Follow 7 Strategies to Get Into College

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, 17, practices singing during a portrait session near his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Kira Gressman, a high school senior in Colorado, was crushed when she got word that her top-choice college, Brown University, didn't want her. Nor did Amherst College or Tufts University, and she'd been wait-listed by Brandeis University. (She did get into the University of Colorado—Boulder.)

She'd pulled many an all-nighter working toward her 3.6 unweighted GPA in the International Baccalaureate program and an ACT score of 33, while also playing French horn in the all-state honor band and mellophone in the marching band, and volunteering with a teen suicide-prevention organization and a nonprofit that helps rescue child soldiers in Uganda. "I felt like I had done everything I possibly could to get into a great school, and none of it helped me in the end," she says. "What else are these schools looking for?"

It's not always easy to tell, in the increasingly cutthroat world of college admissions. The 2010-11 round brought a record-high number of applications and record-low admission rates at a broad range of schools, from the most selective to traditional "safety" schools that are no longer such a sure thing. For example, 34,929 students applied to Columbia University, a 33 percent hike in one year, and just 6.9 percent were admitted, down from 9 percent; Case Western Reserve University saw a 43 percent rise in applications, to 13,527, and said yes to just under half of them, down from 67 percent.

Some of the blame can be placed on the spread of the Common Application and the ease of applying to multiple schools. But applicants also just keep getting more accomplished. For example, of the 27,189 students who applied to Princeton University for fall 2011, fully 10,099 had a 4.0 GPA, and 14,042 scored at least a 2100 on the SAT.

[See the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings.]

Much of what goes into the hard choices college admissions officers must make is beyond students' control, such as whether institutions are prioritizing matters like diversity, legacy applicants, or athletic recruiting in a given year. So it's crucial to know all about everything you can control and learn how to "position yourself throughout the process," says Eileen Feikens, director of college guidance at the Dwight-Englewood School in New Jersey.

To that end, U.S. News asked guidance counselors, private counselors, and the people making the admit decisions for tips on how to navigate the madness without losing your mind:

1. Get an early start and finish strong: Colleges want to see that you've focused from the start on getting the best possible education your high school has to offer. "You really need a four-year plan," says Katherine Cohen, whose IvyWise admissions consulting company begins working with some families as early as the end of the student's eighth-grade year. "High school shouldn't just happen to you. You need to proactively make the most of your time there."

If you want to take calculus in your senior year, which many selective colleges like to see, you generally have to start with geometry as a freshman in order to end up in pre-calculus by the time you're a junior. Many schools now look for at least four years of a foreign language, says Cohen, and expect advanced classes in areas of strength, not coasting, in both 11th and 12th grade.

If it took you a while to get on track, consider making up lost ground in summer school or by doubling up on math, science, or foreign languages in your junior and senior years. "We like to see candidates who turn things around," says Kevin Dyerly, director of admission at Whitman College.

[Follow 3 steps for choosing the right high school classes.]