Hello @one1ofeach . Thank you for responding to my post! First of all, this year I’ve decided to localize my selection of schools around Massachusetts so that I can continue participating in BYSO. I believe I wasn’t admitted to the schools because:
- The huge surge in applicants in last year’s application season and the fact that I am ORM. We’ll have to see if the same surge occurs this year.
- My essays were rushed and not of great quality. Additionally, they lacked emotion and a sense of being. This year, I started my essays earlier (I’m still writing them…) and plan to gain advice from some great essay-writers.
- Last year, I overprepared for my interviews and now that I look back, I came off as artificial. So far, I’ve only done one interview (SPS) but I believe I went quite well.
- Although violin was one of my main extracurriculars, I did not focus on it during the application process. This year, I’m planning to get more involved in violin since my new teacher plans to introduce me to various violin competitions.
- Lack of leadership roles. Unfortunately, my highschool does not offer many leadership opportunities for freshman since we are on the bottom of the “food chain”. However, I have taken a role in the Service Board which I have already mentioned above.
- There were numerous errors in my Candidate Profile and things that I left out.
- Lack of displayed interest and failure to contact heads of departments because of underestimation of importance. I will work to attend more events and contact the orchestra directors at the schools.
- My awards are not impressive, I am not especially gifted, and I do not play any sports competitively. There is not much I can do about this. I’ll just work my hardest to win those violin competitions, and keep my grades up.
Last year, I only applied to 4 schools so I am not used to the workload of applying to 9 schools and keeping up my grades in high school (high school has been especially rough with the numerous tests and projects). I already know my net is not wide and I do not plan to widen it because 9 schools is enough to manage. I have looked through these schools with my parents and these are the schools I would like to go to. To be honest, I don’t mind staying at my normal public high school and I am not going to apply to other schools for the sake of raising my chance of acceptance.