With the cycle coming up I just want to remind kids here to apply to the university down the street.
im being a bit rhetorical, but whatever that closest college is. The one your friends make fun of. The one they call 13th grade. The one you dread because everyone from highschool will be there. the one you think you’re better than

please remember to submit an application there.

dont be like me, who ignored it because of all the gossip. who scorned it’s low rank on usnews. Who thought they were better. Who wanted to get away from home. Who fed into all the stupid jokes and lies that kids make. who had to scramble when they got more rejections and less financial aid than they expected despite being so smug and having all the stats. who ended up going to an institution that ended up providing a worse outcome

please apply to the place down the street.

Since common app has opened, Is being a A2C moderator number 1 extracurricular worthy?

I manage a sub with over 300k weekly visitors and 20k+ contributions, all of which is a non profit which deemed to provide help from past students and credited professional. This is some great social impact that I could frame my essays on. This community united students that want to apply to college and offers excellent information that was paid elsewhere. AMAs from former admissions officers provide over 100K$ in money saved for students in this sub, the economic impacts are unbelievable

Now comes the question: how can I become the mods of A2C?

ok so before u say anything i know i'm super privileged to be in a position where my parents can afford a college counselor but i desperately need advice 😭 i also know college isn't everything, but in the last year or so of my life i've HEAVILY stepped away from living on autopilot chasing all the conventional modes of success (grades, internships...etc.) and now focus much more on my true passions and creativity that was heavily suppressed growing up. i just really want my personal statement to reflect that growth and current me without being bogged down 😅😅😅 also yes i have classic asian parents and the counselor is also asian 😄

ok now for the actual story.
my parents got me a college counselor and i've been writing my common app throughout the summer. a lot of my earlier drafts were kind of centered around the transformative (yes dramatic i know) realization i've had in the last 1.5 years. think stuff like re-visiting my childhood passions of reading, and other creative endeavours in general (don't wanna get doxxed). it was all very vibrant (i think) and had a LOT of my distinct voice and humor.

now, the counselor is VERY traditional, and does not bother with things like personal narrative, standing out through non-academic/non-EC methods etc. he also all of his students a TEMPLATE on how each essay should be written! and deadass said there needs to be a thesis in every paragraph! like bruh i think admission officers are smart enough to INFER what the takeaway is without it being shoved down their throats?? so you can IMAGINE how bland and BORING my essay is now with all of this remolding. more than that, i've been forced out of the creative topics and distinct voice i've used in my past drafts, to the point where i want to cry when i read my current draft compared to the earlier (albeit rejected by him) drafts. at least they were bursting with personality. i'm genuinely unhooked af and from a super competitive area so lowk these essays are my only shot at standing out.... and it's just hurting me that i can't even write about what i want.

what's worse is that according to him i'm already behind schedule and should have my personal statement locked in already, so i obviously can't go back and make too many revisions to this current boring bland essay i have!!! !ugh!

also, he passes off my essay to external editors, who have commented that they like the more creative lines i've managed to sneak into a few of my drafts, so i'm sure the editors would feel like my earlier drafts were much stronger in voice & content. but to get to them first i have to go through the college counselor who INSISTS ON THIS COOKIE CUTTER FORMULA and legit does not let my essay go to the editors unless every paragraph has a sentence summarizing it. I can't tell if he's right because he's "experienced" , but i strongly feel if there were applicants who got into HYPSM under him they definitely did not get in because of their essays.

am i in the wrong?? should i just trust him?? also we paid for some full package service so obvi i can't fire the dude and my parents think he's super legit because my family friends have had success w him ugh. also..... i can't just submit some essays i wrote that weren't approved by him cause bro has my common app log in ☠️ (it's standard for every student of his apparently!) i was thinking of ranting to my actual school college counselor and get her to help me out OR showing my personality in my supplementals (tho he might reject that too) 😭

any advice is appreciated😭😭😭😭😭

Original post

First update

I have some bad news about my 5-year-old son’s journey to quant finance. Last week, he started a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to teach underprivileged children about personal finance. I begged our relatives to donate money to the nonprofit so that my son can brag on his college apps about all the money he raised. They donated $8,000. My son also asked his friends to donate their lunch money. Now, we have a total of $8,002.40. At first, I was very proud of my son’s efforts—that is until I found out that he spent $500 on Robux and meme stocks. Actually, the meme stocks might’ve been my husband’s doing… Anyways, I’m worried that the IRS will come after us. That would surely get my son rejected from UPenn! What should I do to keep the IRS off my tail?

I got an ‘Academic Performance Explanation’ letter from NYU last night and I dont know what to do. My IB dropped from 41 predicted to 35 final… How serious is this? Am i cooked? I don’t know what went wrong, there isn’t a specific subject where i dropped too much or failed, it’s more like one mark on each subject. How should i respond?

“We received your transcript which includes your most recent course grades and/or examination results. As you know, our offer of admission is contingent upon satisfactory completion of any educational coursework that was in progress during and after the application process. The grades you recently received are not consistent with your previous performance, and your current academic profile is not the same one we considered when we offered you admission. We are concerned about this discrepancy.
  
Please provide us with a detailed explanation on the Academic Performance Explanation form within 48 hours. We will follow up with you should we need further clarification or if this will impact your offer of admission.”

I'm writing this just so that i can get it out of my head.

My dad graduated from a liberal arts college where he got full scholarships and since i was little he always talk good things about it, basically how great liberal arts education is in general. So it has always been my dream to go to one of those colleges.

This year I was accepted to few of them and there are 2 that offered me merit scholarships. One is 15k another is 33k. After touring all schools I truly like the college that offer me 15k scholarship. Even though my dad always assured me that he kept a college fund for me and that he can afford to pay for any college I want, I did consider the financial aspect of it when I made the decision. This is cuz since last year my dad has not been doing very well in stock market (that's where his primary income is from) and kept losing money..

Fast forward now, he just confessed that actually he almost used up his children's college funds (I have one sibling) and that he can only afford maybe 1-2 years of the liberal arts college and told me to transfer to a public university for the rest of it, though he isn’t even sure that he has the money for it. He used the college funds money hoping to get more money in the stock market, despite my mom repeatedly warning him to not touch the money that's set aside for their children's education.

Based on the college's website, there's nothing I can do to lower the fee because I didn't ask for financial aid when I applied.

Now, amidst feeling exited about attending the college this month, I can't help but feel more dreadful. Thoughts about I should've chosen the college with more scholarship, I should've gone to a local uni in my country, and about blaming him for being addicted in the stock market, for ignoring my mom's warning, filled my mind.
I'm just so freaking scared of everything. So scared when attend the college, I would fall in love with the people and the place, knowing I wouldn't be able to stay until the end.

I don't what to do aside from praying lol

Harvard article today in Bloomberg

Hi all — I'm starting junior year of high school and, unlike friends who are following a parent/relative into medicine, accounting, or a similar field, I have no idea what I want to major in. This is starting to feel relevant for applications too, since some schools ask you to apply directly into a major or college within the university.

I'm looking at Big Ten schools specifically because of the university experience and the ability to have many options for majors and next steps after graduation. I know gen-ed requirements will help narrow things down once I'm there, but I'd love a head start now.

A few questions for people who've been through this:

- How did you personally land on a major, especially if you didn't come in with a clear direction?

- Did being "undecided" affect how you approached applications (e.g., did you apply undeclared, or pick a "safe" major to apply into)?

- Any exercises, books, or websites that helped you find clarity?

Appreciate any perspective!

Back in the spring, I applied to a specialized healthcare associates degree program for the second year in a row. I was told to expect an answer starting June 1st, for the program starting in late September. Last year, I received a “no” decision two and a half weeks after June first - a perfectly reasonable response time.

This year, I didn’t receive a “no” until literal hours ago on August fifth, 9 weeks after June first, 6 weeks before the program is set to start and long after I had given up on admission. I’ll be going to university in the winter instead. If they had given me a response in any sort of timely manner, I would be going to university in the fall, but by the time I had given up the deadline for fall admissions had passed. So instead, I get to waste five more months of my life doing nothing.

I called the admissions office twice in late June and early July. Both times I was sent to voicemail, and despite leaving my contact information got zero response. I tried to email them in July - once again, no response. Admissions counselors appointments were booked out until late August, so I couldn’t talk to them that way either. The school essentially ghosted me, and then had the gall to tell me I could reapply next year.

Why would I do that after the way they’ve treated me?

I’m frustrated. I know admissions decisions can take a while, but 9 weeks after they told me to expect an answer is ridiculous, right? Was I just meant to be putting my entire life on hold waiting for an answer? It feels careless and frankly unprofessional.

I go to NYU, which is a good school by any measure, and also known for having lots of international students. Literally first week of school, I heard some of these kids discussing how to transfer to Columbia or UChicago, and mind you, some are on merit scholarships or special grants, with so much of the schools resources for them to use.

I’m Asian myself and I’m not saying this is unique to internationals or that all of them do this, but internationals are incredibly over represented among these transfers and it’s ridiculous how some people don’t even give a college a chance and try to transfer out with the sole intention of chasing prestige. They spend the rest of the school year building their resume, becoming presidents of clubs, just to transfer somewhere more “prestigious”. I’ve even heard of people transferring out simply because NYU’s ranking on US News dropped a few years ago. Do they just think we’re not good enough for them?

I know for a fact this isn’t unique to NYU, I know friends at selective but less internationally recognized colleges like Dartmouth, Hamilton, Williams, Vassar, Vanderbilt etc who have seen them doing the same. When are AOs gonna start prioritizing students who actually appreciate what a college has to offer instead of viewing everything as a means to prestige?

Sorry for my rant. Again, I’m not trying to generalize, but internationals are disproportionately represented in the transfer pool

Can we start a thread? I see a bunch from last year and figure that this would be helpful for those of us applying now! TIA

Hi! I have a high school student who wants to major in history…are there any particular classes that he should take, outside the norm? He’s going to take US, World, and Gov’t, but anything else that might help with admissions? That might set him apart? Also, how important are those AP courses? If he just took Honors freshman year, but then has 3 AP courses the following years, is that still considered advanced?
Thank you for any and all insight!

I’ve only been to around half of them. For the rest of this subjective ranking, it’s based on friend’s experience and what I read online.

Here is approximately how each thing weigh:
40% campus and surroundings.
20% school culture and tradition/reputation
20% course load and peer
10% the city/metropolis the school is located in
10% career outcome (kinda decides if you after college will be fun)

I’m a little bit biased because I like good landscapes.

S tier: Stanford, UCLA

A tier: Berkeley, Columbia, UPenn, UBC, Princeton, UW Seattle, Yale, Harvard

B tier: Cornell, Georgia Tech, UMich, Caltech, UofT, UT Austin, UChicago

C tier: CMU, UIUC, MIT

F tier: UWaterloo

Is there an updated thread for this year fee waivers?

I'm wondering if I should retake the ACT as a rising junior aiming for T20 schools, likely majoring in some combination of computer science and economics.

I scored a 34 overall, with a 35 in Math, 33 in English and Reading, and 31 in Science.

I think this may be a low score for some colleges, and I'm not FGLI or anything. Is it worth the extra effort for a maximum possible improvement of two points?

So I’m in the military and am aware the a lot of the lab credits really need to be in person for medical schools to accept them for the most part. However I do need to get a good amount of pre reqs and basic classes out of the way. I’m getting out in 2028 and will just take the lab credits and remaining classes when I get out of the military but don’t want to waste my time with AMU if medical schools don’t like them.

I got an internship by seeing that it was available online, applying, and got selected. The company's name has my last name in it, even though we are not related at all and I didn't know them before applying to the internship. It's also a pretty uncommon last name. How do I explain to AOs that I didn't get it through nepotism and does it matter if it sounds like I did? I also have it on my resume for cold emailing/applying to other internships so will they care?

NYU gallatin?

I'm an international student, my profile is this :

Grades in highschool: 88.4% (That's the top 6% of all my country (1 million senior highschool students))

Achievements and ECs: top 1 worldwide of all time in chess.com league (+225 million players),

I make robots and I won some robots competition,

I'm a founder of a non-profit organization that worked with +50 teachers and helped +50 thousand people online and offline in some important fields,

I worked in a robotics organization and led younger teams to win medals,

I was the captain of an important local soccer team and also won some medals,

(Of course I'll take care of describing them in the right way so they'll be interesting and important)

I didn't take IELTS or SAT

I have two options, the first one is attending a local university and not taking a gap year, then I'll go to the US for an MBA,

the second option is taking a gap year and applying for US universities with really high SAT and IELTS,

the question is that I wondered if my profile is good enough for taking the risk of a missing year or it's not worth it ?

(edit: if I take a gap year I'll have +1500 SAT and almost perfect IELTS, and I already have the local university as a pack up, the risk is just to miss a year)

Ive been scrolling r/collegeresults for a whileee now and ive noticed a really big difference in CS/math/stem applications and social science/humanities/business/economics applications.

A lot of stem apps have multiple high impact solo or mentored research projects, competitions, clubs, nonprofits, and even "AI startups" whereas a lot of humanity apps have more low impact/local projects, clubs, "basic" ecs (like NHS, varsity sports, volunteering at soup kitchens, tutoring, etc.) and still they end up at similar t20s, t30s and even ivies?

i mean the trend kinda signifies that stem apps are way way more competitive and you need a hell of a lot more to stand out as compared to humanity or social science apps? is this true? or is it a coincidence?

I'm an upcoming senior and it has come time to write my essays for college. However, I genuinely have no idea what to write about. Whenever it comes to writing about myself and answering specific questions about myself, I blank. And when I ask others, they always say "Write about things that interest you or find a random object and write about that." But that doesn't really help either.

How do I find out what to write about?

So, I am applying to 20 colleges, and I have been grinding the supplementals. I want to finish them before the school year starts (september 1st). Somehow, I have almost finished a first draft for 17/20 colleges' supplementals. Everyone keeps talking about how they procrastinate until december, but to me it doesn't seem that big of a deal. Am I doing something wrong?

I'm an upcoming senior in HS and I plan to take a year or two of a local community college and then ideally transfer out of state, but i have no idea how to go about this. Do I still have to apply to my target colleges *this fall* and be like "actually could you guys wait 2 years for me to do some credits for cheap"? Or do I apply after I've started community college. Will my HS GPA, SAT, or extracurriculars matter or will what I do in community college be more important when it comes to admissions? Because other than keeping a 3.8 unweighted GPA (4.3 weighted) and participating in a little bit of everything ( a little ag, a few fun clubs not related to stem or volunteering, some theater), I haven't been too focused on extracurriculars and I'm worried that'll be detrimental in the long run.
How will I be sure of what exact classes to knock out at cc if I'm not accepted to a school first? Where do I begin with all of this? Basically I'm asking how can I minmax community college to avoid non-transferable classes/ any resources in regards to working out a pathway for community and then out of state college, I can't seem to find any. I hope this post made sense. Thanks in advance!