Never Say Never — Get the College You Want!

“One year I had a student with a near-perfect SAT score and straight A’s. I’d originally put him in the submitted pile, but then we had to reduce the list. I reread his essays and frankly, they were just a little more boring than the other kids. So I cut him. Boring was the only justification that I needed and he was out.” — College Admissions Officer, anon.

You know… you know you need to find the best college you can. It’s hell.

No sleep. Your future depends on where you go, in so many ways. A lifetime of earnings, low or high, ride on the degree you get, the degree from where.

Nothing, not even dating, has ever made you feel so weird and helpless and insanely insecure.

So you sit and slam energy drinks and sweat and you read the piles of university literature. So fine. Time to get serious. You jerk the I-pod buds out of your ears and confront the whole mess.

Suddenly, decisively, you flash on this brilliant idea. You put the brochures in different piles. The colleges sit in those slick colorful stacks of paper. Three big piles.

Over here, the colleges you love to go to but know you’d never get in.

Over there, the ones you know that would take you, (but please dear God I hope I can do better than those! What a loser, why didn’t I study more?)

In the middle… the ones you think are your sweet spot— they might take you, and they aren’t too bad, some of them pretty good, in fact.

So what should you do? Apply to the middle stack, right? Why embarrass yourself, right?

Why take the chance on crushing your pathetic little self-esteem, by risking getting rejection letters? Right?

WRONG!!!!! You have ZERO to lose and everything to gain, by shooting as high as you can.

The higher you aim, the higher you might score. Your shot will always fall short and hit something higher than you would score by aiming low. And then again, your high aim might hit high, you never know.

Grab that stack of colleges that you THINK you KNOW would never accept you. Those are the ones you really really want, right?

Now go through the stack and chose a half dozen you REALLY want. Focus on those.

Is your SAT score not what you think it could be? Take an SAT PREP and retake the test. Buy a study guide and do it instead of hanging out all day.

Go through the middle stack. Which schools are the best 3 or 4 there? Choose them for your backup schools.

Look carefully at each school. What are the schools known for? What are their primary majors? Apply to each school with majors that maximize your chances there.

You can always switch majors after you get in, and you may even love that major, if you try it.

Ace the essay. Be yourself. Write who you really are. Your individuality is what distinguishes you from all the other applicants, use it. Write it yourself. Your personal views are all you own, spend them now.

Don’t write what you think they will want to hear, the same old boring junk. Write from the heart. Expose yourself. You are all you own, all you have to spend.

Before you submit the essay, suck up your nerve and ask your English teach to proof-read it for you.

Start early. Don’t wait for senior year in high school. Spend your pre-senior summer on your future. Do all the applications, write the essay, do the SAT Prep, etc etc. Then rewrite the essay, until it’s really what you are, who you are.

Be careful and accurate and take your time with the admissions application.

Never submit a hurried-looking document. Make sure they can see how serious you are about their school, that you thought long and hard, you took the time.

Gamble on Early Decision, ONLY if you’re sure of the school you want the most. You need to know everything about the college, and you should ache to go there. Otherwise, play the field, open up your chances.

If you don’t get that Early decision, you should already have back-up applications filled out, ready to send ASAP.

Go there. Visit the college. Make sure it’s what you want. Those years could be very long ones if you make a mistake now.

Visit the institutions you like, then narrow them down, and visit again if you can. If you meet students already attending, that’s the best introduction of all. Keep your eyes and ears open. Do a tour, then go it alone.

Number One— DO IT!

You are your own worst enemy, in holding back, if you delay because you dread rejection.

Delaying is the most common form of denial and avoidance.

Fear can cost you a lifetime of lower earnings, lower job security, and lower self-esteem, a life of exponentially increasing fear (Irony 101, people.)

Start early, dive in, make the decisions, the choices, do the diligence, and JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN!

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