I’m just a Junior, but I wish I would have known not to waste my time dreaming of going to Harvard or Stanford, since there’s no way my parents are going to pay 55K a year to go there, and we don’t qualify for much financial aid.
Oh and I wish I would have known about the AP scholar awards…I definitely would have taken a bunch of self-study APs sophomore and junior year.
Study hard for SATs and ACT, write good essays during the application process!
SAT score is very, very important extremely important for admission
Dreaming is good. yep, APs
Harvard- If you that good, top colleges (not Ivy) CIT, or Duke, can give you a full free tuition scholar.
If you aren’t accepted, don’t take it personally like I did. Don’t beat yourself up about things you could have done that might have gotten you in–it’s not worth it, and you can’t rely on it. Just accept whatever schools you’ve gotten into, and know that you will most likely love anywhere you go 
^Best advice
<ol>
<li>Pick schools with a range of costs. If I had kept some of the cheaper schools that I didn’t apply to, I probably would have had better selection when it came down to deciding on a college. Getting into reach schools is great until you see the bill. Which brings me to my next point: </li>
<li>apply to schools you actually like (and know about!). The school I’ll be attending was one I added on a whim so I’d have an in-state option. I barely researched it because I assumed I’d be going elsewhere, and that’s something I really regret now. I think “safety”-ish schools were under-researched by a lot of people I know.</li>
<li>Study books for standardized tests are really helpful. I bought one for the ACT and my scores for the sections I studied were much higher than I’d expected (including a 36).</li>
<li>Work on your FAFSA (and PROFILE if necessary) as early as possible.</li>
<li>Start doing visits early as well.</li>
</ol>
I think I needed this. Thanks.
The SAT (no matter what college board says) is a complete logic test. Dont beat yourself up trying to learn a billion and five useless vocab words. Spend your time going over practice tests and figuring out the style the questions are asked in, what is likely to be right/wrong, how they try to trick you and so on. Learn how to take the test instead of the material on it. This is coming from a kid who got over a 2300 on his SAT, and still has no effing idea what pernicious means.
Work on your GPA (both weighted and unweighted) when you start freshman year. If it means taking graduation requirements like gym or health senior year or over the summer to boost your weighted GPA, than do it.
Know how important GPA is. That’s my biggest regret- my gpa was terrible my first two years. Even though my junior year GPA was really good, my unweighted at least is a bit low for the schools I want to get into.
Apply to more than 1 safety school. Choose a few (I’d say at least 3), along with a few schools youre reach for, and a few youre probably just right for.
I’m applying right now, but I think I have some pretty good advice for applicants:
Don’t waste your time labeling your envelopes (whether it be for teachers who are writing recommendation letters for you, or you’re submitting your application via mail) by hand. Print out labels, or print the addresses on the envelope. Yesterday, I spent over an hour doing this, only to find out that it was “unprofessional” and messy.
And don’t waste your time filling out your teacher recommendation forms by hand, too. Your teachers may want you to fill out their parts of the form (i.e. their name, phone number, and other basic contact info.), and don’t take it upon yourself to fill out every. single. form. singlehandedly. Type up all the information on the .pdf document if it allows you to, or download the document to Microsoft Word and type it up there (Common App allows you to download the forms in Word). I just wasted yet another hour today writing all of my teacher recommenders’ information down, and it’s “unprofessional” and messy.
Two hours I could’ve been using to finish AP homework, study for the ACTs, write college essays, or sleep earlier.
Pernicious: (Adjective) Having a harmful effect, esp. in a gradual or subtle way.
On a more serious note, this thread is great. Subscribing to it NAOW.
I wish I had known that, for certain graduate school requirements like medical or law, AP exams can actually hinder you by forcing you to start course series at a higher level at your undergraduate school.
For example, a general requirement for medical school is a year of college calculus. I took AP Calculus BC in high school and scored a 5, getting me out of the GE at my UC, but many med schools would ignore the AP. So I would have to take a year of calculus anyway, but the UC prevented me from starting calculus at the beginning due to my AP credit, and thus I was forced to start in the third quarter and continue two more quarters into the math series that math/engineering majors normally go through.
I’m not bad at math, but I sure hate it and decided to take AP in the first place so that I could minimize taking it in college. So as you can imagine, that first year was not fun. At all. Same deal with physics.
(Of course, for more important subjects like chemistry and biology, you have to start over anyway so this is not an issue in those cases.)
If you’re having trouble with your essays, assuming that you filled out a “brag sheet” for your recommending teachers (so they could get to know you better to write a very good recommendation), look at the brag sheets.
Despite a bit/some/most of them being B.S. (mine was the latter :P), if you take a look at them again, they may show a lot of heart in them and may be perfect starting points for your essays and short answers (especially ones regarding potential majors).
Has anyone else used the Harvardsq one? I’m planning to try it but I just want some more reviews!
Yes, I would definitely wait until there are more reviews. No offense, nbvycitg, but you have only posted 3x and every one of your posts was recommending this service, so I’m inclined to be suspicious of the validity of your recommendation for now. Not saying they’re not valid, but normally we expect to see people asking questions and being part of the community before they start recommending companies.
I would like to see more real reviews and hold my judgement for now. You really do not want to bash any service until you have the real experience with it, fair and square.
What is the best school at UCSDiego for a transfer communication Major? Thank you!
Carenna
Thank you for your advice so much!!! I flipped out last week right before I sent out my application. Now I feel so much more confident:) thanks
Don’t view GPA as a number that you must reach. College adcoms frown heavily upon applicants with straight As in wimpy courses: challenge yourself and take a few APs and aim for at least a B.
A few bad grades are not the end of the line: so long as you can explain what happened and demonstrate an upward trend afterwards (a bunch of C’s in sophomore year followed by a steady stream of A’s and B’s junior year and finishing with mostly A’s senior year) those bad grades can actually be used to your advantage.
SATs are very important as they are one of the only reliable ways for adcoms to measure your intelligence and critical thinking level.
For Me: I got in everywhere I applied, but financial aid packages weren’t as great as I was expecting. I assumed because I had great stats and needed financial aid I would be able to get close to a full ride. That didn’t really happen anywhere I applied because the FAFSA didn’t indicate my situation very well. My mom got a substantially better paying job the year I applied to college. My dad has been through several layoffs or periods of underemployment throughout my life. My parents never really had the money to save for my college. They thought academic success and my rigorous courseload (AP and IB) would provide me a means to attend college. In a way, it has–I’m currently have several scholarships, but I’m also working two jobs and taking out Federal loans in order to attend the private school I go to.
From My Best Friend’s Perspective: Do everything you can to show your individuality and personality in your application. My best friend got into 3/10 schools she applied to, with great stats and ECs. Another friend of mine got into Cornell, Georgetown, U Chicago, etc. with roughly similar stats. The difference? My best friend talked about Latin in her essay; my other friend talked about a special needs boy she worked with in her volunteer work. I honestly feel SAT, ACT, GPA, rank, etc. is like a checklist anymore. If you fall in a certain range they put you in the next round. Unless your scores are near perfect, a number isn’t going to get you in selective school–you are. College admissions counselors are looking for people and personalities for each class they admit, not stats. One friend knew how to highlight her achievements, making herself look well-rounded. My best friend made herself look like a person whose interests lied solely in academics. I wholeheartedly believe my essays and supplements were the determining factor in my reach schools. I got into every school I applied to (9).
perfectpixie stated “Why do I stress on applying to a large number of schools?
I applied to 20 schools, and got rejected from 8 of them, waitlisted at 7 and accepted at 5.
And most of the rejections came from the LACs.”
I find this post to be slightly misleading. You must remember that every single student who applies to any of the top schools is different, especially international students. Just because you were denied at so many schools does not mean that someone else will as well. And, it is quite interesting that you are attending Harvard (one of the 5 schools you were accepted to). You should in no way be frustrated that you got rejected or waitlisted at so many schools when you got into one of the top schools. So people who read this post should be quite careful.