Denied at almost every school...

slipper1234
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:40:27 +0000

I concur with some of the above comments; here are my two cents.

1) I think whomever counseled you made a big mistake re:schools you applied to. Applying to only 4 schools is setting yourself for failure, especially considering given your scores/ dataset Stanford would be almost an impossible reach, so basically you applied to 3 schools. UNC is incredibly hard out of state, so that was a super reach. So given your school choices that were realistic (UVA/VaTech) you got into the one that was safe (VaTech) and rejected from the one that was a low reach. So you batted 50/50. Makes sense.

2) It seems like you basically rationalized your way out of being successful. “I’m booked on the weekends” and wanting to visit before applying both helped you rationalize a 3 school approach, but the reality is that there’s enough information in guidebooks and CC that you shouldn’t have had to visit every school before sending an application. You should have applied to a good mix of reaches and matches and seen how it played out. Given your profile you probably were fair game for a number of top 35 schools. Remember schools choose you in the end, applying to only 3 schools is a risk.

3) There’s a silver lining. If you do well your first semester at VaTech (3.4+), you should be a shoo-in to transfer into UVA or UNC (UNC loses the in/out of state criteria for transfers, UVA is kind to in-state transfers). Also maybe apply to Georgetown (in DC) as well which is within reach if you do well your first semester.

My honest opinion is that you didn’t play the college game the right way, and unfortunately the results went in line with this. In the age of 12-15 college applications, a 4 school application set is going to lose almost every time. On the other hand the positive aspect of all of this is given your strong high school record you’re poised for a great transfer opportunity if you decide to take it. Do well, and commit to it, and you’ll have the UNC or UVA experience you prefer.