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Proactive vs Procrastinate - How Dreams Are Killed

Personal Development

The blog post below is a rough transcription of the video above – so please listen to the video if possible – otherwise, here is what was on the video:

Hey everyone it is Neha founder College Shortcuts and Elite Private Tutors. I hope you're having a great day.

I wanted to do a quick video here today about the fact that no one is looking actually at what the deadlines are that are coming up, because so many people are forgetting that we are now mid-September in the school year.

Today's video is about the difference between being proactive versus procrastinating, and how dreams are killed in this indecisive dance between should I start, should I not, I'll wait till last minute, all of that sort of stuff.

Today I want to give you just a check on understanding the difference. Now I'm actually going to be pulling up a report here that can be absolutely helpful in understanding the importance of these deadlines.

The reason why this is so important is because so many people do not realize that applying early can literally make all the difference.

What I'm going to do here today is see if I can go ahead and share this chart with you so you can take a look yourself to see the differences between the early actions, early decision versus regular decision choices that happen.

Now, a lot of times people do not think about this, they're not even realizing it.

I'm here to explain to you that it is so important to realize the difference between it.

Now let me see if I can go ahead and share my screen here. So I just want  to walk through this chart with you for a minute. Just so you can take a look to see the difference between the students that are proactive versus the students that procrastinate. I'm just going to look at the Ivy League Institutions. I will tell you for example there's other universities that have upwards of an 80% acceptance rate in the early rounds. So, I wanted to use the most competitive ones.

Again just to let you know we help students really at all levels when it comes to the college process. So what I want to do here is kind of walk you through this chart because I think so many of us forget how important it  is.

As you can see here's a list of colleges and their overall acceptance rate. So let's just kind of go through this here. Let's say for example your child wants to go to Brown University. It's a phenomenal school, they have a partner program, we help students get into these schools all the time. Now let's say your kid wants to go to Brown but their overall acceptance rate is 9%. So meaning if there's 10 students lined up in front of you and 10 kids. Only 9% get it right so like barely one of them gets to go in. So if you look at the regular decision acceptance rate it's 7.66%. If you skip over this number and you just move over to here early decision early action acceptance rate. 22%, you have 3 times more likely chance of getting in just by looking at the deadlines.

As you can see the percent of the classes filled by early applications is upwards of 40% of the entire freshman class. Look at the difference between the amount of applications received early decision or early action versus regular decisions. In early rounds only 3,000 applications are being reviewed by 10 or 15 admissions' readers. That's not a lot of applications for 15 people to go through versus when you applied in December, 29,000 students applied, for those 15 people to read those applications.

As you can see there's a huge difference between the regular decision versus early decision or even early action. See, so many times I hear from parents "Oh my gosh, my kid cannot pick just one school Neha." I'm like "Awesome."

There's still early action or they can submit their application earlier instead of in regular rounds and I get it.

You know your kids can barely pick a snap-chat filter or they're too busy watching Kylie Jenner. They can't make a decision on which college they want to go to when they can't even pick out the right pair of jeans on a Saturday. I get it.

But what I'm here to tell you is regardless of their choice and their dream of what they want to do early decision, it still doesn't come up to me as a worthy excuse to procrastinate, just because you can't pick one school.

Let's get to the next one. Columbia, one of the most competitive as well. 6% acceptance rates typically. Now regular decision rate is 4.8% versus early decision rate is 17% of which 44% of their freshmen class is filled in the early rounds. See roughly again 3,500 students are applying early in early decision or early action. 32,000, ten times the amount and three times harder to be getting in the regular round.

I just want you to look at this and really this is where I have to say you know what, numbers don't lie.

Like I told many of you guys. I'm an economics major from my alma mater Rice University. I'm here to tell you that numbers don't lie.

I'm all about data, and running College Shortcuts and Elite Private Tutors, we are a data-driven company with all the heart and all the love for your children, but we have to be super honest and clear about what the truth is.

I'm sorry to say this but deadlines aren't just going to move back. Just because so many things are happening in the world.

A lot of you guys know that you know I have been moving back and forth dealing with a lot of things going on. But the numbers don't lie, as Nakia is saying here below "The numbers don't lie, early bird gets the worm" and that is just the truth of it.

I'm going to go through a few more of these just to show the truth because so many you don't realize. Let's skip over to you UPenn. UPenn has an acceptance rate of 9.4% similar to brown of which in the regular decision round when students apply in December. 7% acceptance rate and they only accepted roughly 2,000 applicants out of 32,000 regular applications received. Can you imagine trying to get your kid to stand out in front of 32,000 students? Let's face it, that's a lot of people. I mean if you think about it that can fill entire stadiums of people, right? So you have to realize that's 30,000 high schoolers competing for only 2,000 spots. But when you look at the early decision early action rates to University of Pennsylvania. Roughly 24% acceptance rate. Now that is a rate you won't even think about when it comes to a school like University of Pennsylvania, but here's using a 24% acceptance rate.

Here's the big one you guys have to hear. The percent of class filled by early application, 54%.

That means that every student in that freshman class that next year. 1 out of 2 of them. If you have a room of 10 - 5 of them had applied early decision/early action.

Now they may not have been as competitive as someone in the regular round, but because the early bird gets the worm, as Nakia one of our favorite moms is saying here below. They got in.

So I want you guys to think about that when there's only 5,500 applications that it received in the early round. Yet, only 1,300 are accepted. That's a large percentage versus 2000 applications out of 32,000.

When you look at this when 1,300 are accepted in the early round. There's 2,400 students that applied early or that are enrolled in the school. So literally 54% aren't early.

The numbers don't lie.

I have been trying and trying to tell parents over and over. If you have a sophomore. If you have a junior. If you have a freshman. If you have not thought about making sure you commit to a service or program that can get this done for you early on, you are already late in the game.

Now for all of my senior parents that are right now really stressed out, and we feel you so much here at College Shortcuts because you've decided to follow the school system's rules on exactly when to handle this process.

Unfortunately, there's certain systems that are broken down, where we assume that the school has our best interests at heart but in reality they don't even give you the time and day. Time of day for your child to really get this done in an effective way.

You know some of the questions I get from parents are "Well Neha, if they're taking the SAT or ACT one more time, what do we do about that? Should we delay the applications?" Absolutely not.

Applications need to get in, then you can submit those scores. You can rush order them over.

I hear parents say "Well we're waiting for the letters of recommendation. Should we wait for the letters?" Absolutely not. That's a system that decided to take too long to submit and you should have asked earlier on.

Now I want to tell you guys so many times people forget the importance of how deadlines work. Now, I try to tell people all the time. I am a crazy planner, you know I have dates mapped out, like for the year I have things planned out.

I know a lot of you moms do too, but you expect your teenager to understand this information to be able to process it. When in reality their pre-frontal cortex is not even formed. So, to them everything's fight or flight.

When is it due? The day of.  They don't even think the way that you think as an adult. They don't have the wisdom that you have as a parent.

I just have to say I know we are all struggling through back-to-school and we're trying to get things going. But look, it's so important.

I work 7 days a week to make sure that parents get the true numbers and then true information they need.

I'm going to go through one more here to show you. Let's take a look here. Harvard a 5% acceptance rate which I know everyone's always like "Harvard, whatever". But for the parents that do have kids that can compete. Listen to this, 5% rate regular decision rate. 3% I would say it's up to barely a 1,000 students out of 33,000 applications versus early decision and early action. 15% guys, 15%. Now they couldn't give us that exact number. You can pretty much do the math yourself here but only 6,000 people. There's millions of students that apply every single year to college. 6,000 students were only able to get their stuff done.

I mean it just infuriates me to think that you worked with your kid through preschool. You sent them to kindergarten. They graduated from kindergarten with a little cute backpack. You've been making them breakfast every single freakin' morning. Then they turn into a teenager, into a monster, and you're working so hard towards this decision. Yet, you wait till December to apply? It kills me.

I want to talk about a solution here that can totally change your kid’s trajectory. We're still accepting a few spots really honestly, only three spots left for college mastery.

If you know a parent of a senior that is trying to get them to do the essays. Let me tell you and then for all of the parents with a middle schooler or early high schooler, trust me you want to get that competitive edge and you want to sign up because we're already building our wait-list for the next few years.

Collegeshortcuts.com/counseling. We'll walk you through exactly what it is that we do.

Now in this program what we're very focused on specifically is making sure. Collegeshortcuts.com/counseling. It's right there on the top corner if you go to collegeshortcuts.com, then you click the counseling page.

Now this is a 3-week program. It is what I call college consulting on steroids.

A lot of parents they'll sign up to other college consultants. I got a call from a student out in India who's so scared because he signed up for consulting with someone who went to Stanford. Yet it's taken them 6 months to even get one resume done. So what I will tell you is so many times people will hire and they don't realize how short the process can be done.

In our case, with College Shortcuts, our counseling program has consultants that have gotten into schools like Cornell, Harvard, UPenn, Rice, Summer Johns Hopkins, that are incredible. We have people on our team that are admissions counselors at colleges.

There's something to be said about how being the experts that are on the inside help you versus a high school English teacher who their focus as the teacher is how to write up a paper, not a personal entry for a college application, especially the main essay.

With these deadlines that are approaching, that parents don't realize for all of my earlier middle school and high school parents, you want to get your spot with us at college mastery at College Shortcuts because when we fill our spots up, we just don't keep adding more spots.

You know there's only so many people that I have trained at my level. As well as working with me personally that we can handle and still deliver that ultimate level of service, that expertise that's needed.

We spend a lot of time with our students. It's not just like a shuttle of kids that come in and we treat them as another number.

We know every client's name.

We know every child's name.

We know details about their passions and dance or if they're interested in football, engineering.

Our College Mastery program is a 3-week program where we go through - What are the schools your kid is looking at. What are they passionate about? What majors are they looking into? What schools have maybe they left off the list that they should add on?

Then we go into looking at their resume and their profile, and then creating this unique narrative of what it is that your child has to deliver and offer.

You know so many times people think "Okay, well my kid is . . ." For example I will get a lot of families where its South-Asian female wants to study medicine. Wow, that's awesome. But guess what? That's a typical archetype.

How do we take the stories of your child and really make them stand out?

You know we help students even get into MBA school.

We help students get into med programs.

We're helping students at all levels.

It's about really understanding how to create that unique angle that makes your kids standout.

The second week, this is where you really get what you are paying for and getting the real bang for your buck in our program. It's where we will literally go through and brainstorm each essay prompt and cut the amount of essays your kid has to write.

We had a student recently who loved what we did, because the way their strategy was as a teenager and the way they think, and there's nothing wrong with it - was okay I have a list of schools, I'll go by school and write each essay and instead of thinking strategically with an expert a consultant who does this day in and day out.

I've had a students that I've seen write 25 essays when they could have written 5.

I'm here to explain to you that the essay strategy and brainstorming is incredible when you have someone by your side.

I get texts from parents all the time on my phone that are like "Neha, I have been trying to get my kid to write one essay for 5 months and you have a coach come in and they've written 5 essays in a week. How do you do this?"

There's nothing like having a powerful coach behind you.

You can't question it when you go to a workout class versus going to the gym and walking at three miles an hour being like "Hey, I lost five pounds!" "No, you didn't dude, you just walked for like five minutes." Okay so having a trainer, having a coach. Go to work out. That's one of my big things.

It makes such a difference in having that fuel behind you to push you way past your limits of getting things done.

Then in the last part, we make sure your kid has the right interview training to know exactly how to submit, with our extra awesome secret sauce of how to really stand out, even more in that early round. So that they're a part of that 50% or 40% freshman classes filled at some of these top schools.

We make sure that we have two consultants or three consultants depending on which package you get.

Literally going line-by-line on your kid’s essay.

So while they're in school and they're busy, we're working non-stop, and that's why we can do this in less than 3 weeks.

I put my phone number down here below. We've got lots of parents that call in. We've only got a few spots left and we're already booking up for the next few years.

I wanted to just show this chart to you guys because I think so many times people don't look at the numbers.

It's so much easier to sit there and be like "Oh, well my friend told me, yeah it sounds good to apply early." It's so much easier to be ignorant guys.

I mean they say ignorance is bliss, but they don't talk about all the dreams and all the opportunities that are missed when you don't look at the truth.

I'm all about uncovering the truth in the college admissions process.

This is Neha Gupta reporting live from College Shortcuts. I am back in my home office here in Houston, Texas. I want you to know that we are here to help serve your family to make your life easier.

To reduce the stress and anxiety in your home because if there's anything going on in the world right now, it is really making sure that our kids are taken care of and that they're feeling mentally stable and are feeling comfortable in a time where we are so unsure and we're so out of control.

I want you to look at these early decision, early action acceptance rates that are all double digits.

Really think about your child and the dreams that you have for them.

Really decide what you truly want for your child because it is so important for you to make sure that you are looking at the numbers being realistic about it, making sure your kid is set up for success.

While I would love to say "Hey, the school will take care of it" or you know what, "They'll handle everything."

It's not their job. If you expect your teenager to do this, we see this year after year after year where they wait till the last minute and then their dreams are crushed.

You've worked so hard to really make sure that your kid is taken care of.

This is the last step.

We believe the true investments that are made in your child's happiness and in their dreams and the life and how their life is going to be the vision they can have for the life is about who they spend time with and during the most formative years are in college.

We believe the true investment that you should be making is between high school and college.When you create a journey, that three-week journey to make this process beautiful wrapped up in a bow, and make them feel confident in their applications, that is the true art of being an incredible parent.

I just wanted to do this quick video just for you guys to see the difference between early action rates. It's not even just early decision guys. Early Action rates compared to regular, to really make the right choice for your child.

Have an incredible incredible day. Sending everyone that's on - love, positive energy. Please call us even if it's just a conversation. We would love to converse with you and see how even if it's the smallest thing we can change your life or your child's life forever. Have an amazing day. Call us at 713-401-2867.

This is Neha Gupta reporting live from collegeshortcuts.com and eliteprivatetutors.com.

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