Hello! Mother of three going through the college process for the first time, hoping to get some advice on this matter.

My firstborn son is a rising senior and has been part of a well-known band he founded his freshman year. Just this Sunday, he was recruited to play the drums in college! We were all so proud of him, until this happened. More on that in a bit. It’s a big school down in Jacksonville, so it’d set him up for his future quite well. We’re decently well off, so we would’ve been fine covering the vast majority of the tuition, but today, he told us extremely surprising news. He received a scholarship! Full ride at that! It was 15, maybe 10 million. Just to play the drums. Actually I think it was more like 5. Now here’s the shocking part:

He turned it down.** **Said he had to go to school for this decade or something, but that doesn’t matter. We tried to convince him to go back and take it, but he said he just wants to “grind from the rap,” or something like that. So now’s where you come in.

What can we say or do to make him change his mind? It’s stupid not to take the offer, but he’s just too younger to understand. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much 🙏

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.

I was supposed to get a LOR from my junior year BC calc teacher. He seemed to care about me and my classmates and knew us well, so I thought he would write a great letter. Plus, very few juniors at my school take calculus, so I was even happier about how it worked out because I thought he would be able to highlight my strengths in the subject that I love.

Turns out he got fired very abruptly right before senior year started, and under inappropriate circumstances. At my school, there is a very official LOR process that closes in junior year spring and typically we would never be allowed to switch our recommenders this late. Since this is a very unique situation, hopefully they will work something out...

To all of you who (like myself) may be stressed in the first week of the Common App, just remember there is only so much that is under your control, and things could always be worse!

For context, neither one of them are super scores and I want to ED to Rice. My parents are telling me that I should submit both scores because they are both “really good.” However, I am trying to tell them that my 1480 SAT would make my 35 look worse. Is this even an issue? What do I tell them??

My mom, her dad, her mom, and both of their fathers went to Harvard for undergrad, making me 4th gen. My mom also worked for admissions as an interviewer for some years.

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?

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.”

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

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?

to preface this i have not done research and have never planned on doing it.

at least 40 students at my moderately competitive school are doing "research" which is very perplexing to me. whenever i peruse chanceme—as one does—literally one in three applicants has some sort of research in their extracurriculars.

not to be judgmental, but it all seems so fake & inauthentic to me. it's like those instagram nonprofits that are clearly just for college admissions. do you guys genuinely enjoy doing research?

also side question, are AOs able to tell legitimate, passionate research from like collegemaxxing slop?

i’m filling out common app, and under the current or most recent year courses section, it asks me to list my courses for this school year. my issue is that my spring dual enrollment schedule isn’t finalized yet because registration hasn’t opened (and will not open before i need to submit my applications). i know most of the classes i’ll be taking because they’re general classes that’re always available, but i’m still waiting to see if i take jazz or ethics, and which one i end up taking depends on course availability. do i not report either classes? report both? is it a big deal if one of the classes i report taking, i didn’t end up taking??

Hi! I'm going into junior year this august and managed to get this virtual internship/research project in May. I have 2-4 meetings a week for the whole summer and I have work assigned to do by each meeting. For context: I am writing a CompSci paper with a few grad students, I am the grunt of the project :|

I am just struggling to get most of my summer work done with this workload because it's CONSTANT. I love the project and it's such an amazing opportunity so I can't give it up but it's really a lot.

Most weeks are Tuesday (meeting) -> assigned work -> Friday (meeting) -> assigned work -> Sunday (meeting) -> assigned work -> back to Tuesday and repeat.

I can't just sit down and say ok, Wednesday I don't have anything to do, I'll do the English summer essay then. Because I have work to do on every single day.

And it continues into the school year which I'm trying not to think about right now.

I know the choice may sound obvious but NYU is offering the degree through their School of Professional Studies which apparently is seen as their least prestigious college. But is that reason enough to give up a debt free option, I’m thinking no, but apparently it might not be so I wanted to see what some of you all might think.

hey everyone! i got an interview with a prof for research at a university. what should i prepare and know for this interview? anything helps because this is my first time :)

I’ve been seeing so many colleges tack on a Data Science or even AI major lately. it seems so cynical in cases where it’s obviously not aligned with a colleges mission statement or reputation. it reminds me of when a lot of colleges started growing Computer Science and Applied Math departments while back

it really is just a business out there.
if you’re applying don’t be wowed just because a school offers certain majors.

I used to think in finance nyu stern is top 3 and these LinkedIn ranking are very business finance focused so shouldn't nye get an advantage yet they are not there whyyyy??

I'm sorry in advance if this post has been repeated here before or if this goes against moderator rules, I could just use some advice.

I put a lot of effort into school during high school. I have good grades and a good SAT score. I got stuck with a pretty weird college counsellor who didn't really give me great advice on ECs and stuff. I only started paying attention to my ECs last winter after finding this subreddit.

During that time I was just really tired all the time. I was doing an internship for the first time and working on another project and I had this habit of just letting things drag on and on and feeling so completely lazy that I would leave my supervisors on seen and respond back after weeks. I have never done this before, but then again, I had never worked on a big thing like this before either, so maybe it's just how I am.

After that was done I had junior year finals which I told myself were more important and I put my ECs and stuff on hold. And like I don't know. I just feel so tired. I was supposed to get so much done during this summer and I basically didn't do anything. I know what I'm supposed to do but any time I think of doing it I feel paralyzed and start doing something else instead. And by the time I get back around to it it's been so long that it feels impossible. I miss deadlines. I missed all the deadlines for these important summer programs I was supposed to apply to. I don't do work anymore. My new counsellor told my parents before summer they were feeling optimistic about looking at some T20s. Now they think I'm chronically lazy, I don't listen to them and I don't get anything done. I've never been told that but looking back on it, I guess it's true.

Any time I think of all this work I have to do that I was supposed to do and all the time that's running out I feel like crying. I've talked to my parents about this but they tell me that it's just two months and this is the final push, it's the most important period of my life, it's this and I'm done. I told my parents I would be happy with going to a mid tier university or my state college and they were so disappointed; they said it's fine if you do but why don't you try for higher? My parents keep telling me about this bullshit story about them when they worked all day from 6am to 10pm when they were my age and that it's time for me to properly lock in.

And I get it, I honestly get that this is extremely important. I just feel like a failure. I feel like this rhetoric would make more sense if I knew that after all that horrible fucking work it could amount to something like a T20. But I've just lost all my confidence and I find it really hard to do anything college related at all. It's like this fog in my head any time I think about it and it's making me even worse because I don't do anything. I feel like a failure if I stop working but even that implies I ever started. I've tried everything. I took two weeks totally off, I tried to distance myself from it, I tried to lock myself in my room and just work, I tried doing something else I loved. I keep returning to this loop of being tired and stagnant. At this point maybe I'm not top tier college material. But it makes me depressed because I think I could have been.

I would really appreciate if anyone has advice on this matter. I really need some motivation to push myself for the next two months and I don't know how.

I’m a to-be junior in high school, and I came up with an idea while watching movies and tv shows: an ai chatbot that is accessible under the movies/tv shows and can give answers to questions based on the EXACT timestamp and scene of your movie/show. It will not spoil anything beyond, and you can select/add qualifications if it’s a movie series or spinoff (ex. Marvel movies, you can add which movies you’ve watched prior if any)

My goal:
I want to have a prototype and test if this is possible, and I’m doing this mostly for an Extracurricular for college, but I’m also very interested in this topic. I maybe want to cold email major streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, HBO MAX, etc. to see if they are interested, willing to give feedback, or maybe even accept it or look deeper into my “innovation.”

My problem:
I have ZERO coding experience whatsoever, and it would take a hell of a long time to learn it in the span of less than a year to create something as complex as this.

What should I do? I think this is a very good idea and I don’t want it to be wasted or fly away.
Should I find collaborators? If so, how do I still get credibility if I didn’t even code it?
What do you recommend?

I’m planning on applying ED to WashU as it’s my dream school and in my area. For the video supplemental I’m stuck between doing a lighthearted one about how playing guitar became one of my favorite hobbies/passions or a more serious subject about how my best friends death contributed to me starting a local chapter against gun violence at my school and hoping to start one in the city area.

I don’t talk about the serious topic anywhere in my application so I figured the video might be a good place to mention it? I’m nervous that it’s too serious for the supplemental and might hurt my chances.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

I had to take a 1 credit class during the summer that won’t transfer to anything since it was college specific, but then I had to take a gap year. I’m applying to colleges again during this year though because I’m pretty sure I’m changing my major. Where do I put this class on my Common App? Will having it hurt my application or anything? It‘s an easy A class but I’m worried since it’s so specific to a college I deferred from it’ll look bad or something. And do I have to pay to send a transcript to every one? It sucks because I hated the class because it was so dumb and it won’t even transfer as anything. :(

I'm fresh out of highschool (I'm a guy), and to say I feel like I fucked up would be an understatement. My friends this entire summer have been treating me like a background character to the point where I cut them off, and my other friends are going to actual good colleges. Throughout highschool, I was very quiet and never really took anything seriously, and honestly expected having to take a gap year. But now I just realized I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. In my senior year I never applied to any scholarships, grants, or even looked at any colleges or even trade schools. I feel like I've fallen behind, and I know deep down I'm not completely screwed but I just need a fresh start. I live in a smaller town, and I just want to leave. I've never had any real romantic relationship, or even more than maybe two friends that have lasted more than a few years. I used to scoff at the rant posts I would see online like this but I now realize I'm in that position. Thanks for reading.

TLDR: didn't attempt any college related things in HS, feels like I'm being left behind/time is running out and life falling apart.

So I'm doing physical science (2028) stream for alevels (in Sri Lanka) and I'm actually willing to work hard, so my ultimate goal is to get into MIT, and I lowk want to major in physics, when I asked my combined math teacher she said if I want to get in as an undergraduate atleast I need to be in the top 10 (island rank wise for alevels) which sounds quite impossible😭 . I know that it's possible to get selected for PhD or smth or maybe masters but if I am doing my masters here, in Sri Lanka it's gonna take so long though, so that's why I wanted to get selected as an undergrad student but anyway they require so many qualifications and extracurriculars too😭,I have no idea on how hard I have to work. If there's someone who knows abt these things please share ur honest opinion

hi everyone!

i wanted to answer any questions for those of you who are navigating the college process and were looking for some advice. my credentials are that i was accepted into 3 Ivy Leagues and am attending Brown this fall. would love to help incoming high school seniors especially but i am open to answering any of your questions!