This branded content article is sponsored by IvyWise
When applying to college, many students and their families wish there was a magic solution to make things easier. The application process is far from straightforward — there are many pitfalls that students might face, and potentially fall into, along the way.
Students put in so much hard work and effort to perform well academically and in their extracurricular activities from ninth grade on. Yet, many students make these common mistakes when it comes time to write their applications — possibly at the risk of wasting years of hard work.
We tapped experts from the world’s premier educational consulting company, IvyWise, to share how students can avoid making these common mistakes when preparing to apply to college and completing the Common App.
1. Don’t believe misconceptions about the college application process
Many families believe that stellar standardized test scores and a high GPA will guarantee admission to the colleges of their dreams. But that’s only part of the story. The college admissions process has always been holistic, and in recent years, it has grown even more complex. Admissions officers don’t look at just test scores and grades, but also at how the student will fit into the fabric and culture of the campus.
“There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to getting accepted.” Dr. Kat Cohen, Founder and CEO of IvyWise, tells The Post. “At IvyWise, former deans and directors of admission work with each student to create their own ‘magic formula,’ focusing on their individual strengths and goals. No two students are the same, so our strategies are never the same. We craft fully personalized roadmaps that help each student stand out and shine during the application process.”
Another common misconception is that students should load up on internships or play multiple sports to stay competitive. Sure, an internship might be a way of getting your foot in the door in your dream industry, and sports can be a strong hook in the application process if you are recruited — but ultimately, the key is pursuing activities that reflect your genuine interests — your purpose — as well as your intellectual vitality.
Dr. Cohen stresses that if you’re working with an admissions counselor, it’s important to work with a seasoned expert with actual experience in the admissions office and most importantly, in enrollment management. Students and college grads will never be able to know exactly why they were admitted, so it’s important to select experts. Former college admissions officers, like those at IvyWise, have the necessary firsthand experience of evaluating college applicants to accurately guide students and understand how their applications will be read by admissions officers.
The key takeaway: It isn’t just about good grades, high test scores, and a few outstanding extracurricular activities. Students should focus on discovering their unique strengths and true interests, while demonstrating how they will make positive impacts on college communities.
2. Don’t make the mistake of having an unbalanced college list
When it comes to selecting colleges, IvyWise experts advise crafting a balanced list of 13 to 15 colleges that include schools from three categories: at least three schools where students are likely to be admitted, 5-8 target schools that align perfectly with their academic profile, and 4-6 schools that might be considered reaches.
It is crucial to think outside the box when building college lists and go beyond the allure of prestigious names and top-ranked schools. Instead of focusing solely on Ivy League and other name-brand universities that appear on rankings in the media, students need to broaden their search to include a diverse range of colleges.
Another common pitfall is relying on outdated data to classify schools as “likely,” “target,” or “reach.” As application numbers increase and acceptance rates decrease across the board, many colleges that once seemed like safe bets have become much more competitive. For example, the University of Miami had a 19% acceptance rate for the class of 2028, compared to 38% for the class of 2018.
“Each year, we hear of non-IvyWise students who aim too high by applying only to reach schools and end up with no acceptances at all,” says Dr. Cohen. “With over 3,000 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S., there are plenty of great-fit options and likely choices out there. It’s vital to dive deeply into research and craft thoughtful applications to find and secure spots at the right schools for you.”
IvyWise counselors frequently go on college tours, and they share recommendations with their students. Colleges can change their course offerings, majors and academic programs, clubs, sports teams, study abroad programs, and other factors from year to year, so this up-to-date knowledge helps students to envision how they would fit in on campus now — not several years ago.
IvyWise’s guidance throughout the college search and application process proves invaluable: Over the past five years, 98% of IvyWise students have been accepted to one or more of their best-fit colleges.
3. Don’t overlook the importance of a strong application strategy
Once students have built their lists of best-fit colleges, they need to be strategic about when and how to apply to each of the colleges on their lists. Building a strong application strategy is like a puzzle — each piece needs to come together perfectly.
Many colleges offer Early Decision and Early Action application rounds, which can have significantly higher acceptance rates than in the Regular Decision round — giving competitive students applying in the early round a distinct advantage. Dartmouth’s Early Decision acceptance rate for the class of 2028 was 17.07%, a stark contrast to their 3.84% Regular Decision acceptance rate. However, these higher acceptance rates can be deceiving, as the early pools are quite self-selecting with strong applicants and recruited athletes. Students should apply early only if their applications are ready — rushing through the essay writing process at the last minute to make an early deadline can harm their chance of admission if the application isn’t strong.
While students can apply to only one Early Decision school, they can typically simultaneously apply to many universities under their Early Action rounds. If a student is ready to apply early and has many universities with Early Action rounds on their list, Dr. Cohen advises maximizing those Early Action applications. Since most colleges tend to have much lower acceptance rates for their Regular Decision rounds, schools that would be considered “likely” or “target” schools in Early Action can become “reach” schools in Regular Decision. Students might also want to consider an Early Decision 2 option if it makes sense on their list.
The program a student applies to can also make or break their admissions decision. Students should never apply to a particular program or school within a university without considering their profile first. A student must show they are ready for a program based on the courses and extracurricular activities they pursued throughout high school. Dr. Cohen explains, “If a student wants to be competitive applying for a pre-med track, they should take the highest-level STEM courses available to them at their high school and receive top grades in those classes. If they take AP exams, they should ideally score a 5 on the AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and/or AP Calculus exams. Plus, their math score on the SAT or ACT should be high.”
If a student doesn’t know what they might want to study in college, they should work backwards and look at their curriculum and how it could tie together to tell a story. A student who took Latin for all four years of high school, along with humanities courses, might want to think about pursuing a classics major. IvyWise experts don’t just help students to build their profiles from ninth grade on; they also help students realize as 12th graders what their profile could be.
Dr. Cohen also points out that many high school students are interested in studying business but don’t exactly know what “business” means. They can still pursue business, even if the college they’re applying to doesn’t offer it as a major or a school within the school. Humanities, STEM, and social sciences majors can each parlay their majors into the business field after graduation, as a student’s course selection, activities, research, and internships during college will have a much bigger impact on their future than their choice of major. Students can pursue a career in business with any degree — the Harvard Business School class of 2026 profile shows that only 43% of incoming students pursued a business, commerce, or economics major in undergrad.
The IvyWise team’s combined 410 years of experience in both admissions and direct enrollment management allows them to expertly guide students through the application strategy development process. They can predict how students will be read by admissions officers, including how admissions officers would estimate their yield — meaning if the student would matriculate to the college if accepted. Admissions officers want to accept students who will ultimately enroll at their college, rather than those who might be using the school as a “likely.” It can be a tricky balance to identify the right rounds for each school on a student’s list, and expert guidance clarifies the complicated options.
This firsthand experience accepting and enrolling first-year classes allows IvyWise college admissions counselors to advise as to which application round and program would make the most sense for each of the colleges on students’ lists — leading to success.
4. Avoid being a “jack of all trades, master of none”
When it comes to extracurricular activities, quality is much more important than quantity. Colleges want to build well-rounded student bodies of specialists.
The IvyWise experts advise that it is better for students to participate in a few activities they genuinely care about, rather than spreading themselves thin across too many activities. Students should identify their interests and dig into them deeply through their activities and courses.
“Admissions officers can spot resume padding from a mile away,” warns Dr. Cohen. “Don’t join a club just to add a line to your resume without real involvement or commitment. I recall a student who claimed to be the president of a robotics club, only to discover that there were eight ‘presidents’ and they spent less than an hour a week on it.”
IvyWise counselors help students pinpoint the most meaningful and impactful activities, ensuring their college applications vividly showcase their true interests and how they’ll contribute to campus life.
Take, for example, one IvyWise alum who is studying philosophy, politics, and law at Emory. Before working with IvyWise, she was involved in a variety of clubs of little interest to her, including tennis, band, and chorus. With guidance, she shifted her focus to activities that aligned with her goal of becoming a lawyer. With the guidance of IvyWise, she secured an internship at a local law firm, volunteered with a legal assistance organization, led her school’s mock trial team, and attended a summer program on immigration law. She also worked with an IvyWise tutor to develop the writing skills needed in the legal field, earning honors in several writing competitions and holding the editor-in-chief positions of the poetry magazine and law publication at her high school. This strategic approach not only highlighted her commitment but also made her a standout candidate.
5. Don’t be redundant in your Common App and supplements
Make every part of your application count by sharing fresh and new insights. The personal statement is an opportunity to get personal, so use this to show a completely different and unique side of yourself.
This is especially important in the supplemental essays — each one is an opportunity to highlight a different side of who students are, their ambitions, reflection, and what drives their interests.
“Read your supplements alongside your personal statement. Make sure you’re showing many dimensions of yourself, ones that cannot be learned from the rest of your application,” advises Dr. Cohen.
One IvyWise alum, who was accepted to Harvard to study classical music and STEM, initially planned to focus his supplemental essays on his skills as a musician and mathematician. But after talking with his IvyWise counselors, he realized that sharing seemingly trivial personal traits could make a bigger impact. For example, in Harvard’s prompt asking what “top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you,” he highlighted his sense of humor, his love of jazz, and his ability to engage in respectful debates even when he disagrees with others.
Many students neglect the “Additional Information” section of the Common App, which is an optional free space where students have up to 650 words to share anything they wish. Students should make the most of these extra 650 words and avoid being redundant by repeating anything that can be found elsewhere in the Common App. Some topics that Dr. Cohen recommends students write about, if relevant to them, include a list of online courses that they audited, independent research that they conducted, or books or other texts that they read outside of school. They can use this space to explain an important extracurricular endeavor where the activity list entry might be too short to convey there. They can also use this space to explain anything that may have negatively impacted their grades in high school, like an illness, family emergency, or other situation out of their control.
6. Avoid common mistakes on the Common App
– Not following directions: Many students miss important details on the Common App by not following directions, which can hurt their applications. This seems simple enough, but so many students bypass the full instructions, resulting in weaker applications. It’s critical to read the prompts and answer the questions completely.
Here are a few other mistakes students make on the Common App:
– Getting too personal: An application essay is not a confessional. This isn’t where students need to share their deepest, darkest secrets and all their fears and failures.
– Writing about mental health: Similarly, Dr. Cohen cautions students against sharing any mental health issues that may signal that they might not be ready for an independent experience on campus. If your mental health is unstable, colleges will be reluctant to admit you and it’s probably a sign for you to seek expert help and perhaps even delay college. Some students and parents think a mental health issue could be a hook, but while dealing with any condition certainly demonstrates strength and resilience, check with your college advisor at school to ensure the topic is appropriate for your application.
– Relying too heavily on AI: Avoid the trap of using ChatGPT. Yes, it is tempting, but AI won’t capture a student’s true, authentic voice or personality! Admissions officers will see right through this. There are many phrases that ChatGPT tends to overuse, like “tapestry,” which is a telltale sign of a student relying on AI.
– Carelessly copying and pasting: “Admissions officers receive a lot of essays from applicants who have blatantly copied and pasted their essay answers,” Dr. Cohen tells The Post. “For example, Yale readers evaluated applications that talk about how excited the student would be to attend Brown!”
– Mindlessly relying on spell check: This seems simple enough, but Dr. Cohen shared examples of “technically correct” essays that spell-check didn’t catch, like horrifying essays where applicants said they were “torturing” students three hours per week, when they (hopefully!) really meant “tutoring.”
– Not using all available real estate: Each supplemental essay is an opportunity for students to show themselves in a different light, so they should use each opportunity to their advantage! If a supplemental essay prompt has a maximum word count of 200, students should try to get as close as possible to that mark, rather than shortchanging themselves and only writing 150 words.
– Parents writing or rewriting the essay: As hard as it might be, parents need to stay out of the essay writing process and remember that their student is the one applying to college — not them. A parent’s voice is much different than that of their child’s, and admissions officers will immediately flag if an essay was written or rewritten by a parent.
Cohen stresses how important it is to work with a counselor who has firsthand, actual experience in admissions if you’re seeking help beyond your high school counselor. “Even the brightest students make mistakes on their applications and essays. That’s why it’s crucial to get guidance from someone with direct experience in admissions offices — like the counselors at IvyWise,” says Dr. Cohen. “They know exactly what college admissions committees look for and have read countless applications with errors, which means they know all the mistakes to help applicants avoid.”
Still confused about this whole college application process? IvyWise college admissions counselors can guide you! They craft personalized roadmaps for each student and guide them to bring their unique stories to life, so they stand out.
What sets IvyWise apart is their signature Roundtable, a simulation of the real-world admissions committee evaluation process. During the application season, the entire team of IvyWise counselors meets weekly to review students’ applications, including college lists, all essays and supplements, test scores and more, giving students invaluable feedback and areas of improvement to implement before hitting “submit” to their top-choice universities.
Roundtable allows a student’s personal statement and supplemental essays to be evaluated through multiple sets of eyes by counselors who don’t know them on the personal level. The multiple reads from multiple experts, each of whom has read thousands of applications at the most selective colleges, means that students will receive feedback and insights that can make the difference between being admitted and being denied. This unique and invaluable service is included in all IvyWise comprehensive counseling programs and is unmatched by any other consultancy.
Contact IvyWise today to build a personalized college prep strategy that is manageable and will maximize your chances of admissions success. It is never too early — or too late — to start working with IvyWise’s experts. Current high school seniors can stop fretting over finalizing their college list, application strategy, essays, and Common App, with an IvyWise senior program starting at $14,000. A senior program includes access to the coveted Roundtable and 410 years of collective admissions experience from knowledgeable college admissions counselors.
