Third culture kids, called TCKs, are children who grew up in a nation that is different than their parents’ homeland. Their parents are often expatriates working as diplomats, military personnel, missionaries, business executives, or other positions that require relocating to new places.
Imagine spending your summer at Columbia or Stanford as a high school student, taking a college course on a topic that fascinates you while being immersed in the student life of your dream school.
Success is as much built on character as it is on intellect. We see this in the stories of the world’s most successful people. Bill Gates, principal founder of Microsoft, started The Giving Fund with Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet to inspire fellow billionaires to donate at least 50% of their wealth to charity; so far, they’ve gathered 190 pledges.
You may already be familiar with the concept of holistic review processes for admissions in the United States. It’s the idea that college applicants should not be evaluated only by factors like grades and test scores, but by the whole context of their story, personality, goals, interests, and academic history.
Whether you applied early action, early decision, or regular admission, the relief students feel after finally submitting their applications is palpable but short-lived. Quickly, it is replaced by anticipation, nervousness, and a waiting game that can feel endless even if it only lasts a couple weeks in some cases.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding what happens to your application after you submit it. You put in weeks of hard work to perfect each component and tell your story as clearly as possible. Then, you hit the submit button on the Common App, stare at the confirmation screen, and wait for a committee of admissions officers (AOs) on the other end to make a decision about your future.
The uncertainty of waiting for admissions results to be released can be both waning and distracting as you continue everyday life. Some students obsessively check their emails to see whether they’ll receive even a small clue about how they’re applications are being read by colleges. Conversations with friends and family could easily revolve around admissions results; and it can be tempting to spend many hours on sites like College Confidential, where students survey users about their chances of getting in.
You might be surprised by how many factors outside of your actual application determine whether you will receive acceptance to a college.
The state you live in, if you have visited the campus, and whether your application was among the first or last read by your admissions officer—called AO for short—could significantly move the needle in your favor.
One primary worry that families typically share when beginning the application process (no matter how early they start it) is that they are already behind the game. With admissions to highly-selective schools becoming increasingly competitive every year, students begin thinking about the impact of their choices on their future applications at a younger and younger age.
Applying to college is a major commitment not just for high school seniors but their entire family. From visiting colleges to completing applications, soliciting letters of recommendation to acing interviews, there are many elements to this process that require a high level of thought and preparation.
