How does one stand out from the crowd?

fluxxii
Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:02:31 +0000

Last year, as a high school senior, I got waitlisted from two of my top choice schools (Carnegie Mellon and Amherst) and rejected from two schools that I really, really wanted to attend (Penn and Hopkins). My “stats” are above the national average and well below the standard for most CC users. However, I do think that I have potential at these universities and I want to give it another shot. I love my current university, but living so far away from home has been much more expensive than I’d hoped. Since CC has given me a sort of reality check, I want to make sure that I do my best in packaging my soul into a little application for these reach schools that I want to transfer into.

So, amidst the thousands of competitors you may have, how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd? I don’t mean being published or interning or winning the Nobel Prize. I don’t have much of that. I want someone to actually know who I am and not identify me by my social security number and GPA. I would love to have an admissions officer actually know me by name, if they still bother to do that. Any advice?