The Biggest Mistake You Can Ever Make

Applying to College
1

<p>According to my school’s USA Study Abroad Program Counselor, a very smart, very into things and very intuitive lady (who has worked in admissions offices throughout the states), one of the biggest mistakes one can ever make is blunder.</p>

<p>Imagine this profile (hypothetical in every way):
Your dad was an acclaimed archaeologist, and your dream has forever been to become a renowned archaeologist too. You have taken classes in Latin, Ancient Greek, and have spent your summers working with your father in projects in South Africa. Your SATs are stellar, your rank and grade dreamy, your extracurriculars centered around what you love most, essays to match, and in general you are the greatest student a college could hope for. And you absolutely **know<a href=“cause%20there%20is%20a%20small%20portion%20of%20applicants%20that%20is%20positive%20about%20what%20they%20wanna%20study”>/B</a> that you want to study archeology-after all, you’ve worked with your dad, so there’s no surprises. In addition, it has always been your dream to study at Yale, prestigious school, demanding, but it has been your dream, for whatever reasons.
And there you go applying to Yale, with all the credentials mentioned above.
Just one tiny little problem. YALE DOES NOT HAVE AN ARCHEOLOGY DEPARTMENT (hypothetical, didn’t actually verify that - just making a point). You might say that a thing like that would not affect your application, but apparently (from anecdotes I’ve heard and from what I’ve learned from my counselor during one of the workshops) it happens all the time, and it might be the reason why you WERE or WILL BE rejected from Yale, Princeton, whatever. My point is, it’s happened and it WILL happen. It’s not cuz the schools are weird, but because the schools don’t want just great kids - they want kids that will be a good fit for them, but also for which the school itself will be a good fit. And it might not be as significant as that, but something much more minor. Don’t write your essay about Model United Nations and send it to a school that has nothing to do with it: they will frown upon you, for not doing your research, or for applying even, if the thing you love the most is MUN and you are applying to a school that doesn’t have MUN-they’ll just stamp your file with a big red R and get it over with.</p>

<p>Instances I know of: </p>

<p>Amazing profile of kid, got accepted into Yale, Princeton, etc., guess his topics for the essays for MIT: WHY I LOVE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. It’s not that he was stupid: he had already been accepted to Yale EA, he was just too busy to write another one about astronomy or sth…bottom line, he knew it was a blunder…</p>

<p>Bottom Line: Don’t go rambling on about the wonderful urban environment to Swarthmore, don’t blabber on and on to Yale about division 1 badminton if it doesn’t have one, don’t go talking about its wonderful medical grad school program to an LAC FOR GOD’S SAKE!!! Lol, you get my point - not mine, but tons’ of admissions officers’ point…</p>

2

<p>Um… for MIT, I wrote my “write about something you enjoy” short answer question about playing Scrabble with my mother, and I wrote the optional “what did you create” essay about a novel I tried to write in 7th grade. Would that fall under your category of just plain stupid? I honestly hadn’t thought of it that way; I make it clear that I want to study chemistry, even if I do enjoy writing and playing Scrabble on the side. </p>

<p>I’m sure a lot of people have diverse interests; maybe the student knows that Yale doesn’t have a Division I Badminton team, and they’re interested in perhaps trying to form one. The school isn’t meant simply to expand the student; the student can also contribute to the school. How will the school find students who will change it and help it grow if it doesn’t select students with interests that don’t 100% entirely match the current profile of that school?</p>

3

<p>Lol, don’t ask me…i’m just carrying on sth that i heard from a valid person, and think it is pertinent when people say “i dont know why i didnt get in”</p>

<p>personally, i dont think your MIT instance is bad…on the contrary…</p>

4

<p>La M - I dont think that is what the OP was saying. A bad idea is to talk about a passion for something that the school doesnt really offer, or to talk about another school, or something like that. It is pretty obvious - dont write anything that will have the adcoms scratching their heads and saying “so, why did they apply here.” Or even worse, submit something that was clearly recycled from another institution, without taking the other institution’s name out. (Like Caltech/MIT :-))</p>

<p>I think MIT likes to think their applicants are more than just nerds. Your essays are fine.</p>