Hi Allie!

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Go into your Common App and begin completing your Auburn application first. Work through every section you can complete without the essay:

• Profile
• Family
• Education
• Testing
• Activities
• Honors
• Auburn-specific questions
• Intended major
• Residency information
• FERPA
• Counselor information
• Any other required Auburn sections

Use the Common App Step-by-Step Guide I provided to help you complete each section. Do not wait on the essay to start the rest of the application. Our goal is to have everything else ready so that once the essay is finalized, we can drop it into Common App, review the complete Auburn application, and submit.

Please go to the ACT website immediately and request that your ACT scores be sent to Auburn University. Do this now rather than waiting until the rest of the application is finished. Once you have submitted the request, make a note in our shared workspace that it is complete.

Your Common App essay is the only major piece we still need to develop together. Complete the Essay Incubator I provided. Do not try to make your answers sound like a college essay. I want your real stories, details, thoughts, personality, and words. Answer the questions honestly and give me as much raw material as you can.

AS SOON AS YOU FINISH: Text me at 305-527-8721. I will go into it immediately, help frame and edit the essay using your ideas and your voice, and get you a version that we can place into Common App. Our goal is to finish this piece within the next 1–2 days.

Once your essay is complete and the rest of your Common App is ready, review the application as a whole, including:

• Activities
• Honors
• Essay
• Testing
• Academic information
• Major selection
• Auburn-specific questions
• Overall application strategy

You will already have completed most of your Common App, which means the next applications should move much faster.

We will use Common App for Ole Miss.

Most of your core information will already be complete from Auburn, so we will review the Ole Miss-specific questions, academic program selection, scholarship-related information, and any additional requirements before submission.

We will also use Common App for Mississippi State.

Again, your main Common App will already be built. We will focus on the Mississippi State-specific portion and make sure we have addressed anything related to scholarships, Honors, and your intended academic path.

For Alabama, we are not using Common App.

You will apply directly through The University of Alabama institutional application.

I have created a separate Alabama Step-by-Step Guide because Alabama's application is very different from Common App and gives us additional space to strategically present your:

• Course rigor
• Leadership
• Honors
• Service
• Activities
• Employment
• Certifications
• Additional experiences

We will use that space carefully because Alabama considers this information for both admission and scholarship consideration.

Your Gap Analysis is my overall assessment of where you stand right now as a college applicant. I looked at your academics, course rigor, ACT, activities, leadership, service, work experience, honors, career direction, and overall application readiness to identify what is already working in your favor and where we still have opportunities to strengthen your application. 

How to use it: Read this one first. Do not read the word “gap” as something negative—it simply means we are identifying what is missing, underdeveloped, or not yet documented well enough. Pay special attention to the priority recommendations and anything I have identified as needing more information. This document becomes our roadmap for what we work on next.

This document looks beyond simply asking, “Where can I get in?” and starts asking the much more important question: “Where might I actually thrive?” I looked at the colleges you are considering—Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss—along with your interests in business, marketing, law, therapy, leadership, and helping other people succeed. The goal is to begin connecting your personality, strengths, interests, career possibilities, and preferred college experience to schools and academic paths that make sense for you. 

How to use it: Read it with an open mind. You do not have to choose a major or career right now. Instead, notice the questions I ask and the patterns that appear. We are using this document to help you make smarter decisions about majors, college visits, applications, and eventually which school feels like the best fit.

Your Risk Assessment takes a closer look at your current college list and evaluates what could affect your admission, scholarship, and honors opportunities at each school. This is where we get more strategic about deadlines, Early Action, your GPA and ACT, application timing, and the differences among Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss. 

How to use it: This is not a prediction of where you will or will not be admitted. Admissions does not work that way. Instead, use this document to understand where we need to be more aggressive, where you may have more flexibility, and where timing matters. Most importantly, follow the application recommendations and deadlines I give you—especially our plan to apply Early Action whenever possible rather than waiting until regular deadlines.

Your Working Resume is one of the most important documents we will build together, but I want to be very clear about what it is: this is NOT a resume you should send to a college, employer, scholarship committee, or anyone else. It is your private master file. I intentionally put much more information in it than would ever belong on a normal resume because I want one place where we capture everything you have done: academics, activities, performing arts, dance, soccer, church, service, work, leadership, skills, certifications, family responsibilities, accomplishments, and even experiences that may later become useful in an essay or interview. 

How to use it: Go directly to the Follow-Up Questions and answer them as casually as you want. Do not spend time trying to make your answers sound good. Give me facts, stories, numbers, names, dates, examples, and details—I will do the writing. If you do not know an answer, write “I don’t know.” If you do not want to answer something, skip it. The more detail we add to this master file, the easier it becomes for me to build your Common App Activities, Alabama Activities, scholarship resume, admissions resume, essays, and other application materials later.

This is the practical “how we are actually applying” piece of your plan. Rather than automatically using the same application for every school, we are choosing the application route that gives you the best strategic advantage. Alabama will be completed through the UA Undergraduate Application, and I will craft your Alabama Activities section for you just like I am crafting your Common App Activities. We will use the Common App without the optional essay ASAP for Mississippi State because applying early affects housing priority. (You are still in a safe window for Mississippi State.) Auburn will be an Early Action application, with Round 1 as our goal if your application is completely ready and Round 2 as our next target. Ole Miss can be completed through the Common App, allowing us to reuse the application strategy we have already developed. 

How to use it: Do not submit applications independently just because you see that they are open. We want them submitted early, but we also want them submitted correctly. We will work through them in order and make sure the strongest version of your information is in place before you hit submit.

This section is your reminder that getting admitted is only one part of the process. Honors colleges, scholarships, housing, and competitive opportunities often have earlier or separate deadlines, which is why I do not want us working from the universities’ final admission deadlines. For you, we are treating November and early December as major completion points, with Auburn Honors due in November and important scholarship deadlines at Mississippi State, Auburn, and Alabama falling around December 1–4. 

How to use it: Always work from the A2 Achieve target date I give you rather than waiting for the university’s final deadline. My dates will usually be earlier on purpose so we have time to correct anything that is missing and you are not trying to finish an important scholarship application at 11:30 p.m. on the night it is due.skills, and team building.