My crazy college journey from start to finish

Applying to College
1

<p>Sorry for the long post! This is the (probably too in-depth) story of a major part of my life for quite a while now.</p>

<p>Let me start by saying that this is the story of an unhooked, over-represented, high-achieving bright kid, like many of you, who started browsing CC a year and a half ago as a clueless HS junior. Back then, I would never in a million years envision myself to be where I am today, and with CC playing a huge role in it all.</p>

<p>Background: Asian, California, all As including 9 AP classes, 2260 SAT, 780M2, 720 CH, 800 Lit. Decent ECs by CC standards.
The college search really began fall of my junior year. One of my best friend’s moms who we knew as very college savvy--she had just had a daughter go through the process, and is a CC senior member (did not know this at the time)--was browsing for her then-sophomore D and invited my mother and me to go and tour the Claremont Consortium.</p>

<p>As someone who had had a very blurry and unfocused picture on the entire process/college in general up till then, that trip opened a new world to me. The most significant of the colleges we toured that day would turn out to be Harvey Mudd--I fell in love with the quirky nerd culture, unicycles, pranks, and friendly students.</p>

<p>My initial view was very naive and skewed--The CC mom’s oldest daughter who was very smart and also unhooked, applied to very selective engineering schools and was not rejected anywhere. I didn’t know at the time that this was an unusual feat, and figured that I should have the same chances as well. Like most kids on here, I had always succeeded at everything, gotten exactly what I wanted, and figured this should be no exception.</p>

<p>I was traditionally a humanities kid(easily aced every english test and class, read and wrote a ton in my spare time) but wasn’t really attracted to the idea of it as a major or career. I liked science, but none of the hard sciences I had experience with really appealed to me. CC mom’s D was an engineering major, and it seemed pretty interesting to me. (at least no less interesting than anything else I researched)</p>

<p>I still have the original college list I came up with, with the labels I designated at the time:
“Reach”
Brown(a friend went there, it was an Ivy, why not) Harvey Mudd, Stanford(I’m from California)
“Maybe”(my junior year self’s equivalent to the CC “Match”)--Cornell, Northwestern, and Rice, Carnegie Mellon(heard about it as a good engineering school)
“Backup”--Santa Clara University(CC mom’s D’s safety) University of Rochester-
My skewed (and mislabeled) list, and the lack of any UCs demonstrate my naivete at the time :3.</p>

<p>I dove headfirst into reading all about colleges, the SAT, etc., and in the process stumbled across CC. I’m not sure when I went from browsing to obsession, but I do know I used it for everything and read hundreds of chances threads, and stats/results threads, soaking up information like a sponge. At this time I was also studying for standardized tests and the information (book recommendations, tips, especially xiggi’s SAT stuff) was golden.</p>

<p>Like most CC juniors, I read stats threads to see where I compared to everybody else, and developed the attitude that I should definitely have a good chance at most schools. Sure, there were those kids with the 2300+ SATs that got rejected from tons of places,. but there were also those unhooked kids with miracle acceptances to HYPMS. I resolved to be in the second group. I longed to get started with the process in the fall.</p>

<p>I also began to narrow in on engineering as a possible major. Based on what I read on CC, I also applied to four STEM summer programs: RSI, Bank of America Student Leaders, SCEEP(UMich), and MITES. Researching the different engineering possibilities for essays(I remember googling ‘engineering’ and reading the Wikipedia profiles for the different types) made me more certain.
On CCs recommendation and advice, I also began an internship in a great UCI Medical Center Neuropsychiatry research lab that I still continue in.</p>

<p>I visited Stanford, UC Berkeley, and USC. I didn’t care much for Stanford--the campus was too resort-y. USC was too in the middle of the city, big, and loud, but the kids and school itself seemed good. UC Berkeley was probably my favorite of the three(and I also knew that aforementioned CC mom’s D chose it over multiple other top-20 acceptances).</p>

<p>I began narrowing in on what I really wanted out of a college. Above all, I really wanted to go out of state(I defined it as “a place with seasons”) and somewhere really far, where it snowed in the winter time. I dreamed of east-coast private universities and saw schools like the UCs and USC as last resorts.</p>

<p>The revelation of engineering as a major resulted in kicking Brown from the list. Under pressure to balance my list, I also took Northwestern off and added Lehigh, USC, and UCI as matches and safeties.<br>
At this time, I was becoming very savvy about the college process due to CC. The results for the Class of 2017 were coming out, and I began realizing that I actually didn’t stand a good chance at most of the schools on my list! I actually had a crisis about this….until:</p>

2

<p>Summer program results came out. I was rejected to Bank of America, RSI, and SCEEP…but accepted into E2@MIT! I can’t gush about it here(I do enough of it on the MITES thread) but that was probably the turning point for my college career. E2 has a minuscule acceptance rate, is full of amazing kids, and a phenomenal success rate for the top colleges in the nation. I was catapulted into the midst of the most brilliant people I had ever met, and we were all gunning for the same colleges together. I felt like I finally had a good chance, and my expectations began puffing up again.</p>

<p>The most notable change to my list from then on was the addition of MIT. The MIT applicant community is very special-it’s pretty much a cult in which MIT Is God. x) Reading MIT admissions blogs, adminning the MIT applicant facebook page…all the other colleges dimmed in comparison. I loved Boston, loved the culture–MIT and I were meant to be!</p>

<p>Newly in arms with my fellow E2 comrades I began first semester senior year very hopefully. I had actually begun essays over the summer, considered myself a pretty good writer, and aimed to have all my applications in, including an EA MIT application, by November.</p>

<p>I declared Mechanical Engineering at all schools. My final list consisted of (in preference order): MIT, Cornell, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, UC Berkeley, Rochester, Lehigh, USC, UC Irvine, and Rose Hulman. I claimed to be happy with the first six, but in reality my colleges were in two categories: “MIT” and “not MIT”.</p>

<p>Words cannot describe the amount of facebook group ranting, CC stats-and-chances-thread reading, MIT admissions blog-surfing, and general anxiety that went into the next month. </p>

<p>MIT decision day arrived. I knew all the percentages by heart–accepted, waitlisted, rejected from last year, including separate breakdowns by state, gender, SAT score, you name it.</p>

<p>The day I received my deferral was quite soul-crushing. That’s the one bad thing about being an E2er–that day, over 15 e2ers were accepted, and every reloading of my news feed was another snapshot of an acceptance. I cried a little, knew there wasn’t much of a chance, but held out hope for my other colleges. After all, MIT had a sub 8% acceptance rate, and my other colleges were much more forgiving. And MIT didn’t even reject me! If I’m good enough for them, I’m good enough for the others.</p>

<p>January/February brought acceptances from my three safeties, including 14K merit at Rochester and Regent’s Scholar at UCI. At this point, I was pretty confident about being accepted everywhere else(except perhaps MIT), just like CC mom’s daughter.</p>

<p>March arrived, and unfortunately, the first selective college I heard from(again) was MIT. Over the months, I had managed to delude myself into hoping again, and that day all my dreams of being in Cambridge and hanging out with my three best E2 friends(who were all accepted) went down the drain. It sucked, but I began hoping for my other colleges, mostly my second tier of five, which still had sub 20% acceptance rates, but come on, I had applied to so many and was a at least competitive candidate. They were all amazing schools and I looked forward to being able to (fingers crossed) pick from a few acceptances among them.
They arrived in this order:</p>

<p>Harvey Mudd: Waitlist–besides MIT, this was probably the worst one emotionally. I had visited campus 5 times at that point, and was very well acquainted with the culture(the “Why HMC” essay was my best one). Furthermore, it began the dreading feeling that maybe my college acceptances, which I had been looking forward to ever since I had started, were not going to go as planned.</p>

<p>Rice: Waitlist–I realize now that Rice’s acceptance rate plummeted this year, but I figured I had girl-in-engineering bump there. My Rice essays were written the day after the MIT deferral, so they weren’t that good.</p>

<p>At this point, I had to reevaluate everything. I was not going to be one of those wonder stories you hear about on CC. I was not going to be like CC mom’s D. All my other pending “top” schools were looking grim, and I was preparing to attend one of my safeties.</p>

<p>I also received an invitation to apply for the Drake Scholarship from UC Berkeley, a full-ride Mechanical Engineering department scholarship that was very intensive(two new recs, two essays) and applied, with very little hope that I would get even get into Berkeley, and knowing how competitive the scholarship was.</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon–ACCEPTANCE! The giant envelope in the mail was one of the most beautiful things I have seen to date. Although I had never visited, I knew it was nerdy and quirky, Pittsburgh seemed very Boston-like, and I registered for a Sleeping Bag Weekend the same day. I was so relieved, as CMU was one of my top choices.</p>

<p>Cornell–Waitlist: Who cares, I got CMU! Being in Cambridge made me realize that I wanted more of a bustling city atmosphere, not so much Ithaca’s forests and ruralness.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley: ACCEPTANCE! It was a great surprise, as I had not been expecting to get in at the beginning of that awful week. However, I really wanted to go out of state. At least I had hope for the scholarship now.</p>

<p>Lehigh–Waitlist–Probably lack of interest, and I can’t blame them, since I only remembered to check my portal two days after the decision came out, and had long decided Lehigh was not for me.</p>

<p>Stanford–Rejection, not surprised.</p>

<p>USC–Rejection. This was kind of surprising, but I didn’t want to go there. I found it ironic that the two schools I added for the sake of balancing out my list did not accept me.</p>

3

<p>My final decision came down to CMU and Berkeley. Neither were schools that I originally had my heart set on attending, but both seemed very attractive. My community was much more impressed with Berkeley(Carnegie what?), and I knew the acceptance rate was much lower(9% for engineering), but wanted to go out of state. I attended CMU sleeping bag weekend, and Cal Day weekend the weekend after that.</p>

<p>CMU–I LOVED my campus visit. I found the campus and buildings gorgeous, the other students brilliant, involved, and passionate, the class I attended interesting, and the community nerdy, fun, and similar to MIT. Pittsburgh was nice but seemed like a “past its prime” city. We were out on a Friday night and hardly anyone was in the streets.</p>

<p>I had received $0 from Berkeley and had not received CMU’s aid package, but from research on CC I knew CMU was famously stingy. I was very apprehensive because I knew my parents would need to be convinced to pay full price for CMU versus in-state tuition at Berkeley.</p>

<p>I desperately hoped to fall in love with Berkeley and make my choice easier. I liked Berkeley enough on my second visit–the faculty was amazing and hilarious and the academics seemed top-notch. The surrounding area of Berkeley/Silicon Valley connections were a huge plus as well. However, after CMU’s close-knit campus and community, Berkeley seemed too big and like a small city. The dining halls/dorms/upkeep was not as nice as CMU. Also, the other accepted students I met were mostly from California, a big minus from diverse CMU, and I didn’t seem to click with them(even the engineering students) as well.
However, I stayed with CC mom’s D and hung out with her EC team, which I really liked. I spent some time helping the EC team prepare for an event, and knew if I went to Berkeley I would want to join that particular EC. The other EC students seemed smart and friendly, and told me negative aspects(perceived) about CMU in an effort to get me to commit to Berkeley, which was funny x)</p>

<p>Another big thing that happened while I was at Berkeley was the arrival of CMU’s FA package–which miraculously would bring CMU’s cost to just above Berkeley’s sticker price.</p>

<p>Ironically, now that I didn’t feel financially forced to consider Berkeley, I found myself liking it more. I remember walking out and seeing the Campanile lit up against the purple sky, and feeling that I could be at home here. </p>

<p>I agonized for several days before making my decree. If the Berkeley scholarship came through, I would go to Berkeley. If not, I would pick CMU.</p>

<p>Exactly two weeks ago, I received an email stating that I would not receive the scholarship. I don’t think anyone’s been so happy to receive a rejection(as I had realized that CMU was winning in preference over Berkeley.) I committed to CMU that same day, filed my Berkeley acceptance letter away, and put all my free Cal swag in a corner.</p>

<p>I found a roommate who I really liked(found her through roommate matching on FB and realized I had met her at Sleeping Bag Weekend) and settled on a dorm to request(Morewood E-Tower)! The more I learned about CMU, the more I fell in love with it, and the happier I was that my college results turned out the way they did.</p>

<p>Happy ending, right? WRONG.</p>

<p>Last Thursday, I received an email that changed everything. “Dear AmaranthineD, I would like to talk to you about Mechanical Engineering at Cal…” I emailed back, figuring it was just another solicitation email since I hadn’t declined any offers yet. “Sorry, I am committed to CMU already.”
“That’s a shame, because I was going to discuss the Drake Scholarship.” --wait, what?</p>

<p>Apparently, I was now a finalist. After a quick phone interview, I received the scholarship.</p>

<p>The stress following that was insane. I felt like Katniss being selected to go a second time in the arena in the Hunger Games. After I had made peace with my decision, prepared to finish up the college process once and for all, this happened. I was now at the beginning of deciding again.</p>

<p>I received a mix of opinions, most of them in Berkeley’s favor. I didn’t even post on CC because I knew what you would say. Berkeley was higher ranked, more wide reputation, and free….However, I wasn’t ready to let go of my dreams of being at home at CMU, all my friends from Sleeping Bag Weekend, my roommate, the dorm I was going to live in, the classes I had all lined up to register for…CMU had the famed Robotics institute, where I had been planning to pursue a double major. Also, at Berkeley, I would be required to stay in Mechanical Engineering and would not be able to switch into another major or I would lose the scholarship. What if I wanted to do electrical engineering, for example? I wasn’t 100% set on Mechanical yet… What about my dreams of living in a place where the leaves turned color in the fall, and my hopes of leaving California? </p>

<p>I realized that many of the things I loved about CMU–passionate students, amazing research, were also happening at Berkeley, and Berkeley had the location that CMU lacked. Also, Berkeley’s programs and departments were universally strong, where CMU’s nerd focus could have a downside. Finally, I realized that for all the money we were saving, I could fly out to the east coast on the weekends and get all the snow I wanted. I have two siblings, soon college age, to consider too.</p>

<p>So, with an admittedly heavy heart, this Monday I withdrew from CMU and deposited at Berkeley. I honestly felt really bad(I know this seems ridiculous), having my dreams of the ideal college dashed so many times, first by MIT, then by CMU.</p>

<p>But since then, I have come to love Berkeley more and more. Despite this year’s FB page shenanigans, I have found several other kids who I’m already planning to hang out with at CalSO. I found an amazing girl to be my roommate in the engineering dorm, and can make use of the Cal gear I got at Cal Day. I’m going to join the EC that I visited(hopefully), and explore all of what Berkeley and NorCal have to offer.</p>

<p>CC was extremely instrumental in this process! Thanks to everybody for chancing me and helping me with everything from my Chem subject test to picking colleges to helping me get a balanced and diverse view of this whole process that ultimately resulted in my decision.</p>

<p>I am (barring any more twists in my story) going to attend UC Berkeley College of Engineering in the fall on a full tuition/room and board/fees/everything scholarship and couldn’t be more excited. Go Bears!</p>

4

<p>Really wonderful to hear your story. Frankly, i wish i heard about CC before senior year…it would have been such a good asset in helping me find those special programs, test prep and so much more.</p>

<p>I have several friends going to Cal, some in mechEng so congratz you are in quite the group. Best of luck to you</p>

5

<p>From reading your story I have a few things to say.</p>

<p>1st Applying as engineering instead of humanities most likely hurt you a lot and is the reason you got rejected from so many universities.</p>

<p>2nd I don’t believe a leopard can change it’s straps. “I was traditionally a humanities kid” and I was never a humanities kid. No matter how much I try, writing will ALWAYS come more difficult than mathematics. I also notice I lack focus and discipline when reading a book compared to solving a differential equation. For that reason…</p>

<p>3nd and judging by your writing style I would be surprised if you stick with engineering. Your writing is far too good for an engineering major, lol. It’s really descriptive and wordy and most engineers don’t think like that. </p>

<p>4th Engineering is very stressful in college too; If I was gonna do engineering I would really like to goto a Harvey Mudd or some other small college. it’s really crappy being in a 100+ person lecture hall at a big uni instead of a nice-tight nit 30 person high school class. </p>

<p>In summary, Berkeley has a good english program so if engineering doesn’t work out then you always have that as a fall-back. </p>

<p>P.S. depending on what your HS stats are, taking a gap year and reapplying to different universities as a humanities major might be something to consider. From personal example, and what I see on the transfer section, I strong advise against going to a university following someone else’s major instead of your own. </p>

6

<p>Wow what a story. Thanks for providing all the details. You must know by now we love all that. And congrats on a rare full ride to UCB, wow.</p>

7

<p>Excellent choice for engineering.</p>

8

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</p>

<p>Good writing skills are good for engineers.</p>

<p>While the OP may write in greater volumes than most engineering types, the writing style is not the kind that elicits the TL;DR type of response as much as some other longer posts around here.</p>

9

<p>Thanks for responding! :slight_smile: I just like a lot of closure and had a lot of thinking and writing to do about this. :slight_smile: It is a lot easier to switch out of engineering than into it if I decide I don’t like it, and Berkeley is still affordable if I end up transferring out and losing the scholarship.
Also, one of the best things I discovered was that I wasn’t alone in being an aspiring engineer that was just as strong(or stronger) in the humanities. They really aren’t mutually exclusive! Read the MIT admissions blogs! :slight_smile: A lot of the things I love about the humanities, like an analytical mindset and seeing the big picture, are found in engineering as well. I didn’t really have a chance to discover engineering as a young kid(few kids do) but books and things were readily accessible to me, so I wouldn’t consider myself a leopard changing its spots :)</p>

10

<p>Very nice story. I do have to wonder why you were surprised by the UCB admission when you were invited to apply for the Drake Scholarship. Good luck.</p>

11

<p>Some people are strong at both, my dd was a humanities strong person too, but also very good at math and science. She went the math and science route very successfully and is working as a technologist. But she took a fiction writing workshop Sr year and wrote a really weird and funny short story about a mathematician.</p>

12

<p>Congratulations OP! You will do well, you have shown resilience in adapting to your changing journey and also an admirable maturity in thinking about finances and your family. Whatever you end up doing you will do well. Enjoy Berkeley! You can leave California later, although as an East Coast person who misses sunshine, I don;t know why anyone would want to :)</p>

13

<p>Thank you! That comforts me, @BrownParent‌! Something that was important to me when I was looking was an environment where I wouldn’t feel like an imposter/out of place for being originally interested in humanities :). I wasn’t one of those kids that was always taking apart their radios/playing with legos as a kid and it seems like that’s the stereotypical view of engineering students. I did do robotics at MIT and liked it very much. I feel like they wouldn’t have admitted me if they didn’t think I could do it.</p>

14

<p>@BrownParent Being strong at both? Sounds like the perfect child to me. Many parents in my area, including my own would love to have a child that well versed.</p>

15

<p>Roald Hoffmann is an example of someone with “twin giftedness” he has a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is also an accomplished playwright and poet. Follow your talents wherever they may lead.</p>

<p><a href=“http://hoffmann.chem.cornell.edu/roald.html”>http://hoffmann.chem.cornell.edu/roald.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

16

<p>Wow - what a post - congratulations. You cannot go wrong with UCB - especially for engineering. It was almost reading my D’s story except in her case, the final choices were Rice and UCB. </p>

<p>After the visit to Rice, she felt UCB was too big and impersonal. Cal Day was the day after we got back from Owl Week. The economics briefing was so crowded that my wife could not even get into the corridor. The lady said the following:</p>

<p>(1)only 65% of the students get into Economics
(2) you may come here thinking you are going to study Economics but may never do so
(3) 1131 declared econ majors
(4) We have nobel laureates but you will never see them as undergrads</p>

<p>She came out of that session and declared her intent to go to Rice. Finances in our case were not a consideration so it made it easier to decide on that front.</p>

<p>That being said, it was probably the most gut wrenching decision she (and parents by proxy) had to make - passing up on a school like UCB - & we are local to the SF Bay area also</p>

<p>Good Luck</p>

17

<p>I agree with momcinco. Adaptation, resilience, and being able to trade off between conflicting objectives are good traits for engineers too.</p>

<p>Congratulations OP and best of luck at UCB.</p>

18

<p>Great story, congrats!, and @bomerr is pretty much all wrong …</p>

19

<p>@Daddio3
Overhalf the people who start engineering drop out and a lot of those people were actually very passionate about engineering to begin in. </p>

20

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<p>Likely due to the rigor of the major. More selective schools like Berkeley have a much lower rate of engineering students leaving engineering – 80% of frosh in the Berkeley College of Engineering eventually graduate with engineering degrees.</p>