There’s an enormous amount of advice available on how to build the ideal college application. What you might not be thinking about is what you could be doing wrong. With all the moving parts of college applications, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks. However, catching these mistakes is just as important as writing a powerful Personal Statement or an impressive resume.   

In this blog, we’ll review 7 mistakes students make on their college applications, breaking down how they can hurt your chances and how to avoid them. By keeping these nuances in mind, you can ensure you’re not hurting your chances through easily fixed errors.

1. Underestimating the importance of recommendations 

Submitting Letters of Recommendation (LoRs) is a standard requirement for college applications, but it’s not something to take lightly! Since LoRs are the only external, holistic look at your strengths and weaknesses as a student, colleges place a lot of weight on these materials. 

Students might just ask their favorite teachers to recommend them without thinking carefully about why they’re choosing them. But it’s important to be strategic, even if you’re confident you’d get a flattering LoR. Students should try to get LoRs from teachers in subjects related to their intended major whenever possible, and ideally from instructors who have known them for more than one year. 

If you’ve taken multiple classes with a teacher, they might be a great choice; teachers you’ve just met in your senior year—even if you’re getting a great grade—will offer less valuable content for your letter. Additionally, schools typically recommend or require LoRs from both a STEM and humanities or social sciences teacher. Even if you’re never planning to take another humanities course, you still need to get diverse letters to show your overall academic strength. Even MIT requires this disciplinary balance!

Many students put this element out of their minds after their teachers agree to write a letter. However, you can still advocate for yourself. Ask your recommenders if you can send along some ideas for what to include, such as ways you improved throughout the course, assignments or projects you did particularly well on, and positive characteristics you demonstrated as a student. Did you always stay after school to help classmates who were struggling? Never let the conversation fall silent? Submit a project they used as an example in later years? Make sure this makes it in your letter! Even if they think you’re a great student, they won’t remember everything. And since they want to help you get into your dream schools, don’t be shy about asking them to include the most impressive information.

2. Building an ineffective school list

It can be easy to get caught up in prestige, beautiful campus tours, or suggestions from friends and family as you choose the schools you’ll apply to. However, don’t let these factors get in the way of choosing a school that actually fits you. 

NYU has exciting and diverse program offerings with great resources due to its location in NYC but lacks a traditional campus environment. Princeton might be ranked 1st in the country but has more limited choices of majors than its peers. Liberal Arts Colleges have small class sizes and high levels of faculty support, but many are located in rural or more isolated regions. Think carefully about the compromises you’re making when you build a school list. Research is essential to figure out potential deal-breakers and whether a school truly fits your needs. 

Students might also focus too much on reach schools and fail to carefully consider their options if these ultra-competitive choices don’t work out as planned. It’s essential to have more realistic choices that you’re just as excited about. Don’t add target or safety schools to your list randomly; give them the same amount of consideration as you do the others.

3. Not researching schools enough

A point that goes hand-in-hand with the one above involves the importance of school research. Beyond building your school list, research is an essential step to writing strong supplemental essays. Most applications will ask you to write why you want to study your intended major. You might have a perfect narrative of how you fell in love with History or Chemistry, but that’s not all they’re looking for. 

Each part of your essay should directly link to something the school offers, showing you’ve done your research and truly are a good fit for the school. Looking into course offerings that match your specific research goals, professors who specialize in your favorite niche topic, and clubs connected to your biggest high school extracurriculars are great places to start. 

Also make sure you don’t use incorrect terminology—this can signal a lack of sufficient interest to read up on the school, or worse, that you copy-pasted another school’s supplement. Brown doesn’t have “majors,” instead they offer “concentrations”—and no minors! Harvard doesn’t have a program in Political Science or Politics; instead, you’d major in Government. Little differences like this are essential to show the reader that you put careful thought into your application, which is crucial for admission to selective schools.

4. Forgetting school-specific portals and requirements 

While it may seem obvious, students often assume that requirements are universal across schools. However, there can be significant differences that are almost impossible to fix at the last minute. 

While most schools accept applications through the Common Application or the Coalition application, this is not true in all cases. Colleges such as MIT, Georgetown, and the Universities of California (UCs) all have their own application portals that require you to input courses and grades, activity lists, and essays in their chosen formatting. While it might not seem like a big concern, this can cause a lot of confusion for students. 

The UCs notably require an entirely different format for resume entries and do not accept the traditional Personal Statement, requiring a series of lengthy Personal Insight Questions instead. If you’ve meticulously workshopped your Common App Activities List, it will likely take longer than you think to revise each entry. Other variations might include extra materials—Princeton now requires a graded paper—or have “recommended” essays that should be perceived as mandatory. 

None of these nuances are easy to resolve with limited time. So research every school on your list carefully to ensure there are no surprises when the deadline arrives.

5. Mixing up testing requirements

On a similar note, students may also generalize testing requirements, thus failing to be eligible for admission. 

The most common test requirement is either the SAT or ACT. Most schools moved to test-optional policies during the height of COVID-19; while some have retained this policy, others now require scores again. 

Students might not be aware that a third option exists at some colleges, called ‘test flexible’ policies. Yale was one of the first schools to implement this policy, through which students can submit IB or AP scores in lieu of the SAT or ACT. Read these policies carefully for each school to ensure you’re not missing a core requirement or submitting test scores that don’t best represent your abilities.

Another important component to research, if applicable, is English fluency testing. While many schools waive fluency test requirements for International or ESL students if they’ve been studying in the US or an English-speaking country for all of high school, others are stricter. For example, Carnegie Mellon requires all students for whom English is not their native language to submit TOEFL or IELTS scores, even if they’ve lived in an English-speaking country for most of their lives. Additionally, while many schools accept all three standard fluency tests—TOEFL, IELTS, and Duolingo—some do not accept the latter. Make sure to check you’ve taken the right tests in advance, as you’ll need to receive scores before submitting your application.

6. Not preparing a portfolio

While this is not applicable to all students, those for whom it is can significantly harm their chances if they’re not proactively creating a portfolio for their application. Most students applying to Art or Music programs can expect to prepare a portfolio with images or recordings. Not all schools have the same requirements, so ensure that you don’t need to record an extra piece last minute or find an additional art piece to submit. 

However, other programs may require portfolios as well. For example, Carnegie Mellon’s Interdisciplinary Degrees expects students to submit a portfolio, as do most Architecture programs. And when your intended program says the portfolio is “optional,” you should be aware that you have very little chance of acceptance if you don’t submit one. 

Finally, there are cases in which students may not be required to submit a portfolio but would still massively benefit from doing so. If you’re a highly talented musician applying to a non-music major, you might feel that there’s no need to send in supplementary music materials. However, if your resume is full of music-related activities and awards, it might seem strange if you don’t submit proof of your background. It could even help your chances. Particularly strong portfolios can still help non-music majors if they impress the music faculty, who might want you to play for the school orchestra or chamber music groups and advocate for you to the admissions committee.

Students with impressive research, art, or dance backgrounds are in the same position. Don’t waste the opportunity to show off your skills!

7. Not making the most of application rounds

Most students are familiar with the standard application options of Early Decision (ED), Early Action (EA), and Regular Decision (RD) admissions plans. Less common plans include Restrictive Early Action and Early Decision 2. In the former, applicants apply around the typical ED deadline but are not bound to attend if admitted. However, they’re unable to apply Early Decision to another school or Early Action to non-state schools. Early Decision 2 is the same as ED, but you’ll submit your application closer to the Regular Decision round. Make sure to know the nuances of these policies to strategically plan your timeline and not run into any surprises. 

On the other hand, the Universities of California (UCs) also operate under a different application timeline than nearly all other US colleges. Rather than having separate early and regular admissions plans, applications to all UC campuses are due in early December, well in advance of the standard early to mid-January Regular Decision deadline. So while you won’t need to stress about submitting materials early to get an edge, it’s crucial to remember that this application must be finished well in advance of your other RD schools. 

It’s also essential to know that not all early rounds will give you a meaningful boost in your admissions chances. Both Early Decision rounds can significantly increase your chances of acceptance, as the binding agreement makes colleges feel confident in maintaining a high yield rate. Early Action offers a more marginal benefit, though not universally (USC had a lower EA acceptance rate than RD last year!), and REA offers the lowest admissions boost of the three. 

For schools that offer both ED and EA, such as UChicago, the EA benefit dips even lower. In these cases, it might be a better call to wait till ED2 or RD to refine your materials rather than apply EA and show that they’re not your top choice. Even if there’s not an increased acceptance rate, applying to at least a couple of schools in the early round helps to spread out your work so that you’re not overwhelmed with applications during the RD cycle.

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Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!

Alexej is a graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Humanities & Sciences. Alexej works in college admissions consulting, and is passionate about pursuing research at the intersection of humanities, linguistics, and psychology. He enjoys creative writing, hiking, and photography.