College application/beginning support group

congrats Amar

I'm going to top-choice college next year!!!

Congratulations!!!!!!!

Congrats Allishmalli!

I just got back from visiting my top choice college for the first time!  I spent the night in a dorm, attended a graphic design class this morning, and then met with a graphic design professor!  I was very impressed and I'm really excited to go there next year!

That sounds so neat Rachel!

It's official, I'm a high school graduate!!!

Congrats!

I can't wait for college!

Congratulations, Allish, Sirri, Amaranthine, and any other graduating seniors! What a huge accomplishment!

Congratulations to all of the graduates! *hugs*

I'm officially a senior now, so I guess I can start joining in on this thread.

I have finished highschool, and I have my college all picked out and applied to and accepted and all that. I've actually gone ahead and ordered my bedding, and within a week or so will probably be getting my roommate assignment, so that's pretty exciting.

That is exciting!

I'm enrolling in a local two year college and I start classes in August! This school is designed for people who want to transfer to a four year college during or after they graduate. I'll be living at home for the first year and possibly living in their dorms next year. I'm going to major in dance and finish out the whole two years to get an associates degree and then go to an out of state college for film making in a few years (as well as pursuing acting).

That's exciting! It sounds like fun! And yay for film!! *high fives*

Cool!!!

I haven't updated this in a long time c:

I actually committed to one college, Carnegie Mellon, first and was really excited to go there! But then God surprised me with a full scholarship to another school, UC Berkeley. This was like a week after I committed to Carnegie Mellon and had a dorm and a roommate and everything! The choice was actually really hard and I cried a lot. But now I'm super sure that it was the right choice! I leave next Sunday!!!! Aah!!

I'm moving in Sunday as well O_O.
Good luck with college, Amar!

Wow, how exciting!!! Good luck to both of you with moving in and getting settled!

I start my senior year in a week, so I guess I'll be needing some college application advice now

What a lot of people (including me) will tell you is don't write a boring, conventional run-of-the-mill essay that's like a billion other students' essays. Colleges like creativity/cleverness to spice things up since they have to read a ton of essays per year. What I took from this advice was "show, don't tell them" what I'm like.

For my essay, the topic was very vague, which allowed me to be as creative and out-of-the-box as I wanted to. I ended up writing a short story about The Adventures Pun-der Woman (my alter ego). In the story, I'm looking around a Northern-prestiged college when my arch-nemesis, Dr. Hyanmity (I forgot if I spelled it exactly like that, but it's a pun of "High-and-mighty") comes and fights me. He knocks me down with his "super-serious" ray (I might have called it something else, but that's what it was) and turns me opposite of who I am (not totally, I'm still a girl for the entire story). So, when I go back home and turn into myself again, I'm not myself. I'm super-serious, not generous, not smart, not focused, and even my political views have changed. That is until I read a few comic-strips, realize that I don't need to go to a prestige, stuck-up college because that isn't who I am and I should instead go to [insert the college I'm going to here] because it's smaller, people will care about me, and I can be myself there. So, years later when I'm representing my school at a school-search event, Dr. Hyanmity comes back and I defeat him (he ends up getting on his high-horse and rides away).

By doing my essay this way, I showed my school who I was (partly by showing them who I wasn't) by incorporating my humor/wit/personality, my "wisdom", my interests, my views, and my general writing skills into my essay without having to list everything out or write a run-off-the-mill essay. Plus, I also made it known why I wanted to go to my school. I'm not sure how much my essay actually played a part into my acceptance at that school, but I'd like to think that it played a big part since I got my acceptance letter fairly quickly after I sent it in (plus all of my other stuff I had to send in for the application).

I hope this advice helps. Good luck on your college applications! I know you'll do great!

That sounds like such a clever and creative essay! That is excellent advice, and I will definitely keep it in mind when applying and writing essays. Thank you!

So, I'm a junior now and have started my search for colleges. So far I'm mostly looking at in-state schools (Stanford, Cal Poly, Berkeley, and UCLA).

Do y'all have any suggestions for when I'm touring campuses/ things that I should think about?

It's awesome that you are getting started early! It's always a good idea to start looking early because once you get to your senior year you will run out of time very quickly.

If I were you I would start looking for applications already. Most are for seniors and college students but there are some available to juniors too. The more you apply for, the more money you have a chance of getting. It also helps to at least be aware of what scholarships each school offers, even if you won't be applying for them until your senior year.

And if you haven't already, be sure to take either the ACT or SAT. You can get lots of scholarships based on those scores.

thanks! And i'm planning on taking the SAT this spring/next fall and the ACT next fall as well

Um... at my high school, we were advised to take the ACT as many times as possible. Sure, it costs money to do so and to get tutoring for it if you don't get the scores you want, but when you consider how much college costs and potentially how much scholarship money you could get by getting a high score on the ACT, it's worth taking it multiple times and starting as soon as you can.

I agree with allishmalli. It's best to start as soon as possible with the ACT. It usually takes several times to get it up to the score you want.

Ok, so maybe I should take the ACT both times, as well?

And my parents and I have talked about doing tutoring over summer break, so hopefully that will help