First of all, you're late. You're cutting it close to deadlines now, which is probably why you're most stressed.

Other than that, I might be able to help you, but I need some specifics as to what your particular problems are.

I'm worried about my application. There isn't much I can do to make it stronger, since most of it are things like GPA and test scores, which is probably why I'm so stressed. The only thing in my control is my essays and I find myself constantly editing them.

@bo_sox everything is "done." its just everytime I look at my CommonApp, I go "this isn't right" and I change several things. This happens almost everyday, as it probably will everyday until January 1. Then it'll start all over again as the Jan 15 deadline approaches.

There's nothing wrong with changing your essays. I would have someone else read them, though, preferably one of your counselors if you know them so that they can tell you what colleges are looking for.

Have a lot of people read your essays before you finalize them. Give them to friends, teachers, parents, extended family. Look for patterns in feedback that point to areas that could make them better.

OK thanks. Also a couple questions for my interviews:
Do I offer to buy to buy my interviewer coffee or something if we are in starbucks? Or is that a bit much?

When I get the dress code, I hear that a rule of thumb is to always go a level higher for example:
casual = business casual
business casual= professional
etc. is this accurate? how should I dress.

how should conversation go? should it be question and answer or should I ask questions too? should it just be a casual talk? How much should I talk about myself? Is talking about my achievements okay? what does "tell me about yourself" mean?

LOL sorry about all the questions. I'm just really nervous.

Unless you are applying to a highly competitive university you have a good chance of getting in to it. State schools will almost always take anyone in the top half of their class even if it isn't their state. There other thing besides essays is list extra cirricular activities that might interest a college.

Even if you don't get in you can go to community college for a year and take the common core classes like English and Calculus that will transfer any where for credit. Since more students are taking five years to graduate you won't be behind as long as you take classes from an accredited school. Plus you avoid living in a loud crowded dorm room for your freshman year. Universities over book freshman housing since there are no shows and some move out into fraternities and sororities.

Leave yourself a shitload of time. Be methodical. That's really the only thing I can advise.

"Do I offer to buy to buy my interviewer coffee or something if we are in starbucks? Or is that a bit much?"

Not a chance. Be kind and courteous, but don't take any chances at seeming domineering or superior or whatever.

As for dress code, that depends on the school. State schools won't mind if you wear whatever in all likelihood, but if you have khakis, wear them, maybe with a button-down shirt. If you're a tie type, wear a tie. A religious school might want you to dress up in a jacket or something, but khakis are probably good.

I'd start by spelling "college" correctly.

Unless you need to go to a really prestigious school or have some family connection, just do two years at a community college and then transfer to a state school. Transferring is much easier than admissions.

If you're paying what my family is paying, I can't say I disagree with that. ^

I'm not applying to college, I'm applying to collge, which is similar yet distinguished.

Yeah I'm applying to quite a few Ivies and its just great because each of them require like 3 or 4 essays each. Kill me.

Thanks to all of you. Im starting to feel a little bit better.

For interviews the most important thing is to not appear crazy. If you've gotten an interview, the admissions committee has already decided that you pass muster sufficiently to warrant taking up the precious time of their interviewers. At that point your objective is to not blow it. Be nice, polite, personable, and most importantly, be yourself, don't make shit up to try to make yourself look better. Certainly show that you are appropriately eager to attend their institution. To do that, know the history of the institution. Know how you will convey to them that their institution is the RIGHT one to attend in order for you to achieve your life goals.

Yoyo, may I ask what you want to study? That makes a difference. You only need to go to a "prestigious" school for certain degrees.

I'm already have a couple scholarships. I'm also low income so financial aid should cover a good portion of it if not the rest.

Economics, foreign policy, or business-finance

Well the hardest part of Ivy League is getting in. The average GPA is like 3.9 up there :)

The best thing for your interviews is to be able to explain why you find those areas interesting. Also, your trajectory for a career need not be written in stone. You need to show that you are hungry to learn, that you have an IDEA of what you want to do, and that you have an open mind about which career path you will take. Also, it helps to state that you intend to make an impact in whichever field you pursue in a meaningful way. Convey that you are not interested in just having a 9-to-5 and pulling down a paycheck. You have ambitions. Ivy League Universities want to produce leaders of fields.

If you're already in a place where you're applying to Ivy League schools you don't have anything to worry about. You safety school is, I'm sure, going to be perfectly adequate to give you the education you need for a successful life.

More people are qualified for elite schools than the schools have places for. Don't be discouraged if you're not quite where you expected. You're still in a very good place.

If you can get into Ivy League schools, go for it. I doubt it will pay off - the benefits don't match the price (opportunity cost, right, potential econ major?) - but if you are getting enough aid it might be worthwhile to take out some small loans to get into a Dartmouth or Cornell or wherever else.

Mate, I completely messed up my grades, applied to fairly high rated Universities. I don't know how it works in the US, but in the UK they take the grades from your penultimate year at school as a benchmark to how well you'll finish school. (or college). And I did absolutely shit in my penultimate year.
Just have confidence, and be able to sell yourself. I got offers from all my universities, and am at a top 20 Uni in the UK. Which considering I was a lazy arse in school, I'll take at this point in my life. It's a starting point to something bigger, just make the most of it.

Admissions aren't the end of the world. If you have good grades you'll more than likely be fine unless you're applying to the very top of the top. But if that was the case I would have assumed your application would be long completed.
Say what you're good at, don't state any negatives. But don't make yourself godly either. Nobody's perfect and they'll see through that.

Just have confidence in your abilities. Seriously, you'll be fine. :)

"If you can get into Ivy League schools, go for it. I doubt it will pay off..."

Couldn't be more wrong.

Yeah, name recognition will probably get you somewhere. I'm just saying that you could get the same education at the University of Toronto for literally 6-10% of the price and get that same name recognition. It's not as far away as it sounds for someone in Chicago.

Bo is right, the education will be the same, since in this age no one has preferential access to information anymore. It's the connections you make during your education that will ensure your success after graduation from an Ivy. PARTICULARLY in bus-fi, econ, or foreign relations.

Most of those connections come during graduate work anymore.

How does one get into graduate school? What connections do you employ for that?

To be honest, auto-cannibalism isn't the worst survival method......Sorry guys, wrong thread.

You're fishing for +1s as if you're a mod already.

##VOTE Vashta

@bo: Well, I want to be at 250 by New Year's

As for the actual thread topic, my honest advice is don't over think it. While these are indeed very important decisions, you shouldn't worry too much, as you have don't pretty much anything you can do, and stressing about it will only worsen your performance. For essays, just make sure your voice gets through, that is how universities know who you are (talking about overcoming obstacles is a great method of getting them to like you, btw), but also make sure you have someone proof read it. When it comes to interviews, I can't help much (lack of experience), but OB has good advice, be nice, be polite and be yourself.
As for Ivies, I agree with bo, if you can get aid, I would recommend going for it. However, for grad school, doing research and getting connections are paramount. As such it may be better to decide on going to a smaller school with a good reputation, (my school, TCNJ, happens to be rather small, but we have amazing business and pre-med programs). Overall, good luck, and don't think about it too much.

Thanks guys +1s to all the helpful comments

"+1s to all the helpful comments"

http://tinyurl.com/8jctbgm

Yoyo - You're smart, you're ambitious, you're nice, so no matter which path you choose, you will do fine in life. If you have a chance to go to an Ivy, don't squander it. Try to get it. If you are the caliber of applicant to seriously warrant admission to an Ivy, try to get in. Everyone else here is right, you will do fine no matter which college, grad school, med school, business school, fine arts school, culinary school, law school, dentistry school, cobblers school, or wizardry school you choose to attend. Aim to assemble the most prestigious educational pedigree you can. It will pay dividends.

And when you finally realize that you'll be fine regardless, drink and have a lot of sex.

Or you could decide that college isn't your thing and gain your knowledge by reading books and the internet. After all, our resident philosopher SYnapse did so and everything and he ended up.........On second thought, make sure you go to college, but I'm sure you'll be fine no matter what college or university you go to.

I didn't go. No stress whatsoever.

Hi yoyo, I was in your position five years ago, so let me give you what advice I have.

My background for college applications - High school salutatorian (out of 500), varsity athlete, all-state musician, eagle scout, president of three clubs and drum leader of the 200 member band. I am/was damn proud of that resume and thought I could get into any college I wanted.

Well, I ended up being waitlisted at every Ivy and almost Ivy (except Princeton. Fuck you Princeton). Never even got interviews with anyone except Harvard. Now, why do I think that I was waitlisted instead of accepted? In the years before me, less qualified people than me got into Ivy schools. But I handed in my applications a few days before the deadlines, and am part of the largest demographic applying to Ivy (upper-middle income, white, male). Like it or not, they have rough quotas for their incoming classes. A certain percentage is going to be international, white, hispanic, etc, with a decent amount of wiggle room. If it wasn't, they would be overflowing with Asians because god damn they're harder working than most of the rest of us. So, turn them in now. Just do it. If you're as smart as you say you are, then your writing should be fine. Don't try to be the special flower who writes the perfect essay and gets in. Write something good, memorable, but simple. Have a few people check it, but please just send it in as soon as possible. You are more likely to get in when you send it in the beginning of December than when you send it just before the deadline. Because I have a (hopeful) feeling that when they got to my late application they said "Oh shit, this guy would've been good. Too bad we've admitted all we need now. Let's waitlist him"

So I did end up going to one of my safety schools (American), but used that opportunity to study abroad for a year at a MUCH better school (LSE) and used what I could there to springboard into a much better graduate program (Duke) where I am now. Grad school applications are laughably easy. Just get some good recommendations from professors and (academic) co-workers

As for the state school/community college vs private school debate, always go to the more prestigious institution. The quality of the education won't be all that different, but the quality of your peers will be.

My undergrad degrees are in finance and economics, so I think I can speak a bit to why your location matters. You are likely going to try and get an internship at a bank or government office at some point. Location matters and school matters. If you don't go to a good school, the banks will not recruit from your school. If they don't recruit from your school, your odds of getting an internship there plummet relative to if you were at a feeder school. American has a sizeable business school. But, since it doesn't have the reputation for a finance program, zero banks recruit there. So a much smaller proportion of American students go to work on Wall St. than students at, say, Duke or LSE where every career fair is flooded with representatives from every bulge bracket bank. Meanwhile, American DOES have a very good accounting program. Hence, I have lots of friends now at E&Y, KPMG, PWC and Deloitte.

So, school choice matters a lot. Going to a state school/community college doesn't make things impossible. But it makes it a lot harder than it would be otherwise.

As for your other questions. Just khakis and a collared shirt is fine. Don't buy them anything. Relax. Interviews have two outcomes, really. Neutral and negative. If your interviewer reports back saying "This kid is AMAZEBALLS" they will go "Ok, noted". If they report back saying "How the fuck is this kid a functioning human being" they will then proceed to toss your application. In my Harvard interview I talked about how history classes neglected to teach important economic lessons, such as the economic revitalization of Germany under Hitler that enabled him to wage war and won him popular support.

Let this sink in. I praised Hitler in my interview. Was still waitlisted. Don't stress on interviews too much.

Everything goldfinger0303 says is right, but I'd just like to emphasize that flagship state schools can be at least the equal of many private schools. At the University of Illinois I had many friends in accountancy and finance, and they're at firms like the ones he mentioned. It's true that the best policy is to go to the best school you get in to, as he says. Just keep in mind that the best school need not necessarily be a private one. For example, I'd imagine Michigan or UVA is a better choice than Brown in almost any scenario.

Advice: Have someone who can proof read your application letter and form. Your header contains a mis-type of the word 'college' and your introduction mis-uses the verb 'advise' when the noun 'advice' is appropriate.
Sorry if this appears pedantic, but academics tend to be concerned about standard use of the English language.

just relax. A college rep will probably see how much effort you are putting in and be thoroughly impressed. as long as your GPA is solid, and you've been active throughout high school then you are pretty much guaranteed a spot.

The advice so far is good. I'll just throw in that ivies aren't necessarily more expensive anymore than other schools, depending on your financial ability; at least some of them have moved to a zero-debt tuition model based on your family's finances (as you probably know).

That said, don't stress out too much. Do what is in your control to get into the best school you can (certainly ivies do confer significant advantages), but at no point start to let yourself think that your future happiness depends on getting into it. With work, you can achieve success from any tolerably good university in this country -- certainly many that you will easily, easily get into.

The worst thing that can happen here is that you get into an ivy, and then go through life thinking that your success at the next step depends on that and on making the safe choice at each point thereafter, rather than on your own hard work and creativity.

Thanks guys! You are the best!
While Ivy league schools are hard to get into, (#understatement) I think I have a shot at getting into one. My GPA is definitely not in their range but my test scores are, I have some pretty bomb extracurricular act. and I provide a certain "diversity" to the schools.

Many of the schools have a holistic application process so hopefully my GPA isn't a bottleneck for me.

My two cents: I only applied to one school which had an interview process. Ended up getting into the school, but didn't matriculate there.

The point of the interview is for the interviewer to find out who you are *as a person.* They've already got your resume and know you've got the chops to gain admission. Now they want to learn more about your personality and ambitions for your educational career. They want to see if you are the type of person who can be an asset to the university both while you are there and after you complete your education.

Tell them your story.

Good luck!

Yup, Invictus is completely right. U Michigan, U Wisconsin and a few other state schools will get you miles further in econ and finance then Ivy's such as Dartmouth