College: LAC ranked around 100
Transferring as: Sophomore
HS UW GPA: 4.0
College GPA: 4.0
ACT: 35 (retook during freshmen year; 5 point increase)
Major: Computer Science
EC’s:
- varsity sport
- independent study research
- volunteer tutor for middle schoolers
- CS club
- a couple of meaningless HS jobs and EC’s
Accepted to:
-Brown, Wesleyan, Rice, Vanderbilt
Waitlisted:
Johns Hopkins
*Note: Sorry if there are typos; I don’t feel like proofreading
Coming out of high school, I had the grades for top schools and was ranked near the top of my class. I was committed to my sport but was not good enough to be recruited by most schools and did little else outside of class, so I was not a very interesting applicant. It did not help either that I only had a 30 ACT (similar SAT score). However, for whatever reason, I thought I was “supposed to” attend an elite school as I had worked really hard for my grades. I did not realize that that was not nearly enough to get into those top schools until I got rejected from every last top school I applied to. I did not realize that it was silly to apply to schools in which my ACT fell in the bottom 25%, especially when I did not have anything stellar on my application.
Senior year of high school, I was only accepted to the college I currently attend and my state flagship, and chose to attend the LAC I am at so that I could play college sports and I was also interested in the smaller class sizes (for the record, the state flagship is undeniably a better school than my school). Being rejected from every top school I applied to lit a fire under me. I did not go into my first semester of college with the intention of transferring (which I recommend everyone does), but I wanted to change my complacent academic lifestyle. I started sitting at the front of every class, joining a couple organizations that I cared about and getting involved in research right away just by asking my advisor.
I ended up not enjoying the size of my school, nor the town, mostly because both of those factors felt too familiar to my hometown. Playing college sports was not enough to keep me there and I think part of me always wanted to go to a better school. When I applied to college out of high school, I did everything last minute and spent very little time on essays. So I started over winter break, doing research on schools, studying for the ACT again and drafting essays. Because I had been so active in class and gone to office hours quite a bit, I already had great relationships with a few professors and they were willing to write me rec letters. I ended up killing it on the ACT and jumped from a 30 to 35. I also took my essays several times to the director of the writing center until every last one was polished (this went on from January to March). (If I had to give one comprehensive tip on essays, it would be to orchestrate a story, even the 150-word ones, that shows the answers to the question, rather than just directly answering it. It makes it far more interesting and readable) Applications were due in March and I submitted them a week early, whereas before I had waited until minutes before the deadline.
Fast forward to today and I have been accepted to 4/5 of the schools I applied to! I could not feel more vindicated. I absolutely loved my visit at Rice and I think I will be going there (I am considering Brown, but the student life and smaller class sizes at Rice seem more attractive. Any advice on deciding is welcome!). Even though I certainly did want to move on from my previous school, it stung a little as I was really behind some really good friends I made, all of whom will get to spend the next few years with each other. In the end though, I am excited that my efforts have paid off and look forward to this fall at my new school!