(upbeat music)
- Hi, my name is Bluebelle Carroll.
I love philosophy,
debating,
talking about anything.
One day I hope to be a writer
and to make my own radio programs.
Next year,
I am going to Yale University.
(upbeat music)
The first time I began to reconsider university was,
was when I was in about year six,
I was about 10 and the reason was,
is because I wanted to be an author and I looked up
how to become an author and it said,
go and do an English degree.
So I was immediately like,
okay, looks like I'm going to do an English degree,
whereas best to do an English degree.
And because I have synesthesia,
which means I see words as colors,
I thought English was yellow.
So I looked for a university that was yellow in color,
and that was Cambridge.
And so for many years,
I was very happy to go along and go to Cambridge.
But as I began to think about it more and more,
I realized that although I want to be an author,
I want to be able to also study some of science.
I want to be able to study some social science,
some psychology,
some maths.
And so I began to look more and more into that
and found the Oxford offers an amazing course called PPL,
which has philosophy,
psychology and linguistics which I loved.
And then American University would let me have even more
breadth because they let you study pretty much anything
for your first two years.
And so that's what really cemented my decision
to apply to America.
Looking into applying to American University,
that's in those are videos all across the internet,
sponsored by Crimson.
And I'd seen the Crimson webpage
that had loads of information about it.
But I'd never really considered it about something
that I could do and tell.
An email popped up in my school email that said,
Interested in applying to US universities?
Apply for this scholarship.
And I never thought I was going to get it,
but I thought I'm going to do everything I possibly can
to increase my chances of being able
to get into an American University.
And so I applied and it all worked out.
(upbeat music)
Okay, my full name is Bluebelle Wednesday Carroll.
So the first name is a flower plus an E at the end,
in case I didn't want it to be a flower forever
and wanted to shorten it into bell
because my parents were paranoid.
The middle name is after Wednesday Addams
from the Addams family.
And my mom wanted it to be my first name,
but that was forbidden.
And then my surname is interesting
because it used to be Clarkon,
but my granddad was a singer.
I knew he would never sell any albums
if he kept his name Clarkon so he changed it to Carroll
and that's been passed down to me.
I didn't really know what I needed at the point
where I got Crimson's help.
So I knew that that's what I wanted,
but there was so much unknown about the whole process.
I didn't know anyone who had applied to America.
So it was really a whole new thing.
So what Crimson really helped was that they just told me,
you will need help with writing your essays.
You will need help with standardized exams.
You will need this support and that support.
And more than that,
we're going to give you the names of people
you can contact any time we're here to
do you ever have any questions through the whole process.
So really what they gave me as a grounding of someone
who was always there to help
as well as telling me what I need to do to apply properly.
So in the end,
I had people to help me overlook my application,
help me decide what universities to apply for,
help me work out what subjects I really loved
and helped me with all the standardized tests and things.
So I really put myself on the same level
to be properly considered.
(upbeat music)
They say it all the time there's that buzz word,
which has had a holistic admissions process,
which basically means that they review every part
of your application.
And that can seem daunting for so many people
and for me,
because it feels like every single part of you need
to be perfect to be considered.
But what I've really learned is,
especially through Crimson is
that they're just looking for something about you.
That means that you would fit into their community
and you would make an improvement.
And everyone has part of that.
So I would say there is always going to be something
that will make you perfect for an American university.
And so just go and apply.
So as a word of encouragement,
I just say that they really looking for the best in you.
They want you to achieve.
And so,
although it's really difficult and
you can feel like you're putting on all these effort
for nothing for a really long time,
in the end you're going to end up somewhere
that you really want to go
and you really deserve to be going.
(upbeat music)