A little background: I am a foreign student who had lived in the states for half of my life. Currently as a sophomore in high school, I have decent grades and am doing pretty well academically.
However, I am very worried about my future college admission. After asking many people about their experience with this admission process, I figured a pattern with many of successful applicants: they all standout in someways. Some people who got accepted are science crazy, while others are exceptional and even world-class in their respective fields. Looking back at myself, I have nothing. I play viola, golf, and produce music on the computer. I love to cook and build my own computer, too. But I never achieved anything somewhat significant in these fields. I am planning on caddying for my local golf club and starting a electronic music club in my school, along with helping to promote 3 yearly blood drives to the Red Cross, but I doubt they would do anything.
Is it way to late for me to do anything significant now? I am lost with no sense of direction of what I should do. This is giving me anxiety sometimes. Everyone around me just seem so much more exceptional and better than me. But I really want to get into a good university in the future. Trust me, I have the desire and drive to do it. Please, if you have an answer for my current situation, please reply, thank you with all my heart.
The trick is to create a balanced list of colleges including safeties, matches, and reaches. That way you will have options. The mistake many make are only applying to reaches. Don’t assume that only the very top colleges and universities are the good ones.
Few students have truly excellent ECs that are not spin. Those doing research and are “published” in a meaningful way have been introduced to faculty at various colleges already and know that they have an “in”. It’s truly the rare birds out there who have recognized awards and prizes that make a huge difference in admissions to highly selective colleges. The vast majority of students have a list of activities, showing they have been contributing members of their school and home communities, jobs to pay towards their things and some true interests. There simply are not that many teenage savants. The hooks that are listed like Legacy, development, URM are inherent—born into them, just as some are born into families that can easily pay for college without s thought. Recruited athletes have been spending many hours over years to reach that point. You aren’t likely going to create an instant hook —rarely happens.
Most of the kids over the years, including my own college years, nearly spanning a half century, who gain admissions to selective schools are hard working students who took rigorous academics and got high test scores. Some needed to do less work than others. Some got tutors and help to bring up those numbers. By definition, few college students go to the most selective schools.
For most college grads, the course of study , courses taken at college, grades make far more difference than the school in getting into a job that pays well. I know too many young people, some not so young who graduated from selective , “name” schools and floundering in terms of finding a means to support them that they can enter.
If you are an international student, it’s very important to find affordable colleges that will take you, and find a field of study that has a lot of jobs. You will have constraints over and beyond US citizens and permanent residents. Don’t get distracted by the frills of college. For you, if this is the case, getting write to the nitty gritty is important It really is forvall students , but if not in the international category, they can take a bit of a break from that path.
The overwhelming, vast majority of kids who attend college are NOT members here. It wouldn’t occur to them to search out a site like this one. They’re not winning Nobel Prizes or Olympic Gold medals. They’re going to high school, earning their A’s-- and B’s and C’s, attending extra curricular and working part time. And they all find a college that suits them.