I've been a b student with about half honors and half regular classes for my freshman and sophomore year. i'm taking my first 2 AP's (AP lang and AP psych) this year with plans to potentially get in a dual enrollment class during the second half of the year if i think i can handle it. i haven't participated in extracurriculars much, i was in a creative writing club for about 2 months in 9th grade but i plan on going into the yearbook club this year when i can.

for my senior year i plan on doing 4 AP's (not sure what any of them are going to be yet besides AP lit but i figure i'll come to a decision soon enough) and writing for the school newspaper

i'd love to get into uconn (my brother's in there right now, if you see this hello aiden) but i'm afraid that this isnt enough with how much i see all the other students around me do. i feel like i should have started AP's earlier or something. Am i just scared about this for no reason?

Idk but i have this feeling that it could make ao more conscious of our activities instead of just putting 7 or 8 years

I’m applying to colleges this year, and I’m honestly lowkey scared of handling the entire process by myself. I have a lot of questions, sometimes about important application decisions, but also really small things like how to format a personal statement, word certain responses, or order my activities.

I’m looking for someone experienced who would be willing to talk through DMs and answer questions as they come up throughout the application process. I’m not asking anyone to write essays or complete applications for me. I mainly want reliable guidance and someone I can check with when I’m unsure about something.

Does anyone here offer that kind of help, or know of a trustworthy paid service where I could get ongoing support instead of just one essay review or consultation? I would appreciate any recommendations or advice.

I have one day to change this and make this right. As of right now when I am trying to change my school schedule, I am at like a standpoint where I have to choose between AP Art and not taking it and replacing it with a half honors half regular course basically from that I probably would have to decrease my weighted average and it would decrease my chances if ranking.

Context: I’ve been doing art for several years, but I’m planning to major in engineering. Keeping the art class would put me one AP ahead of most people in my grade. Dropping it would free up time for competitions, exams, and finals. Though for a fact, I’m not sure how much free time exactly I would have as the other elective is just a journaling and speaking one.

Honestly, I’m not sure how much I still enjoy art or whether I’ve just been doing it long enough that it’s become a habit. What bothers me most is having it as a graded class, the deadline pressure turns something I used to do for fun into stress. But I also don’t know if dropping it would actually give me more free time, or if that time would just fill up with something else.

Second question: I also have to choose between an honors physics course and an intro engineering course. The physics option would let me move directly into AP Physics C instead of self-studying and taking the exam on my own. Is that worth prioritizing? I really wanted to do that engineering course this year as it may not be a available next year.

Thank you so much for reading this, I am not sure what to do and can’t put my mind in anything.

International applicant, need significant financial aid, one binding ED slot to use. Trying to choose between two schools with similar acceptance rates. one is need-blind (brown) and meets full need, the other is need-aware (upenn, got waitlisted last cycle).

The need-aware one is genuinely my top choice. The need-blind one is a school I've grown to love through the process but wasn't my original pull.

Since I only get one ED shot, three questions:

1. Does need-aware status meaningfully hurt odds for an international applicant needing real aid, even in ED specifically, or is this overstated?
2. Has anyone actually chosen between "dream school but need-aware" and "great fit but need-blind" for their one ED slot? How'd it go?
3. Is it true ED aid offers tend to be worse since you can't compare against other offers, or is that overstated too?

Not looking for "follow your heart", trying to understand the actual mechanics before I commit my one binding round.

I have been fed up with my living situation for years and entering high school I made it my plan to apply Early Decision to NYU and use the NYU Promise to move out if I got accepted.

Blah blah blah now I'm a rising senior and I believe I have a solid application to send to NYU, and when I asked my mom if I can see her tax forms so that I can qualify for financial aid I look over her forms and it genuinely says she made 7k in 2025.

I confront her about it and she goes into this tangent about how the government steals your money and would take away her SNAP benefits if she was being truthful. What I find most absurd is that I calculated how much she really makes based on her weekly income and it still comes out to only 30k/year which places us WAYYY below the low-income bar for public resources anyways.

It goes without saying that she has been under reporting her income and as head of a 7-person household while living in NYC I'm surprised that no one has ever tried to double-check that her 4 figure salary is even real.

I've worked so hard to overcome the low-income barrier that many students get stuck on, and just when I thought I cleared the wall, I get knocked down by the stupidest thing.

I'm going to continue to persue NYU and college in general but applying to college with undocumented parents not accustomed to life in the US might be one of the biggest torture rituals to exist.

The can of worms goes much deeper than what I can fit here but if anyone can provide any advice or share their own experiences with parents not cooperating that would be greatly appreciated.

...and yes I know that under reporting your income is a federal offense. Explain that to my mother not me.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the summer and the last few weeks since school started writing my UC PIQs, personal statement, and supplemental essays for a couple of the colleges I’m applying to.

One of my friends recently suggested feeding all of these essays into AI and using them as context to generate supplementals for some of my safety and target schools. I gave it a try, and to my surprise, some of the essays came out really good. They captured the essence of the work I’ve done and, more importantly, how I would want that work to be presented. Since the AI had all of my previous essays as context, it also picked up on a lot of the specific anecdotes and “showing” that I had already written myself.

I’m definitely not planning to just copy and paste the AI generated essays as is. I’d go through them pretty heavily, rewrite parts in my own voice, and replace sentences that sound obviously AI generated.

My genuine question is whether anyone with AO experience, or experience reviewing college supplementals, sees an issue with this approach. What should I watch out for? Is there anything that could make an AO react negatively if I use AI this way?

Please don’t shoot me for using AI lol. At this point, I’d be surprised if most applicants aren’t using it in some form. I’m mainly trying to figure out where the line is between using it as a tool and letting it do too much of the writing.

(Please excuse the messy text and english, im rushing this out cuz i have something going on).

I need help deciding courses. right now its between two choices, mechanical or mechatronics and robotics engineering. my interest and my brain all directs to robotics cause i want to play with circuits and programming and coding and wires and hands and stuff. i dont know what mechanical is about, isnt it just physics? but looking at the subject; "fluid motion" just sounds like a snooze fest to me. but heres the thing, in Heriot Watt, mechanical has the option to go to UK, i really wanna go there for a year or two, mechatronic and robotics doesnt. usually ill be fine with just raw dogging mechanical but the sound of fluid motion and thermodynamics scares me of how uninterested i might be. because i got straight As in the final exams of high school with the only A- being history. because i have next to NO interest in it, i hated it becuase of how uninterested i am (almost everyone got A/A+) subjects that im not interested in is so much harder to me than actual hard subjects. im scared thats gonna happen if i go mechanical, UNLESS im viewing mechanical in the totally wrong light. i also have been wanting to go overseas since i was a kid, like a dream.

Questions: 1. Should I ask my AP Bio teacher for my STEM recommendation, or find a different teacher (math teacher or senior year teachers?)
2. Does what my AP Bio teacher said about being able to “speak freely” sound concerning, or is that completely normal for recommendation letters?

Hi guys! I wanted to get your thoughts on whether I should have this teacher write me a letter of recommendation. I’m applying to a scholarship/college program due next month (separate from Common App), and I’m planning to study biology, biological sciences, biochemistry, or a related field, and I know it’s recommended that I have one humanities and one STEM LOR.
So I already have my AP Lang teacher for humanities, and she happily agreed. For STEM, I originally asked my AP Chem teacher, but she declined because of time constraints, so I asked my AP Bio teacher, who agreed. They’ve written letters for me before for summer programs, but I was rejected from those programs. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it still makes me nervous.
What’s making me unsure is that when I asked what the signature was for on the document that I was given that has a compiled list of what to give the teacher, my teacher said it means I’m agreeing that they can “speak freely” about me. I understand that this is probably normal for a recommendation, but given my experience in their class, I’m worried they might say something negative. I did ask if the signature meant it was a in a good or bad way and they completely avoided the question.
I’ve always done my work, studied, and followed expectations, but I’ve had some disagreements with this teacher, especially over retaking tests. I also didn’t do well on the AP Bio exam because of some circumstances.
Would you guys still recommend asking this teacher? I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time to build a strong relationship with a senior-year science/math teacher, so I’m debating whether I should just stick with AP Bio or ask a math teacher instead from my junior year. I’d really appreciate your thoughts!
(SORRY THIS IS SO LONG)

i thought penn state didn't take counselor or teacher letters of rec, but on commonapp they allow a counselor report & 4 optional teacher LORs. im confused, should i add my counselor & teacher recommenders for this? or will penn state not look at them?

We're always on this sub talking about auto admits... but did the president's son even get into his father's alma mater?

So I wrote a novel over the course of about a year and a half. Not published or anything, obviously. Just for fun. It's about 95,000 words. Should I include this in my list of ec?

For context, I'm applying ed to brown.

I have two published poems and two forthcoming prose pieces, all published/to be published in legit literary mags with an adult target audience, not made specifically for teens.

Basically, would including this make my application seem like cheap and performative, or would it genuinely add something?

I’m feeling pretty nervous about my upcoming application cycle and could really use some realistic perspectives or success stories from people who had a similar stats profile.

My UW GPA is around 3.5 , and my IB predicted grade is about 37/42.

I just got a 1540 on the SAT. I know my split is a bit extreme, and I'm worried my GPA is going to get my application automatically filtered out at top schools.I am planning on applying to NYU CAS for econ, which is one of my top choices.

If you had a lower or average GPA but a very high test score, where did you end up getting accepted? Did anyone get into NYU or similar schools with these kinds of stats? Any advice on how to frame my essays or application to balance out the GPA would be amazing. Thanks!

I'm a current junior, and I feel like I got all the hard stuff out of the way freshman and sophomore year.

I got a 1550 SAT sophomore year (790 math, 760 reading). I've taken Calc BC (5), Calc III (A), and Linear Algebra (A).

However, recently, I've been opting out of some "harder" classes.

I opted not take IB Physics (The only physics course in our school), half because I don't like algebra-based physics, half because I was lazy

I'm also really on the fence about taking the PSAT, I don't want to have to deal with restudying some of my worse skills.

Although I take 6 IBs/APs, 5 of them are online, and 2 of them are AP Macroeconomics and AP Gov, each one semester courses (to fulfill my grad requirements).

Just looking for any advice, maybe some of you guys have been in a similar situation? Anything helps, thanks in advance.

I'm so fricken stressed about apps. I'm doing ed to brown and still havent started my essay. I have only taken 4 ap classes and I'm only taking 4 this year. I'm not a stem person and I feel like everyone else is. I feel like there are so many more qualified people at my school and in the world than me :(

Can someone please just tell me that college apps aren't the end of the world and that I'm not gonna end up the biggest failure in the whole world?

I’m just curious about the chances of me getting a scholarship (not full ride) such that my annual tuition fee is 20k per annum after the scholarship.

I’ve got decent grades (3A* 1B in A-level) ( IELTS 8.5)(SAT 1480)

I’ve got not the best, but good range of extracurriculars as well

For our first home football game I made a dumb Choice and decided to bring alcohol to the school parking lot to pre game, got caught and suspended. I have 4.3 GPA and above average EC’s. I know colleges ask about suspensions and stuff and I’ll answer yes and explain. How bad will it look, will I still get into college?

Seniors give me some advice on joining in a college / university from high school in India. What are the most important factors before choosing a college, does NIRF ranking matters? what red flags you got after joining? please response, i have to pick a college for next year (I'm in my final year of high school")

I am not sure what kinds of students GaTech is looking for. Pls help.

title. I'm ranked 60/900 at my pretty competitive public (we sent ~15 to ivies/t20s last year), and our counselor said that most of our admits were in top 5% of our class, with a few in top 10%. I got 6 Bs over hs, with 5 of the Bs in sophomore year and 1 in junior year. I take a lot of AP classes + dual enrollment every year so that's why my unweighted is still high. i also have a 1590 sat superscore.
I'm just really stressed because the other parts of my application are a lot stronger than my academics (national awards, competitive summer programs, research etc) but im concerned that my academics will bring me down.

title but context im a senior applying to 4 early schools on october 15th and while filling out my common app activities i have one more slot left and there's this passion project i've been like dying to do which is basically trying to help immigrants get more healthcare access through like translation or volunteer work or what not but i've put it off for SO long just because i just didn't know where to start but i feel like it'd be perfect for that one slot left in my activities section is it worth it to try to at least get some done like at a local hospital to make it in time for the Oct 15th deadline? i know it's going to look rushed and last minute to AOs but its still a cause i deeply care about and something i resonate with so is it worth it to at least try?

I used to believe my profile is pretty strong for my situation (I migrated countries mid high school, faced financial, and mental setbacks, as are common in immigrants. This made me pickup major responsibilities at home, reducing my time for activities. However, I still considered it pretty strong. I drawback I might be having is the lack of national or international awards T-T). I decided to ask the ChanceMe subreddit.

I got literal comment saying that they're admissions officers and that I have zero chances at my dream universities, or that I'm not rounded enough, or that I only have a single spike instead of multiple spikes (like music, dance, or sport; I'm I've got those too, but my top 10 activites are related to teach, AI, and CS). I feel so demotivated...

Do I listen to the subreddit, or not? Has anyone gotten into their dream universities despite receiving negative responses from the subreddit?

Also, am I in a bad situation because of my immigration background and it's effects?

for example does being from new jersey increase your chances of getting Princeton or being from Massachusetts help your chances of getting Harvard? ofc it seems like it wouldn't but in one of Upenn's videos I saw them mention the number of students they have from Pennsylvania. Also, even if it did have an impact it be very small especially at such a competitive school right?

so i'm applying as a marketing major and have three extracurriculars that explicitly say "marketing" in the title or description.

in my opinion, my other ec's are still relevant to my field even are not directly related to marketing. for example, i am a tutor, which has helped me grow my communication and people skills, and these are important to have in business. i also run a web design business specializing in portfolio websites for visual artists, and web/ux design can be beneficial when working with clients and doing branding, but i've been told this one doesn't really relate to my major and i should rank it lower in my activities section.

my top school (nyu stern) i've heard really looks for "spikes" when it comes to EC's.

I’m almost done with the full version of my personal statement, but now it feels generic reading it. In the sense that it’s a “common” STEM structure of a personal event which led to be wanting to build stuff. I don’t focus on the tragic event too much and also use an object as a metaphor. Should I keep this or try and shift into a quirky/obsession with an object personified into me essay. I don’t want to be a bland fish in a pond if that’s what this first essay is going to be looked as.