Got bored studying for a DiffEq exam, since I’m essentially a shrivelled husk of burnout at this point (I graduate in a week) I may as well post on here..
Notable changes since then: moved up to class rank 1, got several software engineering jobs, worked hard..
I am committed to Caltech for CS and will be working over the summer as a software engineer for [redacted] company, and will continue to work part-time into my college career. Some forewords, to better understand my circumstances (and hopefully garner an inkling of credibility):
English is my second language.
My family was middle-class my whole life and never pushed me to succeed in this college application process. Neither of my parents know what a personal statement is (1st-gen immigrants including me).
I never had a tutor in my entire life, nor a counselor beyond public school provided ones. I can credit a majority of my achievement to the internet.
All of this to say there wasn’t really a secret $50,000 college counselor or a state of extravagant wealth or connected parents carrying me through this process, mostly just myself and the world wide web. Onto a collection of thoughts about my college admissions process.
Wow, that sucked.
The importance of prestige is simultaneously understated and overstated. Yes, having a T10 on your resume does give you a boost in getting your foot in the door, which is especially important in oversaturated fields (CS anyone?) or elitist companies (wall street anyone?), but this effect pales in comparison to being $300,000 in debt by the time you graduate. Not getting into a top school doesn’t evaporate your talent or hard work either. In summary, it would be a massive win for a hypothetical recruiter to find a “diamond in the rough” from a state school, but that doesn’t have a high chance of happening when they automatically filter out resumes from below T20 schools…
The US college admissions “industry” is based off of fear-mongering that is meant to get you worried about your future. No private college counselor will tell you that your application looks great and leave it at that, because their success depends on you being worried about your future and your goals No shade to any college counselors on here, but success is completely possible without them. However, if you have enough money to dish out on them without giving it a second thought while simultaneously not knowing where to start in this process, their support can’t hurt.
Seriously… get off these forums, r/chanceme, r/ApplyingToCollege, and the like. I honestly think the only posts worth reading are the pinned ones that have actual advice, but the large majority of content on applying to college forums is not useful at all. It is more harmful to your psyche than doomscrolling Instagram Reels, because it sucks up time and injects you with an actually debilitating dose of pessimism.
Pessimism! “Don’t have high expectations, it’s nearly impossible to get into X school, they only take IMO gold medalists, are you actually applying for CS? you’re never gonna get in, I know this guy who cured cancer and got rejected from CS at X school, have to apply as Linguistics major, also CS is oversaturated and you’re gonna be unemployed, wait what do you mean you got a job?” This is so prevalent in …everyone… that it is impossible to avoid. You can never be 100% sure of getting in anywhere, but sowing the seed in your brain that such statements plant quickly turns into “I’m not good enough, other people are stronger applicants than me, etc. etc. etc.” I’m a strong proponent of the idea that people’s success is strongly correlated to their mindsets, and college applications are no exception. Do not think “not getting into this college will ruin my life”. Think “I will be successful. I am competitive. I can do this.” This is honestly everything.
A lot of “Essays that Worked” use flowery language, crazy deep metaphors, and Shakespearean prose that would make their AP English Literature teacher cry tears of joy. But if you don’t write that way naturally, you absolutely should not write that way. Why? Because it would feel forced no matter how much time you put into it, and would come off that way to anyone reading it. Frankly, I wrote all of my college essays exactly like I’m writing this post right now. I find this style of writing to be the easiest way to convey my ideas, which gave me a solid foundation for conveying the things I wanted. By all means, go for the prose if you find your heart compelled to do so, but it is not a requirement to having a good essay.
Conserving your mental health is imperative to being a consistent strong performer. Ignoring your mental and physical health will lead to an apocalyptic crash-and-burn that will make you as productive as a boiled celery. Personally, I’m a very productive person: an average day for me would be working 6 hours every day after school on my extracurriculars or employment, and up to 14 hours a day when school is out (literally, I put in over 850 hours in a single summer on a remote internship, churning out code). I honestly deflated the amount of hours I put in to my activities and jobs on my Common App because it is so large people on these forums think it makes college admissions officers suspicious. While my employers and teachers are very satisfied with me, if I don’t have a week where I do nothing at least every two months, my productivity declines pretty rapidly. Develop metacognition and know when to stop.
That’s all for now. Let me know what you guys think.
Really great insights. Thank you for sharing them! I especially appreciate your encouragement to spend less time on college forums and to prioritize mental balance. Would love for more high schoolers (and their parents!) to see that.
Congrats on getting through school, and I hope you have an incredible time at Caltech!
@ruski, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree with much of what you wrote, especially points 3, 4, 6, and 7.
Can you let me know what “that” is referencing in point #1?
In terms of point #5 and pessimism, I’m one of those people who put the bulk of your list in the low probability (less than 20%) category in your original chance me. You’ve got an acceptance to Cal Tech in hand, so you got an admit from a low probability school. Does the less than 20% categorization lead to a “debilitating dose of pessimism?” How would you describe the chance of admissions for schools where a very strong profile is considered table stakes (i.e. the minimum to be in consideration)?
I’m hoping that you’re taking care of your own mental health and will be fully rejuvenated before fall semester starts. If not, you may want to consider a gap year, as from what I’ve heard, Cal Tech is not a school where you want to start out feeling burnt out.
EL is an acronym for English Learner (formerly known as ELL, English Language Learner). I believe this is what OP is referring to by EL since:
This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking in reading @ruski’s well written but somewhat concerning post. I could probably have written something similar (although probably not as well written) about the time that I graduated from MIT. I think of Caltech as a smaller version of MIT with better weather but a similar amount of stress.
For a student headed off to either MIT or Caltech, my first question is generally “do you want to do it”. Either one will be a lot of work and I think that it is helpful to show up on day one ready to work hard, and knowing what you are getting yourself into.
This might however be a better question to ask yourself a month or so after graduating from high school. Feeling burned out for a few days is probably pretty common among new graduates (whether high school graduates or university graduates).
Life is not a race. We each need to figure out our own pace and take care of ourselves along the way.
I read your original chance me post, and actually don’t see much of this in the responses (really only that one poster at the end mentioning Stanley Zhong). But maybe you ran into a lot of this on Reddit?
Third, you write very well. I wish that all undergraduates wrote as well as you do. Heck, I wish the the grad students that I taught wrote as well. It was a long post, but you will notice that everybody who comments has read the entire thing.
However, are you taking some time this summer to just vegetate? Do so please. You need a break, and this is likely one of the best times to do so. To be serious, if your job doesn’t want to let you have some time off, they are more replaceable for you than you are for them.
Looking at your post, I think that, you will do fine at Caltech, especially if you get some R&R over the summer.
“That” was the college admissions process as a whole, just a little joke to get my thoughts running. I know it’s typically a very stressful process for families.
Don’t worry haha, your post had nothing to do with the kind of pessimism I was referencing. I like to write with dry humor.
Personally, I didn’t really take to heart or experience “debilitating pessimism” during the college application process, but I have seen people who have, which encouraged me to warn against it. There are lots and lots of people I have seen in the process get discouraged from even applying to their dream schools since kindergarten by people on the internet (typically high schoolers) who seem like they are more motivated to bring others down than actually give advice on a college profile. My point is: don’t get discouraged and shoot for it!
Thanks for the concern. “Shrivelled husk of burnout” was definitely more of a joke on my behalf than a cry for help, though I am fatigued by the whole college admissions process and…high school… as many probably are during this time. Like many seniors, I just want to be done and start a new chapter of my life, which may have been conveyed too intensely in my original post
By and large what I’m talking about in the quote festers on Reddit communities like r/chanceme and r/ApplyingToCollege, quarantine yourself from them at all costs! College Confidential is a better platform at managing this because of the high concentration of parents here as opposed to the predominantly high school make up of subreddits.
I remember a user on r/chanceme who was insulting everyone applying to UPenn and roleplaying as a UPenn Wharton grad. Turns out he was a rising senior wanting to “remove the competition”…
Thanks for posting this. You clearly thought a lot about what you’ve said here. I like point #1, which many people can relate to.
First, congrats on successfully getting through the application process with a good college to attend. I’m going to address a few of your points from a different perspective because I truly don’t want any anxious students or parents to think that your post is definitive or universal. By your own admission, you are burned out. You’re interested in our thoughts, so here are mine.
Not always. One person’s achievements while in college can go a very long way, especially for students who make a real effort to seek connections and opportunities.
I don’t agree with this. There are mostly good people in the industry whose goal is to help alleviate stress by ensuring kids have a realistic list of colleges. Fear is the opposite of the goal. Any student’s application can look great if they are applying to colleges that are suitable for them, based on their stats. I firmly believe that your next point about forums, especially reddit, is a hundred times more responsible for fear and anxiety than the college admissions industry itself. I also believe youtube college decision reaction videos, etc… are very negative influences on student expectations.
Those types of essays are maybe a few hundred. Maybe. They are cherry-picked examples designed to lure a student into whatever the site is selling. (One great source is the classic book “On Writing the College Application Essay”, by Bauld. No flowers there.) After 13 years helping kids with essays, I can count on one hand those who have truly exceptional writing skills. Most kids who get into elite colleges are not writing like Shakespeare or anything close. Your writing here is authentic, i.e, good.
Yes, by no means do I want anyone to take my advice as universal, I should have stated that sooner. Despite having a successful cycle I am still inexperienced in college admissions and my advice should only be seen as a collection of my thoughts at best.
Yes, this is what I mean by my “diamond in the rough” statement. Recruiters won’t pass on obvious talent if you come from a state school. Your university is not the end all be all of your future employment, however, speaking for my own field (software) I can’t ignore the fact that I have seen recruiters on multiple occasions automatically filtering resumes based on universities. My point is, at the very least, predisposed credibility never hurts!
I think my wording may have been a bit too harsh, like I said previously, no shade to any college counselor doing good work. It is just that personally, from what I have seen, people do not go to private college counselors if they are sure of themselves and their applications. Anecdotally, I have gotten a lot of advertisements for very costly private college counselors that start with things like..:
“If you are not doing these top X extracurriculars, your ivy league application is going in the trash and here’s why”
“Research is the big thing for getting into good schools (heres my $5000 “research” program)”
“Your essay is bad and here’s how I can help”
“Your son/daughter needs to do these top 3 things for a good personal statement”
…and so on. Personally, I think such styles of advertisement are inflammatory. I won’t name specific counselors that I think are guilty of “fear-mongering” and I do not doubt that there are well-meaning people in the industry, but as an outside observer, it seems to me that some counselors can be too harsh in what seems like a ploy to attract customers. My main point here is, a private college counselor isn’t necessary for success! I made it just fine without one, and I know many other rural, low-income kids that did too.
I think you reworded my point in the original post, because I agree with everything you said here.
