What information should or should not be included in your application?

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Jerome A. Cole, MA
Director of College Counseling, The Edmund Burke School
coleecs.googlepages.com/home  
(301) 625-5066

Jerome A. Cole, M.A., is the Director of College Counseling for the Edmund Burke school in Washington, D.C. and the founder of Cole Educational Consulting Services (Cole ECS.) He has worked with students and families for over seven years to help them plan and strategize for college. As a college counselor at Burke, an independent college preparatory high school founded in 1968, Mr. Cole oversees a program that is designed to support students and families as they go through the selection and admission process for college. Mr. Cole advises over 100 students each year in a small academically challenging environment where every senior is expected to apply to and enroll in college. Prior to Burke, he was a school counselor at Bethesda-Chevy Chase high school in Montgomery County, Maryland. He has successfully counseled hundreds of students and helped them prepare for admission to a variety of schools such as: American University, Clark-Atlanta University, Davidson College, George Washington University, Harvard University, Pitzer College, Stanford University, Temple University, and the University of Maryland at College Park, to highlight just a few. He established the consulting firm Cole ECS to provide students and families with the necessary information and support to make the best choice for college. Cole ECS defines the best choice as the optimal learning and social environment to ensure a student’s holistic success, culminating in on-time or early graduation and desirable post-graduate options. Mr. Cole earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Catholic University, and then went on to obtain a Master of Arts in Education and Human Development from George Washington University. He is certified as a school counselor and is a member of the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC).

What information should or should not be included in your application?

In this video, Jerome Cole tells you everything you need to know to complete the perfect college application and have a great college interview.

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Transcripts

Speaker: What information should or should not be included in your application?

Jerome Cole: Well, I think that the information that should be included in an application is obviously the information that they request. You want to share as much information about yourself as possible or following the guidelines in the application that pertains to both, your academics, but also your non-academics, your extracurricular activities, things that speak to your character, etcetera, etcetera. The application is your opportunity as a student to convey as much as possible about yourself to try and share as many insights as you can into yourself with the school so that they can best make a decision as to whether or not you are going to be a good fit for them. Ultimately, you are applying to college because you want to be accepted by that particular college and the more information that you could share, the better off. The things that you should nit include in the application are obviously that the things are not true, exaggerations; I played on the basketball team; okay, you played on the basketball team; you don't want to put that you were captain of the basketball team, if you were not in fact the captain. So you have to be honest. I think the other thing that should not be included in the application are things that they don't specifically ask for. So for example, if they ask you to talk, in a particular section, about your academics, then you want to talk about your academics and not the fact that you are a great artist or you are a great basketball player. There are other sections in the application that will allow you to do that. So follow the instructions and be honest.

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