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When you get lost in the college applications process, it’s so easy to forget about the little things - like sending SAT scores or the CSS profile - while you’re focusing on writing a stellar essay or picking which colleges to apply to.
The absolute worst thing that can happen is you write an absolutely amazing personal statement, craft wonderful descriptions for your activities, work for years for perfect standardized test scores, apply to your dream university… and figure out you didn’t send your SAT scores on time and your application was automatically rejected. Yeah… Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen - here’s a handy-dandy guide on some important timelines and deadlines to keep in mind when applying to college to make sure you avoid apocalyptic scenarios.
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A few of you may know (at least the seniors that are reading this), that the early decision (ED) and early action (EA) deadlines just passed, most of them being on November 1st.
And I can speak for all us seniors when I say “Hallelujah!” - at least one thing is over. But for the rest of you who are confused as to what applying early to college might mean, here’s a quick rundown of what it is and what it means in terms of both your application process and admission chances. (And no, applying early is not always a binding decision!) The time has come, fellow seniors, for us to slave over hours and hours of personal statements, activities lists, and supplemental essays with the hope that we might (just might) get into the college of our dreams. And hopefully, by this point we've already let a few of our apps venture into the unknown that is the college admissions office. But the January 1st deadline will soon be upon us.
But what happens in 6 months when you get into Princeton (by some stroke of amazing luck) but now have to deal with that $60k+ price tag? Exactly. So to avoid that sticky situation, here are some scholarships for high school seniors to apply to this college application season and maybe save some money along the way. The biggest part of applying to colleges (besides those excruciating 3 months of waiting for acceptances), is actually doing the research on colleges you’re thinking of applying to. There are almost 4,000 institutions of higher learning in the United States, and I know for fact you will need help narrowing those down (unless of course, you’re applying to all four thousand, which in case, wow, good luck with those essays). But actually doing the research can be so boringgg and time consuminggg and stressful.
So as a somewhat general guide/timeline, I’ve put together all the resources I used and steps I took to compile my (still-changing) final college application list. *DISCLAIMER* I AM IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM SPONSORED BY, REPRESENTING, OR EVEN ADVOCATING FOR COLLEGEVINE.
Now that that is out of the way… Collegevine is one of the student/college admissions blogs that I featured on my post “My Favorite Student/College/Productivity Blogs” (which you can read here). Along with having a blog, one of their most popular services is offering college admissions consulting on the entirety of the admissions and application process for high school seniors. They walk you through the entire process, from picking a list of schools to apply to based on their fancy software to ironing out the kinks in your college specific essays. (I personally am way against paying for any sort of help on anything - including SAT and college apps - but if you’re interested in their program, click here.) This week, I had the opportunity to talk to a couple members of their team, Greg Eibell (the College Admissions Program Director) and Johan Zhang (the CEO and Founder). Both of them answered a lot of my questions concerning college admissions, and I decided to compile all the information into one post, because, sharing is caring, amiright? Just like Dorothy and Toto, let’s take the long winding yellow brick road down to the Emerald City, where hopefully the Wizards of Oz known as college admissions officers will grant our wish to take us back home (to Princeton University).
I finished my Common App (mostly) a couple weeks ago, (I know, I did it really early, overachiever, blah blah blah) and thought it’d be helpful to share my experience filling it out, along with things I found trouble with or took me some time to understand. This is how I filled out my Common App, and features screenshots from my account and application. Some of the pics have my info, some don’t, depending on if I remembered to take the screenshot before I filled it out or not (whoops XD). I’ll also be going through what I decided to write in most of the sections and how I determined my wording and small decisions like that. Now that it’s finally summer, my annual let’s-get-productive-and-create-a-schedule-and-study-habits effort is in full swing. To celebrate this almost always failing effort (but not this year! hopefully…) I’ve compiled a list of my five favorite productivity blogs. All of these blogs I read/use on a frequent basis, and of course some are more helpful than others, but I find each of them to be reliable and valuable tools when trying to deal with pretty much anything school related. There are actually a lot more blogs/YouTube channels I follow (cause I’m obsessed with these kind of productivity/student help websites - why I started this blog in the first place) but I’ve pared them down to the ones I find most helpful most frequently.
6/21/2017 0 Comments Contributed Post: 7-Year Medical Programs: Why an Accelerated Program was right for me (and might be for you too)This is an article contributed by a high school senior who will be attending a 7 year Medical Program next year, in response to my post on "7 Year Medical Programs: Why I Don’t Like Them (But Why You Might)".
I am 100% sure that I want to become a doctor, and I want to make the most out of my life. I selected to attend an accelerated seven-year medical program because I wanted to do what was right for my career and future, not just what would fulfill my ego. If you need one year to understand yourself and to discover your true goals in life, by all means, take it. These programs are for those who know that they are cut out to be doctors. There will always be times in life where you will have the opportunity to make commitments. If you feel as if you are mature enough to make a commitment to such a program, make it. However, if you are wary of making such a life-determining commitment at this age, the path of attending a normal undergraduate program still remains. Even if you are not sure at the beginning of senior year, it does not hurt to apply to these programs so that you can increase your options when you are making a final decision. 10%... 10%... 6%... 3.6%... 3%!
These are the acceptance rates for the incredibly competitive accelerated/guaranteed medical programs. Seven-year programs seem to be the new Ivies these days, considering how highly they are regarded by some students (especially those in my school, which is centered on medicine). I, personally, don’t share in the hype, although I do understand it. But just a quick disclaimer before I get into the meat of this one: I am by no means discouraging or looking down on 7 year programs. I am just detailing why I don’t like them. Everyone has a different opinion and different priorities and different outlooks on life, and I don’t want anyone who likes these programs to take this post personally, because this is just how I feel about them. And remember, my cons could be your pros - consider your personal situation before making any decision. Every year, there are those programs whose application due dates are like a good 2-3 weeks after the majority of the applications I fill out, and if I don’t fill out the later applications with the earlier ones, well there’s an almost 100% chance I will not get around to filling out the ones that have a later due date. Now of course, I’m just a lazy person like that, and I’m not saying everyone is like that (props to you if you aren’t!), but I really really wish I would’ve filled these applications out, I might have gotten something out of it. Well, it’s too late for me, but please guys, don’t abandon applications just because they have a later due date and you just wanna be done with them. Learn from my mistakes.
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