These past months I’ve used College Confidential as a tool for learning and encouragement during the college admissions process. I want to provide this article as a way to thank CC for helping me reach my goals as well as to encourage other students who might have relatively low test scores. As the title suggests, I was accepted into every UC (did not apply to Merced/Riverside), three Ivies - Dartmouth, Cornell, and UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, Cal Poly, and a few other top schools. Below are some of the most important factors that I believe helped me gain admission into these schools despite below-average test scores (SAT 2000, ACT 33).
- **Look at others as better than yourself.** I always saw my peers as more hard-working than I was, and I always surrounded myself with people who studied hard and got good grades. If I received a B and they received an A I would feel guilty for not studying hard enough (and thus would study harder the next time around). Even those who weren't necessarily academically intelligent were good at things that I wasn't, such as commitment to sports or even virtues like humility. I would learn from them and try to apply those qualities to myself.
- **Uniqueness in your extra-curriculars.** Over and over I see students who join/lead school clubs. That's great - if it's an honest passion. And I've met people who, as I've been told, wrote only about their commitments to UNICEF or similar school clubs and ended up in top schools. But if you're joining those clubs just to pad a resume, chances are slim that adcoms will take notice of you. Instead, research internships/hobbies that focus on unique topics in your field of choice. For example, if I'm interested in maritime security, I might pursue a boating license and use it to volunteer for or intern with the Coast Guard. I believe that my unique EC was one of the most important factors that made my app shine. Admissions officers only have so much time to skim through your essay and make a case for your acceptance to the committee. Think this way: if an admissions officer only had time to say a few words about you, what would he/she say? With reference to my above example, that would be: "Billy Joe is a boat-licensed volunteer with the Coast Guard who has participated in three domestic rescue searches" vs. "Freddy Sam is a insert school club name member who successfully fund-raised $1000 for his school's decoration committee and volunteered for insert name homeless shelter. He struggled in Calculus and managed to bring his C to an A by the second semester." Avoid the latter.
- **Be honest and unbiased with your essays.** Your essays should not be flowery. Get to the point. Colleges don't want to know how well you write. They want to know what skills you can bring to their campus. I wrote about the difficulties I encountered while performing my unique EC and how I managed to resolve them. Next, don't EVER point the blame at anyone to make a conflict more apparent. Avoid: "My parents always wanted me to be the perfect kid, but...", "Her accent was too difficult to understand, so...", or "He always made fun of me..." essays unless the story is really good. Finally, try to avoid controversial and political topics. From frog193's article:
“The Stanford admissions officer’s example was if someone was a Democrat and in their roommate essay made it clear that they wouldn’t want a Republican roommate because they care so much about Democratic values that they couldn’t live in the same room. I’m sure that student was trying to show passion, but also ended up sounding like he was not tolerant of Republicans.”
Many people, especially this generation, might think adcoms align with “liberal” ideas (quite a vague term in my opinion). The problem with this is a potential, unintentional display of intolerance towards conservative students as in the example above. The bottom line: I would suggest picking a non-controversial topic to write your essays about.
- **Understand the admissions process.** Don't just watch videos of admissions officers talking about what they look for. Watch actual footage of how decisions are made, what the committee session looks like and how the officers talk. There are some great videos on YouTube. One thing I learned from watching these videos is: decisions are made very quickly. In order to stand out, you really have to possess something special that can compel the adcom to say "Wow! That's cool!" Try to avoid asking questions via email to the admissions office unless they're specific to your case or absolutely cannot be answered somewhere else (try CC!). Any communication with the office can either paint or degrade your image, but more often the latter since most questions are already addressed online.
- **Resumes.** A lot of schools, a few Ivies included, have the option to upload a resume. My resume was one page and very professionally designed. You might want to consider adding hyperlinks to specific projects mentioned in your resume as well (builds credibility). The Ivies that accepted me all had my resume, so that might have been a compelling factor.
- **Score Choice.** Pay attention to score choice policies. They are important. If schools ask you to submit all SAT's, do it. I stressed out so much about this because all of the UCs as well as the Ivies which request you NOT to use score choice could see a low test score I received. I ended up getting admitted to non-score choice Ivies and all of the UCs. Honesty is your best resort.
- **Major.** Choosing your major is important, and not because a more unique major is easier to get into or vice-versa. The major should align with your interests. Don't just choose CS because it seems to be the most promising field or everyone else is, unless you actually enjoy or have substantial interest in programming and have evidence to prove it.
- **Recommendations.** If your application allows three teacher recommendations, it's always a great idea to choose one math, one science, and one english teacher. Also take note of any special college-specific recommendation requirements. Look up the Dartmouth peer-recommendation. Finally, if a college is more research-oriented, you might want to submit a letter from a professor you researched with, etc. Otherwise, it's always great to have LOR's from people involved with your unique extra-curricular or others who know you more casually. LOR's should not come from people who know you vaguely, regardless of their position.
- **Interviews.** Should you talk a lot about your achievements? Stay quiet and just ask questions? The answer, according to the schools I was accepted to, is to have the interviewer steer your interview. Don't do the opposite and steal the floor by talking excessively about your accomplishments. You should allow the interviewer to do his/her job - interview you - and only bring up achievements if asked. Be succinct and to-the-point with your answers. Don't wander off into new topics. Thank your interviewer via email after the session, but don't send more than that unless necessary. Send a final thanks to your interviewer if you've been accepted, because he/she will be a great source of advice; it's important to maintain that relationship in case you need some help getting organized your first year.
- **Post-Acceptance.** Be polite with the schools you've been accepted to but are not considering at the moment. It's likely that you will change your mind, and you may need some more information from people who reach out to you from those other schools to help you make your decision. And... who knows? They might even offer you more financial aid or scholarship opportunities several days after your acceptance. One of those schools might very well be your intended grad school. Your politeness will probably be remembered assuming the adcom hasn't changed much.
