Full disclosure: My business is getting Americans into their ideal undergraduate or graduate program overseas. While I am happy to speak with whomever wants to about their pursuing this line of education, that isn’t my point in this post, but it does tie in to the question I’m raising here.
Over the past couple of days, my requests for information, and to speak with parents and students has more than doubled what it normally is. These are people that have gotten rejected from Stanford REA, people that are worried about getting into Harvard, or Duke, or Princeton, or any number of places here in the US, Don’t get me wrong, these are all great schools. And if you got in, you should be thrilled. But what strikes me is this emphasis on things that don’t really matter in the long run, and how much everyone seems to be stressing about them.
Without fail, every single person I have talked to over the last week has mentioned two things: their fear of getting in somewhere that will benefit their career path, and that they don’t know if their intangibles (think extracurriculars, volunteering, recommendations, and their hook, or lack thereof) are enough.
You should volunteer and pursue extracurriculars because you get something out of it, not because you feel you have to in order to ‘wow’ some admissions officer.
You should be honored that people are willing to take an hour to write you a letter of recommendation because you made an impact on their life.
You shouldn’t let parts of your background beyond your control make you feel better or worse off as a candidate for admission. Frankly, you should be proud of yourself.
That is the difference in the American college admissions path, and the one for European schools. It doesn’t matter to LSE or St. Andrews or Imperial whether or not you were captain of your soccer team, or worked at a soup kitchen so many hours, or that you developed some app. They want to know what your academic interests are and that you’ve got the test scores to back up your passion. With the addition of a good personal statement and one letter of recommendation, you have most if not all of what you need to get into these world-renowned programs. Nothing else.
Another problem I am seeing is that most people don’t know that this is even still an option. There is still time to apply, and get accepted to these schools, using a lot of the information you already have to apply. Sure, Oxford, Cambridge, and UK medical schools aren’t accepting more applications this year, but that leaves dozens of others, including LSE, Edinburgh, and UCL.
Granted, again, this is what I do, but it struck me that all these disappointed people were asking what more they could have done. These are people with perfect GPAs, 5s on their AP tests, 1550+ on their SATs, 34+ on their ACTs, hours on hours of community service, and enough extracurriculars to make me wonder when they last took a breather, or slept. It’s not their fault that the process is so skewed, and while it may have had the noblest roots, I think we can all agree elite admissions in the US is definitely skewed.
I told each of them this: they deserved to enjoy the last of their high school careers. They had earned it. I think most of you probably have too.
That’s it, I’m off my soapbox. Again, this is not an ad, and if you got in to your dream school early, you deserve all the congratulations in the world. But from someone who has spent a lot of time talking to people about this subject the last few days, I feel like you should all know that you’re more than good enough and that you’ve got other amazing options available.