Sascha Bos on Big Decisions for High School Seniors

As the school year comes to a close, everybody wants to know where I'm going to college. It's going to be a big part of my life, but the people who casually ask me where I'm going only want to know if they recognize a school with a good reputation. They don't want to know what my school is like, why I decided to go there, or any of the actual interesting things about picking a college. Here is the real story behind college admissions - the answer you won't get when you ask these bright kids where they're going. 

Cecilia Tolone is an accomplished AP student with a passion for European history and baking. She is inspired by such varied personages as Anne Boelyn, Martha Stewart, Karl Marx, and John Lennon. Cecilia applied to one school, Warren Wilson College - a liberal arts college combining academics, work, and service - and received her acceptance letter long before her peers. "College admissions isn't the end of the world," she says. "I think a lot of people thought that, then got their acceptances and got a reality check." She plans to spend a year volunteering in such exotic locations as Peru before she starts classes at WWC as a history major. 

Matt Wilson, a straight-A student at Wilson and my fellow Science Team member, applied to the University of Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, UC Davis, UCLA, UCSD, UC Merced, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, and CSULB. Matt says "There were only a few [schools] I knew I wanted to apply to. The rest were add-ons suggested by my parents."  Matt said his college decision would depend on whichever school made the most sense financially, and he didn't seem to get too attached to any one school. Like most of us, Matt says "the things that most concerned me were strong academics and the ability to explore subjects to figure out what I really enjoy." As the deadline to submit out Statements of Intent to Register loomed closer, Matt was still deciding between UCLA and Rochester. He flew to New York to visit Rochester, but eventually chose UCLA. Even though Rochester offered him a merit-based scholarship, UCLA was still much more affordable for Matt's family. Matt plans to pursue a career in science, and he will be attending UCLA with several of his close friends. 

Straight-A student Maddie Gollison has been on a club swimming team since she was four, and is a self-proclaimed "math person." She has competed in Israel for the Maccabiah Games and is an active member of the Jewish community. "I thought I would have gotten into more schools because I spent an insane amount of time on my applications and had a lot of unique things going for me," says Maddie. She applied to fourteen schools, mostly on the east coast, and was rejected by every private school she applied to, with the exception of Duke and Tufts, both of which she was wait listed by. She was accepted by every public school she applied to and come fall she will be attending the University of Virginia because "They have one of the best undergraduate business programs and they are the smallest school that I was accepted to." Maddie wishes she would "Have worried less about trying to be perfect, and just had a little bit more fun. I can't exactly say hard work pays off, because it doesn't always." 

Maddie isn't the only Wilson senior who was disappointed by her application results. This year, no one was excepted to an Ivy League school, and only one person was accepted to Stanford, our California Ivy. When Cecilia said a lot of people got a reality check after they heard back colleges, she was absolutely right. 

So next time you see a Wilson student about to graduate, think about the painful applications and tough decisions, rather than how their college has been ranked by The U.S. News.