Well, the end of March is now here, and as of a few hours ago, I have now heard the official decision from all ten of the colleges that I have applied to. You can see my College Acceptances Corner to view the full list, but essentially I have been accepted to four of the ten universities that I applied to: American University (Washington, DC), Elon University (Elon, NC), Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), and Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY). (I also received wait-list offers from three universities, but since applicants-heavily-dependent-on-financial-aid and wait-lists don’t mix, I do not intend to seek a spot on any of those wait-lists.)
And so comes the conclusion of about sixteen months of hard work that I have put in searching through colleges, determining where I want to apply, filling out applications, writing essays and short answer responses, attending information sessions and interviews, filling out financial aid/tax info forms, etc. Now, over the next thirty days, I will have to make a choice between these four universities to determine where I intend to spend at least the next four years of my life. During this month of April (particularly during my spring break), I will now have to tear myself through everything that I have received from these four schools, and reach a final decision on where I want to attend. More on that later, but first some thoughts on the admission results that I’ve received.
If there’s one fact that I’m absolutely no stranger to, it’s this one: the college admissions game is one of the most ferocious competitions out there and it gets more ferocious every year. To say the competition is intense is an understatement. I read a statement from one college admissions representative of a particularly selective college who called it “brutal.” And indeed, many of the letters that I received indicating my denial or wait-listing indicated that they received a tremendous number of very well-qualified applications, but they only have so many spaces available for their entering freshman class. And by any measure, my decision to apply to ten private universities, and only ten of them, was indeed a risky decision. (I’ve known some students who actually applied to as many as twenty schools! Now that’s getting a bit insane intense…) But nevertheless, despite me being a good and hardworking student and someone with a lot of volunteer involvement, I’m not a valedictorian, I’m not a National Merit Finalist (though I did get National Merit Commended recognition), I don’t have triple-800 SAT scores (though a 34 ACT composite score is nothing to laugh at), and my volunteer service is not necessarily humanitarian, nor does it particularly evoke thoughts about what a good citizen of the community or world that I am. Saying that I’m a volunteer and advocate with the California State PTA requires further explanation about what that actually means and why I, a student, would be doing that; saying that one helps care for the elderly or organized some big event to help people in Darfur or to help end social injustices or something like that strikes up thoughts about what a difference that person is making right off the bat.
But I digress. The point is that with all of the competition out there, it probably is not much of a surprise that I didn’t make the cut to be in the Ivy League or Ivy-equivalent schools (Brown, Stanford, Yale). They received tens of thousands of applications for an entering class averaging around 1500 (Yale claimed that they received 26,000 applicants). And particularly after reading an article like this saying that colleges are now admitting more students who have less financial need, and it becomes clear just how crazy the college admissions game has become. And it’s only going to get crazier in the near future.
But that said, I am still absolutely thrilled to have been accepted to four very nice schools. Not only that, but I’ve also been awarded with some nice dowry from some of these schools as well. American University has selected me to be part of their prestigious Honors Program, and has awarded me with a Presidential Scholarship of $27,000/year. Elon University has awarded me with their top Presidential Scholarship of $4,500/year. And although I did not get accepted to Syracuse University’s Coronat Scholars program (which would have been a full four-year scholarship), I did receive a $12,000 Founders Scholarship from them and an additional $11,500 university grant. (I am still awaiting financial details from Northwestern University.) I’ve done very well in terms of the places that I’ve been accepted to and will have a very interesting decision to make over the next month, as well as some additional reading and research to do over spring break. (And, if I had my druthers, I’d also be able to do some college visiting, but that will only happen if I can find a leprechaun and coerce him into leading me to a pot of gold.) But hey, choosing between four schools is a lot easier than choosing between ten!
Looking back at my college applications short list, what are my thoughts? As I mentioned, I took a risk by opting solely for privates. (A risk that still lingers as we, mostly my parents, await the prospects of how much the bill will be and who’s going to foot it.) I considered applying to UC schools for awhile, but I decided that they really did not seem like the place that I wanted to go. I was looking for a smaller setting than UCs, and though I wouldn’t admit it, I am intrigued by the idea of stepping outside of my home comfort zone and putting myself in a new environment. It’s not that I’m itching to get out of San Mateo; the opposite is true. I love living with my family, I love my school, I love being in the Bay Area (not only because of the weather), and in particular, I have loved the outside community connections that I have put together for myself. As much as I hate to think about it, I’m going to have to get ready over the next two or three months to say a lot of goodbyes to a lot of people that I’ve become peers with over the past four years. But I’m also going to get the chance to thrust myself into a new environment and new opportunities and really discover what I want to do with my life. I’ve scratched a lot of surfaces over the past number of years, and at university, I’m going to have the chance to try and do so much more. My college short list revolved around that idea. In a completely subjective and hard-to-explain manner, I chose the ten universities that I applied to based on the idea that they would help me truly discover how I want to shape my life. I chose them because I could see myself going to any of them and thriving there.
I also picked my college short list based on the idea of having a range of options. Schools like Brown, Stanford, and Yale were more of my “reach” schools, whereas schools like Elon were more of my “safety” schools, and I had some ranges in between. And that’s kind of how my results turned out. I didn’t get into my “reach” schools, but I did get in to most of my “mid-range” schools, and quite frankly (finances aside), I’m quite excited about the opportunities I will have at any of these campuses.
And just like that, I am now in the home stretch of my college admissions process. Within the next thirty days, I will have selected a school that I will be able to identify as my alma mater. But no rush; you can rest assured that I’ll give all four acceptance letters a few weeks to ripen before I pick one off the vine, and that announcement will be posted here as soon as it’s finalized.
