Applying to Colleges in the U.S. and Canada: Fact Vs Fiction

With the application season formally underway, students and parents are biting their nails looking at computer screens looking for the magical key for success in the college admissions. However, most are operating on rumors, wishful thinking or outdated notions of how the process actually works. Here, we are going to bust 4 myths about college admissions and separate fact from fiction.

MYTH 1: You need perfect grades to get admitted to colleges.

A huge myth about US colleges is that the door for admissions is open only for those students with the best ranks and straight A’s, but the reality is quite different. Every year students with average and above-average grades, having developed the art of telling their stories engagingly, have gotten admitted to colleges in the West with satisfactory scholarship packages. Don’t let this myth discourage you as the door can be opened; you just have to knock.

MYTH 2. You must pay thousands of dollars to study abroad.

Here at Ravion Consult, we mark this as the biggest myth in the college admissions space. The idea that there’s always a big price tag on studying abroad is conveyed by entities with little to no knowledge about the truth of how western colleges function and how they review applicants. Our co-founders, Haben and Kndeya, are living testaments of this having completed their studies at Yale and Cornell Universities respectively on full-ride scholarships of 560,000 USD combined value.

MYTH 3. You must be “well-rounded” to get admitted to colleges.

This is a sneaky one. As much as everyone tells you that having a dozen extracurriculars and interests makes you look interesting, it actually points to a lack of commitment to the application reviewer. Colleges are looking for the kid that strives in an area and is meaningfully involved in whatever he/she is doing, whether that is sports or music, IT, or volunteering.

MYTH 4. Acing the SATs is all you need to get accepted into colleges.

Every year we see students with impressive SAT scores get disappointed having bought into the myth that they will be guaranteed admission if they only ace the SATs. The admissions process is multi-dimensional as colleges are looking for human beings as much as they are looking for smarts.