ALISON KALESHI: Alright. Let’s do it. We can go ahead and close the poll.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Alright. Y’all, shake that bag of popcorn out. I know it’s a little hot. Go ahead and open it up. Let it cool for a sec.

Hopefully, you’re snuggling around with a blanket on you, before we get started here. And, we’ll do some intros, and I’ll pass it over to you, Alison.

ALISON KALESHI: Definitely. Everybody get comfortable. Welcome in. The bulk of our conversation tonight is going to be led by James Crawley, and I will let him introduce himself in just a moment. But before we begin, a quick introduction.

My name is Alison, and I’m an enrollment manager here at Prepory. I have over a decade of collective experience in college admissions and high-impact college counseling. So when you book a consultation with Prepory — and we’ll share more about how to do that later this evening — you’ll meet with me or a member of my team to learn more about how enrolling in our program is going to support your student’s specific goals and long-term plans. Obviously, tonight’s focus is on building a highly competitive and winning strategy for Big Ten schools as a high school student.

We’re going to be discussing what admissions officers at these schools are truly looking for, and building a highly compelling narrative that stands out in the Big Ten admissions process. That said, we have a lot of attendees tonight, and some of our attendees may also be thinking about long-term transfer or graduate admissions goals. So, so you all know, we do provide transfer and graduate-level advising, but tonight’s webinar is specifically focused on high school students that are interested in applying to these highly competitive Big Ten schools. As we go through the presentation, please feel free to drop your questions into the Q&A. We have several admissions experts and team members behind the scenes who are going to be answering your questions in real time.

I will also be moderating, and James is going to be answering some questions live as well. With that, James, I’m gonna go ahead and turn it over to you. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Sure. Thank you, Alison. So before coming to Prepory — I currently serve as the program manager here, and I get the joy of not only helping run all of our systems, but also working with students and advising some of our coaches. Before coming to this side of the desk, I got to spend a little over eight years at my alma mater, Purdue University, where I was a senior assistant director of admissions and was plugged into the local college admissions counselors association — the Indiana Association of College Admissions Counselors. Was able to make quite a few friends and colleagues across the board at many different universities, especially the Big Ten, and absolutely loved my time there.

And now on this side, I love being able to get to those deeper relationships with families, helping them to build their narratives — and help students build their narratives over a longer period of time — because you don’t really get to do that at big schools like these Big Ten institutions.

ALISON KALESHI: Absolutely.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Yeah.

ALISON KALESHI: I really love your expertise and how thorough you always are, James, which is why I’m so excited about tonight’s conversation. So with that, I’m gonna go ahead and give a quick overview of Prepory before we dive into the agenda. So with that, who is Prepory? We can go ahead and go to the next slide. Mhmm.

And with that in mind, we are a college admissions counseling firm with over a decade of experience in this space — nearly fifteen years. We have been helping students and families navigate every single grade level of high school very strategically, from ninth grade all the way through twelfth grade, senior year. And in that time, since 2012, we have guided more than 14,000 students towards their highly competitive college admissions goals. We consistently rank as number one in this industry, with excellent admissions outcomes to show for it. One stat we’re extremely proud of is that ninety-four percent of our students are admitted into one or more of their top five choice schools.

And when we say top five, it’s about aligning with each student’s goals and aspirations. It’s not just a number, and our work is truly about turning your competitive dreams into results during the most competitive admissions period in history to date. So for students targeting highly competitive schools with under 15% admit rates — and many of you are — our students specifically are 3.38 times more likely to be admitted into a school below fifteen percent for admit rates. We’ve spent many years helping students stand out in the admission cycle, and one area at Prepory where we see exceptional impact is how students can develop a compelling Big Ten, admit-worthy profile that really stands out among the crowd. With that, we can go to the next slide, please.

You guys are seeing all of our logos. If they’re looking familiar, you definitely are a Big Ten fan. And just an overview of Prepory’s excellent results: last admission cycle alone, our students were accepted to every Big Ten school, every Ivy League, every UC school, and nearly every single school from number one to number 50 on the US News and World Report list. So with that, James, let’s go ahead and talk about this evening’s agenda.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Yeah. And somebody did ask this too. We are talking about the Big Ten tonight, which is a sports league. It is — yeah — ever expanding.

It’s not actually 10 schools. It is 18, which is part of what we’re gonna talk about tonight. The variety of the Big Ten. Oh, Samantha — I don’t know about that. Okay.

So I see a “Go Hoosiers” there in the Q&A. No. I did work for Purdue, but I’m a fan of all Big Ten schools. If you don’t root for your alma mater in the Big Ten, we are very much known for rooting for the Big Ten as a whole. But tonight, what we’re really gonna talk about is just the sheer variety of the Big Ten — not only the 18 schools, the nearly 20 schools in the conference, but just the variety of programs that they offer, the variety of different levels of competitiveness, which you’re gonna see in some upcoming slides.

We’re gonna talk about some of the hidden variables, not only in the application review process, but also in the application process itself. When you’re applying, are you applying to the school? Are you applying to a specific college within the university? And different strategies there about which round to apply to and what essays might have more of an impact and which might not. So we’re gonna go into all of that. As has been said several times, if you have any questions, please feel free to throw them in the chat. We will try to answer them throughout, and then any that come up quite a bit, we’ll save some for the end. I’m also a little sick right now, so if you hear my voice crack a little bit, please feel free to laugh at home and point and laugh and make fun of me. That is totally fine.

But, hopefully, the voice stays here through the rest of the presentation. Let’s start off by talking about the Big Ten variety. And right away, I think the most obvious one is the geographic variety. The Big Ten did start as a Midwestern sort of conference. It expanded out, obviously, East with Maryland and Rutgers.

And then most recently in 2024, we expanded out West to Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA. Again, when we say the Big Ten, we are talking about the sports conference, but oftentimes they are very much aligned in their academic outcomes. Just like the Ivy League is actually just a sports conference — there’s nothing inherently special about any of those universities as a grouping. They are a sports conference. They’re all very, very competitive private research institutions as well, but these sports conferences often also have a similar academic flavoring to them, if you will. So we’re gonna get into some of that tonight. I do wanna have a disclaimer here to say I have not worked at all of these institutions. I’m very familiar with a large number of these because I have either colleagues that have worked there or I have helped students get admitted to most all of these schools. But I wanna just give that disclaimer that this is all data that has been researched and gives some generalities, while also knowing that we all often have a very similar admissions process as far as what we’re looking for and how we review applications.

That is something we will definitely dive into. But just know that with 18 different schools — I mean, we’d be here for probably more than forty-five minutes trying to dive into each and every single one of them. So this is to give you an overarching view of the conference as a whole. And one of the easiest ways, I think, to see the delineation between the competitiveness of these schools is their overall selectivity rates. Some of the schools — Northwestern, UCLA, USC — are gonna be those sub or nearly sub 10% admit rates.

They are what we would call highly selective. Michigan has gotten to be right on that border as one of the top public institutions in the country. So the selectivity rate really goes very wide. Now if you’re looking down at the bottom, you might be seeing Oregon, Nebraska, Michigan State, Iowa. That doesn’t mean that those aren’t fantastic schools.

And, Alison, I’m glad you said this at the beginning — here at Prepory, what we are really trying to do is help you find the best fit, the school that is going to align with your goals and your definition of success, of what a successful college experience looks like. So I don’t want you to look at this and say, “Oh, I’m not gonna consider Indiana or Michigan State or Oregon” because they have some phenomenal programs, and their campus culture could be exactly what you’re looking for. But on the whole, when you look at the entire university, these are what some of the selectivity rates are looking like. So in the admissions process, that’s going to really determine your strategy a little bit differently if you’re applying to, say, a Northwestern or UCLA versus maybe a Michigan State or Nebraska.

ALISON KALESHI: You’re absolutely right.

JAMES CRAWLEY: With that in mind, those overall selectivity rates — some things to keep in mind about why there’s such a variation. First and foremost, many of these schools, as is kind of obvious by their name, are big public flagships. They’re what are often called public land-grant institutions. Now I’m not gonna get deep into the specifics of the 1862 Morrill Act, which is what actually started the land-grant institution initiative across the United States. That is what really designated certain institutions that excelled in agriculture and mechanical arts — A&M, if you’ve ever heard of Texas A&M — that is a land-grant institution, because these schools were given these mandates almost two hundred years ago to really build out the agriculture and mechanical arts/engineering of their states. So there’s quite a handful of public flagship institutions in the Big Ten.

They are what are known as public land-grant institutions. There’s also a handful of private schools — meaning there’s no in-state mandate for public flagships. They typically are funded partly by the state. They typically do have somewhat of an in-state preference — just making sure, Alison, can you hear me okay?

ALISON KALESHI: You know what? It froze for a second, but you’re right back online.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Back online? Okay. Sorry about that, y’all.

ALISON KALESHI: We’re all —

JAMES CRAWLEY: I am seeing storm clouds rolling in outside.

ALISON KALESHI: That’s right.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Oh, man. The timing. For private schools, there is not an in-state mandate. So there is no mandate to necessarily cater to in-state versus out-of-state students. And that can have a difference in how students are read and in the review process for different schools.

As far as residency goes — meaning the percentage of students who are in-state versus out-of-state — they can differ widely. Michigan, as last reported — this is, I believe, 2024, 2025, the best data that could be found — fifty-two percent of their students were in-state students, and then about 40% out of state, about 8% were international. So it’s a fairly even split. I know Purdue has historically, in the last few years, also been right around that 50% mark for in-state versus out-of-state. Other schools like Minnesota: 71% in-state.

Rutgers: 87% in-state. And the reason that this is a big deal is because when we’re reviewing applications for these universities, oftentimes you are looking at students in an in-state pool and an out-of-state pool. They’re applying the same review factors, but they are often reviewing in-state and out-of-state differently at these big public schools — or they’re reviewing them in two different piles against each other — because they know that their in-state students have — I mean, they’re much more familiar with those schools overall, and they also have a bit more of a mandate to those students. So that is something to keep in mind. If you reside in any of these states that has a Big Ten institution, that could be something to really consider as an in-state resident.

Some schools like UCLA — and really all of the UCs — have about an 80% in-state population, and that is because they have one of the most robust transfer processes out there, as well as many different pathways. Not quite guaranteed admission, but for the top 9% of students, they would be able to possibly get into some of their UC institutions. And then there are also different structures. These are all different things that relate to the variation between these Big Ten institutions. Some of them, you apply to the university as a whole. Others, you’re likely applying directly to a college. I can say from experience, if you’re applying to Purdue and you wanted to apply to engineering, you are applying directly to the College of Engineering, not Purdue as a whole. And that is going to affect the competitiveness levels of your application. So it is very important to really reframe how you are thinking about acceptance rates at these schools. Because while the overall acceptance rate might seem higher — like, let’s say, with Indiana or even UIUC, a 37% admit rate — it is going to depend on the actual program that you are applying to, because some of these programs are going to be much more competitive.

Some of the usual suspects are going to be things like CS or engineering. Oftentimes, even business schools or business programs — they might have a direct admit component, like Kelley School of Business at Indiana. The same goes for Ross at Michigan. There is going to be a separate set of additional requirements for some of those programs, and their admit rates are likely going to be much lower than the overall university. So you really do need to factor that in when you’re thinking about: Where does this sit on my balance list? Is this more of a reach school for me? Is this more of a target school, right in the middle, or is it more of a likely school? Well, it really is gonna depend on the program that you pick. When it comes to actual admissions — what admissions officers are looking for — there is a large handful of factors that are considered: about half a dozen academic factors, half a dozen non-academic factors that these admissions offices are going to use to make a decision.

And the least worst way that I have found to describe this process is a game: if you ever stayed home sick as a kid and you watched The Price Is Right at 11AM Eastern time, and you remember the game Plinko — this is pretty much what admissions reviewing is like. You’ve got three bins at the bottom: admit, defer/waitlist, or deny. And each of these pegs is a different factor. Some of the most important factors being up near the top — the academics — are often going to be really the first line of understanding where your application is. That’s why we say academics is absolutely the most important piece at the core of your application. If that is all there, then the other things really can come into play.

But as you move down, some of these things — and these are not exact, please don’t take this as biblical — these are really meant to show that any one of these pegs might hit your application into a different direction. But generally speaking, as admissions officers, we can start to see which way something is trending pretty much from the beginning: if you have high academics, great course rigor, your test scores (if required) are up in or above those competitive ranges, and then we also see a ton of outlined involvements that are really stand-out and really cool and based on your passions, and your personal statement and supplementals help you jump off the page as a human being — okay, cool, there’s a lot going on here for this student that is trending toward an admit. That’s why we kind of frame it this way, because we really want you to understand how complex this reviewing can be.

But truly at the top there, without a doubt, any AO from any of these universities would tell you academics is going to be the most important piece at the beginning. So that’s why those typically are going to be a little bit higher up in the Plinko board, so to speak. For the sake of time — I feel like I could spend a whole presentation just on this Plinko board. I think this makes sense to me. I hope this is making sense to you all.

But if you have any questions about this, feel free to throw them in the Q&A, and I will try to answer them at the end. Based on our best data gathering — this is something that’s also quite frustrating about admissions data — you guys might have experienced this yourselves. There is a limited number of data points that are released every year. The Common Data Set is the most common — no pun intended — dataset that you can find for each school.

But beyond that, getting down to the granular level of college admissions rates within a university, or specific major admissions rates, very rarely are those released on the whole. But this just gives you kind of a wide range. I’m not gonna go through each of these, but you can just kind of see a generality of how many applications some of these schools are getting. UCLA, I believe, is still at the top in terms of the total number of undergrad applications. I do believe UCLA is number one — if not in the country, then at least in the country, if not the world. But some of these others have an enormous number of applications coming in — tens of thousands — and they’re not being reviewed by hundreds of people. It’s usually dozens of people and maybe some temporary help in the fall. But generally, it’s dozens of admissions officers who are also doing a thousand other things, wearing a ton of other hats, traveling around, hosting programs. So you really have to get yourself in the mindset of an admissions officer who is somewhat overworked in the fall.

Any AOs — if you’re watching this, you guys know it is very tough in the fall to try to go from travel season right into review season, and they are really having to look at these applications quite efficiently, which could mean that they’re not spending dozens of minutes or several minutes on every application. And we’ll get into that a little later as well. One thing I just wanted to pull out from that last slide: the test policy maze. There are many universities that are moving toward test-required. Some are changing for the fall — they are going to be requiring tests. This is changing every year as the pandemic moves further in the rearview mirror for us. Some schools have said they are going to be test-optional from here on out.

The entire UC system — which includes UCLA, University of California Berkeley — they have their own application called the UC application. They are test-blind. They do not accept any test scores. Test-required, we have a handful of those schools, and then test-optional is the majority for the moment. They’re typically gonna release those updates in the next month or so if, this fall, they’re gonna go back to test-required, and that means ACT or SAT.

I’m gonna pause really quick. I’m gonna cough. I’m gonna mute myself so I don’t blow out any ears.

ALISON KALESHI: And with that — you know, I wanted to address a question that kinda came up. James, we’re gonna let you grab a sip of water. With the questions that have been coming up, you all have been asking very insightful and thoughtful questions. But one is: how transferable would we say the points highlighted tonight are to other schools? So Big 12 schools, SEC schools, across the board.

Yeah. From my perspective, I think we think about academics and extracurriculars as a significant portion of how holistically admissions offices are going to be reviewing you. It’s going to be a slightly different process at each university. But with that, to answer the question put in the chat: I would state that there is overlap in these processes, and the areas that you want to strengthen before that application hits an admissions officer’s desk. James, do you have any thoughts on that?

JAMES CRAWLEY: Yeah. I would say, by and large, the factors that I had on that Plinko board are very much across the board. Most every school is gonna be looking at the three big areas: academics, extracurriculars, writing (if they require any writing), along with the extraneous things like letters of recommendation. Some schools might look at test scores as test-optional. And by the way — no harm on here — I think Bruce, you asked this in the chat. Some schools — UW (University of Washington), Seattle, I believe — is also “no harm.” It just means if you submit a score, there’s no harm in doing so. Some schools will specify that. That might also be one of those factors.

That is pretty much across the board for most conferences, not just the Big Ten. That holistic review is pretty much the same in its core across United States institutions. Yes, I would say that is fairly accurate. But obviously every school is a little bit different.

Yeah. Let me keep going here. If there’s any — again, keep — please throw any questions you have for us in the chat, in the Q&A, and we will get to those either by one of our experts, or we’ll save it for the end. I do wanna say one small thing about extracurriculars, and this can sometimes be a misconception for students. AOs are not just looking for you to fill all 10 slots just to fill them.

ALISON KALESHI: Mhmm.

JAMES CRAWLEY: You know, you might be in the Cheese Appreciation Club for one hour a month as a member. And, yes, that is something you can list on your application. That is — I think — legitimately something I did list on my application applying to Purdue. We had a cheese club.

That is not a strong extracurricular section because it doesn’t really show any impact. It doesn’t really show that you’re dedicating extra time to it to either grow an organization, grow a group of people, grow a mission, or grow yourself. But what they do love to see is depth. So, yes, a handful that are long-term and have some commitment to them — multiple years — or maybe you showed your upward growth and showed your leadership capabilities where you were able to make a tangible impact in some way, and help growth happen either for yourself, for others, or for some sort of mission or initiative in your school, in your community, or beyond. So when we are looking at extracurriculars — and that’s something that our coaches here at Prepory do all the time from eighth grade, ninth grade, onward — we really do start early helping to craft those ideas of what are you passionate about, and what kind of extracurricular profile might you be able to build off of those passions and interests that creates a clear story? So just a quick thing there about extracurriculars. And this is really the big thing I want you guys to think about with these Big Ten institutions: often you’re not just applying to a university — you’re often applying to the college within. This is where we’re gonna get a little bit more specific on some universities’ programs that have a more competitive admissions rate and acceptance rate, because there’s just not enough seats. They really just don’t have as much space. There’s high demand. It’s a very competitive field. For a variety of reasons, there are many of these programs at Big Ten institutions and others, of course. But that’s something you really should know: when you go to apply on the application — and all of these schools, say for UCLA, which uses the UC application, or the Common Application — they will indicate whether you are applying to just the university as a whole, or whether you need to pick a couple of majors, like a first choice, second choice, third choice major.

That’s something you would come across when you actually go to fill out the Common App, but it’s important to think about that now. I know we have about 37, 40 — maybe more — eleventh graders here tonight. Y’all are getting this coming up here soon. And as you’re thinking about that, really start to do your research ahead of time and see: am I gonna apply directly to a major, or am I just applying to the university as a whole? Because that really can determine your outcomes.

ALISON KALESHI: Definitely. And we will be discussing a little bit more here. Something I really love about Prepory is that we are truly exceptional across the board in terms of serving different needs. And all of the students that we see on this slide had completely different profiles, completely different goals, and at the end of the day, are at the schools that we’re talking about tonight and that they were incredibly interested in. And this either was developed over time or it was a long-term interest, but what I will say is: beyond what you see on the screen is the level of dedication that it really takes, and having the right team behind you to make sure that your potential is really being seen in the admissions process — by admissions officers who are ultimately never going to meet you — beyond what you submit with the support of your coach at Prepory.

So it really is super heartwarming to see these. We have Northwestern, UCLA, obviously Michigan, Oregon. And, ultimately, we wanna make sure that you — our viewers — are going to come out on the other side of this feeling just as excited.

JAMES CRAWLEY: I actually have not seen this slide before. I oversee a program at Prepory called Annual Profile Review, where we review all of our underclassmen. We also do it again as committee review for our seniors, and I’ve seen a lot of these names in those programs. And I’m just like, oh, these are cool — I actually know who these kids are, and I know who these coaches are. So this is actually fun to see.

But anyway, sorry. We will move on.

ALISON KALESHI: Alright.

JAMES CRAWLEY: I’ve talked about program choice, and this is really one of the big ones — one of the hidden variables of applying to some of these schools and why they can sometimes be much more competitive than they may seem on the surface. This is just a couple of examples. Again, this data can be very hard to find accurately when it comes to specific program admittances. So we’re kind of looking at some different things here when it comes to admit rates — for, let’s say, an overall university like UIUC versus their CS program. You’ll see a common theme here.

CS is going to be —

ALISON KALESHI: Yes.

JAMES CRAWLEY: — single-handedly the most competitive major, almost across the board. Similarly, data science. Similarly, potentially engineering, depending on if CS lives within the college of engineering or if it lives on its own. It can get very messy here in the Big Ten. But what I want you to take away from this is that just because a university has a given overall acceptance rate, you have to really sometimes look deeper. And you can just know: if you are applying to something like computer science, engineering, data science, maybe even business, or professional flight even — you’re going to have a much more competitive acceptance rate to deal with at some of these schools.

Some direct-admit programs — many of these are business programs — are programs where you’re kind of auto-admitted if you meet a certain level of criteria. That could be a minimum GPA and a minimum test score of some kind. Some schools like Indiana — I know Kelley School of Business used to have a minimum GPA and score. It has now gotten so competitive that they have a sort of separate — it’s not quite an application, but it’s something that you fill out, like a form of interest that allows them to see how good of a fit you would be for the program. Other things like Ross are going to be extremely competitive.

Purdue has a few that are extremely competitive, and depending on when you apply, they might not even be open anymore. So many of these programs are going to be tied to some sort of early action deadline you’re gonna wanna keep in mind. Oftentimes, that’s gonna be November 1 — that November 1 early action. We’ll talk about different rounds in a second, but these are all programs that are going to have some sort of direct-admit criteria that you might want to keep in mind. If not some criteria, just know that because they are direct-admit — which means, if you don’t know what that term is, that you would start that program day one, generally speaking.

You would start in that program — maybe you would start in an undecided first-year program and then go right into that program second year. Either way, it is a sort of fast track to get you into that degree program that the school is often known for. So it could be engineering, business, CS, or otherwise.

But as you’re thinking about these Big Ten institutions, just know that they are extremely diverse. They have many different areas of expertise, and you really do need to do your homework as you’re looking into them to make sure you understand how competitive they actually are. This is something that doesn’t often get talked about either, that I really wanted to bring up in this presentation: the “can I switch in later?” question. Because some of you might be thinking, okay, well, I could just maybe apply to a different major, or maybe I can apply undecided and then try to switch into that major later on.

For some universities, that can happen. That’s not outlawed at every single university. And even down at tier three, you can see there are some universities that allow you to come in with a little bit more undecidedness. Maybe they allow you to come in as an exploratory student, or you can come in in something like liberal arts and change. But especially when it comes to the seemingly problem children of this admissions game within the Big Ten — computer science and engineering — you might find that it’s actually generally closed to you if you try to come in through a different major.

Some students and families are maybe given the advice to try to backdoor or side-door their way into some of these universities by applying to something completely different than the major they’re actually interested in. Not only can that come back to bite you later because the program you actually wanted is closed to internal transfers — meaning you can’t switch from another program — but it’s often also seen pretty plainly on the application. From reading— I can’t tell you how many applications I read at Purdue. I was the lead reviewer for a few years for the College of Engineering, where I would get an application sent to me from somebody applying to something in the College of Liberal Arts, but every activity they had was computer science. Every essay they wrote was about their love of computer science or their love of mechanical engineering, and they were applying to something like communications.

And there was no alignment at all. That’s pretty clearly showing that you’re trying to backdoor your way in. And that’s just not necessary nor is it recommended anywhere. But this is something you really need to keep in mind as well: if you’re trying to go into something easier just to get in, in the hopes of applying to something more competitive once you’re there, that might not always happen. So you really need to be aware of how those internal transfers can be competitive.

So there’s just a handful of programs that we know are either closed or are extremely competitive, very limited in their space offerings, and there are some that do allow it a little bit more liberally. So as you are evaluating that fit — as you are thinking about, is this Big Ten university one that’s going to fit my goals, is this offering of academics going to fit my goals — you should think about: is it a direct-admit major? Are you applying directly to the major you want to go into?

Is there a specific admit rate that you can find, or maybe even call and ask about? Because we have all this data internally. When I was at Purdue, I could tell you granularly what all the admit rates were for every major, every program, in-state, out-of-state. They have all that data. You can call and ask.

There’s no harm in doing that. And then from there: if you don’t get into that major, what does that look like as far as what you would do at that university? If you got admitted, can you transfer in after a year? Do you have to take a certain number of classes? Are there only a certain number of seats?

We would never wanna steer somebody into a situation where they are not being set up for success — where they’re being told, “yeah, just apply to this other major,” but you have no hope of getting back into the one you want. That is not what any Big Ten admissions officer would ever want for you or your student. So really be sure you’re answering these questions as you’re doing your research. I wanna take a pause just to see if there’s any — this is kind of our last section here.

We should be done here in the next five to ten minutes, just so we can answer some more Q&A questions. But were there any, Alison, that came up, or should I keep going?

ALISON KALESHI: You know what, I would say you can keep going. A quick note —

JAMES CRAWLEY: Mhmm.

ALISON KALESHI: — on our discussion in terms of major strategy and the schools that you’re applying to. This is a very important part of how Prepory is gonna support you all. When we think about impacted majors too, and what is an adjacent major strategy that still aligns with my profile and my overall long-term career vision and goals — this is all a part of the support that we’re going to comprehensively provide to you through Prepory’s programs. And with that in mind, we have been linking the initial consultation link to go ahead and book your one-on-one when you have more questions.

We’ve been answering a lot of your questions in the chat, and I have a feeling that a lot of you are gonna want to ask more. Yes. We’re excited to meet with you. And with that, James, feel free to take it away into the final portion of —

JAMES CRAWLEY: Yeah. Yeah. No. And that’s a good reminder too. We know that we can’t answer everything as effectively as you want to here tonight, and maybe your fingers are tired from trying to type out your very specific situation.

I know I’m not covering every single thing that I would want to in this forty-five-minute presentation or so. Please book an initial consultation. It’s just a chat to have with our enrollment team — the lovely Alison and her colleagues — just to be able to get a sense of your situation and what your biggest issues might be, if Prepory can help with that, and then how we might help you achieve those goals. Because we know how competitive and how stressful this process can be. But with that said, I will go into this last little bit here to just give some clarity on the rounds. Now, again, this information is constantly changing.

Two schools just added an ED offering — an early decision offering. This is binding: if admitted, you must enroll. Northwestern and USC are going to be doing it for the upcoming season, for those starting in 2027. Michigan just added it this last season.

The round type indicates essentially when you would be submitting your application and how you want it designated. If you apply to early decision, you can only apply to one school early decision because you can’t apply to two schools ED. And if you got admitted to both of them, you couldn’t go to both of them. So you’d only pick one school for the early decision round. There is a second early decision round, but I’m not gonna get into that because I don’t believe anybody in the Big Ten has an early decision 2.

Early action — this is the one that I actually want everybody here to take note of. Asterisk this. Write down early action. In the Big Ten, early action is non-binding. But essentially, what it means is: if you wanna be considered for merit-based scholarship or the honors college, if you wanna get your decision back earlier than most other people, and you wanna get full consideration for the most competitive majors without space being one of the factors considered in your review — meaning, like, do we have enough space for this person — then I’d highly recommend applying by the early action deadline.

They’re gonna be a little different for all universities in the Big Ten. There are 18 different institutions. Generally speaking, early action is going to be around November 1. Many of these schools are going to have a November 1 early action deadline. So remember — remember the November 1.

If you don’t apply by Halloween, spooky things can happen. That’s maybe another way to remember it. If you have the ability to, early action is the way to go because it is non-binding. Restrictive early action — this is one that is not really in the Big Ten. This exists in other leagues such as the Ivy League and other conferences, but it’s not one that you have to worry about for the Big Ten.

It is a little restrictive, but it’s very — strange. Rolling admission just means you’re getting a decision back in a given time frame for when you apply. They are rolling out admission decisions all the time. And then, typically, there’s a final deadline we call the regular decision deadline, that’s generally gonna be around the first of the year — maybe January 1, January 5, January 15 — but that’s gonna be kind of the last deadline. The reason we bring up these deadlines is because it can really determine your likelihood for getting admitted.

Some schools do admit more students in the early decision round. Many schools do have more admittances coming from early action, just because they have more space to use as consideration. These are things that really need to be built into your strategy for applying to whichever handful of Big Ten schools you might be considering. Some schools might have bigger ED admits. Some might come more from EA.

And now with more schools adding early decision, that might be something we see coming into play more and more. Some things to keep in mind when it comes to other factors like essays: supplemental essays can be a wide range. Some of them might not have any supplemental essays — Indiana, Michigan State, Nebraska, they don’t really have any supplemental essays. I wanna break this down very quickly for anybody who might be kind of new to this whole admissions process.

Welcome. I’m sorry. I know it’s confusing. But when it comes to writing essays, generally speaking, you will have the personal statement, which is about 650 words. That is the one personal statement you write that goes to all the schools you apply to on the Common Application.

Some of those schools will have what are known as supplemental essays, and these can be anywhere from — like, Maryland has some that are very short, could be 600 characters or so. That’s maybe 100 to 150 words. Some of them might have supplemental essays that are 300, 400, 500 words in addition to that personal statement. There’s a wide range. And depending on how many they ask and the type of questions they ask, that can really determine how much those are used in the admissions review process.

So some of them — like Michigan — are gonna have a lot longer supplemental essays. If you’re applying to something like Ross Business School, they’re gonna have additional supplemental essays that can come for that major or that school in particular. Others might ask shorter questions. Some of them might be optional. These are all things that are going to be something you need to consider again when you’re building that strategy for your Big Ten applications.

This can take a long time to effectively brainstorm and flesh out and make sure that the narrative threads all show you as a person — the values that you have, not only for your personal statement, but for all these different supplemental essays. And I think this is one of the areas that we spend the most time with our students on as Prepory coaches: really helping them to tell their stories in a way that makes them seem like a person. Because as admissions officers, we are reading so many of these applications, sometimes back to back to back to back, and they start to blur together. So we really wanna make sure that you stand out as a human — that you are funny and strange and you and authentic. Really, it doesn’t have to be a grand trauma.

It doesn’t have to be some marvelous, miraculous thing that happened in your life. Some of the best essays I’ve read are about the most mundane things ever, but they were written so poignantly or so hilariously that I just felt like I was having a chat with that person over a cup of coffee at a cafe. So these essays really can have a lot of weight to make you jump off the page as a human being to an admissions officer who is tired and overworked and underpaid and very, very, very much looking for a person to jump out at them.

ALISON KALESHI: And, you know, James, I wanna kind of pile on to that commentary on the supplements. We’ve been getting a lot of questions — several kind of in the similar vein — of how the supplements are really going to impact and carry the admissions file. And from my perspective, having been in this space for a long time: the supplements are really your area to very distinctly demonstrate not only why you want to go to the university. The university already knows that they’re exceptional. That’s not so much what they’re looking for, as compared to: why are you going to be an excellent applicant, specifically maximizing the resources available at the university, and how are you going to contribute to that next incoming class of undergraduates that they would be very proud to have graduate from the institution?

Mhmm. This takes a lot of time. And with that, at Prepory, we provide unlimited writing support. And for you rising seniors — the current juniors we have right now that are tuning in — this is something that I really encourage you to think about as you’re planning to schedule an initial consultation: this does not happen overnight, and you need a plan in place. And you cannot copy and paste the same essay across schools.

They want very specific answers that are really gonna highlight who you are to admissions.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Mhmm. And one thing about the “why us” question — this is a very common supplemental essay question that’s asked specifically in the Big Ten — basically: why do you wanna come to Michigan? Why do you wanna come to Nebraska? Why do you wanna come to Purdue? What is it about us that makes you think we’d be a good fit for your collegiate goals?

ALISON KALESHI: That’s right.

JAMES CRAWLEY: And these — maybe you’ve been reading over these as we’ve been talking — but really, it’s a matter of just showing that you have done enough research into the university to know very specifically how it fits into the vision you have, or the potential vision you have, for your life. We don’t expect you all to have — and I’m talking specifically to juniors, rising juniors, sophomores, or freshmen — AOs do not expect you to have your entire life figured out.

ALISON KALESHI: That’s right.

JAMES CRAWLEY: That is not the goal here. The goal is to show them that you have the capacity, you have the capability —

ALISON KALESHI: Yes.

JAMES CRAWLEY: — to craft a vision for how your life might go, based on where you are right now. Maybe right now, you are really dedicated to cancer research, or you’re really dedicated to better communication practices in certain fields, and you have a narrative thread that you can really tie everything together in your application with, to show that and show where that might lead you down the line. They’re not gonna hold you to that once you get to the university. You can change your major. You can switch around and explore.

That’s what college is for. But when it comes to this “why us,” it really does help you stand out to show that you have thought about how the resources — not just what resources, but how the resources they have would help you achieve that longer-term goal. So these are just some overall things we talked about: the holistic review, how you’re often applying to a specific major and specific program, and how that might really determine the competitive acceptance rate at a certain university. Academics definitely stand out first and foremost as one of the strongest tools, but those other pieces really can help differentiate you, especially in programs and universities where everybody has strong academics. So academics definitely help you get in the door of consideration, but then it’s all the other pieces that help you really go fully through it.

And you really do need to do your due diligence looking into these different Big Ten institutions along with any others, to understand how they might align with your longer-term goals. All of these different pieces do matter in this holistic review process. So that is something to keep in mind. I wanna turn it back over to Alison. That is all I have to say.

I wanna make sure that we get everybody out of here on time. I know it’s late for our East Coasters here. So, Alison, take it away.

ALISON KALESHI: Absolutely. Thank you, James. We are very excited to meet you all during your initial consultations. And with that in mind, let’s talk a little bit about how Prepory could specifically help you get admitted at your dream school, and what our programs currently include. Obviously, your grade level is going to be dependent on your entry point and which program you are a part of at Prepory.

With that, you will be meeting with a highly dedicated college admissions expert for an hour at a time during one-on-one Zoom advising sessions. In addition, you will have unlimited offline, ongoing guidance in between every single meeting with your dedicated admissions coach. For mom and dad and guardians out there, you are also gonna be on the exact same page as your student, with very thorough parent check-ins and the ability to really track progress through our organizational online platform, which is Grad Bloom, which you will have access to upon your enrollment. And when we’re thinking about the full application support, you are going to have unlimited essay and resume reviews from our writing specialist team for up to 15 distinct applications. You’ll have the admissions team comprehensively providing that Annual Profile Review.

And, of course, when you are interviewing for a merit scholarship or a highly competitive summer program opportunity, you’ll receive support from our interview specialists. And overall at Prepory, you’ll be meeting with a coach consistently, whether it’s biweekly or weekly. But you are also receiving truly a full team, including the admissions team as well as the writing specialist team, to make sure that you are succeeding. And your pathway at Prepory is highly personalized.

That’s why we’re very excited to meet you. And with that, we can go ahead and head into the next slide.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Mhmm.

ALISON KALESHI: Alright. And you’re gonna see the QR code. This is to book your free consultation to learn how your enrollment at Prepory is really gonna support your long-term vision for these highly competitive schools. It’s become more competitive than ever to gain entry into the schools that we’ve talked about tonight, and we definitely believe that we can work with you on building a highly competitive profile and overall a very motivating journey — in what can oftentimes prove to be a stressful process without the right supports. We do have a couple of questions popping up in the chat.

So with the time that we have remaining, James, we can go ahead and answer some questions. I’m seeing a common thread in terms of demonstrated interest at these schools.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Oh, yes.

ALISON KALESHI: Can you talk a little bit more about that?

JAMES CRAWLEY: Yeah. At some universities — again, it’s not ubiquitous across the board — demonstrated interest is often not the most sought-after, especially for highly competitive institutions. It’s not the most sought-after factor for admission in the holistic review. But that being said, there are certain programs, certain schools — and again, there’s no common thread here across all these Big Ten schools — but there are some where it’s another factor they might see in the review. Did you attend one of our summer programs, or did you come for an on-campus visit? If needed, those can be looked up and considered in the review. But by and large, especially for the most competitive programs across the Big Ten, generally speaking, demonstrated interest is not a highly sought-after factor.

It might factor in, but it’s generally not gonna be near the top.

ALISON KALESHI: It’s not gonna be that final determining answer either. Very helpful. With that, James, there’s an additional one. So we talked a little bit about different areas that are highly competitive and super impacted. Mhmm.

A great question from one of our attendees — and we know this very well given the high volume of support we provide to pre-medical applicants — is that track from your perspective also very difficult at Big Ten schools? I have a feeling of what you’re gonna say, but for our attendees, feel free to share your thoughts.

JAMES CRAWLEY: No. This is a great question. I love this one because premed — again, similar to — if you ever watched the show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. With premed, you can truly go into almost any major and still successfully get into top medical programs after undergrad.

Most of these universities are going to have what’s known as a pre-professional advising office. They might call it something a little bit different, but this is gonna be a dedicated set of professionals who are ensuring that you, as an undergrad, no matter what major you’re in, are taking those gen-eds in chemistry, biology, anatomy, whatever else it might be, to get into med school or law school or dental school. So that when you go to sit for the exam — like the MCAT — you will have a wealth of information to help you be competitive for that test. So you can truly go into almost any major and still be a premed student on the premed track. You do not have to go into biology.

That is a myth. You do not have to go into biology to go into medicine. If you have a passion for biology, great. There are many different types of biology. But you can go into nutrition.

You can go into kinesiology if you like more of the movement and sports science. You can go into engineering. Go into business, and you can still get into medical programs after undergrad. So I would say that generally speaking, premed tracks are not more or less competitive than the university as a whole, because they are so widespread. You can truly go in, and they are not going to look to see, “oh, okay, this person’s gonna be premed from the jump.” They might have this interest, but that might change later on. So keep that in mind if you are looking to go to a Big Ten school. Generally speaking, premed — or the pre-health professional track — is something you can pursue in any major, and then just declare yourself as premed once you are there, if that makes sense.

ALISON KALESHI: Very helpful. And jumping around here — really thoughtful answer, James. Thank you for that. At the start of the lecture/discussion — [Note: Alison self-corrected; apparent crosstalk here] — I was like, you know what, quick default word. At the start of this conversation, we were talking about admit rates. And when we look at those numbers, can you talk to me a little bit about unweighted and weighted GPA, and how that is reviewed by admissions offices? Very much a fan-favorite question.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Comes every —

ALISON KALESHI: — time we have a conversation like this. Feel free to share your thoughts on it and anything about those numbers. What does that look like —

JAMES CRAWLEY: — to you? Honestly — this is a personal preference, but I will say this is generally speaking for many, many institutions. When they are looking at your transcript, when they are diving into the meat of your application — which is often the transcript, the GPA — it’s almost just set aside, because we can determine pretty accurately without even seeing the number what your GPA likely is. Are you mostly getting all A’s across the board? Great.

You have a 4.0 unweighted. That might be some high weighted number, but if you have all A’s on a 4.0 scale, that is statistically going to be a 4.0.

ALISON KALESHI: Yep.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Then what really comes into play is things like the relevant coursework. If you’re applying to something like business, which really wants to see you doing well in math classes, or engineering or CS, which very much wants to see you doing well in math and science — particularly physics — then we’re gonna start looking more heavily at those relevant courses. We’re looking at academic trends over time, not only from year to year, but semester to semester. How are you doing in those academic classes as things are getting harder? Those are going to be much more meaty factors for us to look into than just a three-digit number for an unweighted or weighted GPA. So you might put one or the other. Typically, they want your unweighted GPA, but they’re gonna see the rigor on your application when they go to look at your transcript or your self-reported grade section. So GPA doesn’t really come into play all that much at first.

They will have it on there, but they’re much more concerned with how you’re doing in specific courses depending on the major you choose, and how you’re doing in trends over time.

ALISON KALESHI: Hence, that’s very helpful for us. I’m seeing a couple more. There were some unique questions that we’ve been answering. But for more specialized cases, as we’ve said, I definitely encourage parents and students with highly specialized questions — specifically on courses and the timeline to graduation when you’re thinking about APs and which AP credits get accepted — these are some questions that we want to explore how Prepory can help you navigate, because it’s going to look different at every single school.

Mhmm. And from your perspective, James, can you share a little bit more of your viewpoint in terms of AP credits being accepted at schools that you are targeting, and does this largely affect your timeline to graduation?

JAMES CRAWLEY: Well, like many things in admissions, it depends. Yes. I’m sorry — my voice is going out. I think it’ll hold, but it’s going out.

There’s a phrase I often use when it comes to this question — and I believe this was asked by Thomas, or somebody? I just saw their name go away.

ALISON KALESHI: Yes. It was.

JAMES CRAWLEY: That was a great question to ask. Just because you can test out of something does not always mean that you should. So, yes, there are different AP acceptances. When you take the AP test — if you get a four or five — they might say, “Cool, you can test out of this first level of calculus or this level of history and get some general credits.”

That’s probably okay. When it comes to — if you somehow got a four or five on the AP exam for something like calculus, but you were in the class all year and were doing okay in it — that is not something I would recommend you test out of and jump up to the next level when you start at college. Because there are so many other things in that tumultuous transition that can make the step from high school to college hard. Jumping up to a second level of a course or a subject that maybe you somehow got the credit for, but you’re not 100% solid in, does not set you off on the right foot coming to college.

ALISON KALESHI: Yes.

JAMES CRAWLEY: Yes. There are some universities that allow you to test out of AP, that allow you to cut down on things like certain costs for electives. But generally speaking, just because you can test out of something does not mean that you should. You should talk to an academic adviser at those universities, or really talk to your school counselor at your high school, for that. And there’s actually a similar question, Alison — a phenomenal question by Jamie — about looking at electives. Like, are schools looking at electives, or are they often more looking at the core classes? If you’re applying to a more competitive program — and I’m using engineering as an example — there’s a really common program called Project Lead the Way, PLTW. They have some really fun — I loved my Project Lead the Way classes when I did them in high school here in Fishers, Indiana. But they’re very fun supplementary classes that allow you to explore your major more.

There are some for health care as well. But generally speaking, these top programs are going to be looking at your core classes. They’re gonna be looking at things like your math progression, how much were you challenging yourself in math and science, specifically for engineering, based on the opportunities afforded to you by your high school. And the same can go again for health care or for business. Those supplementary courses can be great, but don’t let them take the place of your core competencies — mainly math, science, history, language, English as well.

Those are going to be the core classes that most universities wanna see you really challenging yourself the most in and doing the best in.

ALISON KALESHI: Absolutely. And yeah, with that, we have one remaining question. I’ll go ahead and answer this one. We have some very specific course enrollment questions in terms of maximizing rigor.

Mhmm. And is it better to take a highly challenging course load of, say, four APs and risk getting a B, or is it better to take three APs and a dual enrollment? In terms of what looks better — as James said, most things with admissions, it’s gonna depend. This is a question that we would definitely love to address through the support that we’ll provide with Prepory, and that is course enrollment across all grade levels and really having a plan. But in short, you really want the best of both: highly challenging classes that are aligned with your pathway, but also performing the best that you can in those courses, and maintaining as close to — if not straight A’s — as possible. And with that in mind, you all have asked very, very helpful questions, and this is all going to gear towards what we’re prepping for — and it is a highly competitive applicant cycle. We definitely are excited to meet you all during your initial consultation. I’ll give one final reminder.

Go ahead and scan the QR code to meet with me and/or a member of my team.

JAMES CRAWLEY: And — we know we didn’t get to everybody’s questions.

ALISON KALESHI: Absolutely. We expect there’s going to be more, and it’s been wonderful answering your questions so far. James, thank you so much for providing such an excellent conversation on this topic. Yeah. You are wonderful.

And we look forward to meeting everyone and supporting you guys.

JAMES CRAWLEY: We look forward to it. Thank you all for joining us tonight. Y’all have a great evening, and we hope to chat with you again soon.