northeastcollegiate

I just finished my last finals and 5th semester of college today (whee!!!). So if anyone wants another pair of eyes on college essays, I love helping with last-minute college application madness. (Will read up until the the New Year!)

Send me a link in my askbox or send me an email at [email protected]. I’ll be forwarding all emails to my main and sending myself email notifs for asks, so I’ll be getting to them as soon as I get them, if not, I’ll shoot you an email to let you know when you can expect a reply.

If you have areas you want me to focus on or concerns you have, please do specify them!

1. Stress less. College admissions is very important because it dictates where you will study for the next four years, but honestly, it’s not worth all of the stress that goes into it. Put in the work, show off your flair, struggle a bit, but no need to go overboard dying over it. You will make it.

2. Plan ahead. I honestly felt like I did some of these things without a full plan. I signed up for my SATs, but didn’t really think about when I’d start studying for them and how that would fit into my schedule. I applied early action but ended up writing my essay very last minute. That’s all fine and well, but gosh, things might have been easier if I sat down one day and said I’m doing this by this day, and broken it down more than just “study sats for march” or submit applications by some date.

3. Ask for help. There’s a world of community out there. I certainly have my doors open if you need anything. If talking to other applying/test-taking students makes you stressed out, don’t talk so much with them. If you have no idea where to start, ask for help. People are here and ready to watch you succeed. 

When I used to feel overwhelmed by everything in life, I used to find a way to vent it out to someone - whether this means talking to someone about all your worries and where they stem from, whether that means writing in a journal, making a song about it, etc. After getting out all of this frustration and anxiety, I made a plan. A thorough plan. At the top I’d write down my big overarching goals. Then I’d write down a list of ways that I’d achieve them. They have to be doable check-off-able measurable things. Sometimes making a plan is helpful for just seeing things.

But this also doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. Reach out to those who can help you. This isn’t something that you have to or even should go through alone. You are more than just grades, and a resume, and where you end up. none of these things fully define you. It’s easy to read these things and just glaze over them because you’re probably heard them before, but maybe it’s time to internalize it. Your self worth is not the accumulation of your visible accomplishments. There’s a lot you and a lot that you are that do not show up on paper. There’s a lot that you think about and do and are that no one else gets to see. Remind yourself of these things.

Very very few people have any idea how they go in.

I have a strong belief in finding something that you like and working hard at it. I know that it’s also hard to figure out what your “true passion” is and that it’s hard to pinpoint “what you love doing”. But it’s easy for us to tell when we hate something, and honestly, there’s no point in doing something that you hate. I believe that if you truly love something, that shows in your application, your interview, your essays.

Work hard in school. Make connections with your friends and peers and teachers. Do what you like doing. Spend some time figuring out who you are, who you want to be and what you want to do. Be honest. 

This is obviously a very outdated question, since I’m wrapping up my first semester of sophomore year at this point.

I really enjoyed Harvard my freshmen year, but I think I enjoy it exponentially more my sophomore year. Freshmen year is a time when you’re absolutely amazed and in wonder at the novelty of everything. But it’s also a time when you’re growing and learning and developing so fast, which can be hard. You have to adjust academically - which everyone kind of knows when they get here but I think everyone takes for granted that magnitude with which academics is different here. It’s also hard because I didn’t figure out my extracurricular activities scene. As someone who defined their high school self as a component of the extracurricular activities I loved, it was hard to come here and have to start over. Same with friends - you go from knowing everyone and feeling belonged and knowing where you stand - to knowing pretty much no one. But despite these difficulties, there were also definitely a share of great things and new experiences. 

And this year, as a sophomore, I’m loving what I do. I take some interesting and great classes. I have a solid group of friends and I’m so willing to reach out to more. And I found my footing in the extracurricular scene. I’m still exploring a lot of who I am and what I want to do, but I’m enjoying it too.

Becoming a better writing – this one’s hard. I’m also not sure whether you’re talking about it for academic purposes or for college application purposes.

If you’re talking about it for college application purposes (which I’ll assume you are, since you’re messaging this account), I think the best thing to do is to just write. Write everyday so that you can clearly lay your ideas out. Pick a topic and think about how you’ll organize it, the ideas, and how you’ll support them.

There’s a lot of online communities for writing that also may be helpful; even just doing blog posts. Writing is honestly one of those things where you just have to keep doing it. Getting feedback for writing is also big - which is why online communities can be great. I’m also generally willing to read anything for college-related purposes too, if you’d like that as a resource.

Actually, we are still in need of more peer advisers! I reopened the application for peer advisers, so if there are any rising high school seniors who want to advise rising high school juniors OR rising/current college students who want to advise rising high school seniors, we’d love for you to apply!

We put a lot of effort into pairing advisors and advisees (every application is read, sorted, and paired by a person) and thus, it’d be really unfortunate on our part and on your adviser/advisee’s part if one was excited to participate but the other didn’t. Inevitably, sometimes pairs don’t maintain contact for too long after being paired, but we hope that everyone who applies will go in with the intention of being involved (at whatever level you prefer). Communication frequency is solely dictated by pairs.

If you participate in dual selection and state that you only want to maintain contact until a certain month, etc, that can also be a possibly.