People who have been rejected from [almost] every college you applied to, what were your stats? What advice can you give to others to avoid making these kinds of mistakes?

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I have to start applying to college soon, and I’m already extremely anxious about the whole thing. I thought my own stats were pretty average and that I could get into a good amount of schools on my list, but then I come on here and see some pretty outstanding kids saying they got rejected from 10, 15, 17 colleges. I do have safeties, but at this point, I basically fear rejection. My parents already keep telling me that I will never succeed and I don’t want them to have the satisfaction of being right.

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92%, 1570

Essays: good according to those who read

ECs: prestigious national awards and various clubs some with leadership positions.

I only got into my safeties.

Apply far and wide, make your essays unique (if you have some quirk like basketweaving, include that) My essay while not super cliche was an expected topic of my demographic, sort of like a coming out essay although it had nothing to do with sexuality or lgbtq. Don’t slack on the interviews either.

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Went 2-8 for accept- deny/waitlist, 33 ACT 3.7 UW 4.03 W. I’m going to flagship state school now so I guess it’ll be fine

Best advice is write the fuck out of your essay and supplements, I nuked my writing pieces so that’s probably why I didn’t get into anywhere better than my state school

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3.89 and a 35. I got 8 rejections and 9 waitlists. My advice would really just be to find a few match schools and a couple safeties that you LOVE and work really hard on those essays BEFORE doing your reach schools. I got into a match and a safety early and it made the wait until late March much less agonizing

As for having a good application for reach schools, my advice would simply be to be honest. Colleges that review thousands of applicants a year are going to have a really good bullshit radar, so just present yourself in your essays as who you truly are. Make sure your essays say something about each school, but tie them back to yourself, your interests, and what you want to do in college.

Edit: forgot to add that it is my PERSONAL belief that only putting your true ECs in your common app spots is beneficial. I only listed 7 ECs out of the 10 slots but I think colleges got a better idea of what I’m truly interested in (I had other clubs I could have listed but decided to leave them out because they weren’t significant to me)