Hi everyone! I wanted to share my college admissions journey with all you, and hopefully help some future applicants.
Stats:
ACT: 35 (35 E/35 M/35 R/36 S)
SAT Subject:
800 USH
800 Math 2
740 Biology
UW GPA: 96%
Class Rank: Top 10%
I got to a medium size public school in NY, where there’s only one AP offered junior year, APUSH. There’s also AP Comp Sci, but I suck at computers, so I didn’t take that.
Senior Year:
AP Government
AP English Lit
AP French
AP Biology
AP Calculus BC
AP Statistics
ECs:
Main EC is competitive figure skating, but I have some other smaller stuff like clubs and volunteering. So I am pretty average. No national championships…I didn’t start a business…or a nonprofit…so basically I don’t have a spike.
Recs:
I’m not very close with any of my teachers, and I was a bit of a lackluster student in high school so…
I started seriously thinking about college the spring of junior year, which is actually really late.
I’m a pretty open-minded person, but I knew that I definitely preferred urban schools, and I knew that I wanted a school with a skating team.
My Original College List:
Reach:
UPenn ED
Cornell
Match:
NYU
BU
BC
Northeastern EA
Fordham EA
RPI
Safety:
?
My parents convinced me to apply to more reaches. My mother was all for HYPS, but I politely refused lol because I figured I had zero chance.
Second College List:
Reach:
UPenn ED
Columbia
UVA EA
Vanderbilt
WUSTL
Dartmouth
Cornell
Match:
Michigan EA
NYU
BU
BC
Northeastern EA
RPI
Fordham EA
Safety:
Binghamton EA
I visited RPI and couldn’t stand it, and same with BC. My tour guide said that Troy was like Boston compressed into six blocks. As someone who lives in the area and skates at a rink in Troy…not quite. My dad has been all for going to college in CA for a while, but I always refused because of earthquakes. I changed my mind during a family vacation to CA, and ended up adding UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC to my list.
I wrote about four drafts of the Common App and hated them all. I was always really nervous about the CA essay, because I’m not that interesting lol. I spend most of my life in a cold ice rink, or writing in my room. Then, the week before school started, I pulled together a new essay in fifteen minutes that has been changed very little. I’ve gotten all positive feedback, which has really surprised me.
And then…I had to start the supplements.
I thought the Why X college supplements were the most boring thing to write ever, so I put them off until October 15th. Bad idea. Really bad idea.
My Penn and Michigan supplements were pretty rushed and formulaic, and I wasn’t feeling good. Also somewhere between November and mid-December, I had a complete change of heart regarding my major. I decided that I wanted to apply for international relations or history, instead of economics. I didn’t have to really retool my RD supplements…because I hadn’t been writing them. I was expecting a rejection from UPenn, so I don’t quite know what I was thinking.
Anyway, on December 11th, I received a rejection letter from UPenn. I didn’t cry. I’m not a crier, and I stared at my ceiling for about an hour, which may be more troubling than crying.
A few days later, I received an email from Northeastern.
ACCEPTANCE! I also got into the Honors program and got a 22K Dean’s Scholarship.
A few days after that, I received an email from Fordham.
ACCEPTANCE! Full tuition NMSF scholarship too, so I was definitely going to college.
The next college I expected to hear from was Michigan.
I got home from school, and was refreshing my email and Wolverine Access every five minutes. Then…Wolverine Access stopped working. After refreshing my email for hours and trying fruitlessly to get into Wolverine Access…I got a deferral.
So in December…
Acceptance:
Northeastern Honors Program w/22K Scholarship
Fordham w/full tuition scholarship
Binghamton (forgot when this happened)
Deferral:
Michigan
Rejection:
UPenn
These last couple of weeks have just been frantic essay writing. I do not recommend. Also, about a week before the deadline, I decided to also apply to Northwestern, UChicago, and Wellesley…because I didn’t have enough work to do already.
My Northwestern, Columbia, and BU apps were a lot sloppier than I wanted. Northwestern was very last minute, honestly, my brain was like “I’m not going to get into Columbia anyway” so those essays could have been better, and I got lazy with BU, since I had already gotten into Northeastern. All of my Why X college essays were on the boring side. I did tons of research, but I just couldn’t find a good way to make them interesting, so we’ll see.
I’m still writing my Wellesley and USC essays. I hear back from UVA in January, and I’m expecting a deferral. UVA OOS is crazy.
My Final College List:
Reach:
UPenn—Rejected
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Northwestern
UChicago
Vanderbilt
WUSTL
UVA
UC Berkeley
UCLA
USC
Michigan—Deferred
Match:
NYU
Wellesley
Northeastern—Accepted w/Honors and 22K Dean’s Scholarship
Fordham—Accepted w/NMSF scholarship
BU
Safety:
Binghamton—Accepted
Out of my match schools, NYU is my clear top choice, but I don’t know if it will work out financially.
In hindsight, I started my college essays way too late and rushed them, and didn’t get much feedback on my supplements, which were mainly Why X college essays. Also, my list was way too top heavy. I really should’ve added some matches and eliminate some reaches. Also, don’t take six APs. That’s just too many. Take 4-5 APs MAX. I’ll let you guys know what happens with UVA and my RD colleges!
January 1st: I feel relieved…and now extremely anxious. Also, I have a bunch of AP Bio, AP Calc, and AP English homework that was meant to be done over break. laughs nervously
January 2nd: I took forever to submit my Cornell app. I had the cursor over the submit button and waited forever to press it…and ended up missing the button the first time lol.
