My daughter is struggling in HS. She is a senior. She is smart but not an organized kid and misses a lot of homework hence grades are not great.
I don’t think she is a good 4-year college candidate right now (she can’t even get up for school and always late).
If you were that kid or if you are parents of such kid, is there a degree that you/ your child pursued (maybe like a certificate) that worked out great for you?
I am looking for general advice and guidance on how to help my daughter. I do t want her end up with no direction post high school.

I know that there are a lot of really accomplished students at these schools, but how many students are just the above-average student with no crazy awards, Olympiads, or published research? Are T20s students all really super super accomplished or is there still a lot of them that differentiated themselves without having an insane profile?

I'm not a bad student. I have a 4.91/5.0 GPA and 1510 SAT. I will have taken 10 APs and I've already gotten all four 4s and one 5. My extracurriculars aren't great but I've rowed for 4 years (fall, winter, spring) and have some small leadership positions in other things.

Despite my okay stats, I am 100% done for. I mean, no one I know hasn't started their application process besides me. I don't know what to do. I haven't even put in my extracurriculars in common app yet, haven't started my essay, haven't done any supplementals.

I really wanted to apply early action to schools because I know it helps your chances but at this point I don't know if it's possible.

Every time I try to start my college essay, I delete everything. I don't see why any schools should accept me because I genuinely see no value in myself. I have no direction in life.

I was going to apply for engineering because I used to think I was good at math and science but honestly I don't think I'm good at anything anymore. So the whole "why this major" thing is also going to be hard to write.

I guess my question is how do I write a college essay that convinces admission officers that I'm worthy if I hate myself and will probably end up useless in society?

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Obviously these are both amazing schools but they've fluctuated in terms of ranking on us news so I'm just wondering if people actually consider them T20s or like if they're borderline.

I know I'm majoring in econ and would like to get into the policy space later in my career, but i'm kinda torn between a business, finance, or policy path straight out of school. However, I know that both of these schools have especially strong business schools, so which business school is better would probably be the most determining factor I live closer to urich, which is a plus for me, but I'd prefer proximity to cities, which Villanova is better for.

I have done research on both schools, but I keep getting conflicting reports, so I would appreciate any insights! Thanks :)

I feel like Columbia is particularly hard to place since they’ve historically been pretty strong especially internationally due to the NYC draw, but they’ve also struggled with their rankings scandal and seem to be bloated as an institution due to their cash cow programs. It seems that the tiers are generally:

1A: Harvard, MIT, Stanford
1B: Princeton, Yale, Caltech
2A: Duke, UPenn, UChicago
2B: Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth
3A: Brown, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Rice, WASP

There’s also a place for tons of elite programs at top schools, like Berkeley EECS, Georgetown SFS, Carnegie Mellon CS, WashU premed, etc. but I just created general tiers.

Where would Columbia fit nowadays?

I'm trying to fill out the Cornell CALS supplemental essays but I obviously only have around 2 weeks left, and I haven't started but I have an idea of what I want to write about. How long does it typically take you to write a supplemental essay from start to finish?

All throughout HS I had a plan. Focus on building my coding skills, building personal projects of all manner, then apply to some sort of tech program whether it be Computer Science or Software Engineering, but every, single, time I bring that up, I'm met with people shutting me down immediately, telling me to quote on quote, "just go into the trades."

Have we seriously hit such a point in the world where that's the only route for the youth? I am 19 years old, I feel like I'm sitting here, wasting my life away doing absolutely nothing. I want to go to school, I want to build a life, but why does it seem like the only pathway to do that now is some sort of trade? If anybody is currently in, or recently graduated from a tech program, is it really that bad?

I honestly think this is like the one thing that I'm actually kind of passionate and kind of decent at, so if I'm not able to do it, I'm lost, I don't know where to go from here and I'm just wasting time trying to find my way. If anybody has literally ANY advice for me, I would be go grateful and happy to read through it.

I am currently applying to colleges right now. I’m wanting to major in aerospace engineering but I know it’s a really hard major and it might screw up my gpa and not make it as competitive. Now I could go something easier like biology or finance, but if I weren’t to be accepted into med school I was wanting to do engineering instead. Is it worth the risk of not getting into med school for a major I’d want to pursue as a backup, or should I just go the easy path and do an easier major?

Hi! So a college admissions rep for the school im early decisioning to came to my school today. I was there very early as my class was a free period, and I helped them set up for the meeting. Everyone came very late to the session, and I was genuinely sitting with the admissions officer alone for around 30 minutes, and we just talked like a normal small talk conversation and i didnt mention anything about my ECs or stats because I didn't want to come off poorly.

However, I'm worried that during those 30 minutes I said something ignorant on accident as I'm a very talkative person and didn't notice, and I wonder if that will affect my application?

Sorry that was a lot of fluff but I just wanted to put that out there and get advice as I've literally been racking my brain because of this the whole day.

Thought it’d be interesting to see. Focused on career outcomes, academic rigor, institutional breadth, and innovation.

1. Harvey Mudd
   
2. Claremont McKenna
   
3. Swarthmore
   
4. Williams
   
5. Pomona
   
6. Amherst
   
7. Wellesley
   
8. Carleton
   
9. Barnard
   
10. Wesleyan
    
11. Washington and Lee
    
12. Richmond
    
13. Smith
    
14. Bucknell
    
15. Colgate
    
16. Lafayette
    
17. Davidson
    
18. Grinnell
    
19. Bowdoin
    
20. Hamilton
    
21. Middlebury
    
22. Haverford
    
23. Colby
    
24. Bates
    
25. Vassar

Hi!! so my application is due in 2 hours and idk if magma cum laufe counts as honors if my school hasn’t distributed them yet PLEASE HELP should i put it even tho i already what it is but my school hasn’t given out yet? or should i just delete LMKK

my school's baseline is college prep but i labelled three of them as regular/standard for my current/most recent courses. is it a big deal enough to email the admissions people to tell them of the mistake? my transcript has a gpa key at the bottom that shows that college prep is the lowest level. i have 3 colleges due 10/15 which is literally today.

gemini is telling me its totally fine and i dont need to email them but i dont know if its a huge deal...

Hi! I’m applying to colleges for Fall 2027 and currently have a 31 ACT. I’m planning to retake it in December to hopefully get a 34.

If I apply Early Action, can I still submit my December score if my application is pending or if I get deferred/waitlisted? Would it help at all?

I was also thinking about emailing each college to ask about its specific policy on this. Would that be a bad idea?

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

Hey guys I need some quick advice real quick should I put my first aid/cpr certification on my honors section in common app and should I put the college board We service recognition?

I knowww everyone says not to start a personal statement with a quote...but I want to real bad. I want to quote "I am I am I am" from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, its a beautiful quote that fits in my essay and Its not some popular, cliche one that everyone knows + its super short and sweet

Thoughts? If its a terrible idea I get it BUT if anyone would still be willing give some advice on how to incorporate it, it would be awesome

So my report card for my first marking pierod came out (im a freshman) and I got a 91 avg with 95+ in almost all my classes BESIDES chemistry (honors) which I got a d in and I genuinely feel so saddened because I never did this bad in science before and now Im frightned as to weather this will affect my application to stanford. So will this affect my application and am I cooked?

im a junior at a fairly competitive highschool. i would have a perfect gpa if it wasn't for french in my lowerclassmen years. i know colleges like to see languages so i decided to take ap french this year (worst decision ever). i currently am getting cooked and have an 84 and i don't understand anything. i'm really scared i'm going to fail the exam and its going to destroy my gpa. i've already gotten an a- in it previous years, and my counselor told me i'm not allowed to drop it. my teacher sucks terribly and will not give me any extra help. is getting a B in this class going to destroy my chances of getting into a good college? my parents are telling me its french so they shouldnt care and its not as if im majoring in linguistics but i think they're saying that to get me to chill. but everyone else in my school is going to have their perfect 4.0. anyways pls lmk and if u took ap french and got a 4 and 5 pls let me dm u and get some advice this is genuinely taking over my life and i think abt this 24/7. also if i lock in rlly hard it might be an a- by the end of the year. besides this i have great grades in classes like apush, ap calc bc, ap chem, and ap lang

On the UC application for freshman where they ask for Dual Enrollment courses, so I am enrolled in 2 institutions and I was listing the courses but stopped at Spring classes. Registration haven’t opened yet and by the time that the application is due I would still not be able to figure out what class I am taking at 1 of the institution (they assign the class from the top 4 choices I picked), same situation on common app. Should I leave it blank or fill out the classes I want to take?

I don’t know what class I’m taking for the Spring semester so what should I put?

I have around 40 hours of community service hours (currently in senior year and I'm doing EA, which is due in like 15 days...). It's going to be put on my transcript and so will colleges care that I only did the 40 hours required to graduate my high school?

I mean, I did other stuff like corporate volunteer work (volunteering at a store and working for a director for a tv show) and I'm going to internship at a bank during my fall break. In total, I have 9 pretty solid activities to put on my Common App (with 4 of them being my hobbies/interests) so will they penalise me for not doing more community service?

Looking for real advice and not judgement. My process for writing my personal statement and my supplemental essays have been as follows:

1. write the essay in my own words

2. plug my essay with the prompt into gemini and ask for advice on what to improve

3. use the advice to improve my essay WITH MY OWN WORDS, not gemini’s

I have been using AI to support me with my writing but I have not been using it to actually write any sentences for me. I feel like that’s reasonable? Or is it not? My concern is more that when I enter my essays into an AI detector, they usually come out as anywhere from 25-70% AI. I know I am not including AI-generated content in my writing, but should I be concerned that admissions officers will think that I am? Also how accurate even are these AI detectors anyway?

I have always been a pretty advanced writer so it’s possible that my writing technique (vocabulary, grammar, etc) may just be flagging as AI. Will this be an issue (should I rewrite my essays from scratch) or should I not be worried? Again, if I am genuinely doing something wrong then I will 100% fix my mistakes, but if it’s harmless then I probably won’t change much because I am pretty happy with how my essays are looking right now.

I’ve just been accepted into a local grad school.

The school asked me to complete identity verification through a third party company that uses biometric facial scanning to verify.

I told them I didn’t want to upload my biometric data to a third party company and asked if I could verify my identity via video call, or by coming to the school in person.

They said that there is no other option, and if I don’t want to do the third party verification, I can only attend there by self paying (like most folks, self pay is not an option for me).

Has anyone else run into this? Surely this school admitted students and dispersed student loans prior to this technology coming on the market.

Is there anything else I could try that might help the situation, or do I have to decide between attending this school and protecting my biometric data?

Hi, I'm a senior in high school who's been struggling with deciding what colleges I want to apply to, or go to for a while now. Please recommend some colleges for me.

I'm in NYC, I don't think I mind going anywhere for college, upstate or in the city would be most ideal due to dorming costs and commuting though. But I would definitely love to go out of state for schools in California, Oregon, PA, or Chicago if my financial needs allowed. So, if there's any colleges with low costs, tuitions or I can get scholarships to that are out of state, I would love that the most.

I'm a pretty average student, didn't try too hard in school which I do regret.
GPA: around 90 currently, had upward trend starting from Junior Year, with all 90s
Activities: No formal leadership, some personal projects, long commitments to clubs, and about two-three programs, there's a clear trend in my activities--it shows my passions and interests which are art, conservation, and criminology/criminal justice
SAT: Currently only 1200, have only taken it once, will retake in Nov hoping for 1350-1400.
Rigorous Courses: Have taken 3 APs--Earned 3 on AP LANG and AP CALC AB, 1 on Ap Comp Sci A, currently taking 3 this year: AP STATS, AP LIT and AP GOV
Have taken College Now course at John Jay Intro to Criminal Justice, taking another at John jay: Psychology currently, plan to take another course next semester as well.
Financial Need: 100% demonstrated need, low income

Interests: Fashion Design, Neuroscience, Biology, Marketing, used to be interested in pursuing law, or criminology/criminal justice as well as environmental studies and conservation but I only like learning about it, don't really see myself having a career relating to law. I mostly only see myself having a career in Marketing or Fashion Design.

Some things I value in colleges:
- A campus
- Good balance with social and academic life, don't need or want "party" schools necessarily, just somewhere I can make friends and have fun while also being successful in my studies.
- Diversity; it would be nice if there were people with similar backgrounds to me, Asian.
- Internships and research opportunities
- Low costs/good financial aid

Some colleges I've been keeping eye on/interested in,
- FIT (my top choice currently)

- Baruch College
- Binghamton
- University of San Diego
- Lehigh (might be a reach for me)
-University of San Francisco
- Fordham University
- University of Conneticut
- University of Oregon
- Penn State
- John Jay (least fav currently just because there's not much diversity of majors and I'm not entirely sure if I really want to go into criminology or law related majors/careers.)

Please either deinfluence me from these or tell me more about them as I don't really know much. And please help me make a list thank you so much!

TL;DR: Asking for college recs for student with 90 GPA, no notable activites, and overall an average student.