 What's up guys, it's Josh and we're back again with another video. Today we're going to take a little trip down memory lane and talk about my college application experience. More specifically, five things I wish I would have known when I was applying to college. I know a lot of you are starting your applications this summer or maybe you're a couple years out but either way, this video should be a great help. For those of you who have already applied and are just waiting on decisions, feel free to just keep watching and kind of reflect on your own college application experience. Before I get into it, I have a very exciting announcement. Today's video is actually sponsored by a company called Crimson Education. If you've been watching my channel for a while now, I guarantee you you've been recommended at least one of their videos, which were created to make students dreams of studying at top-ranked colleges possible. Crimson Education's main goal is to connect students with a team of strategists, mentors, and tutors that will help them create a successful college application. Whether that be extracurricular and leadership projects, college essay topic, brainstorming and editing, or SAT prep, the best part is is that it actually works and they've had over 330 offers to top colleges since 2013. For those of you applying internationally, don't worry, Crimson now has over 25 offices across the globe. If you've ever felt lost in your college applications, don't know what to do or maybe you just need that extra push, definitely, definitely check them out. If you're even remotely interested in seeing what Crimson can do for you or how they can help you improve your application, I'll leave a link below. Alright, the five things I wish I would have known when I was going through the brutal college application process. Number one is probably the most important tip I can give you and the one I wish I would have followed more myself, which is start early. I mean really early. The Common App doesn't officially open until August 1st, but the prompts pretty much stay the same from year to year and if you watch my video on choosing a prompt for a Common App essay, you'll know that the prompt doesn't even really matter that much in the context of your application. My point is that you can start drafting your essays as soon as you get out for school for the summer. I'm sure that sounds ridiculous to a lot of you and I'm sure it would have sounded pretty crazy to me too if I was told that when I was applying, but trust me, once you get into the chaos that is senior year, you'll wish that you started your essays earlier. My senior year, I was taking like seven AP classes and a couple courses at my local college. My only time that I had to write essays was during the weekends. I thought I could get off with just starting my Common App essay in August, but that was just not the case. I can't imagine how bad it is for those football and volleyball players out there that also have to deal with playing like a varsity sport in the fall. Knock the Common App essay out as early in the summer as possible and then as soon as the supplement essay topics come out, you can begin drafting those too. So start early and it's going to be a lot easier on you. All right, tip number two, learn to be short and concise. You'll find that most of the word limits for your supplemental essays lie between 150 and 250 words, which is not a lot at all. You have to make every single word count or you're just wasting space. Your language needs to be punchy and impactful and most of all, demonstrate who you are as a person. As much as you want to use that pretty metaphor in your essay that makes it sound really good, those 10 words could probably be put to some better use developing who you are in your application. I know the admissions officers are concerned with your grades, GPA, all this stuff. But at the end of the day, it's about who you are as a person and the essays is the only place you can demonstrate that. You will never get a chance to meet with the admissions officers. Everything they will ever know about you is contained within the pages of your application. So make them count. This specifically applies to the activity section of the Common App. You may have spent the last four years building up your own nonprofit that has been doing amazing work and changing the lives of many people. But guess what? You have about two and a half lines of text to explain that in the activity section of the Common Application. Two and a half lines, that's it. I would like to go into this more, but I've already made a video on specifically how to fill out the activity section of the Common App. So check that out if you're curious. But at the end of the day, wherever you are in your application, be short, be concise, be punchy and make every word count. Moving on to point number three, which is editing, but it's not the type you're thinking of. I'm talking about getting other people to read your application. This is kind of a highly debated topic. A lot of people say, yeah, you should kind of get your essays out there and let other people read them, but you don't want to get too much advice, right? Although I do kind of agree with that, my tip is going to be a little bit different, OK? So at the end of the day, when your application is plopped down on the desk of the admissions officers, like I said earlier, they know nothing about you. Their first impression of you is going to be what's contained within those pages. My recommendation is to get about five to ten people to look at your application in total. No more than that. You don't want to get too much advice, but five to ten is a pretty good number. But listen to this, I recommend that half the people that you have read your application should be people that don't know you very well. Yes, I know this sounds weird, but hear me out. Find someone that you kind of know, like say, like a friend of a friend or somebody who, like, you know their name, but they kind of just sit in the back of like your English class. I don't know. Somebody that doesn't know you very well and have them read your application, OK? Then ask them what type of person they think came across in the application. Make them be brutally honest. If the person that they're describing to you is not the person that you want portrayed in your application, you're going to have to change something. This is a weird tip that not a lot of people have said, but having people that don't know you very well read your application is super, super valuable. And it is a great exercise to improve your application. Tip number four is something I've mentioned before, but I definitely want to reiterate it. Test scores don't matter as much as you think they do. Don't waste so much time studying on the SAT that you sacrifice your grade in at last. When I first took the SAT, I got a 1440, OK? And I should have stopped there. If you're looking to go to an IV or a top school, anything in the mid-1400s or above should be completely fine. They reject people with perfect test scores. I remember when I visited Stanford or something, they said that like 75% of the people that applied with the perfect SAT score were in fact rejected. Your test score does not matter that much. That extra 30 points on the SAT is not worth the hours and hours and hours that you lost studying for it that could have been spent doing better in your classes or spent writing essays. It's all about opportunity costs and how much time you spend on each part of your application. Keep in mind, I'm no admissions officer, but I have talked to many, many, many Yale students about their test scores just because it's something that comes up in conversation. Not everyone I've talked to has had perfect scores. I didn't. It's just about being in the range and showing that you know it. My fifth and final tip doesn't really necessarily pertain just to college apps, but this is more focused towards scholarships, OK? Scholarships season unfortunately begins about as soon as you submit your college application. Normally January, February, March is when all the applications open. There are hundreds and hundreds of applications for scholarships from many different organizations, whether that be like your local Little League, Baseball League, or maybe like your Optimist Club, your school, and also bigger organizations. Like I received a scholarship from the National Eagle Scout Association. My biggest piece of advice for you is I know that you're burnout from college apps. I know that you're tired of writing essays, but it is so easy to just put in a little bit of work and apply for these scholarships and it will save you so much money in the long run. You don't want to be stuck paying college loans and having such a large portion of your income going towards college when you first get a job when you graduate. It's so easy just to fill out the applications now, get the money, and forget about it. These applications aren't hard. They don't take that much time, but you have to take the effort to find them and apply. The best part is that most of these applications have essay topics that you've probably written before. What I did for a lot of them was I would take an essay that I wrote for a college. I would adjust it a little bit, just kind of make it fit the prompt, and then submit it. I cannot recommend that you do this more. I blew off a lot of scholarship applications and I'm regretting it now. Keep grinding and trust me, it's worth it. Literally an hour of your time could save you like thousands of dollars when it comes to college tuition. Everything comes down to the initiative to just do it. All right, I hope you guys enjoyed the five things that I wish I would have known when I was applying to college. If you enjoyed the video, make sure to drop a like down below. If you're new and you haven't subscribed yet, what are you doing? Subscribe for more great content in the future relating to Yale, relating to college apps, relating to me and my life. I mean, I try to make this channel open to anything. If you're stressed and worried about your college apps, I cannot reiterate enough. Crimson Education, the link will be down below. Make sure to check that out. Comment down below what you thought, any questions you have, or if you just wanna say hi. I'll be back again in a couple of days with another video, so I'll see you guys soon.