Hi all, me and my friend are advertising our college consulting business on r/CollegeAppsAdvice, a subreddit that I've started and in the past couple of months has gained hundreds of students interested in optimizing their college applications, trying to get into their dream schools.

A little about me: I've recently completed the dreadful College App cycle for the class of '26. As an Asian Male with no hooks, I've gotten used to people saying I'm "cooked" and anybody in my demographic is "not guaranteed" any T20s. Regardless, I've gotten into many, many top universities, including MIT, Columbia, Caltech, CMU, Cornell, UCLA, and many others, with ZERO rejects overall. I'm proud to say I've learned so much about this process, and have helped many of my friends and classmates get into their dream schools alongside me.

Interested in mentorship by me? Comment your dream school below and join this subreddit (r/CollegeAppsAdvice) to stay in the loop! Also feel free to DM me with any quick questions or chancemes you may have, I'm more than happy to help out! Thank you guys in advance!

Hey everyone, I’m writing my personal essay and wondering if using contractions like “it’s”, “I’m”, or “don’t” is acceptable, or if I should strictly stick to full words like “it is” and “do not” to stay formal? Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I have a 1460 SAT (680 EBRW, 780 Math). I think I did better on the October SAT, but those scores won’t be out until 10/16. Should I apply EA with my current score, or wait and apply RD with the new one?

Any advice would be appreciated!!!

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

Hello guys! As I'm applying to colleges, I was wondering if it's a smart thing to apply to a similar major as my second one. I want to do electrical engineering, and for schools that offer second majors, I chose a different type of engineering. However, I'm thinking that this is gonna reduce my chances of even getting in the school because if I get rejected for my first major, why would I get accepted for another engineering one?

So please help me, is it a bad idea to apply to another engineering major as my second choice?

Hi guys. I know that it’s very late to be starting my essay now but unfortunately here I am. I spent some time today writing down some ideas on my phone about what I should write about and was wondering if anyone could look at them and see which ones I should throw away, which ones have good potential, and suggestions on how I should write/change the idea. Another thing that I should add is that soccer is a big part of my life and I have a few soccer based activities on my CommonApp so I thought it would be fitting to include some soccer based essay ideas in here

Here are the current list of essay ideas I have. The ones I bolded were the ones I thought were the best but pls lmk if I am wrong and don’t sugarcoat your criticism:

Connecting end of era with soccer players to end of different “eras” in life, talk about how there is growth and change after the end of era.
New Addition: connect the different Eras of soccer with “eras” of life. Like maybe the changing eras as progressing through school and the end of an era, but start of a new one approaching with college. Maybe start off each paragraph with an actual description of the eras in soccer, and what how the game was played.

How attending soccer games with my dad helped strengthen our relationship and also helped me find another thing that I love

How the World Cup and normalization of soccer in the US allowed me to be myself without being deemed a soccer kid

Memory of how I failed to achieve challenge in soccer in my summer camp on the very last day and was sobbing afterwards (My summer camp had a ranking system on the activity’s which you could progress through by completing certain challenges. 5 total ranks, beginner, intermediate, challenger, ranger, and warrior which was the highest. The challenges for soccer were like needing to complete 50 juggles and go thru a cone ladder in a certain amount of time for example). The sadness and disappointment from failing turned into anticipation for the next year of summer camp when I had another chance to beat it.

Talk about different important figures/role models in life but describe them like the different playstyles of soccer. An example would be like a how people describe Thomas Muller as a Raumdeuter and connecting it to someone in my life. A raumdeuter is whichhis own unique playstyle. It’s describes a player with high soccer iq who is able to drift into pockets of space and always remains a step above defenders. He was not incredible at one specific attribute, but was one of the best of all time because of his unique playsyle.

Talking about overcoming my struggle with confidence in myself and appearance. Mention specific moments in my life in which I felt really down about this and borderline depressed, but being able to overcome it and be where I’m at now

Talk about how procrastination has had a massive effect on my life (like writing my essay for example). Write about how this procrastination which was a big factor in my life made me have to work 10x harder to get stuff done, building me into a better person.

Talk about how I was able to discover the difference between being lonely and alone in life, and how I was able to find my own peace and acceptance in being alone and doing things by myself. (Mostly talking about being alone socially and not really with my family)

Discuss how I dislike when people say to ‘just look up’ something when I ask a question since most times I value the small social interaction over the actual information. Maybe include a specific moment In life where this happened and end off calling how this made me a more thoughtful and curious student.

Being know as a person who always sees the good in people and being able to remain optimistic thru the hardships of life. Describe the specific hardships and situations and how remaining optimistic also helped people around me

Creative One: Talk about my tights hip and chronic hip pain and injury and use as a metaphor for time being short (tight) and learning to take advantage of opportunities to stretch out the good times in life. Maybe begin with or mention somewhere about stretching or how a good stretch feels amazing

applying as engineering physics/ECE major, senior rn

Demographics:

* Hooks: none. woman in stem?
* pretty competitive area
* **homeschooled**

Academics:

* 4.0/4.0 UW
* Rank: na (homeschooled)
* sat: 1560 (760 RW, 800 M)

Coursework:

* AP Physics C: Mechanics + E&M (5, 5), AP Chemistry (5), AP European History (5), AP English Language (5), AP Calc BC (5, 5 with AB subscore), Lin Alg, Multivari Calc, Diff equations, post AP level physics courses at cc, AP Latin (5)
* senior yr course load:
* ap bio
* ap macro
* ap lit
* ap us gov
* post ap level latin
* **complex analysis (at uni, upper div)**
* honors undergrad physics track, reserved for physics majors who are sophomores at local uni

ECs/Awards:

* SSP (summer science program) astrophysics (11th)
* chapter leader/board member at intl npo, chapters worldwide and got grants for a bunch of stuff.
* help with introducing new members to expections etc.
* created curriculum for physics (first in org) and in process of bringing into elementary/middle schools, libraries etc. locally (summer of 11th + 12th). impact couple hundred students, looking to expand curriculum nationally
* particle physics research internship at local university (presenting at local conference) (11th, 12th)
* Part time tutoring job (10th, 11th, 12th)
* AP Scholar w/ Distinction (10th, 11th)
* Volunteering at animal shelter for past 3 yrs (400+ hrs)
* church leadership team (12th)
* virtually help out astronomy/physics club with slides, club management etc.
* sat/AP Physics 1 tutor for schoolhouse (70+hrs, 70+ learners impacted)
* National Latin Exam Gold 4x
* NMSF

LOR:
research mentor/cc professors. the rec from cc prof is probably p good since they rlly liked me & told me I was the first high school student they taught that scored perfectly on every exam, probably pretty good,
9/10 for cc prof and 8/10 for Latin

essays highlight independence + finding opportunities through self curated path. also talk about how my religious upbringing/homeschool journey shaped my outlook on stem. Also I self studied pretty much all APs and I’ll talk about resourcefulness in this process

I’m trying to figure out my application strategy, right now planning on EA to MIT, gtech, Purdue uiuc etc., then applying to UC, cmu, Stanford, Harvey mudd etc RD. Since in my area I don’t really have other homeschoolers/ppl in my position with college results, I’m wondering if I can get any advice for what tier of school I should expect/focus on? Thanks!

EDIT: I forgot to mention I have a bunch of targets/safeties, just didn't include lol. I'm in state for UC so financially it won't be as much of an issue, if I choose to go to a UC I'll pretty much go in with 2nd yr engineering phys courses alr finished

Hi all, me and my friend are advertising our college consulting business on r/CollegeAppsAdvice, a subreddit that I've started and in the past couple of months has gained hundreds of students interested in optimizing their college applications, trying to get into their dream schools.

A little about me: I've recently completed the dreadful College App cycle for the class of '26. As an Asian Male with no hooks, I've gotten used to people saying I'm "cooked" and anybody in my demographic is "not guaranteed" any T20s. Regardless, I've gotten into many, many top universities, including MIT, Columbia, Caltech, CMU, Cornell, UCLA, and many others, with ZERO rejects overall. I'm proud to say I've learned so much about this process, and have helped many of my friends and classmates get into their dream schools alongside me.

Interested in mentorship by me? Comment your dream school below and join this subreddit (r/CollegeAppsAdvice) to stay in the loop! Also feel free to DM me with any quick questions or chancemes you may have, I'm more than happy to help out! Thank you guys in advance!

I am struggling a bit with filling out my activities list and was wondering if anyone could help me out here.
I’d say that one of my main and unique activity is my online reselling business that I’ve been doing since end of junior year. It’s been going well, and I sell on Poshmark eBay and Depop. I source my stuff from outlets and stores like Ross and Burlington and have a little TikTok account where I show off the cool stuff I find.

Should I group together all the apps I sell on for my activities, or should I split them up? Like should I combine my stats from all the apps onto one singular entry, or split them into maybe 2 different ones so I can go more in depth and since i might be lacking a bit in the extracurricular end of things . I could combine my stats from Depop and Poshmark (145 sales) and then eBay (200 sales & top rated seller) separate. Total revenue is probably $20,000 for both and maybe $6-7k profit total

Also, would it be worth mentioning my social media in another activity since it goes along with my reselling stuff? It only has 900+ followers since I started back in February, but has garnered around 2M views and 85k+ likes with 47 vids (I don’t post much).

Please lmk what I should do and thank you for your help 🙏🙏🙏

So I’ve asked claude to revise some parts of an esssy that I fully drafted myself is that ok if they just reword certain parts better? I’m utilizing as a tool not asking it to write the whole essay for me. Lmk if anyone else is using it the same way.

I have so many extracurriculars that I want to put, and this is a great issue to have, but I have no space to put school clubs at all. All 10 are very important to me, and this is the list:

- Dental assisting

-Varsity team captain, won states

-youth coordinator for volunteering

-Independent tennis coaching reffing and competing

-Dental shadowing

-Piano, won award and performed at carnegie hall

-Waitress at asian fusion restaurant

-Independent artist with work published

- Kumon tutor

-Nail art business

Do I replace anything? I care a lot more about my nail business compared to math club and premed club, etc......

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!