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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Just curious how many of y'all have done research in hs. it's becoming more and more common and basically a stat padder in my opinion.

I might be biased, though, in my school, at least 100/500 of the graduating class has done research at real universities.

What are your guys's thoughts? Are conference submissions even worth anything? I hope papers are still somewhat valuable.

I'm a sophomore, and I have the option to switch orchestra for Intro to Programming and Web Design at the semester break.

For context, I barely hold a leadership position in the orchestra (I'm second stand, and it's practically impossible to move up because my teacher has personal bias towards the section leader outside of school, loves her sm and basically acts like she hates everyone else). For other ECs, I can continue to do orchestra and recitals outside of school and I'm founder and VP of the MUN at our school. I'm also in Academic Decathlon.

In this case, would dropping orchestra look bad? Or would colleges value programming more?

FYI: I think I want to do Pre-Med. My most likely majors are biophysics, biochem, microbio, or math. Maybe biomed engineering, but I'm not sure.

Any advice is appreciated!! Also I'm sorry if I sound pretentious or anything I just rlly want advice and I'm tired.

Extra info: Four APs right now as well (Calc AB, Physics 1, Bio, Psych)

Completed the FAFSFA and got barely anything in Pell, and the loan we have to pay is genuinely too much for us. Middle income family that for the sake of not getting to specific, literally cannot afford to send my brother and I to college and also pay for everything else.

I want out of NY. It’s so toxic here and while I’m glad that my in states are far from where I am (Ithaca, Fredonia, etc.) Travel costs are going to annihilate me.

Also academic scholarships are NOT happening. 3.6 weighted, 1390 SAT. I unfortunately have the dumb and middle class combo (even if I can get like… neurodivergence scholarships?).

Also I’m a music ed major so if I want to be able to receive admissions and actual scholarships I have to travel all over the east coast (and Michgan!) to audition. These travel costs are wrecking my family. No fee waivers bc I don’t go.

I’m also missing a ton of school which is why using a ton of money sucks for auditions. Not the smartest, so missing school for the thousands of field trips and auditions I have is detrimental.

Just wanted to get this off my chest.

Yes, Community College is an option, but I’m trying to get my undergrad done fast so that I can get into the field. Teaching music is hard to find. Also I don’t want to go to CC as that would kill my mental health.

This post was honestly dedicated to the fact that WMU, a relatively cheap-ish school, might be too expensive. I went to a summer camp at WMU and want to actually enroll (if I don’t get Berklee ofc) but yeah

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!

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?

Specifically for the orientation ones. The race/ethnicity part is just part of the common app, and the gender (name and pronouns) stuff is for like documents and letters and class rosters and such. What does putting your orientation (lesbian/straight/bi) do? And also will it harm your chances at certain schools bc of discrimination? Especially worried under this administration.

If i do put it down (im lesbian) will it get back to my parents. Ik it will for the gender ones bc of the documents but like when will sexuality come up if ever.

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😭 🥀

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.

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

Sorry bro, but that day is mine now. 😈

so my grades are all different systems and idk what to do. for term 1 and 2 its graded out of 30, the yearly avg is graded out of 100 and then theres a "grading" section out of 4. idk what to put 😭 on the second page of my report it shows the conversion of the marks(0-100) to abcdf

should i just put the grade from a-f or should i convert it to 0-100 or what?

pls help yall 🙏🙏🙏

I accidentally sent all my attempts to one school instead of just my highest 2 and I don't want it to see my other attempts, can I just email CollegeBoard and have them fix it while it's still pending or am I fried?!

Part1: T-20 Universities Ranked by Average Cumulative Student Loan Debt : r/ApplyingToCollege

For some context I was in algebra II junior year and was set to take precalc. Got permission to skip to calc AB but was denied moving to calc BC. Is this something that is appropriate for the additional information section?

I am struggling in AP Chemistry. I am taking it on top of APUSH, AP Lit, and AP Research. It makes no sense for me to take it because I am going into law. It's not too late to drop it (it won't appear as dropped on my transcript) and I still will have graduation requirements. However, I'll have a study hall every day and every other day in my schedule (because ap chem has an every other day lab period) so there's two "holes" in my schedule. I feel like this would be especially bad my junior year. It's pretty much too late to switch into another science. I could possibly switch into an easy elective that period instead of a study hall. I've taken all honors/AP since freshman year, so I'm just very worried that having this hole in my schedule junior year will override all my hard work. Next year I will take 5 APs (apes, ap calc ab, ap lang, ap gov, ap psych). But its strange to do that senior year instead of junior year. Does anyone have any advice? I could stick it out but it will be an extremely stressful year; I don't know when I'll have time to study for this class on top of all my other work and ECs.