 school? AD two school? A D3 school? We'll be talking about it later in our Tiger tips, but there is a difference and that does affect what it'll look like for you as a student athlete applying to their just different types of school. Swanee is D3, so if you want to get an athletic scholarship for your sport, you cannot do that at a D3 program, but if you're looking to have a good balance.

Between your athletics and your social life and your academic life, D3 might be something that you consider more.

OK, so these are the different ways that you can find all of that information that I just reviewed out. The 1st way is looking at the colleges websites. So the colleges themselves go to swanee.edu and just look through our website. We'll have things for academics, we'll have things where student life, We have a lot of resources online.

On top of that, you can also look at the school's social medias. So Um Swanee has an Instagram and you can get kind of a taste for what's going on on campus through that Instagram. Our YouTube channel has video series and interviews with current students with faculty members. That's something that you can look at and and basically every school will have, they will have their website, they'll have their social medias and you can kind of you can get a vibe for the school that way.

If you haven't even found the colleges themselves yet, like you have nowhere, you have no idea to start, you don't know what school to look up. There are kind of databases that you can utilize that will allow you to put in kind of your preferences. So when we're talking about like, you know, a big school versus a small school or rural versus an urban school, you can use those databases to basically pull up a list of schools that match your preferences. So some of those are going to be College Navigator.

College Navigator is kind of the government website, so it might look a little bit 90s, but you can put on all sorts of criteria and it'll pull up a list for you. CapEx is another great resource, very similar. College niche is another one. As you look these up, you can find other databases and ways to look at things and some of these websites will even have like alumni reviews talking about their experience. They might have different factors that they rank.

About that school, So I would utilize those for sure.

Using your support network, I mentioned this talking to your family, if they've gone through this process, definitely talk to your college counselor. Your college counselor is just a wealth of knowledge, and if they've been able to get to know you throughout your time in high school, so now you're on your third year, if they've known you for those three years, they might have an idea for them of the schools that they're aware of that they think would fit you, you know, socially, academically, from a sports perspective. So definitely talk to them.

The other thing is to reach out to college admissions counselors. So we're going to be honest with you if you ask us questions like, hey, I am looking for this in a school, is this something that you offer? We're going to give you that information and we're going to try to help you make a decision, you know, just in terms of what's right for you.

Again, learning more about specific colleges you can attend, virtual events, virtual campus visits, you can come to campus to do a visit. So Swanee, we offer weekly campus visits. You can come do, you can come do a tour on your own on the weekends. And then during the fall, in the spring, we'll offer bigger visit days when you can come and join a lot of students on campus at the same time and get kind of like a full day's itinerary.

You can meet with college representatives at your high school, especially during the fall. All of us that work in the Swanee admissions office will be out traveling in our different recruitment territory. So I'll be in Georgia going to high schools, going to college fairs. So talk to people at those fairs or talk to people at those visits. Talk to the reps Look through the materials that we have.

Yeah.

So some other factors that you might want to consider or that should play a role in your in your decision making when you're narrowing down your list is 1 cost. So what type of scholarships are offered and what do the scholarships tend to look like? So there are two types of scholar mains 2 main types of scholarships. There's merit aid and need based aid. Merit aid is going to be dependent on typically your academic performance, your test scores.

Maybe even your involvement or the quality of your essay and then need based aid is going to be based off of your family's finances. So you can look at schools like average need Based Aid Award or how many students receive merit based scholarships. And that is something that you should also talk about with your family if they're going to be playing a role in how your school is funded, how your education is funded.

Diversity is a factor that you that might matter to you that you might want to consider. So you can see, you know, look at the campus statistics, see what cultures are represented, what nationalities are represented, consider how important that is for you. You can look at diversity initiatives that are on campus. So you can look at offer offices of diversity, equity and inclusion and what they've been doing on campus and then things like the male to female student ratio.

You might want to consider career development services. This might seem early to do that. It might seem like that doesn't come up until maybe your junior or senior year. But it's good to be knowledgeable about what you have access to as you're going into a school. So what does their student success or their Career Center look like? What How many students are finding a job?

When they graduate, what are those jobs? So for Swanee I, about 2/3 of our students are going to be in full-time employment when they graduate. And then maybe 1/4 of our students are going to be in continuing education, So going into masters programs, going into Med school, law school. So if you're interested in doing either of those two things, this would be a good option, a good school to look at.

Also look at special programs. So if you're interested in studying abroad, look at how robust the offerings are. If you want to do kind of like a school within a school, look at if they offer an honors program or just generally the majors that you're interested in studying or minors.

OK, so once you've built your list, then you can categorize them. So there's three categories that it might be helpful for you just in your brain to have and that safety schools target schools and reach schools. So your safety school is going to be a school that you think you can probably get into. It's a pretty, it's a pretty safe bet. So a safety school will be where you your GPA or your test scores if you're submitting them and if the school is not.

Test optional.

Where they exceed the 75th percentile of admitted students. So if you look at the school or at the let's stick with test scores for now. So let's say ACT. If you look at the average ACT scores, so there will be 1/4 of the students get this range, 1/4 get this range, 1/4 get this range, and a quarter get that range. So if they're in the top, if your test scores are in that top quarter, so at Swanee think that would be a 32 on the ACT and above.

Then you can pretty much rely on getting into that school. It's not 100% because there's other factors, but that would make it a safety school. A target school is where you're right in the middle, your scores are right in the middle. It's it's your it's a good bet, but you know it's not 100%.

So you're between the 50th and the 75th, and then a reach school is a school that might be a little bit harder for you to get into academically. So you might be in the bottom half of the average scores of admitted students. You want to have a good kind of spread of those three. You don't want to only apply to reach schools, but you also don't want to only apply to safety schools. The only time that this would be different is if you are looking to apply early decision to a school That is something that we'll cover again.

Later in the tiger tips with the different types of deadlines but early decision that will really narrow down your list because you'll find out basically ahead of everyone else what school you're going to.

And then the next thing is that you'll need to do figure out how you want to organize that list so you've done all this research. You don't want it to just be living in your brain. Maybe you want to write it down somewhere.

You wanna, if you're talking to counselors at college fairs, or they're coming to high schools, or you're going to the the college itself and you have any like materials that you have with you, keep away to organize those and then get contact cards for admissions counselors at schools that you definitely want to apply to.

Right now start thinking about who will write your recommendation letters and then like I said, just kind of get out there. Visit schools, keep track of when they'll be in your area, so.

That being said, does anyone have any questions they would like to ask?

Questions.

I did that good.

I'm OK with that answer.

OK, I'm going to give us a couple more minutes to answer questions.

And we'll go ahead and sign off and a recording of this is going to be put up on the website, so if you know someone that was trying to.

OK.

Should there be a ratio between safety target and reach schools? I think that that's a personal decision that you kind of have to make for yourself.

But I would say you probably want it to be even.

Safety and reach maybe you have less of, but I think it's really important to be honest with yourself when you're assigning those because if you're saying like something is a target school for you and your head, but really if you look like just at the data and it's a reach school.

Yeah. Just be honest with yourself about that and make sure that the categories are accurate. But I think that if you wanted to have an even distribution, that's probably for the best.

Do any reps travel to areas in the summer?

So there might be some exceptions to this if there is like a college fair. But typically because school is out in the summer and we're going to high schools, summer is not a huge travel season for us. But we do have a lot of students coming to our campus in the summer. So you know, you're on summer break right now. This would be a good time to maybe go to the college before, you know, we come to you in the fall.

For Swanee, do you have recommendations on who should write the recommendation letters? So we do require two types of letters. So you'll need your college counselor to write a letter for you, and then you'll need at least one teacher recommendation.

I would say that it's probably best to have a teacher that you've had within the past two years to write that recommendation so your performance in their class and like your personality is fresh in their in their mind, you can have more than one person write a teacher recommendation. So maybe you have a math teacher that knows you for your analytical skills and then you have like an English teacher that knows you for your writing.

Goals, and you want both of those displayed in your recommendation letters. Maybe talk to, maybe talk to both of them about writing recommendations.

Any other questions?

Any question that I?

Answered but you wanted more information.

What recommendations do you have when reaching out to admissions counselors? What do we say? How do we start the conversation? Great question. So you should find the admission counselor. That is for your territory. So I know if you go on Swanee's website and you just search like Swanee admissions counselors, it'll take you to a page and there's a little drop down bar that says I am from. And then it's a menu and you can say, you know if it's in the United States, you'll select which state you're from or you can say outside of the US.

And it'll bring up the page of your admissions counselor and give you ways to connect with them. So if you're emailing your counselor once you found them, I think it's great just to say like hello my, like introduce yourself, say what grade you're in, what high school you attend, and say I am interested in Swanee because of this. So maybe you look through our website and you found out that we have environmental science programs. Say I'm interested and I'm interested in your environmental science programs.

Uh, you, if you could ask a question, that's something you might want to do, say, could you tell me more about this? Or can you connect me with someone who has more information about this specific program or this study abroad, Just kind of.

Yeah, I would say just introduce yourself. Um, it doesn't have to be super formal, but this is your first impression, so keep that in mind.

OK.

That's it.

All right. So like I said, a recording of this is going to be put up on the website. So if you want to rewatch or if you missed maybe the beginning of this, that's fine. It'll be available on the Tiger Tips page on the website. If anyone you know wanted this information, that's where they can find it. But if that is it, then I think we'll go ahead and sign off.

All right. And thank you everyone for joining us today.