Freaking out! I think all colleges will reject me

redpoodles
Sun, 15 Feb 2015 17:22:28 +0000

You should stop freaking out because it won’t help anything and it makes everything worse. There are many, many, many people who go on to lead happy and productive lives without ever stepping foot on the campus of a top US college. There are also many people who did get that chance and ended up miserable because they were doing it for the wrong reasons.

My advice is to build a relationship with your adcom at the colleges you are interested in and get noticed by them. And it doesn’t work exactly like you say at every school. A person I know who is the roommate of an adcom at a well-known Boston area college told me her roommate doesn’t read the apps of those who need significant financial aid unless she can’t find enough people from the paying pile. This is sad but true.

If your “friends” will see you as a “failure” because of your SAT scores, well, what kind of friends are those? Seriously? You are way too hard on yourself and it isn’t healthy.