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It’s finally my time to answer this! I haven’t made any decisions on where I want to go, so explaining my results might actually help me make a decision.About MeI go to a really competitive private school in Los Angeles. My entire family went to college, and I don’t check any boxes for diversity. I wrote my Common App essay on my role as Commissioner of a Fantasy Football League, and how I went above and beyond for my league by writing weekly recaps about how every team did, practicing sportswriting while simultaneously helping me develop my own voice as a writer. I’m a sports nut, inherited from my dad (a Duke grad), and obsessing over ACC Basketball and March Madness had much more of an impact on my list than I expected.I applied to all but two of my schools as some version of a Journalism/Communications major.Stats3.7 Unweighted/4.07 Weighted (4.5 first semester senior year)1520 SAT (Superscore)/1490 best overall5s AP Euro, AP English Lang, APUSH680 English Lit Subject Test (not submitted to most schools)660 US History Subject Test (not submitted to most schools)Extracurriculars3 years starting Varsity Soccer goalkeeper3 years of Varsity BaseballFounders Club at my School (representing the school at admissions events)Working as a goalkeeper coachSportswriting: sent weekly emails to my entire school (via my school’s newspaper and our Athletic Leadership Team) reporting on every Varsity team in the high school, attempting to drum up support, recognition, and school spiritCommissioner of two fantasy football leagues (a lot more work than it seems!)Yes, I managed to base arguably the most important applications of my life off of Fantasy Football.ResultsSafetiesPittsburgh (ACCEPTED, 10k/yr, Honors College, Admittance to Law School w 5k/yr): Originally toured this school off wanting to see PNC Park (where the Pittsburgh Pirates play), and pretended I wanted to see the city’s university. Ended up liking the school, and during the Preview they talked about a program where you can be admitted into a Graduate School during your application for normal school, plus they waived the fee because I visited! Figured why not, and I’m excited about the additional perks.Pepperdine (ACCEPTED, 15k/yr): I applied because my grandpa loves the school, and I wanted somewhere I knew I could get in close to home if I needed to be home. I’m glad to have a school where I can pursue my faith, but it’s just too close to home.Villanova (Deferred, then ACCEPTED): Applied blind EA, got deferred, then accepted. Didn’t show any interest, honestly applied mostly based off their basketball team, and the fact that their supplemental essay was nearly identical to one I was already writing. I still need to research this school!SMU (ACCEPTED, 30k/yr, Hilltop Scholars Program): This was my first acceptance, and took so much weight off my shoulders. I’ve loved the school touring, and I like being wanted, but I might want a more rigorous school. Definitely one of my favorite options right now, especially with family in Texas.TargetsWake Forest (ACCEPTED): Also applied nearly blind, just met with the admissions counselor my junior year, which I went to purely so I would know how to meet with an Admissions Rep. I found their essay questions interesting (What is your top 10? What piques your intellectual curiosity, and why?), and applied mostly based on wanting to write those essays. Plus, ACC Basketball. Did not expect to get in because of procrastination on essays and my lack of interest, but I was pleasantly surprised!UCSD (REJECTED): I probably was too optimistic about my chances of this one going in. I expected good news opening the letter, but was shocked about the low acceptance rate. Realistically it wasn’t a fit anyways.Syracuse (ACCEPTED): Yet another ACC School. I applied because their Newhouse School has the best Broadcasting school in the nation, and most of my heroes working at ESPN attended, and I was thrilled to get in there! Syracuse would get me where I want to go in life, but at the same time, I didn’t love most of the other parts about the school.Boston College (waitlist): I loved Boston College, and their Jesuit mission of putting others before yourself really resonated with me, but I ended up getting waitlisted. I was fairly confident going in, and this was the only decision I was genuinely upset about.ReachesDuke (ED, REJECTED): I knew going in that my GPA wasn’t up to Duke’s high standard, but I figured I had a shot as a legacy. I’ve dreamed about being a Cameron Crazy, and Duke had the high academics, school spirit, and incredible dining hall that I wanted, but no Journalism or Communication Major. Honestly it was probably for the best that I wasn’t admitted.Vanderbilt (ED2, REJECTED): Same as Duke, I absolutely loved this place. Good school spirit and great academics, and their campus store sold the most comfortable hoodie I own. I knew I wasn’t gonna get in, but I figured it was worth a shot, and it didn’t sting too badly when I got the news.UC Berkeley (REJECTED): I hadn’t toured, and I mostly applied because it was a UC. In-state tuition would be nice, but the school wasn’t realistically a fit for me.USC (ACCEPTED): I was shocked about this. Two of my grandparents were USC Alums, and I’ve grown up going to USC games, but I didn’t actually expect to get in. I got in to Annenberg School for journalism, where I could study what I love, and stay in a place that is very much home to me. However, I was kinda looking forward to going away for college, even if USC feels like a whole different world. Unfortunately it was as a Spring Admit, so I’d have to watch until January to enroll.In full honesty, I don’t feel like any of this has set in yet. I expected to have a sudden revelation that I’m a Senior about to go to college, but my only moment like that was at my last high school soccer practice, as I left the field for the last time. I’m excited for whatever the future holds, and I feel like I can’t go wrong with my choices, but I’m still waiting for some sort of feeling about everything that happened. Maybe its because of Corona?Thanks for reading, and I’ll be sure to update this when I decide!UPDATE: Although I’m surprised by my own decision, I’ve decided to attend Villanova in the fall! After ruling it out roughly a week into the process, my gut steered me back to it, and although it isn’t the best school I got into, Nova checks all of my requirements for a school, and gives me the adventure I’m looking for. I’m excited to be a Wildcat!

I haven’t really looked into this too much, but I would guess there are a number of factors contributing to the continuing rise in the number of applications to competitive colleges:Students just have more options due to changing social norms/travel costs. People’s relationship to travel, especially cross-country travel, has changed dramatically. When I went to a “competitive” college on the east coast the 80’s, the vast majority of students came from within a 4 -5 hour drive. Students from LA, Hawaii, China were rare and exotic. Few students from my well-ranked, relatively affluent PA public HS went to college in faraway places like California. One student went to Michigan, which was considered exotic. Lol. Today, colleges pride themselves on the geographic diversity they attract. Flying cross country is much more accessible and no longer “just” for the well-off.The Common App and computers. We had to hand-write or hand-type a unique version of every application. If you were lucky you had an “ball” typewriter that could “auto-correct” (type over your mistakes in white print. Lol.) Otherwise you were re-typing or using white out. After five or six colleges, almost everyone I knew was done with applications. It was a huge pain. The Common App and coalition app lets you add colleges with very little extra work. Computers let you cut-and-paste essays, make a few universal changes and submit to as many schools as you are willing to pay the fees.Rise of the Chinese, Indian and other “BRICS” middle class and the rise in international travel. More international students apply to US colleges. They aspire to the known brands. Cal, Stanford, USC and UCLA in California, the Ivies and their related “top ranked” schools in the east.4. Finally and most importantly: US demographics. There was a “baby boom” that peaked for college applications/admission in 2010. This demographic boom, combined with the “Great Recession” and the factors mentioned above brought a steadily increasing (and more competitive due to more applicants for the same amount of seats) number of applicants. This, combined with increasingly holistic admissions, meant it was harder and harder to predict what college you might get into, which fed a cycle of applying to more schools, which increased the # of applications, which created the impression of increased scarcity due to dropping “admission rates.”A lot of this is “scarcity” or “mania” is artificially induced. I would bet, just based on my own experience casually talking with a large number of friends and relatives through the process, that the “type” or “tier” of school a student gets into now does not differ a whole lot from the type or tier their parents got into. It’s just a much less certain process. A smart kid from Long Island in 1985 was likely going to an east coast or New England school. Maybe they’d go as far as Georgetown or Duke or out to Michigan. Today, they’re just as likely to be applying to Stanford, USC, UChicago or Emory. Their mom might have applied to Cornell, Syracuse, Ithaca and a SUNY. But their kid might also be considering Rice, Tulane, UCLA or SMU.Standards have gone up for some schools as the international and 50 state top applicants concentrate on a few “top tier” of schools, but for the most part the same students end up at similar schools - just a wider net of them - so it “seems” like there is more scarcity when it really is more uncertainty.And the vast majority of students still go to school within 100 miles of their home, to state schools or community colleges or relatively obscure local schools that offer reasonable tuition and realistic admission standards and serve “non-conventional” college students who have jobs, kids, went to work for a few years etc.. You just don’t read about those students as much in the frothy click-bait articles about the mania and competition of college admissions. That game is for the lucky affluent or top-stat students.

Thanks for A2AI see many times some people know english very precisely but they have no one to talk to.I like to learn different languages ,I can understand your problem very meticulously. I've tried lots of different way to learn other languages, and I'm going to share my experience with you here right now.1. Talk to yourself in EnglishImagine that you have English-speaking friends and imagine telling them about things that happened in your life. It sounds silly, but it will works for youWhenever something happens to me and I really want to tell my friends, I imagine telling them in my head in English, and then I'll imagine telling all my friends! If I don't know a word, I look it up on my dictionary application on my phone .2. Use an app or website to find language partnersThere are tons of apps and websites out there designed for people to exchange languages. I've tried a few, but the ones that worked for me are Conversation Exchange and the application HelloTalk.Speaking Practice on Conversation Exchange:Meeting up with people was the best way to practice. whenever I get time ,I try to talk with my college friends some are loquacious and very good in their language. In my experience, I would advise not meeting up until after you've already talked online for a little while. That way, you know if you have things in common before you meet in person.Also keep in mind that the users on the website are regular people, not language teachers. They will talk to you, but they can't teach you. If you can't have a conversation with them, they probably won't want to see you again (this happened to me). Regular people don't have time to go out with someone that they can't communicate with!Speaking Practice on HelloTalk:You have the option to send audio files to people or make voice calls. Voice calls have to be planned, because you never know if the other person is available to talk or not! Just because they're online, doesn't mean they're in a position to talk on the phone with you. Timezones can make this difficult to plan.Audio messages are great, because there is also a transcription feature on the app if you don't understand.Because it's an app, you are not obligated to speak. So you really have to force yourself. With one of my language partners, we challenge each other to say something. It's fun and it makes us both speak!Again, the users are just regular people, they can't teach you! The learning comes from having conversation.3. Take an in-person group coursePros:If the class size is small, you're forced to speak! Especially if you have an engaging teacher and fun classmates.You can practice with other people who are the same level as you and make friends.You can learn a lot of vocabulary from listening to other people.If you're shy, having other people in the room is good!Cons:Class time is divided between every student. You need to let other students speak too.If you’re more advanced than the others in your class, the teacher has to slow down for them, which doesn't help you very much.If you are less advanced than the others in your class, you may be afraid to ask questions or admit that you're lost.If you feel lost, you speak less.4. Move away to a place where English is spoken by the majority of the populationThe fastest way to improve your English is to move yourself to another city or country and spend some time there immersing yourself. You will be forced to speak English even when you're just buying bananas at the grocery store! You might have headaches and be mentally tired for a while, but it gets easier the longer you stay.Depending on your level of English, you may be able to get a decent job, and eventually make friends.This option is definitely the most difficult and expensive, but also the most rewarding! But it's not possible for everyone.On that note I am adding some lucrative Tedtalk on how to speak english .How to speak so that people want to listen | Julian TreasureThe surprising secret to speaking with confidence | Caroline Goyder | TEDxBrixtonSpeak like a leader | Simon Lancaster | TEDxVeronaHow I Overcame My Fear of Public Speaking | Danish Dhamani | TEDxKids@SMUThankss