College application season: deadlines loom this month

Welcome back. A lot of college students or high school students are planning to apply to college are in the middle of a very busy season. The fall season is when applications are due. It's when a lot of students also take their SATs. And there are some important deadlines that families and students are having to consider. So to talk more about that, let's check in with Dr. Sean Patel. He is the CEO and founder of Test Prep. Thank you for talking with us again. This is a very busy Busy time for a lot of students and a lot of A lot of families, a stressful time. The early decision applications are due right around this month, correct? Yeah, so many of the early decision and early action applications were due either on November 1st or coming up on the November 15th, depending on the university you may be applying for. And then regular decisions are coming up very soon as well for January 1st is kind of the big deadline. But keep an eye on the specific colleges and universities that you're applying to because some of them do require you to apply by December 1st or even December 15th. So for people who aren't familiar, what is early decision and early action? What's the difference between them and what kind of advantages does it may or may not involve? Yeah. So early decision is where you essentially choose one specific university that you're going to apply earlier to than all other universities. And if you get in, it's typically a binding contract, meaning you agree that you're not going to look at any other universities and you're going to attend that university. The advantage to the student or the family is that acceptance rates for early decision Are often a lot higher than the regular decision application deadlines, you so which, as I mentioned, are usually on January 1st or the difference between early decision and early action is early action is not binding. much So it depends on the specific university you're applying to. for But, for example, I believe Stanford has early action joining and not early decision. So you're welcome to apply to Stanford early action, but it's not going to be binding if you get in, although I think it's hard to turn down. us. Right. Who would say no to that? Although, you know, everyone has their dream school selected for specific reasons personal to them. Early action, it's probably safe to say your acceptance rate or your likelihood of getting accepted aren't going to be quite as good as it would be if you did early decision. Yeah, early decision typically is going to have the highest, highest acceptance rate, but early action does have some advantage over regular decision as well. And usually a university is not going to offer both. So it just depends on the particular university you're applying to. Why should people consider it or when should they not consider doing early decision? Yeah, you should consider early decision if you've already visited the university, you've talked to students there, you know which programs you're really interested in. If you have your heart set on a dream school or university, that's the time to apply early decision or early action Versus you should not apply early decision or early action. If you're still up in the air, you're not quite decided, you want to weigh your options in terms of universities, you colleges, financial aid packages, etc. Then I would keep your options open so and just apply regular decision everywhere. And it's not just for college. There are some deadlines coming up much. this month for people applying to trade schools. Tell us about that. Yeah, so trade school deadlines are typically a little bit different than college and university deadlines, which have that big January 1st regular decision deadline. Trade schools often have rolling admissions, meaning they're going to be, you know, accepting students all year round. With that being said, there are certain cohorts, depending on the trade school that you're applying to. and you And they may have a fall cohort and then a spring cohort. So it really depends. But know You know, keep an eye on anything you're applying to, you trade school or university. There's a lot of deadlines happening between November, December and January. very So if someone is a high school senior right now, they're probably coming up on the end of the whole application process. much. But if someone is a junior in high school, what are the things they should be focusing on and planning or thinking about in the months ahead? Because next year's deadline will be here before they know it. Yeah, high school juniors and their families are often the busiest of all high school students because you've got test prep between SATs, ACTs, PSAT scores just came out. You've got extracurricular activities and lots of coursework with AP courses, etc. In order to prepare well, I would make sure that you stay ahead of your test preparation. That's number one. As I mentioned, the PSAT scores just came out. If you qualified for national merit in California, which is typically getting about a 1460 out of 1520. That should open up a lot of merit-based scholarship opportunities at over 100 colleges and universities across the nation, including many in California. And then on top of test prep, you want to make sure that you have not only your colleges lined up. Typically, most families are applying anywhere from 10 to 20 universities these days. And, you know, Preparing those college applications in the summer between junior and senior year, but also getting ready for scholarship season. It's really in your 12th grade year that you'll have a chance to earn merit based scholarships for all of your hard work over the past, you know, three, four years of high school. And so you want to start lining up some names of scholarships you're going to be applying to your senior year as well. You mentioned those PSAT scores, and I know we've had you on the show to talk about the full PSAT process and that National Merit Scholarship that comes with it if you score in the top. Was it 1% of all the people taking the test in your state? So in California, that top 1% is 1420 or higher. How does that compare to previous years? Yeah. So they haven't released the exact top 1% score this year, but it's typically around 1450, 1460. And so, you know, it really just depends on how well students this year perform. Although the parents and students I've talked to that have gotten their PSAT scores back, especially out of California, have been scoring higher. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if the cutoff this year is a little bit higher than previous years. So the competition for those high scores is getting tougher. I want to talk about another question, another issue that has to do with standardized tests, because you are the CEO and founder of PrepExperts, and this is your area of expertise. Just yesterday, a UC committee met to discuss the possibility of requiring, once again, SAT or ACT scores with an applicant's application in order to be admitted. Do you think this is something... That parents, families should anticipate the UC system will require in the years ahead. Yeah, I know the UC Boards Committee met yesterday to review some data on this. And, you know, they're going to make a recommendation in February, followed by the UC Regents Board, which is going to make the official recommendation in June of next year. I do expect this to happen. And the reason for that is, you know, the University of California system has long been. regarded as the top public university system in the country. However, it's losing some of that reputation recently with a lot of statistics and data coming out where at many UC campuses, one in eight students can't do middle school math. 33% are struggling in math classes. And some of the data hasn't been released, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true in science and English. All of this kind of decay in academic performance has happened since the UC system went test blind in 2020. You Now, the entire Ivy League system has reinstated SAT and ACT scores. know And I think that if the UC system would like you to continue to be regarded as good as the Ivy Leagues, they're going to have to take a step in that direction. so Yeah, the pendulum swung one direction during the pandemic much. when most universities went test blind and now it looks like it might be swinging back. It's interesting that you mentioned though that the people who are taking the SATs, their scores are getting higher. Meanwhile, people who don't take it, they seem to be falling behind academically, at least in math, according to the UC system. There's a divergence happening here. Yeah, and I think it's a lot of it actually has to do with artificial intelligence, because what's happening is there's a lot of grade inflation in schools. It's been happening for 20 years. I think almost half of all high school seniors graduate with an A average. And so it's really hard for a university to be able to use a GPA. To tell, you know, which students are really competent in math, science or English because grades are inflated. And that has actually been compounded since the release of ChatGPT in 2023. And now, you know. It's really hard to tell a student's academic ability without a standardized test score. And I think that's why we're seeing the pendulum swing back and all the you know, many of the top universities across the nation reinstating test scores. And I think UC is going to follow. Right. Well, as you said, February and later in the spring is when we'll get more details on the UC's decision. But something definitely for families and students to think about and prepare for long term. Dr. Shyam Patel CEO and founder of PrepExpert, thank you so much for your time this morning and for diving deep into this topic for us. Yeah, thanks for having me and I can't wait to talk in the spring once those decisions are announced. Yeah, it's something parents and many students are always thinking about. We appreciate it.