Devon Blog

Tag: Common App

  • The Missing Link in Our College Prep Plan: A Peer Perspective

    By Marcus H. (not his real name), Parent of a High School Senior

    I thought we had everything covered.

    My daughter, Laila (not her real name), had been preparing for college since middle school. We had the grades, the SAT prep books, the volunteer hours, and a spreadsheet mapping deadlines for everything from FAFSA to supplemental essays. As a father, especially one who didn’t go through this system myself—my own education was pieced together in night classes while I worked—I wanted to make sure she had more than I did. I thought if we planned hard enough, we’d be ready.

    But about two months into senior year, I saw something I hadn’t planned for: Laila was stuck. Not just on logistics, but emotionally—creatively. She didn’t know how to tell her story. She didn’t feel like she had one worth telling.

    She’d write three lines and erase them. “Everything sounds fake,” she told me one night, defeated. “Like I’m just writing what they want to hear.”

    I didn’t know how to help. And that’s when we discovered something we hadn’t factored into our plan: the peer perspective.

    Why Peer Coaching Changed Everything

    Laila was paired with a college sophomore named Diego (not his real name), a first-gen student from El Paso who had once been exactly where she was. Diego wasn’t a counselor. He wasn’t some adult giving lofty advice about finding your “authentic voice.” He was just a guy who had recently written essays, filled out forms, and lived through the stress of decision letters and second-guessing.

    From their first conversation, something shifted. Diego asked questions that didn’t sound like school:
    “What made you choose the environmental club over all the others?”
    “When you talk about your brother, what’s something you’ve never put in writing before?”
    “Is there something you stopped doing that you miss?”

    He didn’t critique her. He listened. And she responded. For the first time, Laila didn’t feel like she was being interviewed. She felt seen.

    More Than Just Essay Help

    Diego helped Laila unpack her story—how growing up in a mixed-heritage home (Black and Filipina), how translating at parent-teacher conferences for her mom, how her curiosity about climate change started with picking up plastic bottles in the neighborhood park as a kid—wasn’t just background noise. It was the story.

    I listened outside the room during one of their sessions and heard something I hadn’t heard in weeks: laughter. Real laughter. They were talking about her part-time job at the aquarium and how her manager always made her feed the stingrays because no one else wanted to do it. That moment became the opening line of her Common App essay.

    “Before I ever spoke at a climate rally, I was hand-feeding stingrays in a tank behind a mall.”

    Who knew?

    What We Had Been Missing

    Looking back, we had counselors and teachers and a family support system. But what we didn’t have was someone close enough to the experience to make it feel possible. That’s what Diego brought.

    He didn’t just help her write. He gave her permission to be proud of who she was without translating it into bullet points. He reminded her that rejection happens even to the most qualified students—and it’s not a reflection of worth. He made her feel less alone.

    For a student like Laila—ambitious, unsure, deeply self-aware—the difference between generic advice and peer insight was like night and day.

    A Lesson for Other Parents

    Now that we’re on the other side of it—essays submitted, interviews done, acceptances arriving—I can say with confidence that the missing link in our college prep plan wasn’t more test prep or another club. It was empathy, relatability, and insight from someone who’d just walked that path.

    I wish we’d found peer coaching sooner. Not because it would’ve changed the outcome (though maybe it would have), but because it changed how my daughter saw herself in the process. She felt understood. She felt like her story mattered.

    In a process that too often feels transactional, peer mentorship brought the humanity back.

    If you’re a parent going through this journey with your teen, ask yourself: who’s helping your child not just prepare for college—but prepare to be heard?

    That’s the piece we almost missed. And now I can’t imagine this process without it.

  • What I Wish I Knew Before Starting My College Apps

    By Aanya S., Student and First-Gen US College Applicant

    If I could go back and have one honest conversation with my junior-year self, it would start with this: You’re not alone, and you don’t have to figure it out by yourself.

    When I began the college application process, I thought it was just about writing essays and submitting scores. I didn’t know that the hardest part wasn’t the paperwork — it was the planning, the second-guessing, and the self-doubt that crept in when I was supposed to be making the biggest decision of my life.

    No one in my family had gone to college in the U.S., and though my parents wanted the best for me, they couldn’t help me figure out FAFSA or the difference between Early Action and Regular Decision. At school, the guidance counselor was juggling over 400 students. It wasn’t her fault, but I felt invisible.

    That changed the day I met Joanna, a peer advisor a year ahead of me. She’d been through it all — late nights with the Common App, FAFSA errors, agonizing over which extracurriculars to highlight — and more importantly, she got me. She spoke my language, literally and figuratively. She wasn’t trying to dazzle me with stats or throw acronyms at me. She asked me simple questions like, “What makes you feel most alive?” and “If a college said yes to you, what kind of place would it be?”

    I didn’t know it then, but what she was doing was coaching — not advising in a formal sense, but helping me uncover what mattered to me, what made me unique. Together, we mapped out a timeline. We talked about how to approach my essays — not with a strategy to impress, but as a way to tell my story. She helped me understand what colleges were actually looking for: authenticity, clarity, and a sense of purpose.

    Looking back, here are five things I wish someone had told me before I started:

    1. Your application is not just a form — it’s your story.
      I treated it like a job application at first, checking boxes and trying to sound impressive. But admissions officers aren’t hiring you — they’re inviting you into a community. They want to know who you are when nobody’s watching.
    2. Deadlines are only the tip of the iceberg.
      There are internal deadlines too: when to ask for rec letters, when to draft your essays, when to take a step back and reevaluate your list. Having a calendar with built-in breathing room saved me.
    3. You will second-guess yourself — that’s normal.
      I rewrote my personal statement three times. I wondered if I should’ve joined one more club or taken one more AP. But I learned that clarity beats quantity. It’s better to go deep than wide.
    4. Help is out there, but you have to reach for it.
      Whether it’s a peer coach, a teacher, or someone who went through the process recently, talking to someone who’s walked the path before can change everything. They know the hidden stressors, the unspoken fears, and the little hacks that make a big difference.
    5. Celebrate the small wins.
      Every finished essay, every submitted app, every time I pressed “save” on a draft — those were victories. Don’t wait until an acceptance letter to feel proud.

    Now that I’m in college, I volunteer as a peer advisor myself. When students come to me panicked about their applications, I tell them what Joanna told me: Start with your voice. That’s what they want to hear.

    The college process isn’t just a rite of passage — it’s an awakening. And while it’s messy and overwhelming, it can also be transformative when you’re not doing it alone.

    If you’re about to begin, remember this: You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be honest — and open to support. You’re building your future, and you deserve all the help you can get.

  • The Value of Recent Experience in Navigating Today’s Admissions Landscape

    If you had asked me two years ago whether I’d be helping other students apply to college, I probably would’ve laughed. At the time, I was neck-deep in personal statements, debating whether to go test-optional, and losing sleep over what extracurriculars truly “stood out.” Fast forward to today—I’ve gotten into one of the most competitive universities in the country, and now I guide students just like I was not long ago. I’m what Pathways calls a peer advisor, and here’s the thing: when it comes to navigating today’s college admissions landscape, recency matters more than most people realize.

    The College Admissions Game Has Changed—Fast

    Let’s be honest. The rules of college admissions have shifted dramatically even in just the last 2–3 years. Test-optional policies, new FAFSA rollouts, evolving essay prompts, changing holistic review practices—it’s a moving target. And traditional college counselors, even the really good ones, often don’t have a front-row seat to the latest nuances.

    I lived through applying during COVID-era disruptions, the rise of test-blind schools, and trying to decipher how colleges were recalibrating GPA evaluations. I had to make decisions without precedent—do I still take the SAT even though my dream school doesn’t require it? Should I submit an optional video portfolio? How do I make up for a year of canceled volunteering?

    Because I faced these exact dilemmas, I can give real, practical advice that’s grounded in firsthand experience.

    Real Stories > Hypotheticals

    A lot of students I work with tell me their school counselor gave them a checklist or a spreadsheet of deadlines. Helpful? Sure. But when you’re deciding whether to write your Common App personal statement about a deeply personal experience or a quirky passion, you don’t want theoretical frameworks. You want to hear from someone who actually wrote essays that worked—someone who’s been on both sides of the accept/reject line.

    When I share my story about how I structured my “overcoming adversity” essay, or why I cut out two AP classes from my senior year to focus on research, students listen. Because it’s not just advice—it’s lived truth, tested in a real-world admissions gauntlet.

    The Edge of Peer Advising

    Working with a peer advisor means tapping into fresh, tactical insights that most traditional advising models don’t offer. For example:

    • I can show screenshots of my actual Common App and walk a student through what I picked and why.
    • I know which colleges changed their supplemental prompts last cycle and how students interpreted them.
    • I can explain how I balanced mental health with ambition—something that’s part of the student experience but often ignored by formal advisors.

    This isn’t to knock professional counselors—they absolutely bring depth, structure, and years of perspective. But in today’s hyper-competitive, algorithm-driven, test-flexible landscape, you need someone who speaks both the strategy and the reality.

    Keywords I Keep Hearing from Students

    The students I coach keep bringing up terms like:

    • “How to get into competitive colleges”
    • “What makes a good college essay”
    • “Do I need SAT scores in 2025”
    • “College admissions advice from Ivy League students”
    • “What to write in the activities section”

    I know the answers because I asked the same questions myself, not in theory, but in practice—and I figured them out.

    Recent Experience Builds Trust

    One of the most important parts of the college application journey is emotional support. When I tell a student, “Hey, I got deferred too, and here’s how I handled it,” their whole body language shifts. They know I get it. That empathy? It doesn’t come from textbooks or webinars. It comes from walking the path myself.

    Final Thought

    In a world where college admissions change faster than most people can keep up, having a peer advisor with recent experience isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a strategic advantage. I’m proud to be one of those voices for students—someone who’s walked through the fire and came out the other side, ready to guide the next group through it.

  • Peer vs. Professional: Why You Actually Need Both for College Advice By Your Side

    When I started applying to colleges, I had two people on my side. One was a traditional college counselor with years of experience in admissions. The other? A senior from my school who had just been accepted to a top-tier university with a full ride. One had credentials and polish. The other had experience that still had dust on its shoes.

    And honestly, I needed both.

    The Professional: Clarity and Structure

    My counselor was incredible at laying out the fundamentals. She helped me build my college list, knew the ins and outs of Early Decision deadlines, and made sure my FAFSA didn’t get submitted late. I’ll never forget the color-coded spreadsheet she gave me with deadlines, essay requirements, and financial aid notes.

    She knew what admissions officers typically looked for and had worked with hundreds of students. When I didn’t know where to start, she gave me a clear path.

    But there were limits.

    She hadn’t applied to college in decades. She didn’t know what it felt like to write 12 supplemental essays while juggling AP Calculus and robotics team competitions. When I asked her what made the Why Columbia? essay so tricky, she gave me a few tips—but they didn’t feel personal.

    That’s when I turned to someone else.

    The Peer: Recency and Relevance

    I connected with a student named Priya through Pathways, a peer-led advising platform. She had just finished her first year at Columbia and had navigated the exact same essay just a year earlier. Talking to her was like getting a backstage pass to the admissions world.

    She didn’t just talk about “what admissions officers want to see.” She shared how she actually wrote her essay—and the mistakes she made before she got it right. She told me how she structured her Common App activities section to stand out, how she approached interviews, and how she made last-minute pivots in her application strategy that paid off.

    What shocked me was how specific and actionable her advice was. She remembered what it felt like to be in my shoes. There was no theory—just lived experience.

    Together, They Created the Edge I Needed

    Here’s what I realized: professional counselors give you the big picture. They help you understand the system. But peers? They give you the texture—the “what it’s actually like” insights you can’t get from a PowerPoint.

    When I combined both, my application got sharper. My essays were better targeted. I had fewer blind spots. And more importantly, I felt less alone.

    That matters more than you think. College admissions are stressful. You’re constantly wondering if you’re doing it right. Having someone just a few years ahead of me saying “Yeah, I remember feeling like that too” made the process feel human.

    This Isn’t Either/Or. It’s Yes/And.

    A lot of students think they need to choose between a college counselor and a peer advisor. That’s a false choice.

    Your counselor might know how to navigate application portals and timelines, but they might not know the latest scholarship opportunities or how others have done it, or what the interview process actually felt like last year at Princeton.

    Your peer advisor might not be able to help you craft a financial aid appeal letter—but they can tell you what they wish they’d done differently when applying for aid. They might even show you the exact essay they used to win a merit scholarship.

    That blend of real-world wisdom and professional structure is what gives you an advantage.

    Why I Now Recommend Both

    I got into my top choice school. And I give credit to both my counselor and my peer advisor.

    Today, I serve as a peer advisor on Pathways. I talk to students every week who are in the same shoes I was in just two years ago. I tell them the same thing I wish I’d heard earlier: you don’t need to pick one guide—you need a team.

    Because when you’re chasing your future, it helps to have someone who’s done it before and someone who’s studied the system. Together, they’re unbeatable.