How Students Can Strengthen Their College Application Using a Deep-Fit Approach
I recently shared a new paradigm for the college search and application process centered on thriving as a foundation for lifelong success and based on the concept of Deep-Fit™, developed through my decades of experience supporting college students.
What is a Deep-Fit College?
With the concept of Deep-Fit, choosing a school isn't about rankings or fit to expected obvious factors (good-fit.) These factors are important to consider, of course, but Deep-Fit is more than this. After all, two schools with similar size, location, and academic and social opportunities are not the same, and a student might have vastly different experiences at them.
A Deep-Fit college is a good-fit college where a student will have the opportunity to have positive, impactful experiences, meet their specific academic and personal goals, thrive, and lay the foundation for a successful life—to create their future. Read more about Deep-Fit.
What is a Deep-Fit College Application?
A Deep-Fit college application demonstrates that a student knows themselves, knows the college, and that these are in deep alignment.
A Deep-Fit application boosts a student’s chances of admission. It is a powerful form of demonstrated interest that differentiates a student from other talented students with similar grades, courses, test scores, and activities.
Deep-Fit: How to Get There
Our guided Deep-Fit College Admissions process supports students to:
Know themselves
Identify their Deep-Fit criteria
Know their colleges
Build a Deep-Fit college list
Make Deep-Fit college applications
Choose their Deep-Fit college
Make the most of their Deep-Fit college experience
1. Guiding Students to Know Themselves
At Lantern, we support high school students in developing a sense of their academic direction and what they seek and value in college. We also help them identify what makes them unique and different from other students with similar grades, courses, standardized test scores, and activities.
We help students select their high school courses to help them gain insights into what they like (or don’t).
Likewise, we help students make thoughtful choices for their extracurricular activities during the school year and summer since how students spend their time beyond classes and outside of school is a powerful vehicle for learning what they enjoy and are good at. We look for opportunities (“threads” to pull or “embers” to blow on) to help students generate authentic unique activities, which, in addition to being an avenue for learning, will distinguish them in the application pool.
We use assessment tools that allow students to explore themselves and majors and careers that may match their personality and strengths, such as YouScience, MBTI, and MyMajors.
We teach students to access websites such as The Bureau of Labor and Statistics, What Can I do With This Major?, and College Board’s Big Future to learn about possible majors that they may not be exposed to in high school.
We encourage students to examine LinkedIn profiles of professionals and their educational backgrounds to learn how majors map to a career.
We also encourage students to seek opportunities to learn from others. Many high schools offer career days and job shadowing programs to expose students to different fields. Informational interviews with friends, family, and other community members can also be valuable for students to learn about different careers and career paths.
In the context of essay writing, we help students identify “their” adjectives, which they will show in their essays.
We present students with well over one hundred good-fit attributes of colleges and universities (size, location, academic offerings, honors college, coop, and many more), teaching them what each means, and asking them to tell us if the attribute is a "must have," "would be nice," "don't care," or "no way." We share the results of this exercise with their parents as an opportunity for the family to discuss the criteria and learn together.
2. Beyond Good-Fit, What are Your Deep-Fit Criteria?
At Lantern, we build a customized college list of good-fit schools for each student based on our work and what we’ve learned about what they seek and value in their college experience. We then guide students to determine which of these good-fit schools are a Deep-Fit for them. What questions should they ask and answer to know if a school is a place where they will have the opportunity to have positive, impactful experiences, meet their specific academic and personal goals, thrive, and lay the foundation for a successful life—to create their future?
For instance, if a student is interested in playing D3 softball in college, every school we select for the customized college list will have a D3 softball program, in addition to meeting other good-fit criteria. However, Deep-Fit is more than this. We guide the student to answer important questions about what she would experience at that college with respect to softball, such as:
Is it realistic that she could play for the team?
What would it take for her to be able to play for the team?
Is the team seeking someone who plays the position she plays?
What is the size of the roster?
If it seems feasible that she could play for the team, would she WANT to?
What is the coach like?
What is the team culture and community? Does she see herself fitting into it?
Would she get playing time?
Would she have opportunities to grow and develop?
If a student is interested in studying computer science (CS) in college, every school on the customized college list will have a CS program, in addition to meeting other good-fit criteria. Again, Deep-Fit is more than this. We guide the student to consider essential questions about what they would experience while studying CS at that institution.
3. Know your Colleges: Deep Research to Determine Deep-Fit
Once we’ve built a customized college list of good-fit schools and helped students identify their Deep-Fit criteria, we then teach them to do deep research to know if a college is a Deep-Fit college for them. This research includes:
On a college's website: What is the mission, and why does this matter? Where is it, and how does its location influence the college experience? What is the campus culture and community like? Curriculum (for major and outside major, classes, tracks)? Career services and resources? What are academic and social clubs and extracurricular activities? Study abroad opportunities? What other good-fit criteria matter to the student? We ask students to take notes on what they learn, including questions they cannot answer from the website (more on this below.)
Through visiting campus: We've developed a set of 15 questions to ask on a college tour that drills down on the potential for impactful college experiences, such as what type of student organizations are available connected to a student's interests and what it takes to be able to join these organizations? Is it competitive? The questions are available by signing up for Lantern's newsletter on the Lantern College Counseling website. If students cannot physically visit a campus, we help them identify virtual and online tours and guide them to get the most information out of these opportunities.
In the news: We encourage students to read a school's student newspaper and search online for news about the institution. Such steps can illuminate the student and administrative culture and highlight challenges and exciting new initiatives and resources.
Connect with faculty, staff, and students: Current faculty, staff, and students are the most valuable resources for learning about a school. I and members of my engineering advising team regularly talk to prospective students at Tufts University! At Lantern, we help high school students identify who they can reach out to speak with at the schools they are learning about. Beyond faculty and staff, speaking with a student is invaluable. Faculty and staff can often connect a prospective student to a current student. Other potential avenues include the student’s high school alums and a family’s social and professional network. These types of conversations can be valuable for answering the questions that a student has made a note of during their research otherwise.
Through an interview: Interviews generally serve the purpose of connecting alumni to the institution and providing applicants with another avenue for connecting to the institution as they research and learn about it. However, some schools put more weight on interviews, and we can help students know when this is the case. We help students prepare for their interviews to maximize their opportunity to learn about a school and shine.
By writing the essays: By researching whether a school is a Deep-Fit college, a student is sowing seeds for writing strong supplemental essays. If a student struggles to write a school's essay(s), that tells us all something! It tells us that it isn't a Deep-Fit for the student.
4. Build a Deep-Fit College list
Our customized college list for each student typically includes about thirty good-fit schools with a range of admissions chances: high, medium, and low. We guide our students to research the schools deeply, identify which are a Deep-Fit, and trim the list. We recommend that students apply to at least two Deep-Fit schools where they have a high chance of admission (three if the student is applying to study CS), and to ensure the best outcomes, we recommend that students apply to fewer schools rather than more. Families often think that if students apply to more schools, their chance of getting into one is better. While theoretically, it is statistically marginally true that more applications lead to a better chance of admission, such logic assumes the applications are all strong applications. In practice, we see the opposite. Each year, we see students who apply to too many schools and so are unable to write strong applications that distinguish them in the application pool - that is, demonstrate a Deep-Fit.
5. Make Compelling, Authentic, Deep-Fit Applications
When a student has engaged in a Deep-Fit college search, they’ve learned about themselves - what they seek and value - and the experiences offered by their Deep-Fit colleges. They know what they will bring to the college community and how they will grow from it. They are positioned to make applications demonstrating a Deep-Fit and stand out in the application pool, boosting their chances of admission. After all, colleges want to admit students who will thrive in their unique community!
At Lantern, we help students to capitalize on and harness all of their Deep-Fit college search work to authentically and compellingly demonstrate that they and the college are a spectacular match.
6. Choose your Deep-Fit College
While students await their admissions outcomes, we remind them that all the schools on their list have been thoughtfully chosen and afford the potential for them to have impactful college experiences and thrive. Whatever the outcomes, they will have excellent choices!
Once students have received their admissions decisions, we help them anchor on to and be guided by their research about how the college will help them meet their specific academic and personal goals and lay the foundation for a successful life—to create their future.
7. Make the Most of Their Deep-Fit College Experience
When we guide high school students to find their Deep-Fit college, we know the questions they should ask and what they should look for. We’ve used this expertise to develop a road map for college success so that students can make the most of their Deep-Fit college experience once they arrive there.
Why Lantern College Counseling for Deep-Fit?
Lantern College Counseling is the home of Deep-Fit. I developed this new paradigm for the college search and application process based on my decades of admissions and student support experience.
When families hire Lantern College Counseling, they have access to our collective expertise: over 25 years of experience helping high school students apply to and transition to college and over 45 years of experience supporting and educating students on college campuses. We know that admission is not the end; it is just the beginning. We know it isn’t all about getting in but what happens during college. We profoundly understand what thriving in college looks like and how to achieve it.
Learn more about our Deep-Fit counseling services.
Where is your child on their journey to find their Deep-Fit? Access our Deep-Fit Assessment tool.
