Congratulations to the Bright Horizons College Coach Class of 2019!

Each spring, Bright Horizons College Coach surveys the parents of high school seniors that we’ve worked with through their college application processes to garner their insights on the admissions process and working with Bright Horizons College Coach through their employee benefit. We’ve just synthesized the results of our 2019 Senior Survey, and wanted to share the good news with our readers. College Decisions This year, we will be sending graduates off to 300 different colleges across the country. We have our fair share of Ivy League representation, including a number of graduates enrolling at Princeton, Dartmouth, and Cornell, with equally good representation at smaller liberal arts instiutions like Tufts, Colby, and Vassar. We’ve got graduates heading to engineering schools like MIT, Georgia Tech, and the Colorado School of Mines, and women’s colleges like Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Spelman. Unsurprisingly, the most popular colleges among our graduates are some of the most sought-after public research universities in the country, including Penn State, both UC Berkeley and UCLA, University of Illinois, and UT Austin. From community colleges to Jesuit universities, HBCUs to military academies, we are thrilled to have helped so many students find their best fit colleges. Scholarships Won We are also overjoyed to have helped so many of our graduates win significant scholarship funding to attend some amazing universities. Our students saw scholarship offers greater than $30,000 per year at dozens of colleges, including USC, Miami of Ohio, and Tulane. Some of the biggest awards were over $40,000 per year at schools like Northeastern, University of Redlands, and Gonzaga. We even saw a number of full ride scholarships offered to our graduates by colleges such as BU, Temple, and University of Florida. In addition to these substantial up-front scholarship offers, our college finance educators helped a number of families negotiate for additional scholarship funding, with increases ranging from $1,000 to a whopping $15,000 per year at colleges of varying price points and levels of selectivity across the country, illustrating the point that it never hurts to ask for more money. The worst a college will do is say no, and families may be surprised at how often they say yes! Applications Submitted Another worthwhile lesson for future college applicants demonstrated within our survey results is the value of focusing your college list. Though you may see a flood of stories in the media about students applying to 15, 20, or more(!) schools—and, at some high schools, it may seem like everyone is juggling such a massive college list—our numbers tell a different story. Only 11% of senior working with Bright Horizons College Coach applied to more than 12 colleges. Most of our students applied to far fewer schools, with about a third of graduates applying to 4-6 colleges and another quarter applying to 7-9 colleges. But did these focused lists result in poor admissions outcomes? Certainly not! In fact, quite the opposite! Close to 90% of applicants who worked with Bright Horizons College Coach were admitted to one of their top choice schools. Our admissions educators have found that stretching oneself too thin and applying to too many colleges can result in worse outcomes (find out why here!), and are happy to report that most of our graduates took our advice to work towards a focused and well-balanced college list seriously. Congrats to Parents too! And while sending kudos to our graduating seniors for successfully navigating the college admissions process, we would be remiss in not offering similar congratulations to these seniors’ parents for guiding their children through this stressful time. We are thrilled that the vast majority of parents responding to our survey indicated that working with Bright Horizons College Coach through this overwhelming process reduced their stress, allowed them to focus on their work, and improved their children’s outcomes. Many expressed a sentiment like this parent: “It was an incredibly valuable experience to allow my son to take charge of his own college path by interacting directly with the professionals at Bright Horizons who could provide specific guidance that he may not accept coming from me. It preserved our relationship because they could set expectations and give guidance in a way that kept me out of it.” Through help with designing college lists, reviewing application essays, and providing personalized college application and financing advice, we at Bright Horizons College Coach are so grateful to have been a resource that allows students to succeed, eases parent anxiety, and nurtures healthy family relationships. Sending congratulations to all our seniors for navigating the college admissions process to a successful end, and wishing the best of luck to graduates and their families as they embark on their next adventure!