Choosing a College: advice from a student who did it

Can you introduce yourself in a few quick sentences?

Hi, my name is Jack Friedman (he/him) and I’m 19 years old. I’m a current sophomore at Pitzer College about to declare a Media Studies Major with a concentration in Film. I attended HSAS at Lehman for high school. 

What was the process of applying to college like for you?

Applying to college was fairly stressful, I spent a lot of time looking around and trying to figure out what I wanted, considering I had really no clue. I had a lot of guidance and support from my parents, but a bit in the sense that they were always pushing me to make sure I was making the right decisions and that I considered all of my options. When it came to applying to schools the most important factor to me was “would I actually go here.” Applying to college is a pain in the ass and it’s not cheap either so if I was applying to a school I had to live with the fact that I would go there if that happened to be the only school that I got into. I had a vague sense of what I was looking for in a school, I generally didn’t want a huge school but I also didn’t want one too small. I didn’t want one that didn’t have a campus but I also didn’t want to be in the middle of nowhere. It was difficult to find a school that actually fit those complicated criteria so I ended up applying to a bit of a range and being flexible on that front. 

When you got your decisions, what were the biggest factors in choosing a school?
When I was choosing a school I think the biggest factors were my happiness and comfort, the educational fit, and then the financial factor was big too. My ultimate decision was between two larger, but cheaper, universities where I felt that I would struggle a bit more socially versus a smaller private liberal arts college where I thought I’d be happier but I would be paying for it. It was honestly a really tough decision to evaluate these factors and consider what I was doing. Another factor was distance. Both of the big universities are on the East Coast while the liberal arts college is as far as possible, in southern California. That factor ended up being bigger than anticipated because I sort of pulled the “I need to get as far away from home as possible” card. My family and I tried to be as thorough as possible in our decision making so it didn’t feel like there were many unexpected factors. Obviously Covid-19 shutting down my school for a whole year was an unexpected factor but there was zero way to predict that at the time when I was making my decision. 

If you could summarize the reason that you chose your school into a few sentences, what would they say.

I ultimately chose my current college because I decided that my general happiness for 4 years (now 3) and the relationships that I would establish at a smaller school were more important than sacrificing those things for a cheaper college. I thought that the physical location would be a great change of scenery, and that being at a liberal arts school would put me in a position to explore my options, considering I really didn’t know what I wanted to study in school. These things mostly rang true. I only got about 3/4 of a year on campus before Covid-19 hit, but in that time I thoroughly enjoyed the campus culture, in my opinion it’s one of the best in the country, and I made some incredible friends. I also figured out what I wanted to study, Media Studies with a film concentration, which is totally not what I thought I was going to study originally so being flexible helped with that. With Covid-19 I like to say that had I gone back to do it all again I probably would’ve chosen one of the cheap schools. The biggest reason for choosing my college was the atmosphere and right now I’ve still been paying the private college prices but getting none of the atmosphere. However, I don’t have a time machine and I’m super excited to go back to campus in the fall, so I also wouldn’t change anything about my decision.  

Lastly, what would your biggest piece of advice be for students going through the process of choosing a school?

I’m going to be corny here so apologies in advance. The biggest piece of advice I can give is; remember who you are. Sure what school you choose is important and can be a factor but 100000 times more important than that is what you make of your choice. If you put in an effort to be happy and to make the most of wherever you end up, you will flourish. There were things about my high school that I hated and there are certainly things about my college that I hate. But I focus on improving those things whenever I can, and focusing on the aspects that I love, trying to do everything I can to get my money’s worth and at the end of the day I’m much happier for it. I don’t know how different my life would be had I chosen other schools but I certainly hope that I would’ve taken that experience and run with it just as much as I have with the choices that I made. 

Rejection

This week we wanted to take a break from our regular Saturday posts to talk about something a lot of us are dealing with right now: rejection.

We wanted to talk about rejection because it’s so personal to us and our mission as the outsiders guide. Even though the site has grown a lot since we launched it, the outsiders guide was originally made to help support students of color at challenging and stressful schools. As many of you know, the college process is the root of a lot of the stress and need for support; even though we have a lot of inspirational stories on the site, it wouldn’t be fair to talk about the process without mentioning rejection. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and not fun to think about, but it's also inevitable. 

It can be especially painful for our target audience, students of color, first generation students, and low income students. This isn’t to take away from the pain students who don’t fall into this group feel, but we need to acknowledge the higher pressure and frankly higher stakes certain groups experience. For students who are already isolated in competitive environments, already treated as inferior and struggling with imposter syndrome, a rejection can feel like a lot more than the inevitability we’re told it is. 

We’ve decided to share some wisdom from four people who have dealt with (or are dealing with) rejection, and attach some other articles and resources that they suggested. 

First, we have Jillian Louie, a graduate from the High School of American Studies class of 2020, and a current Athena Scholar at Hunter College. She’s also written a truly lovely piece for our blog earlier on which we suggest you check out.

““There is no real hierarchy to learning. It’s not like a math class at a public university and a math class at a prestigious university are going to teach you different concepts. It’s gonna be math both ways.”

I can’t even remember where I was rejected or waitlisted but my mom and dad were like, ‘alright if they don’t want you that’s their loss.’ 

It’s on them to choose the students that will contribute to their community, right? If I don’t seem like a good fit for their university’s community, that’s on them. They made a judgement on numbers and letters, nothing substantial to my soul or my worth or my purpose in life. Just some made up numbers. 

It's almost like a symbol of admission of failure on some level, but it’s hard to see past the four years of college and into your future when you are presented with a set lifestyle and goals that don’t necessarily align with your own dreams. 

You might be the greatest janitor this side of the Mississippi and through that you could save the lives of hundreds of teens but you didn’t go to an ivy so you’re a failure? A little silly, a little bit an expression of how much education matters to our modern lifestyles.”

She suggests watching the Great British Baking Show (despite her issues with England) and trying to re-create the recipes.

Next, one of our co-editors and an author in this piece, Aisha Baiocchi. She’s part of the High School of American Studies class of 2021, and isn’t totally sure where she’ll be attending next fall, though she’s considering accepting an offer from the Robertson Scholars Program as a University of North Carolina Chapel Hill scholar.

“I used to prepare myself for rejection by assuming I wasn’t going to get in to any of the schools I applied to. I would sit in front of my computer when I got the email saying ‘a new status update is available’ and tell myself that there’s no way it was going to be good. Don’t do that.”

“I think imposter syndrome tricks us into thinking that getting in is a fluke and not getting in is just proof of what we’ve been told for the past four years. We all know the reality is a lot more complicated than that, and if it helps, I know a ton of people who have been rejected from matches or even safeties and gotten into their reaches; it’s truly random and deep down we know it.

I would say, instead of trying to look for the logic in it or prepare yourself for the worst, let yourself feel whatever you need to feel, and don’t dwell on it. There doesn’t have to be a reason, and it doesn’t have to mean anything about you. It was so largely out of your control, and in the long run will be more inconsequential than you can even fathom.”

She suggests checking out the rejection megathread of the Applying to College reddit page (in moderation) and either ranting, or feeling less alone in just reading other people’s rants.

Lastly, we have our other co-editor, AnnaBelle Medina. She is also part of the High School of American Studies Class of 2021, and is undecided between Wesleyan University and Boston University. 

“When you first see the email beginning with “I regret to inform you...”, a slight sharpness shoots through your chest. Even if it isn’t about the rejection of a specific school, it’s always unsettling to see a notice of rejection.”

“For me, it made me feel like the work I had done was somehow a waste, and left me with a feeling of not being good enough. It can make you feel like writing supplements, doing 5 different extracurriculars and getting good grades were all a waste. But in reality, every contribution we’ve made has made a positive impact on our lives, and often even on those of others. Our success is not defined by where we did not get into, but what we are able to do at the schools we do get into. Even if I didn’t get into my dream school, I am absolutely positive that I will still be able to pursue my passions at a different school—and you will be able to as well.”

She suggests making a list of pros from the schools you DID get accepted to. Every single school has amazing opportunities to offer—even the ones that don’t make you as excited. The more you look into the schools you were actually admitted to, the more you will begin to find a place where you can strive and feel happy in. 

We’re looking for more stories from students of color, so reach out to us if you’re interested!

Talking with the ClearPath Foundation

For this week’s post, I was able to talk with two leading members of the ClearPath Foundation, a group that’s working to address the issues that come with youth homelessness in our city. Their founder and chief executive officer, Sedonami Agosa, describes ClearPath’s goals and mission as “to help teenagers aging out of the foster care system as well as homeless teenagers with providing them with access to a bunch of supportive resources, including access to mental wellbeing resources, temporary and supportive housing, outlets to foster creativity, as well as academic and professional resources.”

“Clearpath’s product,” described by newly joined Anna Gildea, ClearPath’s outreach coordinator, “is a website that hasn’t rolled out yet and so a lot of the work that we’re doing at this point is trying to have conversations like these, generally spread awareness, and to build a network of people to release it to once it’s ready.”

The foster care to homelessness pipeline is a really big theme in their work, and because I know the topic can be unfamiliar (it definitely was to me) I asked Sedonami to elaborate a little bit on what that means:

“One of the biggest problems within the Foster Care system is that once you hit the age of 14, 15, 16, 17, the likelihood of you getting picked up by a family and staying with that family decreases by seventy five percent. There’s like a lingering problem where ages 13-17 are jumping from family to family. By the time you turn 18 you’re considered an adult by the state and no longer have access to the foster care system or all the resources that the system provides. So what tends to happen is when you’re 17 and you don’t have a stable family, most times you lose access to the foster care system, meaning that you no longer have access to housing. I will say that in New York City it’s a bit different because they’ve started providing services that you have access to until the age of 24, if you age out of the foster care system, but on a National level that’s not the case. Because of that you start seeing a huge increase in teenagers leaving the foster care system and knowing from the age of 14 that they’re not going to have a family.”

Sedonami first really encountered and learned about the problem in high school, where some of the roots for ClearPath originated: “We’re about eleven individuals, and five of us were in high school together. We always had a passion for helping homeless people, specifically teenagers. It really started from a few of us going on speech and debate tournaments and going out for lunch and seeing a lot of homeless teenagers hanging around the McDonalds area. From there, we started collecting World’s Finest Chocolate bars, which have coupons on the back, and every time we went down there we’d use the coupons to buy hamburgers and give them out. We started an organization in high school called Teens For Change that was doing food drives, clothing drives, and working at food pantries. Later on, when I was in college, I received a grant for social entrepreneurship through a two year progeam where I got to research anything. I really focused on the foster care system and homelessness, and eventually I really realized that there was a big big pipeline between them. I started looking into the gaps in the foster care system, as well as the gaps in the system for homeless teenagers, and I started to see that there are a lot of resources out there, but gaining access to them is such a tedious and overwhelming process. When I started thinking about it more and more I realized, there’s a lot of programs out there, so we don’t want to be another program that takes away the light from organizations doing a great job. There seems to be a problem of access and availability of the resources, and that led me to the creation of ClearPath, an access point to all the plethora programs out there, as well as creating an easier and streamlined way to getting those resources and making sure youth get responses on time. Through my research I also found that there’s a lot of disconnectivity between the non-profit sector, and when I say that I mean there’s a lot of resources and programs out there but they’re not connecting with each other, working together to solve the problem. That’s why I wanted to create a database where on the backend there’s a connection and partnership between all these programs and then on the front end it’s showing all these programs that can help people in their day to day lives.”

Later in the interview, Anna elaborated on his point about not creating another nonprofit and instead focusing on connecting the ones that exist already. “I think part of the creation of clearpath,” she said, “is acknowledging that there’s this weird ego that comes into nonprofit starters where everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, everyone wants to come up with something new, but there’s so many nonprofits out there that everything’s been thought of already. Everybody wants to start a new nonprofit and direct resources towards a super small thing instead of acknowledging that maybe that nonprofit has been started already and many you should just join it instead of just trying to start your own for the sake of it. What Sed’s been doing is having an aggregator of all these resources and directing people to one place. We have seen first hand when you try to find a room for the night, you can put ten college graduates together and it’s almost impossible to find a place sometimes. It’s so difficult to know where to go sometimes, and it shouldn’t be so hard. I think that that meets a unique need without creating a whole new thing in a way; just acknowledging that a lot has already been done but it’s so hard to access available resources. There’s also a huge percentage of homeless youth that have access, at least once a day, to wi-fi. That’s something that we can make use of.”

Though I know that the interests of our readers vary, I think that piece of advice is really important and universal, especially when you think about the college admissions process and activism specifically. I think that we’re all encouraged to be leaders, and that’s amazing, but it’s important to remember what the purpose of your work is, beyond your individual gain or ego, as Anna put it. 

When talking about ClearPath’s short term and long term goals, they brought up their website launch, maybe an app, and a heavy focus on building a community to release to when the project is ready. They suggested you check out their instagram, @clearpath_foundation, or blog, where they post regularly with resources and information. 

To end the conversation, like we do with every interview, I asked both of them what their pieces of advice to the audience would be. They answered really genuinely, and I think we could all benefit from what the both had to say.

Anna said, “I just think it’s so important to be yourself. I really really wish I had been myself more, instead of who I was in middle school. It couldn’t be a harder time to be in school than it is right now, but one way to connect with people is online and doing things like this. It really makes a difference for mental health to see faces, even if it’s on tik tok or whatever, and those connections can really change your life. 

Sedonami said “One of the biggest things when I entered college, going to a majority white institution, was imposter syndrome and feeling as if I didn’t belong there. I think one of the important things you need to realize is when you step into any majority white space, you are there for a reason. It doesn’t matter what the background is of all the other people around you, you’re still there regardless of that, and on an equal level because you made it there. You should be proud of being in those spaces instead of the exact opposite, feeling like an imposter.”

A special thank you to both of them for participating in this conversation, and check them out at the links included for more information! Our dms, emails, and comments are always open so let us know who you’d like us to talk with next.

The Toxicity of Environments in Specialized High Schools

Following the end of mid-winter break and the start of school, many students at the Bronx High School of Science, and the other specialized high schools, were bombarded with homework and projects from teachers. Lots of these students took to social media to air out their complaints against the school and its administration for not doing something about all of this work, and not enforcing the work limits from teachers as set forth at the beginning of the school year. A senior student even described how the immense workload given at schools like Bronx Science gave them trauma and is not healthy for any high schooler to have, especially in such trying times with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This type of sentiment did not sit right with some students, however, and these students argued against these claims by saying that we, as students, chose to give ourselves the workload and should not be complaining about it. One person even said, “it is laughable to say that homework gave you trauma”. A few of them even pointed out that we shouldn’t be complaining about the school as a result of some incredible opportunities that these specialized high schools provide. Although these messages are harsh and largely unsympathetic to the situations of hundreds of students, it still begs the question: how much of the blame is on the school’s administration for the larger issue of workload management? And how is the lack of sympathy from the school affecting different demographics more than others?

To fully understand the issue, you have to know the typical school day for the average student. At Bronx Science, the vast majority of students reside in other boroughs. For a student residing in Queens, whether they decide to take public transportation or Vallo (the school’s designated busing partner), they will need to wake up at 5:30 AM or even earlier if they want to make it to school by 8 AM. Many students will then have a full day of classes, with maybe a lunch/free period in between if they are lucky, with the regular bell schedule around 3 PM. Some students go home afterward, but most days, many stay behind for clubs or sports practice. If they do sports, they may end their day at school around 6 PM and would get home by 8/8:30 PM. If they have some rest and dinner, they will start their homework around 10 PM. The typical workload for a student is around 2 and a half hours, but many students get a lot more homework or last-minute projects, leading to them staying up till 2 AM just finishing schoolwork. These kids end up with only 3-6 hours of sleep before starting the day again and repeating the same drawn-out schedule.

Under any other circumstances, this would be considered insanity or literal torture. But under the guise of a specialized high school student, this is just the “hard work necessary to succeed”. This is obviously not the reality for all students. I know people who get home by 6 PM and are in bed by 9 PM. But the overwhelming majority of students at specialized high schools have had at least a couple of weeks/months of experience with this barbaric cycle. You could even tell who has had it the worst by seeing the students falling asleep in the middle of the hallways with notes in their hands.

Schools have been aware of this issue for years, but have done little to nothing about it. Prior to COVID, many teachers could end up giving 1.5 hours of homework for a single subject without any warning. Enough of these surprises in one day, and there is no chance you are sleeping. Despite the school having a “no work over break” policy, teachers would assign work for the second day after school comes back so that it is “technically not break gay HW”. Before the end of marking periods/semesters, they would assign twice as many assignments and “final projects”, putting students through a tortuous final week. During the pandemic, at Bronx Science, we were told teachers could only assign work to be done during the asynchronous periods of the week, and not give any work that would add up beyond a time limit (ex. 150 minutes) for the week. Teachers not only repeatedly violated these policies, but also exceeded their own time limits for synchronous learning as well. The school did nothing about these even after it was brought to them countless times.

These issues affect every student at Bronx Science to some small extent at the minimum but are especially worse for students who live in immigrant/BIPOC households. In this day and age, in order to uphold our family’s dreams and hopes of success in America, we are expected to perform exponentially better than our non-BIPOC counterparts. We are told we have to take the hardest classes, have the highest grades, participate in every extracurricular activity, get into the Ivies/best “top” level colleges, and so much more. Because if we mess up even a little, we will be considered a failure. The stresses from our household environments alone are enough for many kids to develop lifelong trauma and anxiety issues, so the LEAST a school like Bronx Science could do is crack down on these workload issues. 

Schools like Bronx Science provide tremendous opportunities for students that you really don’t get at any other schools in NYC, no one doubts that. But that does not mean they should be above criticism for it. If we allow ourselves to accept these issues as a tradeoff necessary to have these opportunities, we would just be subjecting future students to years of trauma and emotional torture all to “get a good education/job”, and is that the legacy we want to leave behind? Change can only come when we start a conversation and work to make a difference. We have to leave behind a better environment than how we found it.

A Conversation with the Young Lordes Collective

Last week, I had the pleasure of talking to an amazing group of people, 4 members of the Young Lords Collective (YLC), Sumaya Bouhbal, Anya Jiménez, Fredi G-P, and Alexis Simon. As described by the founder and director, Sumaya, the YLC had a similar origin story to the Outsiders Guide:

“Freshman year I just noticed that in a predominantly white art school the kids of color were deprived of resources, weren’t accelerated as artists, and their work wasn’t honored. In many ways I believed that we are and were the backbone of this school. I was like, ‘if they won’t give us our roses, we can get them on our own. We don’t need to seek acceptance from these white institutions.’ Then, I started working at the New York Historical Society and the idea started to include activism and history as well because of the work that I did and still do at NYHS. Then I met a bunch of people who all kind of fit the vision of what I had, especially one of those people being Jillian (Jillian Louie, Editor-In-Chief), and the idea started to come to fruition.”

Our conversation was peppered with references to art and movements by people of color, moments of true unfiltered artistic wisdom, and gave me a chance to witness the genuine sisterhood that holds this collective together. I started by hearing a bit from each of them as they described how they got involved in YLC and bit about their independent work and passions.

Anya Jiménez, the Head Writer, began. She describes herself as a performer: “I’m an actor and a singer and I dance if I have to. My other passion is writing, I’m a poet and a playwright, not necessarily in that order.” She has many goals as a writer, including (but not limited to) presenting and celebrating people of color, especially queer people of color, outside of the lens we are often shown through mainstream media, and exploring her own identity as a white-presenting mixed race woman. You can check out some of her work on her instagram!

When asked about her role and mission in the YLC, she said: “I think that I really am deeply inspired by the initiative to give students of color and artists of color a bigger platform, and it’s really incredible to see the historical references we’re pulling from as well. In the name alone, the Young Lordes Collective, we’re drawing on the Young Lords, we’re drawing on Audre Lorde herself, we’re talking about the Combahee River Collective, the Jane Collective– all of these activist groups. I’m really honored to be a part of this movement of the newest wave of social change and activism, because a lot of things have changed, but a lot of things have not. I think that I really really do believe in the power of art and its ability to touch people and create conversation and create real tangible changes in our community. We are in need of a lot of those changes and I think YLC is very prepared to start those things and continue those movements and I’m very excited to be a part of it.

Next, Alexis Simon, the Community Coordinator, spoke. Alexis has extensive community service hours (“they exceed like five to six hundred hours”), a passion for singing, and a deep respect for the artists who paved the way for and inspired her (“like with Billie Holiday, there were so many times that she wanted to sing Strange Fruit and she couldn’t because of what white people were saying, and they were literally trying to kill her for singing that song.”) She’s especially passionate about metal health, using her platform to be an advocate, and she was almost too modest to share an amazing accomplishment of hers: she runs a club at her high school called Black Girl Magic, that has been so successful that it’s having an event with the Queens Library this May. She has a special connection to the YLC motto: “Artists have such a powerful voice, and our motto is where activism meets artistry. Mixing the two gives you such a different sense of power.”

The artistic director, Fredi G-P, spoke next. They’re a multimedia artist, recently exploring a particular passion for collage: “I feel like I go through these phases of mediums within my art, like last year around this time I was very into oil painting and now I’m very very into collaging and poetry, writing, and also filmmaking. I think all of these things, all of these different mediums and different aspects of art can come together so beautifully when it comes to advocating for what I believe in and what people believe in. I think that it gives me a voice that I don’t normally have, to be able to speak on topics that I care about. Art has always given me that, the voice I didn’t feel like I had, because as a young woman of color, that is now identifying as nonbinary, I just feel like I’ve never had that voice. I’ve never been given that voice, and I think it’s really important for me and people like me to be able to have platforms and spaces in general to speak and give their goodness to the world.” She’s particularly passionate about the intersections of racial justice and the environment: “environmental racism is a very real thing!” they said, multiple times during the interview. If that’s a new term or concept for you, here are a couple good resources to check out. 

In each story, every member mentioned how they first connected with Sumaya, and how she drew them into YLC. Sumaya, a musician and creative herself, nodded along and encouraged everyone to respond fully and confidently to each question. “I love hearing what everyone says so much, I really do” she said, “For me personally, part of the reason why I made the collective is to create a space where artists of color could promote each other and their work. I know that anything I create as an artist, now I can share it with this community that will share it and amplify it. In my own personal work I definitely want to start creating music, very soon (I don’t want to say anything too concrete in case something changes but, very soon). Music is definitely a very big goal of mine right now, but also exploring my abilities to be a leader and to be a creative leader. I’ve had so much fun mapping out what I think the zine is going to look like, so a lot of my creativity is YLC, so of course they’re interconnected in that way.

In terms of future plans and getting involved, she encourages our readers to follow their instagram @younglordescollective and keep an eye out for upcoming opportunities. There’s a lot to come, she mentioned a service project, free protection kits for black and brown trans people, a summer and spring zine, and a potential book club to read the texts the collective is inspired by. 

To end our conversation, as I always do, I asked each of them to share a piece of advice or guidance they had for our audience. 

“Just accept that you are enough and that you don’t have to be all things to all people.” Anya began, “This is something that I’ve struggled with a lot, and am literally struggling with today. I think that it’s so so easy to feel like you are not good enough, not smart enough, not talented enough, you’re not whatever enough –especially when the world is working against you and it feels like nobody is listening to you– but I promise there are people who are going to listen to you. It might take a minute to find those people, but they are worth the wait. You have to have the foundation of just knowing and trusting yourself enough to say, ‘alright, even if this isn’t my best, even if I don’t feel like I’m doing so good right now, I love myself I trust myself to keep going.’ Being able to care for yourself like that is so important otherwise you will just fall apart and there have been many times where I just completely broke down because I didn’t build that foundation for myself. Also, art is subjective. Art is weird, amazing, beautiful, and that means not everyone is going to love it or understand it or need it, but it comes from you and at the end of the day you just have to keep creating no matter what. Ten years from now you might look back and be like ‘damn, this is very bad,’ but the fact that you made it at all means that you’re an artist and that is enough to keep going.”

Alexis went next: “Being a black girl and being young is so traumatizing to be honest. There are so many things that I look back at and think ‘how the hell did I let that slide. How did I let someone tell me I wasn’t enough, or that I should only sing choir music even though I’ve never been in a church quire–like ok?’ My thing would be, no matter what happens don’t change who you are for anyone else. As easy as it may be, and as artists we’re easily influenced by other people’s pain, trauma, whatever someone is trying to tell you. No matter what you do you can’t change yourself for anyone else. That was part of my fear going into the music industry; there are so many people that go in there and completely lose themselves, and all of the sudden they have hundreds of scandals and dramas. Don’t change yourself, and remember that it’s okay to be daring. It’s okay to do stuff that other people may not understand, because you may be helping someone, you may be giving someone who needs it their voice. That’s the beautiful thing about art, there’s so many artists out here doing so many different things, translating their words into a beautiful piece of art. Don’t ever change or try to self sabotage. What is for you will not pass you, and you have a gift that so many people do not have, and with that gift comes so many blessings.”

Sumaya had a few pieces of wisdom to share: “1. If you can think of it, it can happen. If you can picture it, you can see it, it can happen. Thoughts don’t just come to us; I really believe that everything you think you see for a reason. Random thoughts are visions, poems, ideas, and you can’t just discard that. 2. As humans, we all have paths and purposes and so often those things are what we did in our childhood, and we grow up and think we can’t do it anymore. But if you talk to most artists they’ll tell you what they did as a kid and what made them know they wanted to do what they loved. I feel like my whole life I’ve known I’ve wanted to be an activist, even as a kid I was the one kid in  the house talking back to my parents like, that’s not fair! I think it’s always been who I am, so if you ever feel lost, think about your inner child and what would make them feel the happiest, and know that nothing can stop you, but things take time.

Lastly, Fredi closed the conversation with a lovely piece of advice: I think my advice would just be to find joy and love and beauty in a lot of things. Especially as artists and activists of color I think that a lot of the time it feels like people are profiting off of your pain and trauma, or all of the bad things, and that just doesn’t fully encompass who I am, who we are as people. I think that focusing on joy and love and enjoying art in itself, within your art and within your activism, is so important. I would have told that to my younger self because I think that a lot of teachers wanted me to write something based off of my struggles, or create a piece of art that highlights all of the pain that me and my family have been through because we’re a mixed family and are of color. It’s a lot of pressure that white people put on people of color, all the time, and I think that it’s really important to find joy and exuberate all that is good about being of color.”

This was a lovely conversation, and I really suggest you follow their instagram and keep an eye of all the great things to come. Thank you again to Sumaya Bouhbal, Anya Jiménez, Fredi G-P, and Alexis Simon.

Interview Tips!

This week, we had the pleasure of featuring three different people for our Saturday post! We posted them separately on social media because we wanted to make sure everyone got to see each of them– and now we’re excited to be posting all three in this video on the site!

Our first guest, a frequent contributor on this website (check out his blog post or section on the posse scholarship), is Ismail Abalo-Toga, who talked specifically about Scholarship Interviews. Next, Patrick McCreery, the Associate Dean of Students at the Gallatin school of Individualized Studies at NYU, talked to us about college interviews. Finally, Olivia Brady, Youth Engagement Coordinator for the NYC Campaign Finance Board, gave us some general tips for interviews of any kind!

A special thank you to all three of you, and we hope this video is useful!

Workbook exchange project

Hi everyone! This Saturday, we’re excited to unveil a new project: a workbook exchange project! The purpose of this is to match up students (or graduates!) who have old workbooks with other students who need them. There are two forms to fill out- there’s a donation form for giving away books, and a request form if you’re looking to get some.

We will coordinate a drop off or delivery with you, depending on what you’re most comfortable with and what works best with you! Workbooks in new condition are preferred! Feel free to send this to anyone you think might be interested!

A Conversation with the Founders of the Reach Project

We like to use our Saturday posts to feature new voices: other students of color in competitive high schools, alumni who have moved past those high schools, adults who have advice or skills to share, and finally, teens in our city who have similar goals to us. This week, we had the pleasure of meeting with two students who fall into that last category, Ashfah Alam and Tasnimul Rafid, founders of the REACH project.

In the words of Ashfah, the REACH project began because of a shared sentiment between her and Tasnimul: “We grew up in the Bronx, near Westchester and Parkchester. In that area in the Bronx there aren’t that many opportunities to try out different extracurricular activities. Later on, when we went to high school, we saw that other students had been able to have a lot of time to develop their interests and had a considerable amount of experience in different areas. They were able to pursue awards and leadership opportunities much faster than students without access to earlier extracurricular opportunities who were just beginning to learn about different skills. So I think that’s what the REACH project is really trying to fix: bringing affordable free extracurricular activities to middle schoolers in the Bronx.”

Similar to the Outsiders Guide, the REACH project largely stemmed from a desire to make the lives of younger students easier– but Ashfah and Tasnimul had two different experiences in high school that led them to creating the project. Tasnimul, who now goes to Bronx Science, says: “What REACH was to me was since I saw a lot of people who were really good at things that they had been doing since middle school and younger, I really didn’t like the feeling of being behind. That's really why I did REACH, I wanted to give kids in my community the same chance that others had. I also found a new passion when I went to high school, I started doing a lot of new things and went to a lot of clubs. I really wanted kids to be able to get that feeling before they went to high school so they don’t feel swallowed by those endless opportunities that they might find and make sure that their experiences were a lot easier than it was for me.” 

Ashfah on the other hand, who goes to the private Chapin School, says, “I was with students who really had access to opportunities from Kindergarten on, so that was a whole different world for me. I think that imposter syndrome really settled in for me, maybe in a way that was a little different because for me it was not only feeling academically behind but it was also socially behind, financially behind; I felt like I wasn’t really in a place to be taken seriously. Actually, I feel like for me REACH was less of a challenge and more of an outlet because I could reconnect with other students from other schools and I had that sort of community to go back to.”

The project began in 2018, with a creative writing workshop hosted in the Tutoring center Tasnimul used to work at. “Using our community in the Bronx, we knew a lot of the people who live in the area, it was really easy to find kids who were interested in creative writing, so what we did was that we created our own original writing curriculum with our volunteers and we had a few projects. We taught them how to storyboard, how to create a story, and how to write their own poems. Then, at the end of the workshop, we had a party. They wrote their own books with their stories in it and they were able to present them to their families and friends. That was our first start up curriculum and now we’re creating many more.”

Since then, the program has grown, especially since the start of COVID and their use of social media. When talking about their growth and their new recruitment methods, Ashfah said, “When we were in person we started out with a very basic google form with questions and essay responses asking for potential volunteers who would want to work with the students and create lesson plans. We would like to advertise that through physical flyers, facebook, and people that we knew because we weren’t as big as we were now. Now it’s definitely shifted a lot because we have a bigger social media following and we mostly recruit through a post and having an attached google form. Right now we’re not currently recruiting because we just added a marketing team who's responsible for all of our social media stuff. We had a web development team who was responsible for creating our website. We also have about fifteen volunteers working on building up new curricula, largely because of our social media following.”

In the future, they’re planning on launching their psychology and drama curricula, partnering with other groups, and hopefully holding in person sessions before the end of the year. To end our conversation, as we like to do at the Outsiders Guide, we asked them what piece of advice they had for our readers.

Ashfah said that our readers should take the time to really think about their wants. “It’s not selfish to think about what you want. Your wants and interests matter and always push for a way to get them even if there are boundaries in the way.”

Tasnimul said, “don’t focus on other people’s opinions, and focus on your growth and end result instead. There are a lot of things to do, so take advantage of the opportunities. Time is important, so make sure you’re doing something and having fun at the same time.”

To check out the REACH project, we suggest you head to their website linked here or their instagram @officialreachproject . Thanks again to Ashfah and Tasnimul for taking the time to talk to us!

Helping Younger Grades During Covid

As the virus stopped the world in the early months of 2020, millions of students and faculty were plunged into a terrifying new frontier: online schooling. The same teachers who relied on students to turn on the projector were now expected to change their lessons such that they would be able to be taught over Zoom, which took ages to get used to. Likewise, students with very little access to the internet were now expected to sit in front of a screen from 8 to 5 with no interruptions and no social breaks. As the pandemic closes in on its one-year anniversary and with vaccines just now starting to roll out, it doesn’t seem likely that we will fully integrate back into in-person schooling this year. The current freshmen will not experience the awkwardness that surrounds teens that are just entering high school. The sophomores lost their chance at looking down at the freshman and remarking about how small they look this year. The juniors are preparing to enter the world of college applications, devoid of any comfort that seeing their friends may have brought. And of course, the seniors are leaving their schools that they never truly got to love to go to colleges they never got to visit before they committed to spending 4+ years to. How do we make the best out of this situation? In times like this, we have to come together and help each other out. The obligations that upperclassmen have to their underclassmen don’t end just because we don’t see them anymore. 

In pre-COVID days, clubs were the primary way for freshmen to make upperclassmen friends who can show them who the best teachers are and how to study for certain exams. More than that, the upperclassmen served as a role model for the younger students: the interactions that they have with the younger kids is what dictates the schools culture and how the younger kids are going to treat their underclassmen in the future. Students no longer have sport teams to root for, thus it falls on the shoulders of leaders of academic and conversational clubs to build the image of the school in the underclassmen minds. To stop hosting meetings just because they’re not in-person isn’t just doing the current underclassmen a disservice; the culture that so many have strived to make is in danger of being lost when clubs fail to meet. They’re also a huge reason that many people are as close as they were. Club membership often forms the foundation for lifelong friendships and serves as a melting pot of ideas and personalities that take away the dullness of everyday school life. Without clubs, many students lose their support systems and inevitably burn out, reaching out for help with no one to grab their hand. It’s up to the juniors and seniors who have been in their respective clubs for years to continue on the traditions of the clubs and prepare the underclassmen for when they inherit the role of club leaders.

Online learning has given the freshman an advantage that we would have been grateful to have. We’ve been forced to write notes online, which allows us to send them to the younger students when they’re taking the classes so that they are able to clarify future lessons and have an early understanding on how teachers behave in their classrooms. It can also help with their future notes: they would no longer have to rush to write down every word their teacher says if they already have the outlines of their lesson plans sent to them by their upperclassmen.  With complete notes, students can further focus on the analysis of the topic rather than having to force everything down. It doesn’t just stop with notes; sending study guides and past tests is also encouraged to give the underclassmen every advantage possible.

our favorite sections!

This week, to mix up our regular Saturday posts, we decided to feature some of our favorite parts of the site! Since our launch, we’ve posted a bunch of new information and sections, and we wanted to take some time to highlight some parts that you might have not looked at yet. Don’t hesitate to comment your favorite sections or posts if we didn’t mention them in the post!

AnnaBelle wants to highlight the opportunities section, specifically the directory, because it has lots of different and helpful opportunities listed. There are over 40 programs organized into 4 sections, and a whole page with college support opportunities and programs. Alongside that, she suggests you check out the learning page, because there’s a lot of universal advice on there that can be hard to ask for help with.

Aisha suggests you look at some of the old blog posts because there's a ton of really useful and relatable stories up there from a variety of perspectives. Her favorites include Suzuki Lin’s post about Language Barriers, Ismail Abalo-Toga’s college forum post, and The Angry Latina by Melissa Rivera-Jovel. If you get inspired to write something, that’s a plus!

Let us know what your favorites are in the comments! See you next week!

Akiko Jindo: First-hand experiences of one QuestBridge Scholar

What background information do you want the readers to know about you?

• Hi, I’m Akiko, a senior at American Studies, and I matched to Williams College through the QuestBridge National College Match Scholarship, something I’d never expected to say prior to this year. I’m the oldest of five, daughter of Japanese immigrants. Growing up with a sister with a medical condition, summer visits to Japan and being part of an always lively but chaotic household, it’s been a wild ride. Freshman year, I went overboard with extracurriculars, lured by club fair cookies and nice seniors. I’ve been a three-sport athlete since freshman year, now (virtual) captain of tennis, and part of other clubs as well, exploring dance, poetry, and other interests. Through studying at a history-specialized school, I even began working with the New-York Historical Society through various internships, especially concentrating on including women into the historical narrative. Through badly-planned summers, I ended up branching out and working for local and nonlocal city council candidates, joining a writing mentorship program called Girls Write Now, and even tutoring young kids in Spanish through a nonprofit founded by quarantined Stuy kids.

How did the QB process work for you?

• Applying to college always seemed like an incredibly daunting and strenuous process, and it was a problem for later me to deal with. (alone, since my immigrant parents had no clue) The College PrepScholar application for juniors was a lot, but hearing that most of our information could be reused for the senior cycle gave me motivation and in May, was accepted. Most of the benefits were cancelled or turned virtual due to the pandemic, but it was nevertheless extremely rewarding. When we first shared our introductions on Facebook (which I thought was only for 40-year olds prior to QB), I was surprised at the variety of experiences everyone had gone through, and most of all, the achievements they discussed. People had been art awardees, class presidents, nonprofit founders, and were featured in local news. Mutual mild intimidation turned into an extremely inclusive, supportive, and friendly community, one where I met many friends who I’m close with now. Most importantly, it provided motivation that was augmented by being surrounded by talented students, both from school and from QB. 

• Meanwhile, I was also nominated for the Posse Foundation scholarship, and proceeded until the semifinalist stage, when I decided to give up my seat for someone else, as I wanted to only focus on QB, as I could only be accepted to one. 

• We worked together, complaining about the extenuating National College Match application, while also bonding over similar music tastes and shows. Being a CPS almost guarantees finalist status, so at that point, it was not entirely stressful. But while there were approximately 3,779 PrepScholars, there were 6,885 total finalist results, and we were introduced to even more people, growing our community. Before you become a finalist, you have to submit a preliminary rank form, ranking up to 12 out of the 42 partner colleges which include Ivies, LACs (liberal arts colleges), and other top 20 schools.

• I ranked 12 schools, as I liked so many schools, and a full-ride anywhere was a basically non-declinable offer. But there was a catch: You only have 9 days to submit all of your supplements, financial forms, and all other materials. It’s like EDing to 12 schools at once, and the schools would send the portals 3 days after the announcement, so essentially, you have only 6. While it’s incredibly tiresome and rare to rank 12 schools and finish all the requirements, it was kind of a rewarding and bonding experience. Through pulling all-nighters, emptying out my snack cabinet, and taking countless “15-minute” breaks.. I finished supplements for 12 schools, some extra ones for UPenn’s Huntsman Program, and a cringey video for Bowdoin. 

• When that hectic week was over, the rest was just waiting till Match Day, December 1st. With a friend, I saw the decision and I was ecstatic but subtly, since I was outside. It really was like everything falling into place, and like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders - my parents wouldn’t pester me anymore (or not as much) about college, and literally all of college was paid for, including travel, and other random costs. 

• Initially, when I saw that I matched to Williams College, the #1 LAC, I was surprised. QB can only match you with one college, if any, and the money comes from the college, with QB essentially being college Tinder. Throughout my life, I kinda idolized Harvard since my dad went there for grad school, but my parents wanted me to go to Swarthmore or Amherst since my grandfather had gone to Swarthmore as an international student. I’d always imagined LACs to be in the middle of nowhere, and coming from NYC, I wasn’t too interested in a rural lifestyle. My list early on would’ve been Ivies on top, with some LACs lower on my list. Yet a month before I applied, I did a lot of research and my list basically fell upside down, prioritizing LACs. Ultimately, I applied to several Ivies as well, but not with the same enthusiasm, as I saw the uniqueness of a liberal arts education in a small, close knit community, seemingly perfect for someone as indecisive and identity-crisising I was. Everyone I’d known who’d gone to one was incredibly happy with their experience. Williamstown, in the Berkshires is incredibly small and rural, but I loved it the more I researched, and am extremely grateful and excited, having gotten close with many incoming students. 

What piece of advice would you give to anyone applying to the QB program?

• Get started as early as possible, and definitely apply for the junior College PrepScholar program, it’s so worth it! The resources provided and even the sense of support is enough to drive you even when everyone else is using another platform to complete their college apps and when you feel like you’re doing everything way before everyone else.

• Definitely complete the FAFSA and CSS as early as possible! My family did it in one sitting, on October 1st, the day it came out. It makes those 9 days between finalist results and the NCM deadline way easier! 

• Think about what you want to write about, what sides you want to show early on, and since there are so many short answers and essays, show as many sides as possible! Try to be creative with your answers, even the 35-word ones can express so much. 

• Be active in the Facebook group and get to know as many people as possible! 

• Lastly, be proud of your unique experiences!

What’s something you learned through the QB process and something you struggled with?

• I’d always struggled with talking about myself; I’d write poetry, but that didn’t have to be directly about me, I could allude through metaphors and imagery. I’d always laugh off serious questions, and when I was tasked with writing seriously about myself, it was at first hard, especially since I didn’t know where to start. It felt like there was no way I could fully express myself, I was too complex and enjoyed a myriad of things. The first feedback I received on my first essay draft, was “Are you writing an autobiography?” I struggled choosing the details I wanted to prioritize, but ultimately focused on a few of my passions and parts of my upbringing. The QB process, or college process as a whole, taught me how to creatively maximize word counts. I’d structure my personal essay as a letter to my past and future selves or use different short answers to focus on different interests. QB also helped tremendously with time management and making the process easier, through breaking it into multiple steps. 

What are your goals for the next four years? Do they connect to anything you learned through the QB program? Is there a specific career path or opportunity you hope to pursue?

• I’m incredibly interested in international relations, history, and languages. I grew up bilingual, but have studied Spanish for 6 years and other languages for fun. I want to continue pursuing that path, and possibly double major in econ or poli sci, although I’m still undecided in that aspect. With the liberty of a full-ride, I’ll probably join many clubs including club tennis and Asian American Students in Action. I’ll also probably give back to others through volunteering as a QB mentor. 

Taha Mridha: First-hand experiences of one QuestBridge Scholar

What background information do you want the readers to know about you?

• Hi, I’m Taha and I was matched to Colby College. I spent a lot of time in high school doing community service work. The summer before my sophomore year, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Bronx Zoo as a Discovery Guide and I really loved working with the diverse group of people there. I also became involved in my school’s Local Outreach Tutoring (LOT) program. LOT provided free SHSAT prep and enrichment activities for nearby middle schoolers. As someone who got into HSAS through the Discovery Program, I felt it was important to help other people have the same opportunities as me. Other than that, I’m a history nerd and I loved participating in sports at HSAS. Fun fact: I wrote one of my essays about Andrew Jackson.

  How did the QB process work for you?

• I applied to the QuestBridge College Prep Scholars program or CPS earlier in the year and was accepted. Normally, College Prep Scholars have the opportunity to attend the QuestBridge National College Admissions Conference on campus at a partner college but this year the conference was held virtually due to the coronavirus. The Conference helped break down the QB process as well as offer tips on making your application as strong as possible. I personally found the virtual college fair to be the most beneficial because I was able to chat with admissions officers and learn more about the partner colleges. 

• I felt pretty “comfortable” with the application process because I was able to get a Matriculate mentor early on. One day, I got a random call from the College Board telling me about free college advising and I’m really glad I jumped on that. I was really lucky to be matched with Brian, a Williams College student. He was someone who had already been there and done that so I felt like I was in good hands. Brian helped me make a college list, edit essays, and basically anything that was college-related. I’m a first-generation college student so neither I nor my parents knew anything about the college process but Brian changed all that. 

• I also applied for the Matchlighters Scholarship and I was selected as a Matchlighers Scholar. Ethan Sawyer, The College Essay Guy, has so many useful resources on his websites and I happened to stumble upon the application for the Matchlighters Scholarship. Through the program, I was connected with Katie, a University of Florida student. She was an editing god and helped me make my personal essay into something that is truly Taha. It was almost therapeutic in the sense that I was taking the time to really think about my personal values and feelings. In addition, “Hack The College Essay” by John Dewis, another resource I used, really hammered in the point that the personal essay wasn’t some painful thing you had to get over with. If you do it right, you can really learn something about yourself. Taking Mr. Dewis’ words from the book, I didn't need to be brilliant, original, erudite, mellifluous, or even profound. I just needed to be me and write something that could only be said by me. That took a lot of the pressure off.

• I only applied to the QuestBridge Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs) for the NCM. I looked at what worked at HSAS and built off that. HSAS is basically a mini LAC. Small class sizes, accessible teachers, and a close-knit feel. HSAS has worked out really well for me, I even had letters of recs written by teachers who knew me for all 4 years. After reading Thomas Sowell’s “Choosing a College: A Guide for Parents and Students” I knew the QB LACs were for me. LACs are undergraduate-focused, have professors who are known for their quality of instruction and not just their research and publishing output, classes won’t be taught by TAs, smaller class sizes, rich residential life, loyal alumni, and no grade deflation. Although larger universities have more resources in absolute terms, LACs tend to offer more resources per student and the resources themselves are more accessible. Again, as a first-generation college student, I needed to choose an institution that would be the most “nurturing.” All the QB LACs are pretty similar academically but when it came to environment, housing, food, and culture, Colby made the most sense. Maine is beautiful, DavisConnects (the career center) does amazing things for Colby students, and the connection between the college and the community in Waterville is truly inspiring. 

What piece of advice would you give to anyone applying to the QB program?

• I would tell them that there are a lot of resources out there and you can make your life a lot easier just by reaching out. I took advantage of community organizations such as Matriculate, free online resources such as the College Essay Guy, an actual treasure trove, and Hack The College Essay by John Dewis. Absolutely read Thomas Sowell’s “Choosing a College: A Guide for Parents and Students.” Sometimes you don’t even know what questions to ask but after reading the book you’ll know what important things to look for and what type of school would best suit your needs. He discusses the differences between LACs and universities, what “prestige” means, and all the other good stuff. 

• Start as early as possible, the QuestBridge application is due in late september. Make your summer count. A benefit of being QB CPS is that you get access to the QB National College Application earlier. Even if you’re not CPS, you can also just get the QB NCM prompts from other people and start working on those. 

• Reddit, The QB facebook group, College Confidential, etc are helpful but they can also be toxic, just plain wrong about things, and a waste of time sometimes. Be careful with the forums.

• You have a week and some change to complete all of the QB match requirements like the supplemental essays, financial aid, etc. Some QB Finalists had over 20 essays to write and they were all due within a week. Don’t be that person please. Start on essays before Finalist decisions are out if you think you’ll have a lot of essays to write. If you aren’t selected as a finalist, you can still use those essays to apply early decision and regular decision. Thankfully Colby didn’t have any supplements!

What’s something you learned through the QB process and something you struggled with?

• In a weird way, I learned to let go. Don’t get me wrong I was anxious as much as the next person, waiting for college decisions and looking over essay revisions isn’t something you do for fun. I had a lot of help and I put in the work to make sure I made the best possible application I could. An opportunity to attend college with a full scholarship was not something I was going to throw away. With acceptance rates dropping year after year, it seemed like a crapshoot but I did all I could. A part of me didn’t care if I got rejected, I really made my application as Taha as possible. It was ok if the admission officers thought I wouldn’t be a good fit. I did my best. 

What are your goals for the next four years?

• I’m really thankful for all the help I received. I know as of right now I’m not even a freshman in college and I might be getting ahead of myself here, but I want to do what my mentors have done for me. Hopefully, throughout my college career, I’ll have the opportunity to help out other kids who were in the same position as me.

a conversation with the co-founders of laguardia outreach

Article by Aisha Baiocchi, featuring an interview with Nina Worley and Zaina O’Connor

For this week’s Saturday post, we had the pleasure of talking with Nina Worley and Zaina O’Connor-Jamia, students from LaGuardia High School’s class of 2022 and co-founders of LaGuardia Outreach.

LaGuardia is one of the city’s nine specialized high schools, but the screens that it uses are unique. Applicants are expected to prepare portfolios and auditions for their respective concentrations. This year, though slightly adjusted for COVID safety, a similar process remains. Additionally, LaGuardia faces another issue: its admissions process is not well known or well understood by all of the potential applicants (8th and 9th graders) in the city. Nina and Zaina first encountered this problem last September:

“We volunteered for a high school open house, in the Bronx where we were representing LaGuardia,” Zaina said, “and while we were there we realized that the questions we were getting were ones that we did not expect to get at all. People were asking us if we had dorms or if we offered scholarships, so we recognized that the information about LaGuardia and the high school admissions system, in general, wasn’t as much as we were taught. We realized we wanted to help people, the students in low-income neighborhoods, get the information that they deserved, to offer an even playing field.”

That’s how they came up with the idea for LaGuardia Outreach. Nina, the President of the group, describes their work, holding regular information sessions for middle schools in low-income areas, as providing “some sort of equity in a system that is full of inequities.”

When talking about the importance and impact of their work, Nina and Zaina mentioned how a recently well-published incident of a Muslim Student at LaGuardia facing discrimination by a teacher was representative of some of the environment.

“This is not a new thing, this has been happening forever,” Zaina said, “There’s so much microaggression in LaGuardia against minority students. It comes from other students, it comes from faculty, teachers, and it’s not okay.”

In Nina’s experience, student unions play a large role in helping create a welcoming environment. She talked about the Latinx union, coincidentally one she helped found and the only one in all of the specialized high schools. Recently the union collaborated with Beacon High School’s Latinx student union: 

“We had a conversation about microaggressions and I don’t think there was one person in that zoom meeting of like thirty to forty people who didn’t have a story.” Nina recalled, “And even though some of us are white, and have the privilege of that, the minute I speak Spanish in my classes or that students find out, I think things come out about LaGuardia. I don’t think there are many minority students, ethnically or racially, that can tell you they haven’t experienced something– within this public school system, not just LaGuardia, I think in middle schools as well.

Though they both have ideas about how to change the larger system, they agreed that LaGuardia Outreach is a start. While discussing the work she also does as an organizer for Teens Take Charge’s education unscreened campaign, Nina said that “LaGuardia outreach works to change the demographics and change who is represented in our school and who isn’t frankly. I mean we live in a super segregated school system and this is our little part.”

As a final piece of advice to our readers, both those considering schools like LaGuardia and those in different schools but facing similar environments, Zaina and Nina both had something to say:

  “Be really well researched.” Zaina advised, “Do your research, know the schools you want to go to, and figure out everything you can about them. Figure out where your advantages and disadvantages are and work with the system. It’s awful to say but you have to find a way through it.”

Nina, on the other hand, talked about fear: “Don’t feel like you can’t fit somewhere because you don’t see other people that look like you there and until the system really changes, take a risk!”
  To learn more about LaGuardia Outreach, check out their Instagram, @laguardiaoutreach . To learn about similar school-based campaigns, check out Instagrams by students at other specialized schools working to desegregate their environments: @hsascedi , @hchs4diversity, or check out groups like Teens Take Charge and Integrate NYC . More information about LaGuardia can be found on the school website. A special thank you to Nina Worley and Zaina O’Connor-Jamia for participating in the interview and talking about all the work they do. 

Lessons from a QuestBridge Finalist

Last year when I was a Junior, I decided to apply to QuestBridge very last minute. I thought I wasn't good or smart enough to do it, which pushed me back from applying. But one day I told myself to just give it a shot, and I ended up submitting my application the day it was due. Now, I am a QB College Prep Scholar and Finalist, which I never thought I'd accomplish. I highly recommend applying even though the application may seem tiring, or you may think you aren't good enough. But trust me, it's so worth applying!

My experience with QuestBridge helped me tremendously with my college preparation experience. There are two rounds where you first apply as a junior and then as a senior. The first round makes you complete their application, which did help me prepare for college. That's because the application exemplifies your identity and it showed me how I should prepare to talk about myself in an appealing way. Even after completing the application, QuestBridge would have seminars and videos explaining the whole college process. I took advantage of this because as a first-generation student, I had no idea what or how to apply to college/prepare for these supplemental essays I had to write in the future. But QB dove deep into this process and cleared up every question for me, which I appreciated.

After passing the first round, applying for the second round was challenging. It involved much more work because now I had to actually apply to the QB partners and do research on them. But QB provided everything I needed, which saved me time and effort. There were seminars conducted for all of the 42 partners where you can ask them questions and find out more info! There were even meetings where QB gave out tips on how to create a strong application. I never got the help from my family or friends to do that, and I did not have the best counselors to guide me through this whole process. But overall, QB provided as much as they could for all of their QB applicants, and definitely gave me more insight into what the college process is truly like.

Even after passing the Finalist stage but not getting Matched to a college on Match Day, QB gives you a SECOND chance to apply to your colleges again! There is so much more hope they offer you even after you were denied the first time. Overall, QB gives you opportunities to take your college application to the next level with their help and provides you with information to do so. It is worth the time and effort! I struggled to do all of this alone, but QB had my back and supported me throughout this process.

Staying on Top of College Deadlines

As the January 1st application deadline approaches for many universities, the application process is still in full swing for many high school students.  Whether you applied early to any schools or have just started filling out applications, it's easy to feel completely overwhelmed by school work, college essays, and continuing activities you love in the process.  Personally, a large source of anxiety and stress in relation to the college process is applying to many different schools.  Staying organized and on top of various tasks can be incredibly challenging, especially when it just seems like there are so many things that need to get done.  In many instances, deadlines can seem impossible to reach or just so intimidating that it impacts your work negatively.  Even if you’ve never had a bullet journal or don’t write things down in a planner, visual planning and organization can be a super helpful tip to make applying to a ton of schools a bit easier.

With schoolwork, applications, projects and meetings online, it can feel like our computers are just huge conglomerates of jumbled dates, tasks, and essays that need to be written.  In order to sort through tasks and manage my time, I like to get off my computer and organize things into a planner and a calendar.  If you’re anything like me, it's easier to keep track of the tasks that need to get done when they’re all in one centralized location.  If you do write things down in a calendar, it can be helpful to make a rough draft of your week.  Look at where you know you have classes, and mark in any events or meetings that you know will take up your time.  From there, it becomes a bit easier to plan out realistic and achievable goals on what “college work” you can get done that week.  If you prefer to store your schedule online, there are a variety of really simple online calendars that work great for planning your week and finding the best time slots to focus on college.  Personally, I really like Google Calendar since it has school assignments already listed, and it's very easy to make tasks for yourself.  There are a variety of other great online calendars that are super easy to use and create your own time with: https://www.lifewire.com/free-online-calendars-1357935

When staying on top of the things I need to get done, I like to put in the times of my live classes into my calendar, so I know which time slots are not going to be available.  If there's a particular stressful week of school, i.e. tests, quizzes, or projects due, try to make a light schedule for when you’re going to work on college essays, or work on a one that’s not as daunting (or emotionally taxing).  Although planning out your week can seem overly scrupulous and sometimes even exhausting, knowing when you’re going to work on specific essays, how you’ll be feeling at that point in the day, and what else you’ll be concentrating on can set you up for success and give you a sense of authority over tasks.

With the January 1st deadline approaching, my planner looks more like a novel with dates, deadlines and schedules written jotted down in it.  It’s super easy to lose track of these dates, especially if you have scholarship deadlines, personal essays due in a few weeks, and schoolwork on top of all of that.  From someone with a terrible short term memory, writing things down and later putting them into an online calendar, reminder app, or written schedule is essential to making sure everything is getting done on time and the right way.

In accordance with keeping academic work and applications on whatever schedule you have for yourself, it's also important to keep track of your commitments and make sure you’re on track.  Logging into a club zoom meeting, interview, or help session might take 5 seconds, but penciling them in (virtually or manually) will help you remember any preparation that's necessary before attending.  If you have multiple events in some organizational tool, I find that separating by some way or another school, college, and extracurricular allotted time in different colors or sections helps keeping everything organized and succinct. 

In this extremely stressful time for seniors and high school students alike, applying to a bunch of Regular Decision schools feels extremely pressuring and highly stressful.  By planning and acknowledging the numerous tasks of day-to-day life with organization, you’ll definitely feel more in control of your time and energy.

How to Make a College List

Sophie Fishman is part of the High School of American Studies class of 2021

Applying to college can be overwhelming, with over 4,000 colleges in the US it's hard to know where to start. So here are a few things to keep in mind when putting together your college list:

There are three major classifications for colleges on your college list - likely, fit, and reach schools

1. A likely school, or safety school, is a school that you’re almost certain to be admitted to. It’s good to have these on your list as a fallback, in case some of the more competitive options don’t work out. As a general rule, your grades and test scores should be within the 75th percentile of admitted students. Most schools have information about admitted students on their websites, so compare there. Make sure your safety school has an acceptance rate of 40% or higher, depending on your scores and grades

2. A match school is a school that you are likely to be admitted to. Generally, for these schools, your grades and test scores should fall within the fiftieth percentile of admitted students. One thing to keep in mind is that match schools should have an acceptance rate higher than 20%. For schools with lower acceptance rates, your scores may be within the range, but the seats are so limited and a lot of students with similar statistics will apply, meaning admission will be more difficult

3. A reach school is either a school where your grades and test scores are in the 25th percentile, or the acceptance rate is below 20%. 

The next step is to start thinking about what you want out of a college and to begin research. Here are a few factors to keep in mind:

Location 

It’s good to have a mixture of locations and location types when you’re looking at schools, depending on your needs, but here are a few questions to consider:

How close (or far) do you want to be from home? A train ride? A walk? A plane ride? What type of weather do you want? What setting do you feel most comfortable? A city? A suburb? Rural?

What type of internship and work opportunities are available in that location? 

Major

At most schools, you will need to write in an intended major when you apply, but this is not necessarily binding. So if you are unsure about your major, be sure to research how easy it is to change your major at a school and at what point you need to declare your major. A few other questions to consider when picking an intended major and a school:

What am I interested in studying? What subjects have I enjoyed most in high school? Is this area of interest offered at this school? Can I double major at this school? Take a minor? How will my selected major affect admission?

Size

There are benefits to both small colleges and larger universities. Small colleges allow for intimate more discussion-based classes but larger universities offer more opportunities for research and have more resources available. Both offer very different social lives, too. So when choosing schools, it's important to keep these advantages and disadvantages in mind, you may want to include a mixture of both on your list.

Extracurricular activities

Are there certain activities that are important to you? A sport? An art? Most colleges have a list of their clubs and groups on their website, so when you do your research make sure you’re going to have the opportunity to pursue the activity you love. If they don’t already have a club, you may be able to start one yourself, look into it!

Student Groups/Support

College is a huge transition and can be extremely overwhelming, and it's important to find both support and community while there. So look into the school’s student groups! Is there a religious organization you want to join? A cultural organization? An LGBT+ support center? In addition to college being overwhelming socially, it can also be a challenge adjusting academically. So when you’re looking for a school look into their Student Academic Resources. A lot of schools offer peer tutoring or writing assistance, which you should definitely take advantage of.

Affordability 

College is expensive. The tuition of a school shouldn’t rule it out, as many schools offer merit and need-based financial aid, but it’s important to have a discussion with your family about how much student debt you are willing to take on if any at all. While public colleges may appear less expensive, as they often are, private schools may end up being more affordable, as they have larger endowments for aid. So make sure you have a mix of both types of schools on your list. 

For information on scholarships feel free to read and use the resources posting on the outsiders guide website! Check out the college support page for specific college guidance programs and resources, and the college page for lots of other stuff!

Anything else!

Maybe there are other amenities you want like a gym, no communal showers, a beautiful campus. No one knows you better than yourself. So, when looking at schools ask yourself whether this is somewhere you see yourself. Look into the school culture and ask yourself, “Is this somewhere I could find community?” Look into student testimony on the schools or speak to current or past students to get a feel as to what the school culture is like. College should be a place where you feel safe and comfortable, so make sure you feel that way about every school to which you apply. 

Now it’s time to start to compile your list and decide where you want to apply! When you start to research colleges, don’t limit yourself by number. It’s best to start with a list of a lot of schools, and as you research more in-depth, you can eliminate schools from your list. 

When considering how many schools you want to apply to, it’s important to keep application fees in mind. On average, application fees are around $50, so as more schools get added on the more costly it becomes. But, if you look at a school’s website you may be able to qualify for a fee waiver.

The level of competitiveness of schools you’re applying to will determine how many schools on your list. If you’re applying to more competitive schools, it may be to your advantage to apply to a few more. When making your list important to have a good mix of likely, match, and reach schools, but most importantly you should be applying to schools you want to attend. Don’t put a safety school on your list just for the sake of having it, but really research and try to find safety, match, and reach schools you would be excited to attend! Searching and applying to colleges is so exciting, and you should feel happy about the schools you’re applying to. 

I personally have found it helpful to organize my college list by using a spreadsheet. Categorize your schools by likely, match, and reach, acceptance rate, location, size, and application deadline. Having an organized spreadsheet will help you later on down the line for planning and organizing your supplemental essays!

Here are a few resources to get you started on your search:

Big Future from the College Board

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/

College Navigator (Includes information about financial aid)

https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

Scholar Matcher

https://scholarmatcher.scholarmatch.org/

“A free college search tool designed to assist prospective college students from households earning less than $50,000 per year with their college search”

US New and World Report 2021 Best Universities Rankings

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

Colleges With the Best Return on Investment

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/slideshows/national-universities-liberal-arts-colleges-with-the-best-roi

Student Burnout

TW: suicide, slight mentions of drug addiction   

Going into high school, I only ever pulled an all-nighter once, and that was to see if I could. It was horrible; I had no energy and I fell asleep as soon as I got home. I swore to never do it again. By the time Junior year started, all-nighters were just a weekly occurrence; it became second nature to figure out which classes I could sleep through within the first five minutes of reading the aim. I couldn’t think of a time where I wasn’t tired and by the time quarantine started in March. I didn’t care that I was going to miss school; I was just happy that I could finally sleep. We all know this struggle, and we all know how terrible it feels. So why do we do it? The answer is simple: we essentially have to. 

    We’re forced to work until we drop, being pitted against thousands of other faceless students who are just one step ahead of us, one grade point average higher than ours or one extracurricular more prestigious than ours are. The idea that you can be anything is blissfully ignorant of the fact that we have to be everything to even stand a chance for admittance into the top colleges. This rat race creates a hostile competitive  environment for every student, with friends suddenly becoming secretive with their grades come college application season and posts about perfect scores online, only adding to the stress that you’re not good enough. In flagships schools like Stuyvesant and Regis, it’s almost taboo to mention that you don’t particularly want to go to a T25 university. And don’t you dare mention that you don’t want to go to college straight out of high school; you’ll be crucified by students and counselors alike for “wasting your time” in such an advanced school. 

Through this stress, we often sacrifice our mental and physical health in order to stay on top. I’ve had close friends turn unrecognizable from the constant lack of sleep and the addiction to coffee and adderall in their effort to get into Columbia, Stanford, or any of the other colleges that are idolized by the workaholic culture in our schools. Whenever a test is coming up or there’s a paper due, we often say that we want to die as a joke. Although most of these are truly just jokes, there’s always that thought lingering in the back of our minds, ready to come back up whenever there’s another test. There’s a reason that in the past decade, suicide rates among teens have gone up significantly. It doesn’t just stop in high school either; the beautiful gorges in Cornell’s campus hauntingly juxtapose the suicide nets hanging ominously over them, a somber commemoration for the students who’ve tragically ended their lives there.

So what can we do to help? For this, we have to recognize that the idolization of the Ivy League and similar schools will always be there simply because they’re the best. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either—students with particularly high drive deserve a place to go to where their full potential will be reached. In the end, you have to do what will make you happy. If you are overstressed about the work you get in high school, smaller, less work-intensive schools are a valid choice. College shouldn’t just be about learning and studying because at its essence, that’s not what college is meant to be. The university you go to is the last transitionary place between your childhood and adulthood; the last place where you can have fun without having too much work to be done. You’re meant to enjoy it, and if you can’t enjoy it in an Ivy League, then not worrying about applying to one is 100% okay!

It’s also okay to not want to go to a conventional college Not everyone is interested in STEM subjects, and by pressuring people into getting an education focusing around those, that person is robbed of reaching their full potential. It’s time that schools begin to introduce the idea of students going to trade schools, culinary schools, and other specialized colleges. Even if you’re good at math or science, you may have a passion that lies outside the purely academic world, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to go into a STEM path.

Finally, the biggest problem resides in the disregard for mental health. When we’re shoved into a system that pits us against each other with no one emphasizing our mental health until we reach a one-semester health class in freshman year, we grow up believing that nothing is as important as our grades. In fact, we - as said before - ruin our mental health for a better GPA. The stigmatization of discussion on mental health has to be changed, with an emphasis on how to maintain a work-life balance starting at an early age. 

Language Barriers

This week’s written post is by Suzuki Lin, an author for the Outsiders Guide and part of the High School of American Studies Class of 2021

“911 what’s your emergency?” the calm voice said over the phone. I recognized this tone: it was monotone like the “Chopstick House how may I help you” I heard every day at my parents’ old restaurant. My mom came up to me asking what the operator was saying. I ignored her and continued to explain that my mom’s car had burst into flames. A couple of weeks later I had to call Geico and the department of sanitation to find out where the car was towed to. I saw my mother cry that day. She’d finally done something nice for herself and leased a car that I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to be picked up from school in, but now it was smashed to pieces. She cried because she had spent months deciding on the cool add-ons the new car would have; it was an extra thousand dollars to get the Bose speakers that we only used for a couple of months. 

This wasn’t the first time I had to talk to a representative over the phone. I did it for the electric and phone bills, and even to request the removal of the dead tree that was in front of our house. I didn’t have a choice but to help; my English was better so I was the fixer when we had read insurance letters I didn’t understand. My grandpa would get frustrated because the only person fluent in English was a 4th grader who didn’t know what insurance was.

This was, and still is, my idea of having an immigrant parent. While they  push their American dreams onto you, you’re still stuck translating their letters and writing their text messages. At a young age, I would always hear things like “you’ve been to school for that long and you still don't know how to read a bank statement?” My reaction was always anger so I wouldn’t even be able to come up with anything to say back. Personally, it would be especially frustrating when the expectations for me were so high and I, a child, had the responsibility to put things in perspective for my mom. 

This is definitely a strange dynamic (to put it lightly) because I know I held and still hold a lot of resentment towards my mom for making me grow up so fast. For example, my mom always yelled at me when I got my report cards back, but it’s not like she helped me with anything school related. I was really on my own. My parents were always working and I don’t have any siblings so when I say I was on my own, I was on my own.

I remember calling the phone number on the stickers my elementary used to hand out to ask for homework help. I wouldn’t call often, but when I did, I remember feeling relief because I knew the person on the other side of the phone, unlike my mom, knew how to explain what metaphors were. Though they were helpful, I was always embarrassed that I had to call a random hotline while my friends' parents could help them

Holding all my resentment towards my mom created countless problems for our relationship.. My perspective changed a whole lot, however, during one of the few vulnerable moments my mom has with me. On a night walk, my mom told me about the time she was working at a restaurant, as many of our people do in the States, she would answer the restaurant's phone at her Real Estate job. My mom wanted an opportunity to be in the professional world, but she couldn’t leave my non-English speaking father in charge of the phone. When she answered the calls asking for pork fried rice, her coworkers, her “friends” laughed at her accent and her second job. 

However much I felt like I was between two cultures that I didn’t fit into, I had totally ignored my mom’s experience as a Chinese immigrant. Though I have not suddenly let go of my resentments, I realize now that my mom wasn’t there for me in the ways I needed her because she was unable to. I saw that she must feel as embarrassed as I often do when she has to look at me every time she wants to order a coffee. She has always been investing in my future and often without my knowledge, causing me to believe that I only existed to help her read letters. In a new country without speaking the language, my mom, like many other immigrants, had to work harder to have success not only for herself, but also for me. 

I know that many parents are not able to be there for their kids because they are looking at broader ways to help you succeed. I had the support of my teachers and the random people on the other end of the stinker hotline, but now, there are so many resources like the Outsiders Guide that try to offer a steady hand to students who may need one.

How to edit your own writing

Hey everyone! This week we’re super excited to share a video about editing your own writing; we know that not everyone can ask their parents or hire a tutor/essay coach to help them edit, so we thought it would be important to share some ways you can be better at editing your own work. To follow along with the video, check out this powerpoint where all the tips are listed.

Thank you so much Elisa Muyl for putting this together! If you have any questions don’t hesitate to comment on this post, the youtube video, the instagram post or email us!

We’re also switching back to writing posts soon, so if you want to submit or know someone who does, reach out!

Staying Politically Active After the Election

In this eventful week we thought it was important to talk about politics; many of us have gotten a lot more involved during this election cycle, and even though it’s over, we wanted to talk about ways to make sure your work isn’t.

This video is featuring our founder and co-editor Aisha Baiocchi, along with two students in the High School of American Studies class of 2021: Stephen Dames and Danielle Johnson. To read some of Stephen’s work, head over to his bio on the Next Generation Politics website, or read his last post on their blog. To read about the amazing work Danielle does, check out the integrate NYC website!