High School Students: Check. Your. Email

Here's why:

A few years ago, I had a student whose first-choice school was Villanova. She wasn’t accepted Early Decision, but she didn't get rejected — she was wait-listed. Then she got an email that said, “Hey, we want to offer you a seat in next year’s freshman class, but you need to let us know within the next 10 days whether or not you're still interested.” And she didn't check her email until after that 10-day window was long past, losing out on her opportunity to attend her first-choice university.

The moral of this story, of course, is that you Must. Check. Your. Email.

Every. Single. Day. during the college application process, which is from right now until May 1, 2025.

I realized that most high school students believe that email is dead, nobody uses email anymore but fun fact: the business world still very much runs on email & colleges are businesses.

I also realize that you need someone to send you a text to remind you to check your email — but I'm not going to do that, and your parents aren't going to do that. It’s not our job; it’s your job. You’re the one who wants all the freedoms awarded to college students and with freedom comes responsibility. One of your adult responsibilities is to check your email. Every day.

There’s other reasons why I need you checking your email. One is if you get into the school of your choice, but there's a deadline for you to respond, you need to be checking your email to get notification of this. Admissions officers aren’t going to text you and ask you to please check your email because they made you an offer. They’re expecting that you’re already doing this.

Second, and you can see on the screen here, I'm using Wake Forest as an example but there are many, many, many, many, many colleges who put this on their admissions blogs. Colleges & universities have a hard time getting through your high school's spam filters, so I strongly recommend that you not use your high school email address for your college applications. I recommend that you set up an account that's specifically for your college applications and your Future Self, not a Gmail account that you’ve already been using that might be tied to social media accounts and/or online comments that you maybe don't want admissions officers stumbling across. Make sure that you choose an appropriate handle for your new email account. You don't want to be party girl @gmail.com that's not a good look for a qualified candidate applying to colleges and universities. firstnamelastname@gmail.com is a great choice.

Speaking of why I don't want you to use your high school email address for college applications is because it’s possible you will lose access to that email account after you graduate high school.

Puhleeeeeeeze  consider setting up a different email address for your college applications, one that’s reflective of your Future Self and the professional you wish to grow into.

While you’re at it: make sure that your social media accounts and the comments you’ve left around the Internet are all cleaned up and reflective of that future professional. Make sure that every time your friends’ phone cameras are pointed at you, that you know exactly what's behind you and where you are — and that you’re not in a place where you shouldn’t be doing stuff that might get a college acceptance offer rescinded. It happens every year, the stories are out there.

You should be signed up to receive emails from every college on your list — certainly the Top 3 if not the Top 10. And when these schools send you emails, you need to be opening them! Businesses track whether or not their emails are opened and when students don’t open emails, admissions officers assume they must not be very interested in their school. So if you’re not opening the emails, you’re telling schools, “Meh. Whatever.”

Check. Your. Email.