Tech-Neill-ogy #107 - 31 August 2025

Welcome to Tech-Neill-ogy #107!

Three weeks of the school year complete! It has been a busy, chaotic time, and now the colleges begin their annual visits. ~110 on Monday. I feel fortunate to have such an incredible team to work with. That said, I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Given the time of the year, I wanted to re-share an older prompt that I used almost every day with my seniors as they plan out their application timelines. Notice that the list is customizable, as are the lengths for students to get the various components of an application completed. You can also customize the prohibitions for when a student might not be able to work on applications.

As a high school senior, you are applying to several universities, each with a unique application type and official deadline. The universities are: 
Oxford University (Regular Decision, October 15)
UNC Chapel Hill (Early Action, October 15)
Bowdoin College (Early Decision, November 1)
Case Western Reserve University (Early Action, November 1)
Northeastern University (Early Action, November 1)
University of Southern California (Scholarship Deadline, November 1)
UCLA (Regular Decision, November 30)
Vanderbilt University (Regular Decision, January 15)

Your goal is to complete and submit all applications two weeks before their respective deadlines, as per your school's 'TWO WEEK RULE'. I am to create a comprehensive schedule for you in a table format, indicating the 'UNIVERSITY', 'PHASE', 'START DATE', 'DUE DATE', 'SUBMISSION', and actual 'DEADLINE'. The 'PHASES' include 'APPLICATION', 'SUPPLEMENT', 'SUBMISSION', and 'DEADLINE'. 

The 'APPLICATION' phase requires 5 days. 
The 'SUPPLEMENT' phase takes 3 days. 
You can start working on the applications from August 15.
There's a break period from October 7-15 during which you can work on two tasks per day.

Keep in mind that you have the following commitments that will prohibit application work: 
a major Math assessment on September 21, which requires exclusive preparation for 3 full days prior; 
an international athletic competition from October 25-29, when you will be unable to work on applications.

Assist me in generating this college application timeline, ensuring all tasks are sequenced properly and all deadlines are met.

And then, when the timeline looks accurate and complete, this prompt can enable you or the student to import it into their Google Calendar:

Export this table into a .CSV according to the formatting requirements so that it can be uploaded into Google Calendar.

Please, if you have any great prompts or ideas, please share! Send me a note at [email protected].

If you know of any upcoming events related to AI or tech and college counseling/admissions, please let me know! There’s been a growth in these events that I find difficult to stay on top of!

That’s it for this week, but I wanted to leave you with this very interesting piece:

In particular, this has stayed with me:

Anyway, best wishes for a great week! Happy counseling!

Jeff