Asian American College Applicant Profile on NYT & Senior Check List!

Vietnamese American College Applicant

Love this young Vietnamese American girl – she is so modest and adorable, and she believes in the good in people…I have to say that she comes off totally likable, but shows her love of learning and curiosity by letting us know that she is interested in technology and biotech and tinkers with games and electronics. LOVE that she’s a woman in science and she’s not shy about it. This type of geeky-smart is well liked in admission offices across the county! She does not seem overly stressed and comes off as friendly and calm. Please approach college in the same way that she does.

Thanh-Tran is so likeable because to me, she acts like her age. She isn’t trying to be overly sophisticated or adult. I meet so many students during college interviews who are trying to pretend to be something that I would be impressed with…and a lot of them miss the mark because how can one high school student try to guess what their admission officer (reader of their application would like…?) Students should just try to be authentically be the same!

She is a A/B student, and honestly, there are more students like Thanh-Tran who aren’t the tippy top of their class and curing cancer. I was in the bottom half of my senior class during high school, but I still graduated from college cum laude (I think that’s top third of my class), had a wonderful first job at a university and went on to graduate school…so deciding how successful you will be at 16 or 17 years old is just ridiculous. Don’t stress out students…learn from Thanh-Tran!

She says

“Right now, I’m waiting to hear back from college fly-in programs. Given that I can’t afford to make cross-country college visits, these fly-in programs would help me get a real sense of what I’m looking for in a college, as well as firsthand experience of the colleges I’m going to visit.

I applied to Oberlin College’s Multicultural Visit, the Multicultural Open House at Colgate University, the SEED program at Brandeis University, and the Voices of Tufts Diversity Experience.”

She’s on the right track to pursue these diversity programs, and I hope that she will be able to visit many schools and see which one is the right fit for her. She mentions that she needs financial aid, so perhaps she comes form a modest family?

I got this blog post from the NYT admissions blog, The Choice, where they profile eight students every year who are going through the college process. Wow, it must take guts to let the entire nation know what your college process is like…from where you applied to where you are accepted and denied! I like the video format they have this year a lot!

Below is a quick checklist for our seniors who are getting ready to apply to school: Making a List and Checking it TWICE!