AHS Senior Sarah Zhang applies to 16 colleges

With most students in the senior class reaching their regular decision deadlines and completing their applications to college, now is a time of year where many people can begin to relax and kick back and stop worrying. It's out of their hands, now, in general, and most students are taking advantage of this fact as they wait for their acceptances, deferments, and oh-so-few rejections to roll in.

Unless, that is, you're Senior Sarah Zhang, and you're still applying.

“I have applied to 16 colleges total, including Georgetown, UPenn, Rice, Duke, Stanford, OSU, Case, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia, NYU, UChicago, Northwestern, USC, Brown, and Sciences Po [,the Paris Institute of Political Studies],” she explained. “But I have only been accepted to OSU so far.”

Zhang said that her insane amount of applications was intended not to make her suffer, but to make sure she gets into college; many of the colleges she has applied to are schools with extremely high academic standards.

“I expect to maybe get into 4 since many of these are Ivy League colleges and extreme stretch schools for me,” she said. “ I applied to so many because I'm not totally certain of my future path and where I see myself, and I would definitely be wondering or regretting later that I didn't at least try for these schools I find really interesting.”

This large selection also accommodates a large amount of potential future major choices, since many of these schools offer different and equally exciting opportunities.

“I'm interested in either Journalism or Marketing or Political Economy or Modern Media or Cultural Studies. It's a mixed selection, I know. To accommodate these varied interests, I’ve applied to different schools.”

Zhang also explained that, of these many schools, she doesn't have a complete and total favorite. “My top choice would probably be one of the Dual BA Programs I applied to,” she explained, “though none of the schools is my favorite. Through this I can get two bachelors’ degrees in four years, one degree from Sciences Po and other from either Columbia or UC Berkeley.”

Unlike a lot of students, she isn't quite sure where- locationally- she wants to go to college. As she explained: “Only 2 of my colleges are in state. The 13 others are out of state, and one is out of the country in France.”

Thankfully, she has finally managed to turn in all of her applications on time, which is no easy feat. It takes a student who is extremely organized to keep track of such an assortment of deadlines and application requirements.

“As of the 8th of January, I’ve completed all of my apps,” she said. “The most impressive thing I’ve done during this process is that I've submitted 3 applications from scratch in one day.”

She also stated that, for her, “the most time consuming app of them all was the UC App because it's not on the Common App and requires 4 supplements, not including the 1000 word supplement I did for the Dual BA Program.”

Applying to so many colleges is not a pursuit for people who can't stand writing. “In total, I have a cumulative Google Doc that is around 26 pages [full of essays],” Zhang explained, “but that doesn't include supplements I have saved separately for upload. So I imagine I have around 30+ pages of supplements in total written in 11pt Arial Font.”

But even people who can manage impressive feats of academic willpower and skill aren't perfect. She urges those people who will be applying for college next year to attempt to keep organized, and to start their applications early.

“Advice to lazy procrastinators like me: if anything, in the summer, try to help yourself out and do something to make work during the school year easier like fill out basic info on your Common App or type up your resume,” she said. “Also, just know for reference that if deadlines are November 1, for example, you can turn your applications in that day at 11:59 pm in your timezone at the latest.”

Despite the difficulties, though, Zhang is proud of her application-related accomplishments and looks forward to hearing the results. All in all, as she said, “I can honestly see myself being happy at any of the places I've applied to.”