HS Class of 2013 Lessons Learned

ace48225
Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:46:24 +0000

If there’s a school you really want to go to, apply EA/ED. Recently, privates have been accepting nearly 30% - 40% of their entire class through ED, making admission through ED easier and through RD harder.
Write your Common App essay during the summer between 11th and 12th grade. Also, if you’re applying to UCs or similar schools, write those essays over that summer too.
Spend your summers wisely. Get internships, prepare for competitions, or work at a useful (i.e. major-related) job.
Get a high GPA and SAT. These set the boundaries for your potential admissions. Of course there are outliers and instances of ECs covering up for GPA, but don’t count on it.
Almost every school people want to get into on CC typically pick from the top 10% of the HS class. Ivy League will typically pick from the top 5%, with the most selective ones like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia picking from the top 1 -2%. If you’re not within these brackets, you’re most likely out of the running.
Look over the admission results thread for the college you want to get into. These are admitted people posting their (hopefully) real profiles so you can see the competition and calibrate your expectations. I’ve found this to be the best way to measure myself against the typical admit. Things like parchment just use a calculation and chance forums are, as many have said, useless.
If you’re a Ivy League/Stanford/MIT/etc. hopeful student, apply to good schools with rolling admission or earlier notification dates (like UMich, or something). You need to have admissions that you’re happy with lined up before you get hit with the decision storm from 3/27 - 4/1.
Don’t loose hope in your college admissions but don’t get too enamored by any one college either. Try your best to push it out of your mind and enjoy senior year. Stay away from the college forums during the weeks leading up to decision day. It’ll give you panic attacks.