Guiding Success: College Admissions with Sarah Harberson

Introduction

Good evening and welcome to Guiding Success, a parent support series. Each session and podcast offers practical guidance, expert advice, and practical tools to help you support your students every step of the way. No matter where you're at in the process, Guiding Success is here to empower you with knowledge and confidence to help your students thrive.

Sarah Harberson: Thank you so much for that warm welcome. I am so excited to see all of you this evening. We have a lot to cover, but as I was getting the presentation ready over the last week, I was thinking about how you all are feeling as parents and guardians — and hopefully you can relate to this story.

I have three children: a college sophomore, a high school sophomore, and a seventh grader. My high school sophomore is my son, and for the last couple of months I've been encouraging him again and again to reach out to an administrator at the high school so he could do something really cool. Every time I mentioned it, he said, "Oh no, Mom, I'm not interested — the high school would never let me do that." But I kept mentioning it because it could have such a positive impact on his school community, and on him.

Then last week — Friday, I think — he came home from school so excited. There had been a guest speaker, and at the end of the presentation my son went up to talk to him. This complete stranger started talking to my son and said, "You know, you should do this." It was exactly what I'd been telling him to do for months. But when that stranger said it, it finally clicked.

So I was thinking about how all of you must be feeling about the college admissions process. Even though I may feel like a stranger at this moment, by the end of tonight's session I hope you'll get a better sense of how I approach the college admissions process and of my expertise. This is just the beginning — we have a lot in store for your students over the summer, and the faculty for the school district will be running a number of workshops to help everyone through this process. If your students hear something from me or from you and they're willing to act on it, that's a good thing. It doesn't matter who they listen to — tonight is about getting on the same page so we're all giving students the same, best guidance.

We're going to spend about an hour going through all the pieces of the college application a student is responsible for, then end with a little on building the college list. I'll stick around for Q&A at the end.

Standardized Testing (SAT/ACT)

Tonight I'm beginning with standardized test scores, and there's a reason for that: they matter a lot more than colleges and universities let on. I'm focused on the ACT and SAT specifically because we have the most admissions data on those two. Florida also accepts the CLT (Classic Learning Test) at a number of colleges and universities, but tonight we'll focus mostly on the ACT and SAT.

Here's what's interesting: since the pandemic hit in 2020, average ACT and SAT scores nationally have been on the decline. We don't need to spend much time on why. But it's also interesting that a number of highly selective colleges — and some of the more popular Florida public and private schools — are seeing the average scores of their admitted pool actually go up. That's a clear signal about how important standardized test scores really are.

The data: Florida's most popular schools, 2019 vs. 2025

I looked at the six most popular Florida colleges our students apply to — University of Florida, Florida State, University of South Florida, University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic, and University of Miami (included as a private option) — and compared the middle-50% range of admitted-student scores from 2019 (the year before the pandemic) to 2025 (the most recent full admission cycle).

University of Florida, for example:

• SAT middle 50%: 1310–1470 (2019) → 1380–1510 (2025)
• ACT middle 50%: 28–33 (2019) → 31–34 (2025)

Every one of these six popular Florida schools saw test scores increase over that period, and you'll see the same pattern nationally, especially at nationally known colleges and universities. So even though average scores are declining among all test-takers, scores at these schools are going up — because they are weighing them more heavily than they publicly say they are.

Here's the thing about test scores: college admissions officers don't even need AI to use them. They look at a student's name and their test scores, and they can immediately tell how competitive that student is. It's the fastest, most efficient way to filter applicants. There will always be students admitted with lower scores than the middle-50% range — but those tend to be the exception: recruited athletes, or students from underrepresented backgrounds or states. Most students don't fall into those categories, so keeping the middle-50% ranges in mind is genuinely useful for gauging competitiveness.

Even during the pandemic, when almost every college adopted a test-optional policy, all of Florida's public universities said no — they were still requiring the SAT/ACT. That's another signal of how important these scores are.

My advice

I want the Class of 2027 to use the summer to prepare for and take these tests. The ACT is offered in July, the SAT in August, and both in September — and in my experience, students often get their best scores in the summer or early fall of senior year. If your student hasn't taken a standardized test yet, or wants to improve their score, summer is the time.

Resources, roughly in order of investment:

• Free: Khan Academy (SAT) and the official Blue Book practice tests; free ACT practice resources are available directly on the ACT's website. This route works best for a highly disciplined student willing to put in the time on their own.
• Books: For an all-in-one SAT guide, I recommend The Princeton Review; for the ACT, the official ACT Prep Guide.
• Tutoring: The best results I see come from students taking a class or working one-on-one with an effective, expert test-prep tutor. I personally and professionally recommend Franklin Yard — my own sophomore son is working with a tutor there this summer, and I've been recommending them to Application Nation families for over ten years.

If you're going to spend money anywhere in this process, I'd invest it in test prep.

Superscoring: all six of the Florida schools above (and most colleges nationally) superscore the ACT and SAT — meaning they'll combine a student's highest section scores across different test dates. That's a real incentive to test a second or even third time: a student could take their best Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score from one SAT date and their best Math score from another to build the strongest possible superscore.

The High School Transcript

The next piece is the high school transcript, sometimes called the academic record. Test scores are quick to read; the transcript takes much longer. I've been reading college applications for 27 years — close to a million of them, and about the same number of transcripts. I'm a speed reader; I can read a college essay in 10–20 seconds and a letter of recommendation in even less. But a transcript takes real time, because every high school uses a different template, different curricula, different courses, and sometimes different grading systems (some rank, some don't). In Florida, high school transcripts often run several pages long.

What matters on the transcript

Colleges focus on the four years of high school — 9th through 12th grade — and specifically on the five core academic subjects: English, math, science, history/social studies, and a world (or ancient) language. Colleges care about rigor as much as grades. If your student is aiming for more selective colleges, a 4.0 in a general college-prep curriculum isn't enough — a school like Harvard expects students to take the most advanced courses available (AP or IB) in all five core subjects.

The most common mistake I see: students taking it easy senior year. Students who keep taking challenging classes in all five core subjects through senior year see stronger results in admissions.

The "5×4 Plan"

I call my course-selection approach the 5×4 plan: five core subjects, all four years of high school. Don't just aim for your school's or a college's stated minimum requirements — give colleges what they actually want to see. A strong senior-year schedule still leaves room for an elective, and even a study hall. I'm a big believer in study halls for high-achieving students — they give kids a moment to catch their breath, catch up on schoolwork, or write college essays. As long as a student is taking their five core classes, admissions officers won't ever know (or care) that a study hall is on the schedule — it's not an accredited class and doesn't carry a grade.

Reviewing the transcript

Student transcripts will be available through Skyward (your college-counseling software) in August or September. I encourage every parent and guardian to:

1. Print it out and review it carefully. Mistakes happen — an incorrect grade, a missing class, a wrong class rank — and the parent or guardian is often the only one who will catch it. Many colleges still want the official transcript submitted alongside the application.
2. See what colleges will actually see. Florida public high school transcripts are long — they can include middle-school classes, immunization records, class rank, and every grade from 9th through 12th grade.
3. Get it accurate before self-reporting season. A growing number of colleges don't require an official transcript at application time — instead, students self-report their classes and grades through a system called STARS (Self-Reported Transcript and Academic Record System). UF, Florida State, USF, UCF, and Florida Atlantic all use their own version of this. Having an accurate, up-to-date transcript on hand ensures the self-reported information is correct.

Activities & Extracurriculars

This is where it starts to get fun. I use "activities" rather than "extracurriculars" deliberately, because I want students representing everything meaningful they do outside the classroom.

There's a common misconception that students need a resume to apply to college. A few schools do want one — Florida State is one, but only if the student applies through FSU's own institutional application (which has no space for activities). My recommendation: if every school on your list accepts the Common App, just use it — colleges aren't going to look at a separate resume; they're going to look at the Common App's activities section. The Common App is the most widely used and most widely accepted application in the country.

"Activities" is a big umbrella: clubs, sports (school or club), a religious youth group, community service, an independent hobby, research, an internship or job (school-year or summer), even significant family responsibilities — reporting those has become a growing trend.

Making the activities section stand out

It has to be honest and accurate — never inflated. But it also isn't a resume, and it doesn't have to be sterile. Students can make it engaging, personal, even creative — which matters, because when you're reading a hundred applications a day and tens of thousands a year, these lists start to run together.

Each entry in Common App gets your position, the organization, and a 150-character description — not 150 words, 150 characters. That's two or maybe three short sentences at most. That tight space is exactly why it pays to have fun with it instead of describing things the way everyone else does.

One tip: students often lose focus on their last listed activity, treating it as an afterthought. But admissions officers — speed readers — tend to spend real time on the first few activities, skim the middle, then come back to look closely at the last one. Don't waste it.

Example: I worked with a student who worried she had no leadership roles to list. One of her activities was a part-time job at a pizza shop — where, it turned out, her parents had met and fallen in love. We wrote it up as:

Counter Server, Circle Pizza — where my parents met in 2000
"Nothing like a first job at the only pizza shop in town where the dough is flying and the lines are out the door. A slice is nice, a whole pie is better."

("A slice is nice" was the shop's actual motto — she added her own twist.) That's the kind of individuality and voice that makes an activities list memorable without ever needing a formal leadership title.

Building the list over the summer

Right as junior year ends is a great time to sit down with your student and list out everything they've done since 9th grade. Students almost always start by saying "I don't have that many activities," and almost always discover they have more than they thought once they actually list them out. Common App allows up to 10 activities — for some students that's too much space, and that's fine; it's about quality, not quantity. If a student notices a real gap (say, no community service, or nothing that shows evidence of an intended major), summer is the time to fill it.

The Main Essay (Personal Statement)

The Common App main essay — personal statement — is capped at 650 words, which comes out to roughly one single-spaced page plus a few lines. It's a different kind of essay than students are used to writing for English or history class: no thesis statement, not a traditional five-paragraph structure. What it needs instead is a genuinely special topic — that matters more than anything else, even more than flawless grammar. After 27 years of reading applications, I often don't remember a student's name, but I always remember their essay topic. That's how a student stands out.

Topics to avoid

• An activity. It's the obvious, easy choice — but that's exactly the problem. The activities section already covers it; don't waste the one essay opportunity repeating information that's elsewhere in the application.
• Sports. The moment an admissions officer sees a sports mention, even in passing, interest tends to drop off.
• Privileged experiences, like a fancy vacation.
• A student's own mental-health struggles. (I've seen students write beautifully about someone close to them dealing with a mental-health issue — but essays about the student's own struggles tend not to land the way students hope. There's still real bias in admissions, and this is my honest read on it, though you may hear differently elsewhere.)

The best essays come from a topic not already mentioned elsewhere in the application — something that surprises the reader and shows real self-reflection. A few favorite topics from Application Nation seniors this year: a student's weekly ritual of wearing a necktie every Tuesday; a student learning about friendship through her grandmother's garden club; a student's role as "lead musketeer" for two younger cousins; the lessons learned browsing yard sales; renovating an old smokehouse on a multi-generational family farm; and a student's relationship to the red clay soil of small-town Georgia. None of these are dramatic — they're small, specific, and reveal something true about the writer.

On AI: I don't recommend students use AI for any part of the application. I can tell immediately when a student has used it for an essay or an activities description — and so can every admissions officer, without needing detection software. Write from the heart.

Supplemental Essays

Not every college requires supplemental essays, but many of the more selective ones do — sometimes just one, sometimes several. Stanford requires eight. Length varies from 50 words up to 650. These essays matter just as much as the main personal statement, and they add up fast: applying to every Ivy League school, for example, could mean 25–30 supplemental essays on top of everything else.

Example — University of Florida: UF's required supplement (250-word max) asks for "your most meaningful commitment." Most students default to writing about an activity — but UF admissions officers have told us directly that students who write about something else tend to submit stronger essays. A few real examples from this year's applicants:

• A future environmental science major wrote about "Big Green" — the bucket that catches shower water in his home, "a symbol of my family's commitment to sustainability."
• A student wrote about always leaving her bedroom door open for her siblings — "that open door policy has expanded far beyond my house."
• A student wrote about a recurring, informal cousins' club meeting: "share, laugh, and build strength for whatever lies ahead."

As with the main essay, we push students to use the full word count — admissions officers can tell when an essay comes up short.

Tip: colleges update their supplemental prompts, often without notice, and Common App itself refreshes every year on August 1st. Put a reminder on your calendar to check each school's current supplement once applications open — sometimes a new or changed prompt is even worth adjusting the college list over.

Building the College List

I usually start by talking directly with the student. Here are the questions I ask, and why:

Geography. This is often the first thing students mention, and I gently push on it. If a student from Minnesota says they want to go south "to avoid another Minnesota winter," I'll ask what they actually like about fall and spring — because Florida might not give them all four seasons either. The goal is getting students to articulate why they want what they want, rather than repeating something an older sibling or friend said.

Size. Students often say they want "a big school" without really knowing what that means — mostly they mean bigger than their high school, which describes almost every college in the country. It's worth digging into what "big" actually means to them, and whether they'd thrive or feel lost in it.

Competitiveness. I look at the objective pieces first — test scores and transcript, including rigor — to get an instant read on how competitive a student is.

Fit — who they are. This one is a little more subjective, but after 27 years working with teenagers, I know I need to actually meet the student and hear how they describe themselves. Are they "nerdy" — I'll lean toward schools with a strong academic vibe. Looking for a vibrant social scene, Greek life — different set of schools, often larger and in the South. I'll ask about family values and political leanings too, because the worst outcome is a student who arrives on campus and feels like there's no one there like them.

What matters most to them, first. Whatever a student says first when I ask "what's the most important thing you're looking for in a college?" tells me the most. If they mention a Division I sports team they follow closely, that's a real lead (I once pointed a football fan toward Indiana University the year they won the national championship). It can absolutely change later, but I need to meet students where they are right now.

Colleges already on their radar, and what they've visited. Often a student's first mention is simply the college nearest home — a genuinely good starting point for campus visits. And I care as much about the schools a student disliked on a visit as the ones they loved: if a student says "I hated it," I want to know exactly why, so I can screen that quality out of future recommendations. And if a student says "I love Duke," I push further — what specifically did they like about it? — because that's what actually transfers to other schools on the list.

Balancing the list

By the start of senior year, I want a student's list to land between 9 and 12 colleges, split roughly evenly across three tiers:

• Reach — genuinely more competitive for that student
• Target — squarely inside the school's middle-50% range for scores and GPA
• Likely — a student's scores/grades sit above the middle-50% range (I avoid the word "safety" — there are no safeties left in college admissions)

Applications, average test scores, and competitiveness have all been climbing for a decade with no sign of slowing, so a genuinely balanced list is what maximizes total acceptances.

Early decision, early action, and rolling admissions

• Early decision (ED) is binding — if admitted, the student is committed to attending, and they'll know by mid-December. Acceptance rates under ED typically run 2–4x higher than regular decision. (Florida State just announced it will begin offering early decision this year.)
• Early action (EA) is non-binding but still applied for in the fall, with decisions by mid-December or January. Colleges don't always publicize the acceptance-rate gap, but Florida State confirmed theirs: 38% EA vs. 19% regular decision — roughly double the odds.
• Rolling admissions colleges open applications August 1st; applying early in the cycle (August–October) meaningfully improves the odds versus applying in January–March.

If a student applies ED to one school, they can generally still apply to as many non-restrictive early action programs as they want. It only gets complicated with restrictive early action programs — a short list that includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Georgetown, and Notre Dame. If admitted under ED, a student is required to immediately withdraw every other active application. Read the fine print for each school's specific policy — Florida State's ED terms should be published soon, but based on how peer public universities (Michigan, UVA) have implemented ED, students should still be able to apply broadly to non-restrictive EA programs alongside it.

A warning about AI and college research

AI is not yet reliable for building a college list. As a test, I asked an AI tool for "colleges with a high acceptance rate that don't have fraternities." It put Furman at the top of the list — a school with 13 fraternities and sororities, and an actual acceptance rate of 46%, not the 67% the AI reported (more than 20 points off). Go to primary sources instead: a college's own admissions website will give accurate data on the admitted pool, majors, programs, and campus values. College Board's BigFuture site is another good centralized, reliable resource.

Q&A

Q: Any advice for a student with a 4.0+ GPA who just doesn't test well?

I can relate — I was that student in high school. First, look at genuinely test-optional colleges, but be careful: many schools adopted test-optional policies hastily during the pandemic without fully rethinking their admissions process, and some — Boston College, for example — say they're test-optional while clearly still favoring applicants who do submit strong scores. Longstanding, "OG" test-optional schools (many small liberal arts colleges, plus universities like the University of Chicago, Wake Forest, Tulane, and George Washington) are a safer bet — if a school went test-optional before 2020, it's very unlikely to hold a missing score against a student.

Kaylee added: often it's less about being "a bad test taker" and more about being out of practice — students deep into AP Calculus BC are working in a very different register than what the SAT actually assesses, and a few consistent hours a week with Khan Academy (free) can bring real, measurable score gains. Pinellas County Schools also covers the cost of a retake SAT in October for juniors who tested in March — take advantage of it, and don't approach a retake "blind."

Sarah added: students can also apply directly to the ACT and College Board for fee waivers if they want to test again before October.

Q: Where can we find a full list of Florida colleges and universities?

Skyward (the district's college and career planning platform, which pulls directly from schools' own admissions data) will be shared with everyone who requested this session's recording. Beyond that, start with a general search, but always verify on the college's own website — lists go out of date the moment they're published. College Board's BigFuture is another solid, centralized starting point. Smaller Florida schools worth knowing about beyond the big public universities include Eckerd College and Rollins College in Orlando.

Q: If a student applies early decision to Florida State, can they still apply early action elsewhere?

Generally yes, to non-restrictive early action programs — see the Early Decision/Early Action section above for the full explanation and the short list of restrictive-EA schools to watch for.

Closing

We covered a lot in just over an hour, and there's more coming: an essay-writing workshop for students in July, four workshops covering every section of the application in August, and separate sessions for counselors and teachers in July and September. Dates will be posted on the district's college and career center website and sent via email as they're finalized, and sessions will be recorded for families with scheduling conflicts over the summer.

Thank you so much to Sarah Harberson for a thorough, generous presentation — and to everyone who joined tonight. Future Guiding Success sessions will cover additional topics including financial aid.