001hello everyone and to uh those tuning in my name is ed lubin i'm one of the interns working at amherst regional high school and i want to welcome welcome you all to this portion of the college roundtable series um i'm very excited about this one um as we have heard from mission for a couple different topics but with this session we're actually going to hear from some of our stu former students uh from amers regional high school our lovely panelists uh our alumni that um for for most i think um went through the college planning process and uh you know have a lot of rich experience and insight to share about that as well as you know how they've transitioned to college and beyond so i'm going to introduce them in a second i just
002want to remind people that for the most part the audience is going to be on mute however if you have any questions that you want to pose to our panelists feel free to um type a question into the live chat uh we will try to sprinkle those in throughout the discussion and uh leave some time at the end uh if we can for some uh more questions so with that in mind i'm gonna get out of get out of the way and i'm going to start introducing uh our panelists for today so i'm going to start off with acadia hi um i'm a katie i use she here pronouns and i right technical difficulties here oh there we go all right um i'm acadia i use she her pronouns and i'm at faster college all
003right sorry about that all right take it away um yeah so um does anyone have any certain questions if not i can just sort of talk about my experience um and how i approach the college admissions process so um i'll start and then if there's any chats i see i'll adjust them so i applied completely regular decision um to all of my schools um i started out by touring in my 11th grade year my first tour was at mount holyoke college because i knew that i wanted to have a liberal arts college experience i still don't know what my major is going to be um so i wanted to really have that whole like holistic kind of be able to explore my options as i went through college so i toured mount holyoke i really
004liked it and decided that i would continue to tour these seven sisters schools of course i understand that not everyone has had the opportunity to tour yet um and i can and so i definitely understand the limitations of this time that being said i would recommend using websites to kind of explore your options and see if you like the way the campus looks um see if you can get in touch with any people who are currently there or not um so i applied all regular decisions to all of my schools um and i it took me a while to make my decision once it came out as i could not really tour my schools when coverage happened um but eventually i realized that my best fit was here at boston college because it was the
005perfect distance from my home it had all the fields of study i was interested in um and also they had constant communication about what the coveted situation was and about other things like financial aid and such um so that is my college story um i hope that other people um can relate or if you have any questions feel free feel free to just throw it in the chat all right thank you all right next up is uh elliott all right can you hear me right i hope that's the yes all right so my name is elliott um i'm a i use the he him pronouns and i'm a freshman at cornell university i'm currently studying computer science maybe with a future minor in economics i'm not sure um yeah that's a little introduction to myself
006as for a quick summary of my college application process i just started by looking through the the fisk's guide to colleges i you know earmarked all the pages that sounded interesting um and then slowly narrowed down my list into the the schools that i thought i'd most enjoy spending time at um cornell being one of those schools at that point i went through the whole essay writing process all the tests and such um and then a few months later ended up here so yeah all right thanks elliot and i think next up is uh evan hi i'm evan i go by the hickories oh wait can you hear me yeah oh okay hi i'm evan um i go by the he series and i'm a first year at tufts university um i'm thinking about studying
007environmental engineering but maybe chemical engineering or maybe not i don't know um i haven't decided yet um so like what my approach to the college process i so like i knew the size of the school that i wanted to go to like i didn't want to go to a big school um but i wanted to be uh like an engineer so um that sort of narrowed down the choices a lot to um sort of smaller liberal arts fields with an engineering school and so that's sort of how i landed on tufts i actually applied to tufts ed2 so um i don't know if i don't think every school has that but it's basically like a later early decision round that's binding um yeah and so now i'm here all right thanks bud all right i
008think next up we have a hearty hi everyone um my name is rt and i i'm back okay hi everyone um my name's rt i go by she her pronouns i don't know if you heard this before um but i am at trinity college um in hartford connecticut um the college process started for me um summer of sophomore year just because my friends parents thought it would be fun to like tour colleges together you know explore the cities or towns they were located in which made the beginning of the process much less stressful i would say starting early is a way to kind of make the most of each experience at each college you look at um and then you know through my junior year it was sort of trying to narrow down but just
009also thinking about you know what i'm interested in where i want to be how close to home um i knew that for me financial aid would play a big piece in where i went i um summer of junior year applied to a couple diversity weekends or they have different names for each college um but their programs where um the college you go to kind of highlights like you know this is what we do about diversity like we're passionate about these things and that was really helpful for me because as a person of color i needed to make sure that the school i was going to cared about diversity and was actively continuing to work to um make a more inclusive space as the college um community grows um and i think that kind of helped
010me narrow down my choices um i did some tutoring help in terms of the sats and stuff but i actually only ended up taking or submitting my scores um to umass that was the only school and the rest were test optional um yeah okay i could go on but um so then you know senior year was applications i tried quest bridge but i didn't get in so then i applied through the common app um i can talk about all these programs if people have questions um and then i i also did regular decision for all my schools um and yeah i could go on but that's it for now can't wait for your questions all right thank you i think we got mulan yeah so my name is here i go by he him pronouns
011um i'm currently a freshman at princeton university uh and i'm considering majoring in economics um my college process was a bit extended i started touring colleges in the spring of my sophomore year um and i continued to do that through the fall of my senior year i took standardized testing like rt said i went to event like she did i went to a bunch of diversity weekends um and i applied to princeton early because i thought it was a really good fit for me um and i applied a few more places regular decision and then ended up deciding on princeton all right thank you very we are very lucky to have you all uh today as we get into this talk so uh this talk is um divided into three areas um and we're going
012to kick it off by uh talking about the college search uh the first last one of the first aspects of the college planning process and um a question um that i want to pose to you all but uh i'll begin with acadia is you know what characteristics were you looking for in a college while trying to build your list of possible choices okay um that's a super great question so personally for me i knew i needed a small school um i wasn't really into like big schools i wanted a school that had like a very rich history with um preferably like you know like a lot of traditions um and like a strong um like alumni network that i could access um because that was really important to me so i did so i was
013really big into um historically women's colleges um master college where i'm currently attending is co-ed but it is um historically a women's school so um i kicked off the search with mount holyoke like i mentioned um i toured smith um and then from there i kind of continued with the seven sisters path i toured barnard um wellesley although i did not end up applying the wellesley um and pretty much everywhere else so i applied to five of the seven sisters radcliffe does not exist anymore and i did not want to apply to wellesley so um that's where i went and then kind of from there i just extended it to a broader liberal arts perspective just so that i would have more options um so i also applied to wesleyan um brandeis as well um
014so i would say something that you should know what you want is like approximately what size you're going for um my sister my younger sister is kind of starting to begin her college search and she knows that she wants a bigger school than i did um and think about what kind of culture you want your school to have so um vassar does not have a very large sports culture it is more it while it does have sports it is d3 um and the sports are super cool but it's not a it's not a big sports school it's not what it's known for um it has a very rich arts culture we have an art museum on campus that is very beautiful and i'm really into art i'm really into theater so it has all of
015those really rich departments as well so that's you thank you yeah uh are you ready you have some thoughts you want to share sure so um can you just repeat the question one more time sorry or i can just try to remember um okay so in my college search i think it was really important for me like i said before um to feel included on campus and um not the odd one out um i think many people can relate to that but i think specifically i'm talking about being a person of color um it was really important to be around more people who look like me um and a school that would offer discussion um and certain events to promote um you know multicultural affairs and um just more engaging and inclusive um you know
016courses and clubs like i'm saying so um in addition to that i don't know if you guys can hear my birds but i have a tree right near me anyway um in addition to that i was really passionate i am really passionate about study abroad so i think all the schools that i toured um you know in their generic info sessions they talk about their amazing study abroad programs but for me i was kind of kind of diving more deeply okay where do they go what kind of what would those programs look like could i maybe do in the summer if i wanted to stay a whole year on campus um stuff like that acadia mentioned the alumni network which is really important i think um in your college searches you have to make sure
017that your schools are setting you up for um success in the future so whether that's like a job or you know well yes a job of any kind in terms of research or um you know business something like that so that you're not you know going to college and then you're like feeling lost as soon as you graduate um and then for me dancing and singing is really important as well um i wanted to try some sports even if they're recreational because i think in high school we just don't really have the time to maybe try all the things we want to do so for me like rec sports really important and dancing and singing um making sure that i can do the things that make me happy i think that's really important when you
018choose your school instead of thinking about the name um how prestigious it is if it's somewhere that would make you happy if they have programs that are valuable to you then go after that because it's up to you and it's your four years so you have to make the most of it um and like acadia said i think the liberal arts experience is really valuable i love to learn so i really have no idea what i'm gonna end up majoring in um and so i'm kind of just taking the courses for a ride and seeing where i end up i don't have to decide until sophomore spring i think so i'm really taking advantage of that um yeah yeah thank you all right oh and you said you had a few words to share yeah
019so echoing what rt and acadia said a bit um focusing on what's most important to you is not going to be the same thing that is important to most others so if school size really matters like look at that if certain programs are really important like i knew that i wouldn't really want to go into like applied sciences that much but math is more important and history is more important and so i was looking more at schools that could support me in those fields and so even if other people are interested in a different school that doesn't mean that it's the right school for you so really trust yourself and trust what schools have done a good job in showing that they can have a good program and they can support you throughout your time
020in college all right thanks mom elliot go for it all right so my answer is going to be similar to what a lot of other people said but just more tailored to my interests so i knew that i was interested in studying at a larger school mainly just because of the resources often available at larger universities and because i knew i wanted to study computer science i was particularly interested in schools which had strong computer science departments and many opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in research but i also wanted to make sure that you know not everything not all my experience would be defined by academics so i was looking at what extracurriculars were offered at schools um i'm not interested in playing sports at college but lots of um clubs and extracurricular activities
021were important for me to consider um and then someone uh deborah ferreira asked what the benefit of applying early is um so i i did apply earlier and i think a couple of other people on the panel applied early as well um and so applying early sends a message to a school that um in my case i applied early decision uh which meant that it's a binding contract if i was accepted i would have to go and withdraw my applications from other schools and applying early sends the admissions department of the school that you apply to the message that you know that this is the school that is your number one choice um you're interested in going there and also because you send your application in earlier than other students it demonstrates that you you
022know you have your acts together you've already prepared your materials on time and then also just from like a stress benefit you end up getting your decision back often much sooner than people who apply regular decisions so it can make the uh the spring of your senior year much less or the winter and spring of your senior year much much less stressful thank you elliot yes now i want to change gears um some of you may or may not have alluded to this but you know in thinking about a college search the next step is um oh we have one more person that wants to talk all right evan oh okay um i guess i'll just add uh i definitely like share a lot of the same sentiments as um what people have already said
023but for me like the biggest decision was i knew i wanted to um be an engineering major but i also didn't want to um be at a school that was really big and so that narrowed the that like uh knowing what i wanted to major in really helped me narrow uh narrow like my choices and choose um you know the right school for me and so um obviously like obviously you don't have to know what you want to major in and it's totally fine if you don't but if you do um that's like a really good place to start if you're if you're factoring in both the size of the school that you want to go to and um what you want to major in all right thank you yeah sorry about that um got
024a little excited there but yeah i think as we continue thinking about uh colleges going through the application process which i imagine is probably one of the hardest aspects of the college planning process so um yeah we're going to spend some time talking about that and i'm going to pose this question um an elliott uh to start us off what was the hardest part uh about the application process for you what obstacles did you experience and uh how are you able to overcome them um let's see i mean i think the hardest part of the application process for me just came down to um probably writing the s the application essays both the personal statement essays and the um like the specific essays that demonstrate interest in each school you apply to um not because
025they're like particularly challenging assignments but just because you know it's a it's a large time investment and it at the time it feels like so much rests on the how well you write these and how well they portray your character that um i know i spent a ton of time just like editing and you know revising these um perhaps more than i should have but yeah that was that was the most difficult part of the application process for me elliot i think katia had um some thoughts that you'd like to share yeah um i was just hoping so i know that not everyone has access to the same resources at home um personally i did not have wi-fi at my house for them for the first part of my application process um it's something that
026i had always had growing up um and it actually ended up being a really not that i i think that it was good but i ended up writing my college essay about it and i did get into college so but um in terms of that there becomes this issue of equity and um i would really recommend obviously it's a little different because most people have internet out because of remote school but i would definitely say because of that it made me utilize my resources way way more um i was often in the guidance office talking my guidance counselor about how i can um put my best self forward um and she also really really helped me with time management which was something that had been very very difficult for me previously so i would definitely
027say in order to make this process easier on yourself um utilize those resources especially in the counseling office or with miss puppy gray um so yes i would say time management was very hard as well as just resources in general all right thank you okay um mohan you said you had a few words that you want to share yeah so for me i think one of the hardest sorry i so okay so uh one of the hardest things for me was at least like the stress and the busyness of that semester because i was trying to do all of my applications at the same time that i was obviously going through all my school work and doing sports and clubs and all of that stuff and so it led to less time to really spend
028and um so it forced me to really think about what i needed to do and what was most important and prioritizing and so i think one of the hardest pieces is knowing when to stop and when to keep going on an application and really using the resources available like others have said um talking to trusted adults in your life talking to the people around you making sure you're not getting behind but making sure you're not overworking yourself because you can easily burn out and from early applications to regulate applications um that's a few months period and you could get really tired during that time so pacing yourself and making sure you're staying on top of everything you need to do all right thank you oh and and they already go for it yeah i think
029all of what mohan just touched on is so key um i think that as someone who i kind of was doing the whole college process alone i'm not really sure who the audience is but i think it's important to talk about my experience so like my mom is a single mom so i try to do as much as i can um on my own to not you know stress her out even further um and i think that created some stress in terms of like um i just could not answer the financial questions on my own um and i think that um that was kind of a point of stress like getting that done is the final piece um and it felt like that was one area where other people couldn't really help me with that
030you know that was my family's kind of financial situation um i think that also the financial piece also really um put me in a bind because i was not sure if you know applying early decision would mean getting more money um to touch on someone's question quest bridge is a program for low-income um high-achieving students who um you go through a few rounds of applications um to the program and then to the colleges if you're if you're selected as a questbridge scholar then you apply schools and if a school takes you then you go there completely for free um and then i can i'm happy to give my email and share more information about any of the stuff that i'm saying later but um i was not selected even like in the first step as
031a scholar so i applied um through the common app like i said and i didn't apply um to any school um early decision i just could not make up my mind and i would i was feeling like if i chose a school early then i might you know like regret my decision and that was too stressful with me so i applied to all my schools regular um and got in with fantastic financial aid i am on a very good academic scholarship here um and that's honestly why i chose trinity um i think another point of like stress was the test but as i said before um almost all but one of my schools that i applied to were test optional so um i just want to remind people that um colleges are changing and you're
032not judged on a number any or just a number um as much anymore you it's the whole person like ellie was saying with the essay um which can be a point of stress i would say um because i was doing a lot of things on my own the resources like miss coffee gray like um miss moochie ramos my friends who were also going through the process or who had been through the process um were especially helpful um yeah i think just really utilizing the resources you have um and like mohan said sticking to a structure and not letting yourself get too behind but also knowing when and how to take breaks because it can be so hard and feel never-ending but you will get through it and it's really rewarding when you do so just
033kind of pacing and making the most of it honestly i think i learned so much about myself um during this process and i'm really grateful for that so you guys can do it thank you uh evan did you have a few words about uh what was the hardest part about this application process for you uh yeah although um the hardest part was definitely um the essays for me uh i'm like really bad at writing and so i definitely leaned on like my dad helped me out a lot on my essays and i tried to like show as many people as possible so um i would just say like listen um definitely get as many people to read your essays as you can uh all their feedback you don't i don't you don't have to listen
034to all their feedback but definitely consider it because it's valuable information and um yeah i'm definitely someone who like doesn't like to be told that i'm wrong and so it's it's like hard at least for me it was like hard to um like keep changing your essay when you think that it's good enough but i think it's definitely good and definitely listen to as many people as you can okay all right thank you evan um as a follow-up question uh to this now that you all have gone through this process of applying in some of the stages to it um what is one thing you wish that you that you did differently if you had to go back it can be any portion any uh portion of the process but um i'll start with you
035mohamed what is uh one thing you wish you did differently uh if you had to go back to doing the uh application process again um well i would try to if i was talking to myself like a year ago um i would try to remind myself that there are a lot of good colleges out there and there's not going to be one perfect school and so focusing more on having a range of options is going to be a good idea and you'd be happy like there are tons of schools where you can certainly thrive and so um i ended up being pretty lucky through the admissions process um and it's a lot of luck like there's no promises but just try to show your best self to the colleges and it's gonna work out as
036long as you have a good range of school that you're looking at all right thank you i think you know looking at what the uh panelists have talked about you know it's evident that um the students and families out there that there is a lot to consider um going through this process of getting filling out the comment app for the css profile depending on which universities you're applying for and um you know trying to get everything in place in order to take full advantage of the opportunities um that different colleges have to offer so yeah i think there's there are um obstacles in that process but um as our panelists have kind of alluded to overcome these obstacles with particularly with the supports provided to you um particularly at the at this high school so
037there we go so the last part of this process after you've applied got your college applications in um and received offers you know and even making the final choice you know you are on your way to starting uh your first semester in college and this can be a very arduous transition uh for everyone i know it was for me and i know it was the case for our panelists here so i wanted to ask i think it will start with um a rd and another view others of you can jump in after is what have been some of the successes and challenges in uh adjusting uh to college particularly um the remote learning aspect of the uh college that you're in right now yeah sure um okay lots to say um i think that as
038everyone has experience we are really thrown into um online learning and um as a senior that was a really interesting um position to be in because i think a lot of my classmates it was kind of more like like you know this doesn't really matter um it definitely did but it also sort of didn't you know what i'm saying all right i'm gonna keep it professional for the parents for me during quarantine um doing my work was kind of something that got me through i know i know yeah i am i am a nerd but that's fine um i think um but what i'm trying to say is that our teachers at the high school were thrown into remote learning and like really there was no preparation like they had no idea and i think
039they really made the most of what they could do and i'm sure and i think i've heard that it's it's going pretty well um i would say for me um it's helpful that my most brand professors either know how to use zoom pretty well and so it makes it engaging with different activities we can do online um and some don't and that's fine because you know we're kind of all in it together i am fortunately lucky enough to have two purses for whoa two classes in person um and two remote i think it's really hard for me to focus and mean um kind of maintain the same engagement that i would if it were in person um and i'm sure people can relate to that i think making relationships with classmates in terms of studying
040is something that i really valued in high school and i think it's kind of hard to adjust to kind of navigating those things on my own um and yeah well okay i'll switch back to successes um i think making the most in terms of like staying true to what makes you happy during this time i think for me um it's been crucial that my friends from home have maintained connections um they're on my walls um but we also you know talk on the phone and everything um and i think making new friends or making new connections with your professors is really valuable um this semester is like none other um i think it only gets better from here um i would say for challenges i guess i'm kind of already talking about them um remote
041learning you just it's not the same um you know you can't make the same connections i lose focus um i think it feels pretty isolating um to not have the same kind of like community um that i was used to um but i don't know i think just day by day as i'm sure most of the students can relate to and the parents um is all you can do um i think really utilizing your professors they want to help you um they're teaching for a reason um i think and yeah my professors have just been so helpful and i email them very frequently about questions um yeah i don't know i think i'm getting a little off track but there are certainly many challenges but i think looking towards the positives and the little successes
042in your day whether it's you know completing one task or trying something new in terms of zoom you you know you spoke more than once or you spoke at all or you know you asked a question kind of thing it's the little steps that really make your learning worthwhile i think it's easy for us to tune out during these times and kind of be like it doesn't matter because it's online it doesn't it's not the same but i think professors are really trying teachers are really trying and i think taking advantage um as best you can will actually keep you more engaged um but yes i could go on thank you all right okay yeah go for it all right awesome um yeah so what i was gonna say about adjusting to college um something
043that's really really hard um i think for a lot of people is you have this really strong sense of imposter syndrome especially if you're in a marginalized group of some sort so for me i felt very confident that i didn't deserve to be here as much as some other people and i had a really low self-esteem about that and then i realized that all of my friends were feeling exactly the same way and that that was not the case um and we all ended up here in the same place there's something that fosters on each of us that we thought was special um and that you deserve to be here regardless um on like a similar note i also what arty said about doing what makes you happy i had this idea of who i
044was supposed to be in college i was supposed to do this i was supposed to be very driven i was supposed to be an overachiever i was supposed to be taking stem classes my first semester um i have dropped my stem class it was not something that i found um very personally helpful or engaging to me um not that i don't think people should take some classes absolutely take some classes i do love stem but this specific class was really um it's not that it was necessarily academically challenging but i found myself getting really like bored and i was just having a hard time focusing in class um and i realized that it had been because i had this idea for myself of who i was supposed to be and i didn't want to be
045that person anymore i wanted to be who i really wanted to be so um i think that's important is kind of recognizing that you're going to change and you're going to shift and there's going to be different things that make you happy than you expected um and that you really don't have to be who your high school self thought you were going to be right thank you okay uh and evan yeah so adjusting to college has definitely been like a mixed bag for me there's definitely some things that are easier or maybe not easier but more interesting when you're in college um obviously living by yourself is pretty interesting experience um i think it's kind of fun uh but it's definitely um the difficulties for me at least has been adjusting to the amount of
046work that i have and like and the conceptual difficulty of the homework that i have um i don't i don't know what i was expecting when i went into it but um i definitely wasn't prepared to like be to do homework on a friday night but like at some point at some points like you just have to get it done um so um just like the amount of assignments that you have that i have at least um and how they overlap between classes um it's definitely forced me to adjust uh from like the way i was in high school it's forced me to definitely be more organized um plan out my time well especially because um you don't have or i don't have that many live classes to go to and um i'm mostly on
047like a lecture like a recorded lecture schedule and so making sure that for me at least making sure that i'm um staying on top of my recorded lectures because like i don't i don't even have to leave my room to watch them uh yeah so the biggest thing for me is probably just um adjusting to uh really being organized and staying on top of things that like not do the next day but sort of making progress making progress on uh everything at the same time if that makes any sense thank you heaven right i think we have a few words from elliot all right so evan kind of mentioned this briefly um but i found a a great positive of colleges just the the access that you have to so many interesting classes professors and
048activities um it's it's really amazing you can there are so many opportunities to like just delve into little interests and like follow your curiosity and that's been really enjoyable um but like evan uh and already said it's been it's been very difficult to connect with professors especially on the uh with the online format of classes um obviously when you're i'm fortunate enough to be on campus so i'm living in close proximity with people so it's easy to make make friends with them but it's been especially hard to connect to professors with online lectures and no in-person office hours but when i have made the effort to get to know people i've found that to be really positive just like in high school it's it's always a more enjoyable experience um at school when you're close
049close at least friendly with your professors and you get to know them more and what they're what they're interested in all right thank you hello again i'm mohan you are out um so my experience has been a little bit different i'm still living in the amherst because princeton decided to go fully online um and so i can't speak as much to the community aspect but i can speak to the classes and the differences between my classes now and my classes in high school and so naturally i'm taking less classes but they're more specific and um i was given the opportunity to take classes that i'd be really interested in so one of the drawbacks will always be the fact that you're going to get more work because you're older and they expect more of you
050but um you can also take classes that you really like and those classes can lead to be your major or you could have a career in those subjects and so um if you're gonna have to work more enjoy the work you're doing and take a broad range figure out what you want to do and then go from there and hopefully that'll be a good experience yeah thank you thank you to our panelists for going through this explaining some of your experiences um i know transitioning to college for the first time can be daunting particularly like and having new experiences and connecting with people and it can also be an exciting experience at the same time so i appreciate everyone's feedback so with a few minutes left to go um i'd like to uh turn us
051to our q a time where we will be looking into the live chats and seeing if anyone has any questions uh we're going to do it a little bit differently this time so i asked there are panelists um i'll give them a moment to take a look at the live chat and see if there are any questions that they would like to answer all right you already go for it okay sorry i was muted um okay so yeah back to quest bridge um i'm happy to give my email i don't know if i should do that now i'll just i'm assuming we'll do it later um just quickly returning to the benefit of applying early there are certainly many benefits of applying early in terms of scholarship in terms of like if you know and
052like elliott said and like elliott did um showing the school that he's dedicated and he's ready um for the last question i applied to a lot of scholarships thanks to miss cuppy gray and her wonderful scholarship book i don't know how long that took her to put together but what a queen i could go on and on about miss cuffy gray but that's for another time please use her she has she's so incredibly intelligent as and has so many reeses for you guys i really would not have gone through my senior year without her so um she's there for you um any idea of where to apply for scholarships yeah so miss coffee gray will give the seniors in there usually springtime um a book of scholarships through the high school that are in the
053amherst community and then broader broader scholarships and then there are also plenty of scholarships you can look um just like with a google search you know like they're national international and then um local scholarships so i spent um in addition to doing the online work of my senior spring um i applied to so many scholarships because um as a low-income student i really had no idea what my financial aid packages would look like how i would pay for school um so these were really my you know free money as miss coffee grace says like how could you not take that up so um i applied to the ones that she gave us through the high school um local amherst ones greater um kind of new england massachusetts ones um there are so many out there
054and i actually ended up using um quite a few of the essays i had already written um there was very little new work i had to do i don't know if that's going to be the same for everyone but just because i went through um the process of applying to the diversity weekends and then applying to college which had you know their own supplementals um yeah i i felt kind of silly when i was doing it i was like why you know i'm applying to so many of these you know like oh i probably won't get that many like um this feels silly but i was so surprised i won quite a few and i you know i got a new computer because of my scholarships i i have a large sum of money that
055will certainly last me um both freshman semesters and who knows maybe um even past that um yeah i you got to apply to scholarships i think one thing for me was like oh no you know it's it's senior fall is it also scholarship time and one um thing that was really you know de-stressed me was that that was kind of the springtime so like application is fall and then scholarships are spring um so there's time to kind of stretch it out that's not necessarily true there are some scholarships that are due in the fall i missed those but then you know i was completely fine um yeah that's it for now thank you we already all right i think one is fielding a question regarding scholarships yeah so um i already had a bunch of
056good points there but uh one of them was that the scholarships are really helpful um i did not apply to as many but i applied to the boule scholarship which is a program uh national and run out of springfield um and i was able to get that scholarship which is for young black men going to college um and so that has been helpful and also these scholarships can help build connections and um as those previously said uh there are a lot of essays you have to write if you apply to the diversity weekend that's like one round and then the college applications that's another round and then scholarships there are a lot of essays but they'll have a decent amount of overlap so keep track of those because they can be greatly useful to just
057submit or adapt and that can save you a lot of time um and a benefit of applying early i just want to touch on that um for me i applied restrictive early action which meant i could apply to one private school and then public school as well um and i think it's very helpful because for me i if i was applying regular i wouldn't really know what options i had and so i would have probably had to apply to 10 or 15 schools maybe um which is a lot of time and a lot of stress um if you have a school that you like and they have early action then definitely go for it if they have early decisions then think about it because that can be a stressor off of something that you don't
058have to do in the future and also the chances are slightly higher for some schools all right thank you so much right and elliot i think you mentioned that you had a question you wanted to answer yeah just to add on to what um arty and mohan said about scholarships i think i wouldn't i wouldn't worry about this um there as already said there's miss coffee great provides a super comprehensive list of opportunities um for local and some national scholarships and anyone will be able to look through that list and find different awards that will apply to them that they consider applying for um also already mentioned that she was able to reuse a lot of her college essays in her when she was writing her um scholarships i had a very similar situation i
059think after you've finished your personal statement and your like interest essays you have a lot of really good material about yourself and i i certainly found it very easy to repurpose that to try to get some resources to help pay for college um yeah i mean when it comes to scholarships you have you know really nothing to lose especially when it's relatively easy compared to applying for colleges to apply for them and you really have so much to gain because as i'm sure you all know college is often prohibitively expensive in this country um but fortunately we also have a lot of opportunities thanks to miss coffee gray which are easily presented to us and that we can you know do our best to go attend some of them and also i want to mention
060the the community foundation of western mass i don't know if that's on the list but that's a really good option that will automatically apply for apply for a bunch of local scholarships for you and then someone else asked what's something that you would want a student in the application process to know that you didn't know when you went through the process so i'll kind of like twist this this question a little bit to talk about the the pandemic um obviously the the covid19 pandemic has changed the our experiences of school but one advantage that high schoolers have right now is that they're they're aware of it before they end up making uh you you're all aware of it before you'll make your final decision um and i would encourage you to research um how the
061schools that you're interested in are have responded to the pandemic um and what what policies they have in place to ensure the the safety of their students um and just see how they're approaching education in this in this time because i know um it's there's not a standard right now um every school is approaching this in a slightly different way um and hopefully you know hopefully next fall looks a lot different than this fall but i think it's best to assume that you know the pandemic will still have an effect on your uh college experience at least the beginning of your college experience and you should you should plan accordingly and try to understand what you're what you're getting into here thank you elliot and um thank you everyone uh for joining us today i
062really uh on behalf of the amherst regional high school community i want to thank our panelists for taking the time and the energy to really give thoughtful uh responses and insight to our students and families as they venture into uh the process that you all have completed um and are continuing uh to strive through i also want to thank those who are tuning in for listening and um yeah enjoy the rest of your day much appreciated