Hi Beau!

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Your Gap Analysis is essentially our starting-point strategy document. I looked at where you are right now compared with where you are trying to go and identified what is already working in your favor, what we may be underusing, what still needs clarification, and what could create unnecessary risk if we do not address it before applications are submitted.

The important thing to understand is that your “gaps” are not primarily about needing more accomplishments. You already have strong academics, rigorous coursework, engineering experience, research, leadership, music, martial arts, teaching and service. The bigger opportunities are strategic: making sure those experiences are presented at their full value, finishing the college list so it has the right balance of risk, deciding how we position aerospace versus mechanical engineering at different schools, maximizing your next ACT attempt without allowing testing to delay applications, and developing an application story that feels like you rather than another high-achieving STEM applicant.

Your College & Career Alignment Assessment takes a much broader look at you than simply asking, “What should you major in?” I used your academic record, activities, interests, personality, research, leadership, hobbies, college preferences and the things you naturally seem drawn toward to look for patterns.

Engineering is clearly supported by your record, and aerospace deserves serious exploration because you have specifically identified the space industry as a long-term interest. But there are several other themes I do not want you to lose as you make decisions. You repeatedly come back to teaching, research, solving complicated problems, understanding systems and helping people. You are also a serious musician and have genuine interests in faith, public policy and social issues. Rather than forcing all of that into one narrow career choice at 17, this assessment gives us a framework for exploring aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, systems work, research, engineering education and even areas where engineering intersects with public policy.

Your Risk Assessment looks specifically at your current college list and answers a different question than, “Are my grades good enough?” You are academically competitive at every school on your list. The issue is that Auburn, Clemson, Purdue Engineering, Georgia Tech and UT Austin Engineering represent very different levels of admissions risk, particularly once we consider your intended engineering pathway and the fact that some of these schools have extraordinarily competitive applicant pools.

I have ranked the schools based on your individual profile rather than simply looking at each university's acceptance rate. Right now, Auburn presents the lowest admission risk, Clemson is a strong target-type option, Purdue Engineering moves into reach territory, and Georgia Tech and UT Austin should be treated as serious reaches even with your academic record. That does not mean I want you removing the reaches. It means we build the application intelligently and make sure the final college list gives you excellent choices at multiple levels of selectivity.

Your Application Calendar is our roadmap from now through decision season. It includes the actual university deadlines, but it also includes separate A2 Achieve internal deadlines that are intentionally earlier. I do not want us finishing an application at 10:47 p.m. on the day it is due. We want time to write, edit, reconsider, proofread, submit and then check the applicant portal to make sure the university actually received everything.

The calendar also coordinates admissions, Early Action, Honors College, scholarships, testing and financial-aid work so that nothing gets lost simply because it has a different deadline. Your immediate priorities are Auburn, the Common App essay, Clemson and UT Austin Early Action, followed closely by Purdue and Georgia Tech. We will continue updating this calendar as we finalize your full college list and as scholarship and Honors opportunities open.

Now that I have completed the first major strategic assessments, I am moving from analysis into application building. This is the part where we take everything I have learned about you and turn it into materials that are ready to actually use.

I am currently working on four major pieces: your Common App Honors and Activities sections, your essay and short-answer incubator, your A2 Achieve Working Resume, and your recommendation request materials. These will all work together, but each serves a different purpose.

I am building your Honors and Activities sections so that the strongest pieces of your record receive the space and priority they deserve. This is not simply copying your resume into the Common App. The Common App gives us very limited characters, so wording and order matter.

In particular, I want to make sure we properly capture the scope of your martial arts instruction and mentorship, engineering work, AP Research, music, student leadership, Boys State, faith involvement and service. Your current resume already contains substantial material, including four years of engineering coursework, your independent research involving more than 400 survey responses, martial arts instruction and competition, All-State Choir and sustained community service. My job now is to determine what belongs in the ten Common App activity slots, what order it belongs in, and how we describe each activity so an admissions reader understands what you actually did rather than simply seeing another title.

I am also beginning your Essay Incubator. We are not picking an essay topic simply because something sounds impressive. The Common App essay needs to reveal something about you that the rest of your application cannot communicate by itself.

You have several promising directions. Teaching younger martial arts students, learning to study your own failures after losing competitions, your tendency to notice small details others miss, mentoring younger students, becoming more independent, and even the connection between problem solving and the way you move through very different parts of your life are all worth exploring. You described learning to watch your martial arts matches after losses to understand exactly what went wrong and improve the next time. That same basic instinct appears in your engineering stories as well. We are going to pull those stories apart before deciding which one gives us the strongest personal essay. I will also begin identifying material for the shorter school-specific responses so that we are not repeating the same story five different ways.

I am building your Working Resume, which is very different from the shorter academic resume you already have. The Working Resume is our master file. It is where I want to capture everything we might possibly use: activities, responsibilities, leadership, awards, service, research, employment, teaching, technical experience, hobbies, family responsibilities and the details that may never fit on a traditional one-page resume.

This document is not meant to be sent to colleges exactly as written. In fact, most people will never see it. It becomes the source document we use to build Common App entries, scholarship resumes, Honors applications, interview materials and targeted college resumes. The more complete this file becomes, the easier everything else gets.

I am also developing your recommendation request materials. These are designed to make it easier for a teacher, counselor or mentor to write a strong, specific recommendation instead of a generic letter that says you are smart, hardworking and earned a good grade.

The goal is to give recommenders enough context to remember the Beau they actually know. That may include your intended engineering direction, important activities, research, teaching, leadership, the colleges you are considering and specific qualities or experiences that particular recommender has personally observed. I especially want your recommendations to reinforce things that are difficult for you to prove through a transcript — how you think, how you solve problems, how you work with other people, your curiosity, your character and the way you respond when something does not work the first time.