It sounds like it’s a different application process, but you did choose to submit transcript and request they consider your application. In any case, the full results you listed earlier in the thread were as follows
Accepted – 8/15 (7 were direct admit)
Deferred – 2/15 (SUNYs)
Rejected – 1/15 (Bowdoin)
Waiting to Hear Back – 4/15
This doesn’t sound like a disaster to me. You’ve only been rejected by one college so far, and you mentioned that college was a “super high reach” for which you expected the rejection. I wouldn’t assume being deferred from SUNYs is effectively a polite rejection. A good portion of students report being accepted off the deferral list. Some threads on both CC and Reddit say being deferred simply means they didn’t have time to get your application.
Didn’t take classes that were super difficult to me until 11th grade, and my school also does not count AP/Honors weighting in honor roll.
Some colleges on your list consider upward/downward trend, as well as which classes have lower grades. If your lower grades were primarily in junior/senior college prep type classes, that could contribute to why you might have worse results than others with similar stats. However, such colleges also often consider far more than just stats in their decisions.
Assuming UW is University of Washington, Test scores – Office of Admissions says that “when reading your application, the reviewers will not see your test scores, if provided. However, high test scores (1400 SAT/31 ACT or above) may be considered for a handful of students who may not otherwise be admitted.”
Hopefully the OP falls into that category. I assume they simply screen for high scores, in which case one would think a 1490 will show up on the radar.
I went to Syracuse, and at that time the ESF students lived in the dorms and took many of the same classes. You couldn’t really differentiate them from regular SU students. I’m not sure if that’s still the case. They called themselves stumpies back in the day - you took me down memory lane lol.
I’ve heard very positive things about U Maine Farmington. The students I’ve known who went there felt like they got a good education and enjoyed the area.
While I think it’s a reach or hard target for most students now, Skidmore has extended its deadline to 1/28 (according to Common App) & it has no supplements.
The University of Maine at Orono has the really
excellent School of Marine Sciences & has rolling admissions until July–I think this would be a likely for you. It’s a beautiful campus & has a solid honors college as well.
U Maine and U Southern Maine are great, affordable choices for OP.
You could contact their office of disability services immediately to know how accessible the campus is.
Good point. My disabled son found USM to be very accommodating. The services were great and the professors were very kind. Once he freaked out during a test and the professor let him retake it - he got an A!
As you’re going through this, remember that you must mentally fight against the collected millions of dollars spent by admissions offices, businesses that “advise” high school students about college, and magazines/websites that make money by ranking colleges. All of these groups try to promote the false ideas that (1) there is one perfect college for you, and (2) all colleges exist on a scale of excellence that can be quantified into a single number, and (3) you should go to a college as high on that scale as possible. Instead, I would encourage you to do what you’re doing - look for schools that will meet your needs, and don’t worry about where they’re ranked. You need accessibility, health care and mental services support, a welcoming community, and an excellent marine biology program (ideally, with good ancillary programs in case you change your mind about the specific details of your major in the next couple of years).
It is demonstrably false that there is one perfect college for anyone. Likewise, as countless threads on CC demonstrate, all rankings are ultimately ridiculous, and only capture at best partial truths. I won’t beat this dead horse - but look around CC, or listen to Malcolm Gladwell on US News and World Report’s rankings. There is no doubt that there are advantages to going to a school with a billion dollar endowment. But I would argue that committed and excellent mentorship is even more important.
I strongly believe that, though my children liked certain colleges more than others, they could have acquired an excellent education at a huge number of schools. We are so fortunate to live in a country that has the best higher education system in the world. Sure there are some mismanaged and predatory institutions out there, and some on the brink of financial collapse, but the vast majority of the more than 3,000 colleges and universities in the US have pockets of excellence within them - programs staffed with dynamic and excellent professors that truly care about undergraduate education and mentorship, and whose graduates perform at the highest levels. Attending such schools will not have the “wow” factor, but chosen carefully, can lead to outstanding outcomes.
Example: I personally know a family whose daughter graduated from Salisbury in Environmental Studies and then attended graduate school at a top ranked Ivy League program - and who was shocked in her first graduate seminar to realize that she had already read much of the material, and was better prepared than any of the peers in her cohort, who had attended the most elite universities in the nation.
So don’t feel that you went wrong anywhere. You’re doing well! Roger Williams is EXCELLENT for what you want. I don’t know your other acceptances as well, but I can promise you: your ultimate future will be determined less by the name of the school you attend than the work that you do while you’re in college. And if you attend Roger Williams, or a school like it, you’ll have the opportunity to thrive!
Honestly… possibly. I’ve taken some time to reflect over the past few days and some of these schools sound much better to me now than they did before.
Thank you so much for all of this! My aunt’s ex-girlfriend (they’re on good terms, she gives me career advice sometimes since she went into marine bio) went there and my aunt lives in Seattle currently, and they both recommend it greatly. While I have applied, I’ve been kind of brushing it off as an option, however it actually would be a great fit for me imo.
Thank you
Definitely will do. They’ve sent me scholarship offers before (I don’t remember if I mentioned this or not previously) and I kind of brushed them off, but all of the recommendations is definitely changing my mind on that.
This is really good to know, thank you! I would assume this applies to me because I did submit scores to every school and my SAT was definitely above a 1400. Wish I could have taken the ACT, but my parents didn’t let me.
Thank you!
I would assume so!
This is good to know… I’ve heard a lot of bad things about the UMaine system from both current and graduated students, but perhaps it’s changed.
I visited the campus last Spring and it was god-awful to say the least… In the middle of nowhere with basically nothing around unless you can drive (which I cannot), destroyed scary looking frat houses, crumbling roads, inaccessible buildings, holes and cracks in every corner. Not for me, for sure. The sports areas seem way more funded than any accessibility efforts imo.
See above, at least for Orono. Will contact some current students for info on the other campuses.
This is really good to know for my mental health and neurodivergence, however I am physically disabled as well, so that’s another factor. Thanks for the info, though!
Thank you for all of this! Definitely going to take more time to reflect over the next week or so while I still have time for some applications.
Just as a general response – I wanted to thank you all for your responses. I definitely kind of overreacted when I made this post; I have pretty bad rejection-sensitive dysphoria and let it affect my actions in a way that normally I would try to avoid as to not cause a public outburst. I really appreciate all of the advice and anecdotes you all gave me despite my irrationality! I always find it nice to be met with understanding and education on the internet rather than the typical better-than-you or mocking tonality that online spaces seem to be known for. You’re all very kind!!
I do understand that unfortunately I have a lot of limiting factors when it comes to schools, and that has put me in a pretty bad mindset when it comes to the college admissions process. However, I am beginning to realize that a lot of the schools I wasn’t considering due to stats or ranking are actually way better for me community and accessibility wise than the ones I was looking at. I’ve been considering getting forearm crutches for college as my walking is going to go up a ton, so accessibility is going to be an even larger factor for me than I initially thought.
As I move further into the new year, I’m definitely going to be considering more international schools as well - Dalhousie and Acadia in CAN, and Uni. of Groningen and Maastricht in the Netherlands are saved on my list. Even if I don’t have time to apply this year (depending on how busy I am in the next month or so), I am considering transferring after my freshman year due to recent politics making it difficult to stay in the US as a transgender individual.
Finally, thank you for all of the comments on my maturity! I try my hardest to take things on in a level-headed and adult-like manner despite my age as I’ve found it gives me sort of a leg up in conversation and debate, and also greatly aids in how well I’m taken seriously, allowing me to be an advocate for myself without being looked down upon for being a kid. I’m glad to know that it’s noticeable!
Feel free to keep responding to this with recommendations and advice – it’s been giving me something to do when I’d be bored otherwise, and I quite enjoy having these kinds of conversations with people. I feel like it really aids in developing my worldview, especially that of college life in this case.
Your maturity continues to shine through in your posts, and a lot of us (I dare say all of us) are definitely rooting for you!
Transferring is always an option if a school is not the right fit, but I would be very hesitant about going into a school with thoughts of transferring already in mind. When that happens students often will not make as hard of an effort in terms of making friends, getting involved, and taking advantage of all the opportunities that their school has, even if it is done subconsciously. Additionally, the easiest time to form social bonds is when everybody is new (i.e. as first year students) because everyone is looking to form a social network, whereas it can be much harder as a transfer student when most of the other students have already had time to form their friendships and are not always as eager to form new ones.
So whether you choose a school for this upcoming fall or end up taking a gap year to apply to a different set of schools altogether, I would strongly urge you to go into college thinking that you’ll be there for four years.
Ahh yes, I am keeping this in mind! It always depends on how my freshman year actually goes, of course. If I do end up enjoying wherever I go (and the US seems safe enough for me to stay), then I won’t even bother applying to international schools.
I’m not too worried about this, however, to be completely honest with you. I’ve lived in 7 separate states and gone to a handful of schools throughout my 18 years and I’m pretty used to having to make a new start. My high school is actually the school I’ve been at the longest out of all of them, and that’s only 4 years total! I think I’m pretty good at finding community, whether it be through clubs or classes or online spaces.
Overall though – I definitely understand your worries! It is a very unfortunate situation, and if it weren’t for the political tension, I don’t think I would be considering transferring at all (as I’m sure I could learn to love a school even if I didn’t want to go there at first, unless it really was just a dreadful environment). Thank you for the advice!
The bigger concern is all your requirements accessibility and medical wise. Hopefully you find the right school up front. It will be very difficult to find a second.
Take heart: you have some nice options. I’ll highlight one –
Hampshire College gets you access to the Five Colleges consortium, which gives you the opportunity to supplement/augment your Hampshire education with courses at Amherst, UMass-Amherst, Smith College, and Mount Holyoke.
You’re very welcome. I re-read what I wrote and I wanted to make sure to clarify something in case you took it the wrong way. When I shared the anecdote about the AO at Bowdoin and used the word “mistake”, which is the word she used, I want you to know that I don’t think they would have made a mistake admitting you. To the contrary, people with your profile - those who’ve overcome challenges and show ambition that is internally generated - tend to do well in life … at least in my personal experience. But Bowdoin can only get to know you so well and they’ve learned over the years that when they deviate too far from the outer bounds of their academic criteria the odds of bringing in someone who doesn’t thrive, or even do well, at their college goes up and they don’t want to do that to themselves or to the applicant. But I don’t think that would have been the case with you. Your test score alone shows that you can handle the work and have the ability to succeed at a place like Bowdoin. I also failed to mention that, not only was it a tough shot for you to take, but it’s a tough shot for almost everyone. There are very, very few students who can apply to Bowdoin College and reasonably and objectively expect to be admitted. Pretty much everybody w/o the right hook should assume they won’t get in. So, I just really want for you to be able to take that rejection in the proper context and take away no feelings of failure or having done something wrong. I have a kid at Brown - who also, btw, manages some health issues - who was not admitted to Bowdoin.
I’ll just add that if you start at a college and it is going really well, that is often a good reason NOT to transfer! Of course if you really don’t like your college, that is fine. But I think if you are enjoying it and getting good results, you will likely start seeing how continuing on that path will get you the opportunities that you want. At which point, why risk starting over with uncertain results?
Again, I am not at all against transferring when the circumstances warrant. I just think one of the many reasons it happens less often than you might expect is people realize doing well at their first college may be all they really need.
