Our goal in creating these videos was to provide all students and their families with a basic roadmap for a journey that, we know, can be daunting and often confusing. their families with a basic roadmap for a journey that, we know, can be daunting and often confusing. We hope these materials, including some accompanying worksheets, will help demystify the process of applying to college, and paying for it, as well as adjusting once you arrive there. Among those this guide is especially intended to help are students who may be the first in their families to apply to college – or who may be applying from backgrounds historically underrepresented on many of the nation’s college campuses. We went right to the source for credible information: the deans and other senior admissions officers who make these decisions – some of whom are themselves the first in their families to attend college – as well as two expert college counselors. We hope students and parents will refer to these resources at each stage in the college process.

Featured in these videos are interviews with: Jarrid Whitney, Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, CalTech; Christopher Gruber, Vice President/Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, Davidson College; Monica Inzer, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, Hamilton College; Jennifer Delahunty, Associate Dean of Admission for the West Coast, Kenyon College; Jessica Quintana Hess, Director of Admissions, Lycoming College; Tamara Siler, Senior Associate Director of Admission & Coordinator of Minority Recruitment, Rice University; Jonathan Burdick, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, University of Rochester; Angel Perez, Vice President for Enrollment and Success, Trinity College, and Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, Yale University. Our two master college counselors, each former admissions officers, are Rafael Figueroa, Dean of College Guidance, Albuquerque Academy, and Marie Bigham, Director of College Counseling, Isidore Newman School. Say Yes thanks the Ford Foundation for its generous support of this project.

– Jacques Steinberg, Senior Vice President, Say Yes to Education, and author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College.