Lessons from the Bright Horizons College Coach Class of 2023!

Each summer, Bright Horizons College Coach^® surveys the parents of graduating high school seniors to garner their insights on the admissions process and working with Bright Horizons College Coach through their employee benefit. As we head into a new school year and new college application cycle, we wanted to share the results of our 2023 Senior Survey in order to celebrate our graduates’ successes and glean some lessons learned through their journey. College Decisions While the media tends to focus on a mere handful of colleges, Bright Horizons College Coach knows that amazing educational opportunities await students at hundreds of colleges across the country. This year, we will be sending graduates off to almost 300 different U.S. colleges. 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 institutions like Tufts, Skidmore, and Oberlin. We’ve got graduates heading to engineering schools like MIT, Georgia Tech, and Rose-Hulman, and women’s colleges like Wellesley, Scripps, and Spelman. Unsurprisingly, the most popular colleges among our graduates are some of the most sought-after public research universities in the country, including UNC Chapel Hill, UMass Amherst, Delaware, Michigan, UT Austin, and UCLA, but we’ve also helped students enroll in St. John’s University, Parson’s School of Design, Baruch College, Iowa State University of Science and Technology, and Berklee College of Music. 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, University of Arizona, Tuskegee University, and Seton Hall. Some of the biggest awards were over $40,000 per year at schools like George Washington University, Alabama, and Lafayette. We even saw a number of full ride scholarships offered to our graduates by colleges such as the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Texas A&M, and State University of New York. 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 $25,000 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. Eighty percent of seniors working with Bright Horizons College Coach applied to less than 12 schools, most commonly submitting applications at four to six colleges. But did these focused lists result in poor admissions outcomes? Certainly not! In fact, quite the opposite! Eighty-five percent 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: “The pressure of trying to navigate the college process with twin boys was crazy, but I felt that I had someone in my corner to lend advice, perspective, and help keep us on track. This service was awesome for our family.” 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 of our graduates for navigating the college admissions process to a successful end, and wishing the best of luck to these new freshman and their families as they embark on their college adventure!