I'll skip "start early" and "stay organized" — you already know that. Here's what's actually changed in the past 18 months that most families in our area haven't caught up to.
The SAT is back. Pretending it isn't will cost your kid.
When the UCs went test-blind in 2020, the country followed. That era is ending. Yale, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Caltech, Stanford, Penn, Cornell, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and every public university in Florida and Georgia has reinstated the requirement. Score submissions are up roughly 10% year over year, even at test-optional schools. In May, over 600 UC faculty — led by the math chairs — demanded that the SAT return for STEM majors, saying they're reteaching middle-school math to freshmen. Grade inflation made GPA a fuzzy signal. The test cuts through it. Don't skip it on principle.
Your application is being read by software before a human ever sees it.
Eighty percent of admissions offices said they planned to integrate AI into their review process by 2024. Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina already pair readers with AI tools that score essays on structure and originality. The implication? An essay ChatGPT could have written — polished, generic, voiceless — is now a liability, not a safe play. Have your kid write badly first, in their own voice, and edit from there.
Early Decision matters — but not where you think.
Michigan and Florida added binding early decision this cycle. At larger universities, early decision can be a real lever. Tulane University’s early decision rate has hovered around 58% versus 14% overall, while Northeastern's is roughly 43% compared with 5.2%.
The picture is very different at small liberal arts colleges. Published early decision acceptance rates at Amherst and Williams College are about 22% and 23%, respectively, compared to overall rates of 7–8%. However, those numbers don't exclude recruited athletes, who make up about 30% of a New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) class and a large share of the early decision pool. If athletes are removed from the equation, then the early decision rate for non-athletes is much closer to the regular rate. Early decision is binding either way — pick wrong and you've locked your kid into four years they may resent.
Fit beats name-brand. Every time.
Last year, a student of mine turned down two Ivy League schools for the honors business program at a big public flagship. One year in, she's landed an internship her Ivy League friends are still chasing. Another student left UC Berkeley's computer science program because he couldn't get face time with a professor. He transferred to a small liberal arts college and is thriving. Name recognition is not a fit. Visit, sit in a class, and ask students if they're happy. That answer matters more than the bumper sticker.
SIDEBAR:
Sunny Grewal is the founder of StrivePath, a Bay Area college advising practice serving families in Lamorinda, Walnut Creek, and the greater East Bay. StrivePath provides personalized academic and college advising, guiding students to discover their strengths and achieve their potential — resulting in happier students, less stressed families, and better admissions outcomes.
Name recognition is not a fit. Visit, sit in a class, and ask students if they're happy. That answer matters more than the bumper sticker.