Making Your Game Plan: Preparing to Apply to Multiple Undergraduate Programs (Part I)

So you're a high school junior or senior in Taiwan, and you're thinking about applying to a US Undergraduate program. Actually, you're thinking about applying to 5, or 10 undergraduate programs. They all seem so competitive. Your dream is Harvard or Yale, of course, or maybe Stanford, but you want to apply to a good spread of schools in order to increase the chances you have of being accepted into a foreign university.

You've got all of your ideal schools in place. If you don't get into Harvard, but you get into UC Berkeley you'll be pretty happy; but you really don't want to wind up at University of South Carolina. There's just one problem. It's already September. The new school year has started, and you have homework. You have homework for tons of classes, and you have to balance your work, clubs and sports, all of which are important to get into US schools, with the insane level of work required to apply to 5 - 10 US undergraduate universities.

It's almost enough to make you rip your hair out, right? How do you handle the whole process, and manage your time effectively to get everything done right, and well?

Great question. And the answer is three short words.

Make a plan.

Literally. You are going to make a document called "My Game Plan." This document is both electronic, and print. You will carry it around with you everywhere you go, and have it available on your smart phone or tablet.

What do you need for your "My Game Plan" document? Three things.

- Dates

- Details & Links

- Essay Questions

(This article goes over the first part: dates. Part II and Part III will cover details & links, and Essay Questions in depth).

Why make a “My Game Plan” document?

If you have one central document outlining everything you need to do, you'll feel much more in control of the process. Additionally, you'll be able to show your parents a comprehensive plan, and reassure them that you're taking this whole college application thing seriously.

Part I: Dates

You need to know the critical dates for all of the schools that you've chosen to apply for. When are the early application deadlines? When are the regular application deadlines? When is the last date that you can re-take the SAT for all of your target schools? Do you need an alumni interview by a certain date? Often times you need to arrange for those well before the early application deadline.

Write down all of the dates in a document and color code them for schools. All of the dates for Duke will be blue. All of the dates for Harvard will be crimson.  Put all of the dates into a Google Calendar, and set up Calendar alerts for them at intervals of 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 week, and 3 days before the due date so that there is no possible way you can forget what's coming.

By setting all of the dates down in one central spot, you will give yourself, and your parents peace of mind as you go through the application process. In Part II, coming soon, we’ll review Details and Links. Don’t miss it, and be sure to share this advice with any friends you may have applying to undergrad programs abroad to help them!