Prequel

Earlier this month, Daniel and I joined a class of 9th graders (15-year-olds) as we answered possible questions they had for IB/college applications. The Q&A session was roughly broken down into four main categories: IB, SAT/college applications, extracurriculars, and general advice. We volunteered to help out the freshmen by answering these questions; however, for the most part, my main concern was that we were not necessarily “qualified” to give them these pieces of advice or that they might do them more harm than good since everyone goes through the process differently. Nonetheless, with the supervision from a teacher, I think we did well. I think conversations that exchange experiences are hugely underrated.

Senior Panel on College Apps

In the end of February, a group of seniors, chosen for the different range of schools they applied to, were invited to talk to juniors and share their personal experiences on choosing colleges, writing essays, and, most importantly, dealing with stress. It was rewarding to be one of the speakers in such a diversified panel. I believe it was the best for juniors to be able to hear how different people view issues from their own perspectives in order to find the best way that is the most suitable for them. By volunteering to participate in the panel, I was happy to serve the juniors by providing them do’s and don’t’s during the college application process.

College Checklist Template

Aside from the panel, I also modified my college app tracking sheet into a template for rising seniors. The template was tailored for US colleges, so it was a bit limiting for students who are not applying to US schools. However, I enjoyed making the template as I utilized creativity to serve the underclassmen community with the template I made (embedded below). Some creativity was involved as I found ways to unify the formatting of the dates for the “deadline” column and gave instructions on how to re-organize the sheet so that the college with the earliest deadline will appear on the top. Other features I personally found useful were drop-down menus created by data validation, which are used for columns such as ‘Application Round’ and ‘Likelihood’.

Ethical Concerns

While I am 100% for helping juniors get through the college app process as effortless as possible, I was also aware of the potential detriments in helping them. One of the major concerns I have was that I am nowhere near being an expert on doing college apps, nor do I understand the college application process as well as the experts do. Therefore, I was not sure if I was the most suited person to help out underclassmen in this matter—I was merely sharing my personal experiences. Secondly, I myself explored the majority of things by myself (with my sister giving me some idea about the IB diploma). Personally, I found the process as rewarding as it was tiring. I think it is the best for students to stumble upon mistakes on their own and grow from these mistakes instead of having everything meticulously prepared for them. On the other hand, I try to overcome this ethical dilemma by reminding myself that we, collectively as seniors, want to help juniors in succeeding on this path.