This guide is for you.
A lot of college prep resources are written for a specific type of student. They are written for the student with a 4.0, or the student who landed a summer internship at a Fortune 500 company before senior year, or the student whose parents went to the school they are applying to. If that describes you, this guide will still help. But that student is not who we had in mind when we sat down to write it, and if that does not describe you, then you are exactly who we were writing for.
We had ourselves from four years ago in mind. We were thinking about the student who has a school they want to get to and is not sure whether it is possible. That uncertainty usually has nothing to do with their grades or their scores. It comes from the opportunities nobody ever handed them. That student looks at a school's acceptance rate, then looks at the thin resume they have 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 is meant to push back against.
We were also thinking about the hardworking junior who has a B average, plays two sports, is in one club, and has a school in mind without any real framework for getting there. That student usually feels like they are lacking something, and the reason is that nobody has ever explained to them what an admissions office is looking for. Some students do not even have a target school yet, because nobody around them has walked through the process in real detail. Other students go online, see people their age with perfect stats and summer internships at companies they have never heard of, and assume they are already behind. The truth in that case is usually that their school or their town never put those opportunities in front of them in the first place. If any of that sounds like you, keep reading.
You should never treat your environment as a complete determinant of your success. The three of us are 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, and the internet. We used all of it harder than we had to. That is the whole philosophy behind this guide. Take the limited opportunities you do have and get everything you can out of them, and aim higher than what feels comfortable. Aiming high does not guarantee that you get there. It works because the effort 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 other school on their list, and the student who thinks carefully through their activity descriptions ends up with a stronger application everywhere. The effort carries over, which means none of it is wasted even if the school you were aiming at says no.
So aim for the school that feels just out of reach. If you get in, that is great. If you do not, you will still walk away with an application that reflects the best version of who you are, and that application will take you somewhere you are proud of, possibly somewhere you never thought you could get to.
One more thing about who this is for. We keep saying "small town" because that is our story, but this guide is not really about geography. It is for anyone the system overlooked. That includes the student with very limited opportunities, and it also includes the student who has opportunities sitting right in front of them that nobody ever bothered to point out. If you have ever felt like the game was set up for someone else, you are who we wrote this for.
That's who this guide is for. Let's get into it.