This guide is for you.
A lot of college prep resources are written for a specific type of student. The one with a 4.0. The one with a summer internship at a Fortune 500 before their senior year. The one whose parents went to the school they're applying to. If that's you, this will still help. But it's not who we had in mind when we sat down to write this. And if that's not you, you're exactly who we were writing for.
We had ourselves from four years ago in mind. The kid who has a school they want to get to and genuinely isn't sure if it's possible, not because of their grades or their scores, but because of the opportunities they were never handed. The kid who looks at a school's acceptance rate, looks at the thin resume they've had the chance to build, and quietly writes themselves off before they ever apply.
"As a kid, my parents always told me I would never be able to go to college to play sports at the Division 1 level. Not even because of my skill, which I didn't have, but because we were from too small of an area. They don't scout out here. They don't see you, because you're from a place small enough that the people doing the recruiting never show up. That's what most people around here think college is, too. You're either seen or you're not, and where you're from determines which one."
Grayson Feury
That thinking is what this guide pushes back against.
We were thinking about the hardworking junior with a B average who plays two sports and is in one club, has a school in mind but no real framework for getting there, and quietly feels like they're lacking. The student who has never had anyone explain what an admissions office is actually looking for. The student who doesn't even have a target school yet because nobody around them has walked through the process in real detail. And the student who goes online, sees people their age with perfect stats and summer internships at companies they've never heard of, and assumes they're already behind, when the truth is their school or their town just never put those opportunities in front of them. If any of that sounds like you, keep reading.
It's never acceptable to treat your environment as a complete determinant of your success. We're living proof of that. None of us had the internships, the connections, or the college-counseling machine that a lot of applicants take for granted. What we had was the stuff right in front of us: our classes, a couple of clubs, a guidance counselor, the internet. And we used all of it harder than we had to. That's the whole philosophy behind this guide: take the limited opportunities you do have and squeeze everything out of them, and aim higher than what feels comfortable. Not because aiming high guarantees you get there, but because the work you put in to try for the school you really want makes your entire application better across the board.
The student who takes their essay seriously for the school they want ends up with a better essay for every school on their list. The student who genuinely thinks through their activity descriptions ends up with a stronger application everywhere. Effort compounds.
Aim for the school that feels just out of reach. If you get in, great. If you don't, you will walk away with an application that reflects the best version of who you are, and that will take you somewhere you're proud of, even somewhere you never thought you could get to.
One more thing on who this is for. We keep saying "small town" because that's our story. But this really isn't about geography. It's for anyone the system overlooked: the student with limited opportunities, and the student who has opportunities sitting right in front of them that nobody ever bothered to point out. If you've ever felt like the game was set up for someone else, you're who we wrote this for.
That's who this guide is for. Let's get into it.