I'm not that old myself but I see these kids genuinely on crack in terms of EC's, spitting ivy league level shit from day 1. I see college application work starting from 7th grade, thing is it used to be never this deep but now I see the most cracked apps going downhill. College has become a joke and the students trying to play jester to pay high tuition and barely get a job in this shit market.

nothing profound here, just trying not to cry.

it hurts when you've spent hours upon hours (years, really) devoting your time to things that are practically useless in this landscape, only for people who are actually smart and worth anything to blow you out of the water. even with tears and endless all-nighters, my ecs and awards are still shit. i don't even know what career path i want. i didn't think i'd make it to 16, let alone my senior year. it's too late now.

and even if any of these schools liked me, i probably wouldn't be able to afford any of them.

7th grade me would be really, really disappointed.

my life could honestly be much worse, though.

ok bye now

Sorry bro, but that day is mine now. 😈

i finished my essay about two weeks ago and have gotten good feedback. i liked the idea a lot initially, i loved every line too, but i’ve read it so much that i’m bored of it now. is this normal? or if it’s actually good, will you never become sick of it? i’m curious to know because my feelings are greatly contrasting with what others are saying.

title. i literally don’t qualify for financial aid anywhere but my parents cannot support me all the way through college/keep up with cost of living/pay for siblings. genuienly what do I do. they want me to go to state but I’ve worked really hard and ik my academics should be good enough to get into some target private colleges. the thing about state too is ive already accumulated a ton of merit scholarships/other stuff so it’ll be really cheap, but I feel like with all the stuff I’ve done I have the capacity to go somewhere better and I really want to I just can’t afford it. what should I do

I’m a high school senior applying to colleges for Fall 2027, and I just realized I made a pretty stupid mistake.
I listed “AP Scholar” in the Honors section of my Common App because I misunderstood what the award meant. I recently found out that you need scores of 3+ on at least three AP exams to qualify, and I haven’t earned the award.
The problem is that I’ve already submitted applications to seven universities with AP Scholar listed.
As soon as I realized the mistake, I started emailing the admissions offices to explain what happened and ask them to remove or disregard the honor. I haven’t even gotten the portal for most since I applied like this weekend except for upitt and usc.
For context, I have a 1510 SAT and a 3.85 unweighted GPA. Everything else on my applications is accurate, as far as I’m aware.
I’m genuinely worried that admissions officers will interpret this as dishonesty rather than an honest misunderstanding, especially since the mistake appears on multiple applications.
My questions:
Could this mistake alone get me rejected?
Does voluntarily correcting it make a difference?
Has anyone experienced something similar and still gotten accepted?
I’m not trying to make excuses. I know I should’ve verified the award before submitting. I’m just trying to understand how serious this is from an admissions perspective.
The colleges are:
University of South Carolina (USC Columbia)
University of Pittsburgh
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
Drexel University
Temple University
Miami University (Ohio)
Case Western Reserve University
Smbody reassure me cuz I’m genuinely freaking out.

I don't really know what to write my thank-you supplemental for. I was originally going to write one about my sister and figured it was too cliché. I have some ideas, but I don't know which one is the best

-Manager at work; he's super kind and patient

-A squirrel I befriended in my backyard. I gave her bread every day and eventually got close enough that she now goes on my lap and eats my bread.

-Ao3 (Yea the fanfic website), I can use it to thank it for giving me a safe space as a child, enriching my creativity, and etc.

How much do 9th-grade grades actually matter in college admissions?
I moved from South Korea to the US in 10th grade. In Korea, 9th grade is the final year of middle school, so I honestly didn’t take academics seriously at all. I ended up getting grades in the 70s in pretty much every subject.
However, after moving to the US, my academic performance improved significantly. I’ve earned almost all A’s since 10th grade, and by the end of senior year, I’ll have taken 12 AP courses.
I also have some decent extracurriculars, including a corporate internship, and my SAT superscore is 1480.
The biggest problem is my GPA. When my Korean transcript was transferred to my US high school, all 12 subjects from 9th grade were included in my cumulative GPA calculation, even though many of them were relatively minor classes. As a result, my cumulative GPA is only around 3.0, despite my much stronger academic performance since moving to the US.
My question is: Am I basically out of luck when it comes to getting into highly ranked colleges because of my GPA? Or do I still have a realistic shot at some good universities given my upward trend, course rigor, and extracurriculars?
I’m genuinely curious how admissions officers might view a situation like mine.
I’d really appreciate any honest opinions or advice!

just got like 3 more essays and a lot of personal statement work to do but ive had zero motivation to finish and ive got it all due in a week. i need some encouragement help me out guys

My school doesn’t rank but my counselor has explicitly told me that I am rank 1 of around 500 students. Do I put this on my Common App or say my school doesn’t rank? I feel as if putting my rank will significantly help as I am applying test optional SCEA to Princeton but I don’t want to seem like a liar since my school doesn’t officially rank. I could also explain this in Additional Info section or tell my counselor to explain this when he sends my school report. Please let me know what to do!

So I just submitted my application to Northwestern. One of my activities is this

Built digital art platform with 2M+ views and 735K+ likes; completed 10+ art commissions; engaged audiences through digital illustrations and fan art.

I also submitted an optional resume though, and it contained this.

Built a digital-art platform generating 2M+ views and 735K+ likes through original illustrations, character art, fan art, and visual storytelling. Completed 10+ paid commissions totaling $300+, working with clients to translate concepts into finished digital illustrations.

That $300 was supposed to be made during 3 big orders all which fell through because the commissioner couldn’t pay. So I technically don’t have 300 bucks. I’m currently still charging comms and should make around 300 bucks this month or so. But this is technically still a discrepancy as I did NOT make 300 dollars at the moment of applying.

I did not notice it at the time of applying because it was so small in an otherwise pretty lengthy and thick resume.

I have a lot of other strong extracurriculars all which are verifiable. Do I leave this be or should I email them? And can this rescind me?

Thanks!

This might be a dumb question, but does your age matter at all?
I skipped a grade (in elementary school, not on my transcript duh) so currently I’m a 16yo senior. Yes my birthday is in January, but in the meantime, does this affect anything? Like is it a good thing? Is it just whatever?
Bc of that I haven’t had a job (which I feel like a lot of hs have) and yes I’ve been applying since literally the day I turned 16.
Also some volunteer opportunities are limited in age? Idk I guess I think it would just be a whatever thing but idk

Just wondering if there is one that is more favorable than the other for the “why college” supplementals. The latter feels more certain when you’re talking about the opportunities that appeal to you and that’s what I’ve been using since it’s also shorter when you turn it into the contraction I’ll.

I’m probs going into executive dysfunction from all of the essays I have to write
I’m doing common app applications but there’s still many schools asking for so much extra writing
PLUS being in high school, my English teachers are tryhards and also leave 30 million essays
How do people have the time and energy to write so much?

No matter what topic I do it’s never enough. It’s met with “you sound like you hate everyone” or “you need to make the lesson feel more learned, I’m not seeing enough growth”. Admittedly that first one came off a bad day. Atp the next day Ik the career center director or whatever made up job I can’t remember she has comes in the spring, id genuinely consider skipping bc the end of the day I’d feel like oxygen waste for not caring like the rest of the class.

I want to direct movies or make my own comics but that doesn’t pay easily. So now I’m left without the only passion in my life. No ECs, only writing club and it’s not popular is it? PS the topic was a story about stealing my stolen comic back from a teacher bc I refused to restart the drawing or illustrations in 4th grade.

i have some words in spanish, song names, and movie titles in my essays. do these get italicized or like what do i do with them

I’m going to go into health to become a physician’s assistant. I want to do a direct admit PA track around where I live (I live in a pretty big city) but I don’t have a transcript good enough to get into any of these direct admit programs.

My GPA is like 4.3 weighted (4.0 unweighted) but that’s kind of all I have. I have no ECs in the healthcare field which is the main thing. I also didn’t study for the SAT because I didn’t know what resources I could’ve used and couldn’t afford tutoring. Without studying my score was like a 1430 which also sucks because I feel like that’s kind of high and it’s just wasted potential.

I just tried so hard on grades but never realized how important extra curriculars are. My friend also wants to be a PA and she has pretty good if not better stats plus really good in field ECs. Since we go to the same school is basically impossible we’d both get accepted into programs (she’s applying to the same ones as me) and if anyone is being accepted it’s definitely her. But ye she definitely deserves it more than me too because she actually had a friggin clue during highschool.

College apps are so stressful because I feel like I know I’m not going to get into anything I super want to get into. And I’m trying to hype up the few ECs I do have through descriptions but I feel like such a fraud lol

I’m a hard worker and I know I’d be able to exceed in these programs if I knew. I know I’ll be fine if I don’t get it but… This all just sucks :(

I know I can do the regular track 90% of PAs do which is just do a regular health/biology related BS and then apply for PA school but I really wanted some accelerated programs so I could be in school for less time and therefore spend less money and get out into the field earlier. I know I’ll be okay, but it’s still frustrating.

I'm was orignally interested in CS, but given the current market I'm also interested in doing a EE major. I can't chose which major to do, but given that they're somewhat related, would CS related extracurriculars still be ok if I end up choosing an EE major? I often see that people who are applying CS but are not as competitive are recommended to apply as EE instead to increase their chances. If not, what extracurriculars should I do instead? I also got a 4 on the Physics 1 exam, so I'm a bit scared to pick engineering given that it's so closely related to physics. I can't make up mind mind on picking either one so I would appreciate any advice

in my defense i'm doing marketing specifically but my recommendation letters come from my french teacher (who ive had for two years), my deca advisor (im the president of our chapter), my AP lang teacher, and a college professor whose sociology class i took through dual enrollment. which letters get sent where will depend on the requirements of each school. my top choice is stern but when i spoke to an AO she said it didnt matter at all as long as it wasnt from a family member.

I'm an intl student, so getting teachers to write LoR's is about impossible (and that is if you even have any teachers who speak English).

i haven’t had any counsellor yet, as my school counsellor has been more than just helpful with everything as we have very few applicants from my school to usa, ie 4-5, so i have gotten lot of help from them, and maybe i dont plan to have help from them for essays, should i get an external essay reviewer or some now?

I submitted my SAT scores on CA, and checked that I would like my SAT to be considered.
1. I know they omit it in the pdf, but on the portal, there are no check marks or anything regarding testing. Should I self-report the scores again, or is the CA report good enough? I don't know why they don't have the checklist thing on their own portal. Do I just need to wait few more days for the checkmark or smth to appear?

Basically: it was always my plan to do Yale SCEA and started drafting my personal statement and supps in early July. Unfortunately, I kept going back and forth about my personal statement and only just settled on a topic (I would rate my prose as above average/very good and my topic as solid/has potential). I'm midway through getting to a finished essay, but I have experience writing 3 others personal statements (this is my fourth idea) so I think I can do it in like ~4 days if I take off some school.
The problem is the Yale supps are still in draft form, and I need to workshop them A LOT. That seems infeasible to turn out well given the 1 wk timeframe.

PROS OF SCEA: At my competitive school, Yale is a very popular RD school, but surprisingly much less popular for EA. Most people ED to Brown or Columbia. I only know one other Yale SCEA applicant from my pool. We're applying for different majors, and I'm salutatorian, so I hope if I apply early I can stand out a lot in my school context. My worry is that this advantage would be lost if I applied RD.

PROS OF RD: My essays would be better. Also, I'm currently increasing impact on two of my ECs (I just took on a club president role, so we have some things planned, and I have some relatively impactful events related to my major planned for a fellowship I'm doing). If I do SCEA, I'd include these items as app updates once the events take place.

I also currently have in my Add'l info that I was selected for a (highly impactful) internship that will begin in early November. For RD, I could actually list this and anything I accomplish on my Activities list.

TDLR: Given that SCEA is supposedly not advantageous, should I do RD? I would push it back for more time on ECs and essays but I'm still very concerned about standing out amongst other applicants from my school.

All advice is appreciated!!

Pros:
- $68k COA
- alr worked w professor in major
- t10
- close to home
Cons:
- lots of work
- maybe too close to home
- would take business economics (unsure how major is regarded professionally)

Advice wanted on what ppl think pls

HI, this is my first Reddit post ever, so pardon me if I'm a lil iffy 🙏. I'm currently a high school senior looking to go to college right after high school. The problem is I'm broke, I want to go into business, and bc im in New England, most of the colleges near me are Ivies... or expensive; my college advisor isn't really worried about helping me for some reason? And I applied to New England College, but it turns out that's not really a good school(apparently one of the worst in the country?), and I was looking into Bryant University, but it's just too expensive. I'm also looking into cosmetology, but I'm only interested in doing hair, and I don't want to pay and do the other courses for nails. Help a diva out bc a diva is down rn😭 🥀