College for an Introvert

intparent
Sun, 03 Nov 2013 18:09:52 +0000

My D2 is also an introvert. You are right, it does feel like the whole college application process is set up for extroverts! And I think every college admissions officer we ever met was an extrovert, too, which was hard for D.

One thing your D should consider is women’s colleges. I think an introvert can more easily shine in that environment. Scripps or Mount Holyoke in particular (both my Ds applied to and were accepted to Mount Holyoke – they attended elsewhere for various reasons, but they liked it a lot).

My D2 also struggled with interviewing, so in the end we decided she would not interview unless it was required (there is a whole thread out here on that where we hashed it over with other CCers). But the results were fine – she was accepted everyplace she applied.

She also mentioned her introversion in a couple of her essays. She did not use that word, but in her U of Chicago essay she described her method of watching and evaluating before jumping into a new situation, which ended up being to her advantage in the events she was describing. Her common app essay was about how she has spent her life since fifth grade emulating Sherlock Holmes (seriously… making her a little difficult to live with at times…), and she talked about being “overly reserved” in middle school as part of that, but becoming a bit more outgoing as she moved through high school. So your D does not need to hide it, especially if she can show how it has worked to her advantage in some way.

Also, my D did not have even one “leadership” position on her application (no club officer, team captain, etc.). But she was a top performer in a team academic EC at her school, and quite good at some individual activities (awards for art, 4H, fencing tournaments). Again, she was accepted everyplace, they did not seem to hold this against her. I think she came across as genuine and having depth in her applications, and the admissions committees seemed to like that.