Should I Bother Applying To Top Schools?

oPhilippos
Fri, 16 Jun 2017 05:57:19 +0000

“Or, should I apply to top private schools and get insanely depressed when I get denied to each one?”

First of all, if that’s literally what’s keeping you from applying, you have a personal issue that needs to get worked out with your sense of self. No one on this board can tell you yes or no to that question.

I hope you also understand that just because it’s not an ivy league doesn’t mean it will give you any financial aid. There are plenty of great private schools out there with great financial aid that aren’t super selective. I’m talking about places like rochester and lehigh. My advice is to do some research. Go on US News rankings (don’t pay attention to rankings tho they’re bs sometimes) and look at the financial aid sections of each school. You’re not going to go into 250k in debt.

You also mentioned being freshly immigrated. I don’t think you’re going to be counted as an international student (someone can confirm me in that case) given that you’ve been in a US high school for several years. That means you are eligible for financial aid consideration and can get decent money at the right schools. It’s important to do your research though.

“I don’t know how to grammar” “freshly imported from Asia” - this is not an explanation for bad test scores. It’s an excuse. I used to have the same attitude, and it’s something that you literally just need to get over. You’re not incapable. You just don’t want to work on your grammar skills and raise that score, but I don’t even know you and I still believe in you. In fact, one of my good friends immigrated to the US from China I think for his sophomore year. He ended up getting a perfect score on the ACT. His first language was definitely not English. It’s doable and takes work. It may not come easy to you, but that’s the beauty of a challenge, isn’t it?

“I can only speak in numbers” - well hun, that’s a poor attitude to have. You’re like 17. You’re not done growing or learning, so restricting your skill set so early is just naive in itself.

What I’m getting from all of this is that you’re afraid of being wrong or not good at something and having that conclusion be validated and I totally understand if you do. But if you actually want to be successful in this college admissions process, you have to confront these problems, work on them, and grow from them. Don’t resign yourself to hopelessness. There’s solutions to these problems, and I think it’s just important to look for those solutions before giving up.

Good luck kiddo