The Official M10 2020 Freakout Thread

@SolarJ - if you are applying for significant FA, a fee waiver will not change your admissions outcome.

@SolarJ whats a fee waiver

@Mercurrii lol it’s kinda in the name, it waives your fee for things like admission. Sending in apps/ testing can get pretty pricey, so a lot of the times people’ll get them discounted or for free, depending on income.

@TheHappinessFund ohh. I thought it was like a waiver for borrowing money from the testing centers and stuff oops

@SolarJ i got a fee waiver from all the schools i’m applying too!

the admissions ppl are super chill about it. just go ahead and ask if u want too

@ens2006 nice! Those costs are super expensive,
Another reason I’m super glad to be in ABC-- minimal application fees!

@ens2006
Thanks for the advice; I wish I could have done so. I don’t know, my mom (she doesn’t know a whole lot about what I’m doing, really) she was worried that not being able to pay for certain things might give me a label as a poor kid (I mean, it’s not false, soo…) which might not help my admission. In the end, I paid for it all and wow, it was expensive.

Following this conversation, I have to commend you kids for doing all this yourselves, especially given some of the financial challenges you seem to be facing. Our DS probably doesn’t totally appreciate how fortunate he is. Best of luck for your ambitions!

How many of your interviews did you do? I’m doing one for a safety school on Thursday, and I’d like to know how you guys are preparing (or did)!

Hey guys! I’m applying to Phillips Exeter, Andover, St. Pauls, and Groton. Jesus Christ, I don’t think I fully comprehended how competitive these schools are until now. Like, there’s a 16% acceptance rate to Exeter, but it feels so much more real when you know actual people applying, you know? I haven’t told any of my friends that I’m applying yet, since I don’t want to disappoint them when I don’t get in. I know a few people who’ve tokd me they’re applying though. How about you guys? Have you told your friends about this whole process?

It seems moire competitive than it is, trust me

the kids with perfect scores, 180 ec’s, and are nationally ranked in whatever are a very small percent of the applicant pool.

if you can write a good essay, you have decent scores, and you have solid ecs you are dedicated to than i feel like you can get in.

@SolarJ I did three of my four interviews (I’m doing the fourth one on Friday) and they weren’t the worst, to be honest. Be prepared to be caught off guard, but if you know what points you want to cover during the interview, then you should be fine. Things that I wanted to mention was my personal project and my extreme love of learning new things, so whenever it fit, I just mentioned that! I think they asked my what my favorite class was, what my teachers thought of me, and and what my classmates thought of me. I mentioned this before in a different thread, but Phillips Exeter asks a lot of “why” questions. Why do you want to go to this school? Why not this school? etc. Personally, I think I did well, for at least two of my interviews, since I was a lot more confident and had longer, more detailed answers. My first interview was just a mess. The person interviewing me didn’t seem interested in me at all haha. Best of luck to you!

@ens2006 Thanks for the comfort! What would you consider decent scores? How is your application process going?

@mondaydevil
well pretty much what i’ve heard and seen is that in general anything near or above an 85th percentile is good to go at like every school.

i’m probably not going to be able to get anything close to that (high 70s or lower 80s at best) but i think schools can look past that if the rest of your application is good.

scores aren’t a deal breaker, schools just don’t have to look twice at your score if you get around 85th.

if you gave it your best effort, don’t worry about the scores if you don’t think they’re “ideal”

also, i will step on anyone that says an 86th percentile or higher is “bad”

@mondaydevil i started one essay and i think the writing/editing process it’s going pretty smoothly.
i haven’t done anything besides a few short answers though. Thanksgiving break is coming up, so i can probably knock a lot of stuff out.

@ens2006 step on me.

@ens2006 Awesome! That’s my plan as well. Hopefully, I can catch up then, haha.

Also, @Mercurrii I was reading the older posts on this thread and by Dune, you meant Dune, the 1965 sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert, right?

@mondaydevil Hi! heard my name being summoned. Nice to meet ya!

Yes. It is such a good book oh my GOD also vocabulary so.

Nice to meet you too! Thanks for the recommendation-- my vocabulary is t r a s h. and my reading comprehension. So I suppose this hits both subjects one!

Sorry if I’m replying too quickly. I just found this website and I’m obsessed lol

@mondaydevil nonono! ask all you’d need haha. this is a freakout site, after all.

okay I’m trash at vocab too but I have a couple of quizlets, I can DM them if you’d like!

That would be great, thanks! I can also DM you my spreadsheet of vocab if you want