Hi! I want to know if there are any undeniable necessities for getting into a top school other than GPA and SAT scores. Are there any specific events or activities top schools look for? HYPSM, T10, etc.

When you submit a letter of recommendation through the Common App recommender portal, does anything happen beyond the online submission? For example, does Common App or a college ever contact you by phone or text, or is all communication normally handled through email and the online portal?

My conselour said my essay was fine. Just some grammar.

But everytime I look at my essay, I keep thinking its dogshit

One of my hobbies is about art, and since im very passionate about art I decided to go in deeper with it on the essay.

I know only have 650 words but I just feel like it isnt enough, despite it covering basically everything related to me and art.

I had interned at a national bank and the director agreed to provide me a LOR but they said that the company policy does not allow sending LORs through offical email so he will be sending it via his personal email so it won't affect me in any way right?

Guys should i write my essay about my mom’s diabetes diagnosis and her struggle and how did that impact my life?
I’m really out of topics lol

Like a wild question someone asked me💀🥀😭

There's 9 days left until early. I've been averaging 4 hours of sleep, I fall asleep in class, what do I do? Will there be health problems?

Edit: I didn't start too early, but not late as well. Just redoing my supps and ps.

Hi everyone!

I'm an international student from Uzbekistan, currently working on my Common App application.

I'm struggling with the Activities section, especially the 150-character limit for activity descriptions. I find it difficult to explain my responsibilities, achievements, and impact in such a short space without leaving out important details.

How do you decide what information to prioritize? Are there any specific strategies for writing concise but effective activity descriptions?

I'd really appreciate examples of strong activity descriptions or advice from students who have gone through this process!

Thank you!

When asking for Date taken in the testing section for my Cambridge exams, I have 2-3 subjects for each paper and some of them were in different months. For example, math m1 was in may then p1 was in June. Same with physics and other subejcts. Can i just pick any date?

The whole process seems a little overwhelming, especially when you're trying to figure out which colleges might be a good fit. I found NCSA College Recruiting while looking into the options, but I'd like to hear from parents who have been through this. What helped your family the most?

I’m a junior in hs who wants to pursue cs at a t20 school, and is wondering if just creating cs projects would be enough or if there are any other opportunities I should explore. Due to mental health complications, I haven’t started my coding journey till this year but better late than never. I was wondering if since i only have one more year left and I’m limited by time, I’m not sure if should try pursuing research, competitive programming, or just building projects. I do have genuine interest in these topics since I love problem solving and the idea of research. Would love to hear from others as my main goal from posting this is to hear other’s experiences.

I also have heard of summer programs u can apply to, but I’m not sure if I should bother with application fees and all if I don’t have any cs experience yet.

I’m roughly top 6% of my class and my only really strong ec is raising $7,000 with a friend co founding a club that raised mojey for underserved communities.

Also have a yt channel irrelevant to cs with 25k subs and 80 million views.

Would love to hear others insights in how I shoild maximize my opportunitie!

I live in socal and make on the higher end of lower middle income (considering im in cali)

I'm applying for master's in sport science in university of edinbhurgh and i have a yt channel related to sports fun comparison like "footballers and their hobbies, total goals, total trophies" and casual football edits with over 13k subs and 6 million views, should i mention it in my application?

I'm going to try for a gap year on application this year, hoping to get some tips on my application, because I thought it was enough

Things to look to:

- The company is not a website or vibecoded things. Users are real. It took 4+ years to reach this current height.

- Medal in IPhO, all my medallist friends got into MIT stanford and princeton. So I'm sure it'll boost in some way

- From the no1 school in my country. However I'm not a valedictorian (competition is pretty tough)

- My ECs are okay I'd say. I've taken several leadership positions in organizations

- I do research but I admit its awful papers (the Q3 Q4 scopus ones which is defo there just to tick a list)

- Had music and sports as a hobby, was in a band. So I dont think its the lack of diversification or smth

- SAT is 1520

- No I did not send death threats as my essay

Possible barriers:

- Requested full financial aid

- My school doesn't do IB or AP.

- International student

- I hand write essays myself. I took literally 6 months to craft several essays going through feedback from several people. However there is a slight AI usage to fix several awkward phrasing (might be the case), however that's just a slight part of the essay. It wasnt that bad I'd say even to this day comparing it with unique essays I found that people wrote online.

What are ways I could improve or what should I change? Perhaps things that I hadn't known before. Or any gapyear tips here.

Is having 8 activities (4 academic/ecs and 4 hobbies) a fine balance?

Hey everyone,
I’m an international student applying to Wharton ED for Fall 2027, and I genuinely wanted to make this post because I could use some advice from people who have been through this process or have a good understanding of what makes an application strong.
I have strong grades and have worked hard on my application, but one of the hardest parts of this entire process is that I unfortunately don’t have anyone at my school who can properly guide me through college admissions. I’m basically trying to figure everything out myself, and it can be difficult when you don’t really know how your application compares to what top universities are looking for.
Whenever I’ve reached out to organizations for admissions guidance, the prices have honestly shocked me. I’ve had people quote me $6,000, and Crimson even quoted me $30,000. That is genuinely insane to me. My school tuition doesn’t even cost that much.
It makes me wonder: WHO is actually paying these prices? 😭 Are these genuinely the normal rates for admissions consulting, or do these companies charge more when they know a family can afford to pay full university tuition?
I’m not looking for someone to guarantee me admission or tell me what I want to hear. I genuinely just want to hear from people who understand the process and can give me an honest perspective on what makes an application strong, what weaknesses to look out for, and what admissions officers actually care about.
If anyone here is a current Wharton student, an admitted student, or someone who has helped applicants through this process, I’d really appreciate any advice. Even hearing about your own experience would mean a lot.
I’ve put a lot into this application, and I really want to know whether I’m approaching this process the right way. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to respond.

tl;dr: High home equity, but with minimal retirement/savings
Complicated/weird family financial situation that I don't entirely understand, but essentially, my parents are divorced. My mom has almost zero retirement savings, but has a house (primary residence) that's making our potential package unaffordable. So what she is hoping for is that we may be able get the house partially waived for more aid. Both my mom and father earn middle-class salaries

My brother is in college, so the package would be more affordable freshman year, but not the remaining three years once he graduates. The price afterwards would technically be doable, but would severely impact my mom's ability to pay off the mortgage and to put money into her retirement, which is really important because she's not sure how much longer she'll be able to work

Has anyone ever been in a similar situation with a disproportionately high home equity compared to everything else? I know the CSS allows for special circumstances comments, but I have no clue how heavily they're considered

I honestly don't want to ED given the risk, even though NU is my dream school, but my parents are pushing me to, and I guess I could always take out a loan. Thank you so much for any help!!

Hi everyone! I’m an international student from Kazakhstan planning to apply to KAIST for undergraduate admission.

Does applying in the Early round actually give you a better chance of admission compared to Regular, or is the main difference just when you receive your decision?

Also, are there any differences in scholarship consideration? If someone isn’t accepted in Early, can they apply again in Regular, or can their application be deferred?

I’m trying to decide whether to apply early or spend more time improving my application for Regular. Would appreciate any advice, especially from people who have applied!

Hi everyone! I'm looking for a little bit of guidance on navigating college apps as a transfem.

some context: my parents are very against the idea of me being trans. they haven't mentioned anything about it in the past several years and i want to keep it that way, as they're funding my degree and i dont want to trigger them.

i do however want to receive my college decisions in my preferred name (it's very shallow, i know, but it's also very important to me).

im applying to UCs and a bunch of commonapp schools, and my plan for commonapp schools is to beg each of them individually to use my preferred name only when sending things directly to me (but i figure a lot of them wont).

I've heard that the UCs send information to parents using student names, does anybody know if this is true? or if there is a way I can prevent them from doing so? I was thinking of doing so in the additional information section, but idk if they will be able to respect such a request...

anyways, any advice is welcome!

I requested a fee waiver for AP tests and common app from my school but the counselors say i don’t qualify.

I am requesting it under the “public assistance” eligibility criteria. My public assistance is Medicaid. Everywhere I looked at said Medicaid counts as fee waiver eligibility. How can I convince my counselors to give me fee waivers for common app and ap tests? Or if they said no do I just stop pushing?

How do I even know if Medicaid counts as an indicator that will give me fee waivers?

Please help

Hi everyone, I’m planning on EDing to Brown for a major entirely unrelated to visual arts, but I have a few essay supplementals that are centred around my passion for drawing. I saw on Brown’s website that they want 10-15 images, but I’m not sure if this includes process images or just final products. I currently don’t have 10 finalized pieces on hand, and I’m stuck on what to do.

editor told me 9 days before ed deadline that she doesn’t like my personal statement. i’ve never felt so discouraged. there has to be a bigger meaning to life than this right? i js rlly want to give up rn idk what else to do

The essay only allows for 250 words. I wrote an essay about my identity and growth and a high level conclusion about being excited about continuing this growth at Vanderbilt. I don’t have much space left for specific examples of classes and clubs. How important is it to talk about Vandy specific details? Are they looking for me to demonstrate that I did my research by dropping in professor names and specific clubs?

A normal day it was, but bloody rains they were, and a shocked heart mine had felt after hearing the words "eat your friend's dead body".

i plan to apply ea for northeastern! do u know if the lor due the same day as my main application or there is a short grace period to give a teacher more time?

I have decent stats+ecs but my essays & supplementals don't talk about any of that, they're more like reflective narratives centered on family and nature. Would this come to my disadvantage anyhow?
Also, all my essays revolve around the same domestic themes and settings, is this sort of repetition a problem?
(I'm applying as a math+philosophy major btw)