Didn't find my passion until late junior year.

[glassesarechic]

<p>I’m copy-and-pasting a post I made on an earlier thread (found here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11885301-post12.html):%5B/url%5D”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11885301-post12.html):</a></p>

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As a writer, you’re going to find yourself in competition with students who have won national Scholastics awards, attended youngARTS, were nominated for Presidential Scholar in the Arts, have been published, etc. Honestly, until attending youngARTS, I had no concept of just how competitive the young writing community really is. There are kids winning all of these competitions, some of whom are nationally or state-wide competitive in other fields (theater, dance, debate, you name it) as well. I want to tell you that you don’t need awards to get into Y or any other school–and you may well not; a writer friend of mine whose only accomplishments were being editor of lit mag and attending Governor’s School for English got into Columbia RD last year–but many of your fellow applicants will have such awards, and in spades.

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