<p>Did you know that a UVa admissions rep (I don’t know if he is a dean or his name is Dean) posts here occasionally? Why not PM him your questions and ask for advice? ;)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=4156333&pp=15[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=4156333&pp=15</a></p>
<p>very good idea…Dean J is a female dean at UVa though by the way…there are many people with specific ties to your colleges posting…alum and students…Globalist at the UVa website is an alum who loves UVA, remains active there and encourages interested applicants. Don’t forget sybbie at Dartmouth’s boards.</p>
<p>j07: I wish mini and I could take you out to a nice waterfront restaurant in Seattle and give you a pep talk! You have great qualifications that ANY college in the U.S. will be interested in. You’ve got to have more confidence here. You seem like such a responsible, reasonable young lady and you would probably be happy at most colleges. I think that’s why it’s so hard for you to get a grip on your list. </p>
<p>You are a good writer, a hard worker in and out of school, and a team player as evidenced by your ECs. Now print this out in big letters and post it over your computer:</p>
<p>PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF GOOD ENOUGH.</p>
<p>You don’t have to have a perfect inquiry letter or resume or application. What you have going for you is plenty good enough (and guess what–it’s close to perfect). There is no perfect college or even perfect match for each person. You will find one that will be just fine–good enough. </p>
<p>Try this for your brief resume:</p>
<p>jo7
address
phones
email</p>
<p>National Hispanic Merit Scholar
National Merit Commended Scholar
GPA:INSERT
top 2% of class (class of 500 at INSERT NAME High School)
IB candidate; full IB program
SAT: M650 W800 CR800 (2250 composite)
Varsity swim team (4 years)
Student body VP
VP of INSERT CLUB NAME
Speech/Debate team
list other ECs
400-500 hrs. of unique community service (INSERT NAME OF ORGANIZATION)
employment as a restaurant server (15 hrs/week)</p>
<p>Just type it all up in a neat list and proofread it all twice. This is all you need–your accomplishments speak for themselves.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody for the compliments and advice, especially bookiemom, mini, and marite. </p>
<p>My parents are on my back trying to get me to cut down my list. I have started writing little blurbs about why I want to attend each school and there isn’t a single school that I CAN’T honestly write a good paragraph or two about why I want to attend. That was my only real way of evaluating the schools. </p>
<p>I know that “it’s a matter of willpower,” but apparently at age 17 I just don’t have that willpower yet.</p>
<p>This is a positive, j07, not a negative. You can see the possibilities in all these colleges. You will most likely be happy and successful at any college, because you walk on the sunny side of the street.</p>
<p>J07:</p>
<p>There are lots and lots of terrific colleges–far more than 20 or 50. You cannot apply to them all! What you can do is figure out which type of college would suit your needs best Tell yourself that you have a good chance at most of the top 50, indeed most of the top 25 schools and draw up a list accordingly.
Think about the criteria that would apply to you, and you only.
size; location (urban/suburban/rural/ ) weather (snow or not?); ease of travel back and forth from home; LAC,mid-sized university or large state university? frats and sororities or not? party school or crunchy granola type? diverse student body? research opportunities?</p>
<p>You and you alone can decide which of these criteria suit you. For example, the majority of students might say that year-round sunshine is better than cold weather. But my S, not being the majority of students, prefers snow and passed up a wonderful school in CA. He also prefers an urban school over a suburban school. Others prefer schools that have real campuses. And so on.<br>
Remember, in the end, you can only attend one school!</p>
<p>J07- For what it is worth my own dd’s had similar trouble narrowing their lists. And when a counselor looked at the lists…well, she laughed! She wanted to know how a kid who liked Swarthmore could also like Harvard…or how a kid who liked Amherst could apply to Columbia and Brown!</p>
<p>It is very hard, imo, to really “try on” some of these uber reach schools because you don’t want to fall in love until you know it is a two way street! Size and location wern’t all that important, nor was core vs no core to my girls…that is until May 1! During the month of April, all of a sudden, the list narrowed much easier for both girls as they played the __<strong><em>or </em></strong> game. This is what I suspect will happen to you as well.</p>
<p>Like many here have said, I think the safety/match schools (both for FA and stats) are the ultra important to narrow and get “right”, best as you can. Then from there develop the list of reaches…dd1 applied to 11 schools, dd2 13. Both girls ruled in and out schools based on the school’s app, and whether or not their essays could be refined enough to fit. Some will tell you this isn’t the “right” way to develop a list…but with internal assessment, an EE to write etc., a bit of pragmatism can’t hurt! And with ALL the schools on the long list being excellent schools, throwing a couple off in the interest of sanity didn’t seem like such a bad idea!</p>
<p>Neither dd, way back in the fall of sr year, thought that the schools they are now at (Brown and H) were the “perfect” fit. And yet, because so much of college is what you decide to make of it, that is how it has turned out. </p>
<p>So make your short list of safety/match schools…and then add the schools you think you might love (and think about all those things Marite has listed…no point in adding a rural school if you absolutely can’t stand the idea) …get rid of the ones w/ apps you don’t want to deal with…and voila…come April I’m sure you will have a diverse list of schools to consider, and I suspect it will be easier than you think to decide where to go.</p>
<p>I really suggest you walk onto three campuses. 1. Large large state school. Have you ever been to UT Austin? 2. Medium size private i.e. 5000 or so. Rice is close by. 3. LAC with 1500-2500 people. For that I guess you will have to travel but from everything we read here Amherst is highly likely to pay for that.</p>
<p>I bet the odds are 9:1 that you will get a feeling for what atmosphere you want within half an hour. That seems to have been the pattern for most of the kids here.</p>
<p>I have grown up near the UT-Austin campus…going to basketball games when I can, eating in the restaurants on campus and shopping in all the quirky Austin stores down there. All the IB Diploma kids in my grade even take field trips to the PCL (the biggest UT library) to do all-day studying and research for our EEs. </p>
<p>I love UT. At the same time, I have visited a much smaller college, Southwestern in Georgetown, TX, which I am pretty sure would qualify as an LAC. As much as I love the hugeness of UT, I also love the intimacy of an LAC. </p>
<p>Whoever said above that I “see the sunny side of things” was absolutely right; I have an incredibly difficult time finding things that I don’t like about schools (or anything else in general) and an even harder time “choosing a favorite.” The favorites section (favorite book, favorite movie, etc.) of some applications, such as Princeton’s, will be absolutely agonizing because I simply enjoy and appreciate too many things to pick a favorite.</p>
<p>I have decided that I may just apply to more than 10 schools. I will be sure to work on my applications in a certain order so that I don’t do a poor job on my last one or a poor job on my first because I’m “inexperienced.” I am quite the perfectionist, however, so I’m sure it will be a rather tough next couple months, but it will all be worth it in the end.</p>
<p>My mom is trying to help me get everything organized for all of my applications and schools. I am choosing not to apply anywhere online (I know this is the preferred method) because I feel much more confident being able to have a tangible application sent by snail-mail to a school. Because I am doing everything and printing it out, I have a lot of papers to deal with. I know there have been some threads about this in the past, but does anybody have any comments on how I personally should try to get organized?</p>
<p>Right now my list is as follows:
<p>I think I can handle 14 applications…well, hopefully I can. I’m sure I will cut out 3 or 4 schools during the actual application process. USC will allegedly award me aid for Natl. Hispanic Merit status, and additionally I have heard that Amherst might award me aid. All of the Ivies will be able to award me need-based aid, maybe not AS much as my family would like, but certainly Harvard and Princeton will help out a lot.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody who has read and commented…I have never appreciated the kindness of strangers more.</p>
<p>Great to see your list! I think My S downloaded a free trial full version of adobe acrobat… it was for 30 days…check out their download page for the rules now. 30 days was not too short a time for him because did his final drafts, edits over winter break ect and mailed all his apps in on the very last couple days possible…hopefully you will be less dramatically last minute. He also chose to do hard copies on several apps. For some, he printed out the Common App and added Supplementals. I think UVa actually prefers the Common App…There are some old threads on simple things like doing paper or online apps in CC…look in the November December threads for tips from other students, often on the page of each college near time to get this stuff in the mail. Although UVa gets a ton of applications, I am convinced from what we know in Virginia that the essays really matter and are carefully read and considered by their adcoms. There was a priceless thread on To Paperclip or Staple that stand out as amusing in my memory. To put in a photo or not. Communicate with each office soon, and I think you will be receiving invitations.</p>
<p>D was in the same boat as you, but our FAFSA came out MUCH higher, which was a joke! D is now a sophomore at Amherst. If you apply to Amherst, it is VERY good with FA and the way they handle their FA gave us a lot more FA than we expected and costs us a lot less that UT Austin would have. It was her safety, too.</p>
<p>Alright, I am trying to start organizing everything this week.</p>
<p>I have a huge whiteboard 4-month calendar in my room and I’m going to put the app deadlines, scholarship deadlines, and financial aid form deadlines for every school I’m thinking of applying to on there. I also have a bunch of fileboxes and have made a folder for each of the schools I’m thinking of applying to. </p>
<p>Here is my question: Should I start working on my applications and then eliminate schools as I go, or should I sit down and force myself to make a final list and then start working on apps? I will probably be re-using my essays for a few different schools but I would hate to get all the way through an application and then realize that I don’t actually want to go to that school.</p>
<p>Any advice or opinions on how to stay organized with 14 schools in mind?</p>
<p>Open Word files with separate documents per college. Back them up on disc or load them onto a safe website where you won’t lose your work in a crash. Senior year is a busy time and you won’t have time to reconstruct your work if lost.</p>
<p>Type the question on each document needed for at least five or six colleges you know you are going to try for. Make a day of just setting up the files for all the supplemental questions. Generate core ideas you know you want to get across for each question. Don’t worry about anything, just open up your mind and heart. </p>
<p>When lost, read that college’s newspapers…especially the editorial pages. The students will become more real for you. Visualize yourself there within that campus culture.</p>
<p>Bookmark your favorite colleges webcams. Get in the habit of peering at that image, even the ones that go dark at five pm (ha). Go to the college maps and get a feel for the layout of the community, and see where the students are walking to get around to key places all day and evening. The goal is to begin to get a feel for each place as a real community. Where would you likely be at 10, 2, 5 and 9 pm next year in that world? Visualize yourself there.</p>
<p>Buy Harry Bauld’s little short classic paperback on college essays. Read it with a yellow marker and an open mind. Don’t worry about anything. Go to sleep. </p>
<p>Same week Re Read what you hit with your marker before. You are a high verbal, and on the second read, I guarantee you that you are going to get a sense of which voice you are going to use on your personal essay, which will help you make choices about what you will write. Generate some images about yourself that you want to come across. You are looking for the tone for your personal essay.</p>
<p>Try to make only three to four images come through that will stick in the mind of overloaded essay readers. </p>
<p>Start finding a coherent abbreviated way to convey your kind of energy and thinking and the things that make you tic in five minutes. Find a way to convey what matters to you and what you add to a community. This is theater, not a time to touch on accomplishments which are already clearly listed elsewhere. The adcoms can already see you are a hard worker and you are bright and motivated so your essay does not have to rehash your EC list. You don’t have to prove anything or promise anything about your major or career path. </p>
<p>Picture your first adcom reading of your file with her third Starbucks of the day in hand. Make it easy on him or her! Don’t make him/her work real hard to know you. Introduce your personality clearly and don’t be shy. </p>
<p>Introduce a person that would be a great new friend to have, a voice in class that adds to discussion, a person who will likely step up to make a contribution somewhere that will keep the best interests of the college moving forward. </p>
<p>Remember, you don’t have to be some Finished Product at all. You only have to be on an interesting path with positive energy to share with the rest of the class, all of whom will be interesting people in their own lights.</p>
<p>good luck…your essays will get deleted, edited and then will be just right.</p>
<p>
Well, either way is okay. Whichever appeals to you. If you would need to <em>force yourself</em> to make a final list, then I think you should not go that route. Rather, start in on some apps.</p>
<p>I have lost track of your current list. But what I would suggest is starting in on any rolling or early admission schools. If there are none of those, then start in on one or two schools you KNOW that you LIKE A LOT but that are among the least selective/safer schools on your list. These will be a little easier for you. Get those done. Then start on the schools you would MOST like to attend. When you have several apps done, see where you stand. Re-evaluate your list as you go.</p>
<p>Just one approach. But as long as you start with schools that you need for safety and then move on to schools you are certain belong on your list, you won’t waste effort. It will be easier to add other schools by then, because you will have several essays you can use wholesale or cut and paste just a little bit.</p>
<p>“I bet the odds are 9:1 that you will get a feeling for what atmosphere you want within half an hour. That seems to have been the pattern for most of the kids here.”</p>
<p>Ha! Not my kid. I took him to Caltech, Berkeley and Stanford. He liked them all. Though I’m pretty sure the techie at Caltech atmosphere resonated with him. Many kids can be happy pretty much anywhere, you sound like one of them. It’s a good quality.</p>
<p>My younger son (who unfortunately doesn’t like science) loved Caltech. So I envision coming here four years from now saying know of any quirky, geeky schools known for pranks that cater to non-scientists?</p>
<p>I think that I can be happy in most places. I love living in a city where it’s 101 degrees in late September and similarly I love snow. I can hang out with almost anybody and because of all my activities I usually am hanging out with a plethora of “types.” </p>
<p>My list as of now (well it changes every 2 minutes) is as follows for whomever lost track:
<p>I’ve gotten it down some!</p>