Are you happy with your results? Expected or unexpected?
“Yes!
like I’m obviously happy with where I’m going I just thought I could do better
soo short answer ig is yes”
“yes ofc!”
“Spent like 50% of the time arguing & I thought my essays were mid? just goes to show it is literally impossible to predict the mind of college admissions officers! they’re inscrutable and so very, very, very fallible. but it worked out really, really, well for me!!! so i guess all’s well that ends well.”
“Yeah I am happy. I didn’t have a dream school though, so getting rejections wasn’t as soul destroying haha.
I did get rejected from most of my wild card schools, which was a bit of a surprise (I thought my essays and grades were good) but I’m not too mad about it honestly 🙂 like a lot of college decisions are arbitrary and I’m still happy with what I accomplished in Highschool!!”
“Yep, I am definitely happy with my results. Getting into multiple colleges I’d be content going to is definitely a privilege!”
“i’m not sure i would say ‘happy,’ but i suppose i’m satisfied”
“I would say I’m pretty happy with my results
It was def rlly stressful and obv I didn’t get my dream school early but im pretty happy w how it turned out ”
General post-application/college decision advice?
“honestly just dont sweat it 🙂 ur effort will always show in ur application and u’ll end up exactly where ur meant to be and where u’ll thrive
be proud of ur accomplishments!! whether u end up at an ivy or a safety school, ur gonna get access to so many resources that will further ur career and who u are as an individual”
“if you’re undecided about major choice widen your list a bit more
like i thought i’d do cs so i had a pretty comprehensive list of cs schools (w good range of acceptance rates) but after decisions started coming out i felt limited to that career choice (all the schools i applied to weren’t as good for premed or chem, etc)”
“It’s best if your goal is something other than getting into college. College is a way to help you achieve your goal, not your end goal. That’s why while your college doesn’t have to be #1 on US news, it has to be #1 for you. It has to suit your path and personality, whether that means a school that emphasizes interdisciplinary study or a school that sticks more closely to either STEM or liberal arts. But always be looking at the bigger picture, don’t worry too much about where you end up going. Focus on figuring out what kind of person you want to be and what kind of change you want to bring to the world. Once you get a grasp of what you would put your soul into working towards, you’ll be able to accomplish it no matter where you are.”
“As someone who had results that were a bit surprising, I would say that it’s important to apply to as many colleges as you can. You can broaden your range by starting early, which is important as it allows you to apply to tougher and also more safety schools.
Also to add: it honestly depends on your major, don’t be overconfident, but also don’t be too scared.”
“Waiting is the hardest part. But also try your best to not be miserable cause it’s out of your hands.
You can’t control the results. Don’t keep your expectations too high or too low because neither will help. Don’t lose hope even if you aren’t doing well in the early round/beginning of rd. It’s not over until it’s over!”
“This is more of a post-application thing, but don’t look at release dates. Let it surprise you. Looking at release dates just makes the day/week/month before things come out seem like a living hell. Ask for detailed advice about your activities lists from folks, we kind of tend to forget how important getting every word right there is. Reuse essays as much as you can, it’s really never worth entirely writing new ones (as someone who wrote like. 98 essays. save yourself.) more subjective stuff: if you’re like me and you hate writing about your emotions/traumatic backstory or whatever, don’t force it. in all the schools I got into, I didn’t actually end up going into that stuff much—and I don’t really think that’s a coincidence.”
“after you submit: my biggest advice is to just relax and try to take your mind off it (even though it’s hard). find something to do that’s time consuming and work on that. you’ve done all the work to get to this point so try to relax! the decision will be what it will be, and everything will work out in the end.
after you get your decision, you’ll either be happy or disappointed. if you get the decision you want, then go celebrate! go out for dinner, go enjoy yourself. if you don’t get the decision you want, it’s completely natural to be sad and stressed afterwards. it’s ok to feel that way, but know that a college decision does not determine who you are. you truly will end up where you’re supposed to be. and besides, there’s so much more life to live after college!
my biggest advice on choosing a college is to visit. of course you should consider the resources the school has and the opportunities within your major, but visiting a school can really seal the deal. if you step on campus and instantly dislike it, chances are you won’t like that college. if you step on campus and love it, you’ll probably be able to see yourself there for the next four years!”
“yeah you should probably consider the colleges’ locations…”
Any rants or emotions you want to let out (about college)?
“[REDACTED] Stanford ”
“Hmmm
I’m lowk pissed abt the UCs but I’m honestly happy w [college name]! It seems like a great school and I’m excited for that! The only thing I’m nervous abt for [college name] is moving kinda far from home and their harsh winters but besides that I’m rlly excited:)”
“the name of undergrad reallyy doesnt matter as much as u think esp after u get ur first job, it matters much more for grad so don’t worship names; it’s not worth ur time or stress and def doesnt define ur future
[the] process wasnt as bad as expected
im just scared but excited for fall rn
go do things you like afterwards because this is ur (maybe) last guaranteed responsibility-free period of time
if i had to summarize the year: many lasts and many firsts”
“oh so many lol
mmmm i think
the number one thing is like it truly is such a game and such a luck based system that is very hard to predict
and it can be really frustrating
but all we can do is put our all into it”
“honestly I feel pretty happy with [college name]
but I think the whole process just makes u realize how biased ur result could be cause of so many different things
like it could even be something as simple as an ao having a bad day or smt to get u rejected
obviously it’s not that simple but you know what i mean?
and we’ve all known this obviously too but I think just seeing all the results it really hits u cuz there’s no like pattern to where ur getting accepting
and that doesn’t help all ur anxiety waiting for ur decisions”
“Why do colleges wait-list like 40,000 ppl (Cough michigan)
And there’s those copy and paste rejection emails that tell you you’re special that don’t rly help
Also we should make colleges release how they made their decisions
[And] I actually have one positive thing
Writing essays with a theme makes you rly plan out some things”
“Definitely start early and have passion for the things you do cuz that’ll make writing about it way easier
And don’t stress too much college acceptance does not define your value or intelligence at all”
“tbh i jus think race based admissions shud be replaced w income based admissions
hear me out ‼️
race based admissions was meant to give under privileged students compete w those that were more affluent and had more access to resources
therefore the closer measure of access to resources and opportunity based disadvantages is based on wealth and not race
like a rich black person could have more opportunity than a middle classes white individual but both might stand the same ground in admissions jus cus one is of a marginalized race community
which ON AVERAGE is disadvantaged but
not necessarily that applicant
anyways typically the office of financial aid is separated from the office of admissions right
u alr mark nationality on the common app too right & race
anyways for asian applicants even if they don’t mark their race
[Alina: last names.]
they’d know
exactly
fully cooked
AND APPLYING FROM BAY AREA
double cooked
so many ppl got snubbed this year
like
some ppl deserve to go to nice universities
but none offered them acceptance
like u have no cracked friends that didn’t end up anywhere good?”
“College feels like gambling but like, 10x worse. It’s like if that one lottery ticket costing approximately $60 affected the entire rest of your life (yes, this is an exaggeration, but at the moment it FEELS like that) and the overall rates of winning tickets are kind of known but some factors skew them and you don’t KNOW which factors skew them or how they skew them (which is absolutely wonderful by the way). Oh and don’t forget about how this is basically a once-in-a-lifetime thing since no one in your family wants you to repeat a grade and so you kind of just have to live with whatever result you get but even if you do everyone around you (mainly your family) keeps talking about how “Oh my cousin’s coworker’s brother’s daughter got into EVERY single ivy league and all these other low acceptance rate schools.” Like, thanks. Thanks, I totally needed to hear that today. Anyways, college apps is a frustrating experience but I’m glad it’s over so I never have to deal with this again (well, that’s kind of a lie job applications are like the same thing haha great).”
“Most colleges are cool! It often irks me how central people make college acceptances to the entire high school process; it is a whole 4 years of your life, but so is high school. My advice is to do things you really enjoy in high school, rather than attempting to tailor your high school experience to some arcane algorithm that may or may not exist to minimax college decisions. It’s easy to over-focus on results in a highly competitive environment, with pressure from parents and peers, but empirically, it seems to me that the results will often follow, college and otherwise, if you really apply yourself to the things you really want to, uncorrelated with how much you grind specifically for college. Everyone at BISV goes on to a great college, so just enjoy time before college while you can (i.e, until the dreaded Age of Essays approaches).”
