hey everyone it's Lucie Fink welcome back to my YouTube channel if you haven't yet
subscribed be sure to click on the subscribe button down below and join
my YouTube family and give this video a thumbs up if you're excited to learn
about my college admission story and if you want to see more videos like this one
quick interruption to let you know that today's video is sponsored by Mossery
they're the company who made the 2020 planner that I used all throughout this past year
and they also made the 2021 planner that I got for this upcoming year I got two options
because I couldn't pick which one I liked best stay tuned until the middle of the video I'm
gonna pop in and show you what I love about these spreads and also give you an incredible discount
code if you're also looking for a 2021 planner before I dive into my story I just want to point
out that I applied to college in 2009 went to college in 2010 and then I graduated in 2014.
so I haven't been anywhere near the actual college process for over five years by now and I want to
say that because every single year the college process changes but especially right now with the
coronavirus I know that colleges are dramatically changing their application process and what they
expect of incoming students so this video is not meant to be in any way shape or form a how to
apply to college in 2020 type of video it's more just my story about my process I also don't think
that I can get into this story and tell the story without properly acknowledging the privileges that
I've been given in my life I went to a well-funded public high school in a wealthy New York suburb
this particular school put huge amounts of emphasis on the entire college preparation process
and this economic privilege is inextricably linked to my white privilege so I know this isn't a video
about any of that but it's kind of impossible to tell the story of how I applied to and how
I got into college without first acknowledging these unearned privileges that I've been given
in my life so in this video I'm going to share a bit about my college application process all
the schools I applied to where I got accepted to and rejected from my test scores and just overall
how I felt going through it I would say that my college application experience was a bit different
from the average teen and that's because I was applying to college with my twin sister Allie
when we first started the college prep process our deans in high school asked us if we wanted to go
to school together or separately and we just knew we wanted to go to school together it wasn't even
really a question for us the way we function as twins is when we are together in the same
location we tend to spread out more and do our own thing but when we're separate from one another we
are always trying to get together so we just felt like being separate wouldn't really work we would
probably be visiting the other every other weekend and instead we wanted to be settled at our school
together and then be able to branch off from there we had pretty similar grades pretty similar GPAs
although we had very different interests and we were in similar friend circles and were looking
for the same type of thing when it came to school for some reason and I honestly can't even tell you
why but for some reason around our sophomore year or junior year of high school we decided that we
wanted to go to Cornell university our mom went to an art school in New York and our dad went to
the University of Arizona the two of them actually both wound up transferring to American University
and they graduated together in Washington DC if you don't know that story as well my parents
also met in high school like Michael and I did and my parents have been married for 47 years
so when it came to college you know we didn't have these parents who were obsessed with the
universities that they went to and because of that they were never pushing us to go visit the schools
they went to they were always encouraging us to see what we wanted and to go explore wherever we
wanted to go so when we told them we wanted to go to Cornell they took us to visit and we went on
a tour of the school it's a huge university we just were like this is it I think we could see
ourselves here we visited a few other schools as well I remember visiting Emory I remember my older
brother was at the University of Pennsylvania so we went there I did a lot of other research online
a lot of guidance counselors from these various colleges were coming to our high school to do
talks so I went to a lot of informational sessions and ultimately we came up with a list of about
eight schools that we wanted to apply to because we wanted to go to college together we actually
had to tell the colleges in our application that we were applying with a sibling and that we
essentially were not going to go to the school if the other one wasn't accepted as well so we
basically wrote on our college applications that we are applying as a package deal either accept
us both or reject us both but one is not coming without the other so we had to explicitly say that
and I have to say every single school we applied to adhered to our request so we got accepted to
all the same schools waitlisted at all the same schools and denied it all the same schools so I
want to go into the college application process a bit having spent four years at Johns Hopkins
and working in the admissions office alongside the admissions counselors I can tell you that
one of the most important things when it comes to an application is having your personality
and your humanity come through on paper it can be really difficult to tell the admissions officers
who you are just through an essay or through your resume or whatever it's called in high school
but that's really what you have to try to do you have to get your personality through your passions
need to be laid out on paper and it really needs to be about sharing those themes explicitly so
that a whole group of people who is sitting at a table reading your application can know who you
are and want you to come to their school a lot of people ask me what my personal essay was about and
it was about my relationship with my grandmother my mom's mom is my only grandparent that I ever
knew in 2008 she passed away about 10 years after she suffered from a stroke she had lost all of her
communication abilities she wasn't able to speak anymore she couldn't walk and my essay was about
how I was able to communicate with her despite those barriers I'm not going to get too far
into it but it definitely shared a bit about my personality type it showed my interest in
communication and language my relationships with people around me and on top of it I thought I
maybe wanted to be a doctor wherever I was going to school so it did show a little bit about my
ability to care for someone I never really got any feedback on my college essay so I'm not saying it
was the best essay in the whole world but I do think that from what I've learned from college
counselors they're looking for your passions your personality and general themes that can help them
sort of know who you are and want to bring you to their school obviously grades are very important
when it comes to applying to college I know that every high school has a different grading system
so I don't exactly know how colleges do it when it comes to deciphering that in my high school
it was a standard four-point GPA system and I did graduate with over a 4.0 GPA I personally
think that what helped me bump over the edge was taking some classes in high school that were
elective classes that were really easy and fun for me I took a whole bunch of drama classes that I
was just naturally comfortable talking in front of people and performing but just in general I worked
really hard in high school I studied really hard I was genuinely interested in a lot of different
subjects the only thing I didn't love was history until I saw hamilton and then I loved history
but I did prioritize my schoolwork on top of my social life at least during the most important
years of high school and I worked really hard and had a good GPA when it came to extracurriculars I
had done a bunch of volunteer opportunities in my local community at one point I worked in a
nursing home I assisted tutoring some students nearby and I also did a lot of extracurricular
drama activities that were not class related so throughout my high school experience I was in 16
shows 16 different performances some musicals some straight plays and then my senior year I actually
directed a bunch of our shows so I had a robust extracurricular portfolio when it came to drama
all right quick planner interruption anyone who's watching this video who is interested in
all things college and admissions you are likely in need of a planner if you're anything like me
your life tends to fall apart when things aren't in order and mastery is absolutely my favorite
planner company in the world I first discovered them at a little stationery shop in New York City
I was shopping around for a 2020 planner and I came across this planner that you're seeing
right here now this was like an hour long trip to the stationery store I took a look through
tons of other planners and the mastery planner just blew all of them out of the water their
theme for their 2021 planners is plan for anything so I have two separate planners here I could not
decide which one to get so I got both there are different covers and there are also different
layouts so one is a horizontal layout and one is a vertical layout so when you open it there is
this nice little page with all of your contacts in case you lose it someone can return it to you
the next page has the pale blue dot speech on it which is my absolute favorite speech
in the world and I just love seeing this every time I open the planner then the next few pages
are an inspiration board so I love this page it lets you fill out films you want to watch your
favorite songs places to visit there's also a priorities page and then some bubbles for
values and beliefs then there's a three things to improve change or achieve page it's always good to
have something like this at the start of a planner so that as the year progresses you can go back and
take notes or change your goals and then there is the habit tracker this was what really got me
into the mastery planner is the way the habit tracker is laid out it's very simple it gives
you four empty slots for each month of the year and you can basically write in whatever habit you
want to track you can create a goal for yourself then you can put a little x or fill in the bubble
on every day of the month total it up at the end and reflect on how well you achieved your goals
then we have a few empty dot grid pages which are perfect for bullet journal lovers and then we get
into the planner so we can see the entire next couple years at a glance and then you can dive
into each month one at a time so the top of each month gives you a little planning page followed
by a monthly calendar and then we get into the weekly spread the horizontal spread is really good
for giving you a lot of space to write throughout the day and the vertical spread I feel like is a
little bit better for planning and putting things in an order personally I like both but I did use
the horizontal one last year and I think new year new me I'm going to go vertical for 2021.
they also have some amazing cover options so I chose this ombre one that's sort of like a pastel
pink to purple look and then I chose this one as well which has some of my favorite colors and it's
just graphic it has some birds and some flowers and it's really pretty and you can personalize
your planner by writing anything you want on it I usually just write my name at the top and you can
choose between more of a standard font or a script whatever speaks to you so click on the link down
in my description box and use my unique code all caps Lucie be think 15 to get 15 off and now I'll
take you back into my college admission story and then of course there's the sat and the act but as
I mentioned up front I was blessed and fortunate enough to have so many resources not only did my
school provide some sat prep but I was able to go to an extra test prep center and actually
take practice tests on the weekends before taking the test my sister and I both agreed that the act
was actually a way better test for us than the sat I kind of forget what the differences were but we
took both and the act was a lot easier for us so the act is out of 36 and when I first took it I
got a 31 which is good but my twin sister had a 33 and I remember thinking I want to at least match
her 33 because I don't want to be the reason that she's not getting into college where she wants to
go so I kept taking the test again and again and I was stuck at a 31. nothing I could do no amount of
good sleep beforehand or snacks that I brought into the test or taking practice tests over and
over again nothing was upping my score and this is such a long background story but you likely
know that Michael and I have been dating for 10 years more than 10 years by now and actually
when he went to college which is when I was in high school still taking the act we broke up for
about a week and in the week that he called me to tell me that he wanted to get back together
with me that was the week I was taking the a.c.t and I woke up on the morning of my act 6 a.m to a
voicemail from Michael that said he wanted to get back together with me and call him after my test
and I went in to my fifth or sixth time taking the act in the best most positive mood because I knew
I was getting back together with Michael right after it and you know for a lot of people that
might be distracting that might make them perform worse on the test I just went into the test with
this sense of glee and excitement about what was coming up after the test and I just breezed
through it I remember it was the worst testing conditions you could possibly imagine there was
a marching band and a tailgating party happening outside of the school where I was taking the test
yet for some reason I was able to focus and just dive right into the test and I remember leaving
feeling like you know maybe I got another 31 but maybe I did way better because that felt
great to me and when we opened our scores on the back end I ended up getting a 35 out of 36
and that was the first time I did that well in the test I'm convinced it was because of Michael and
because he excited me and because we were getting back together but whatever the reason I got a 35
out of 36 and I think that really helped us when it came to application time and I'm saying us
because we did come as a package deal and my score helped ally and her score helped me so
here are the schools that we applied to the first school we decided to apply to was the University
of Michigan I had never visited personally I didn't know if I wanted to go to a school that
was that large but they were accepting people on a rolling basis so I remember finding out about
the University of Michigan way earlier than any of my other decisions and we got accepted the other
schools we applied to were Emory Vanderbilt WashU Duke UPenn Johns Hopkins and Cornell and here were
the decisions that were made for all the schools so for Cornell we actually got accepted to Cornell
which as I told you was our first choice school but we got accepted into this weird
guaranteed transfer program so essentially they accepted us but for one year later they told us
that we could either take classes at another university for the year or take the year off
and start the following year but whatever it would be we were going to be one year delayed
from our normal timeline and from where all of our friends were the other schools we got accepted to
for immediate attendance were Emory Vanderbilt WashU and Johns Hopkins we were put on the wait
list at Duke and we ultimately pulled our names off so we never found out if we were accepted
or denied and we got rejected from the University of Pennsylvania and that is where our brother was
so we were a little mad at his school but we got over it so now it's time to talk about how
we decided where to go so once we got into these schools we were choosing between going to Cornell
one year late going to Emory Vanderbilt WashU or Johns Hopkins our first question that we asked
ourselves was what is the highest ranked school that we got into knowing that Cornell was our
first choice I just sort of assumed it was number one but when we actually looked at the rankings
they looked something like this and it turned out that Johns Hopkins was the highest internationally
ranked university that we got accepted to not that that was going to be our deciding factor but that
is useful you know when it comes to jobs after school or just something to consider you know
what's the best university and what has the best resources and because Johns Hopkins was number one
on that list we decided to go visit one weekend we had previously visited Johns Hopkins and we didn't
love it on our first visit to be honest we went during a pretty dead weekend a lot of students
were home I think it might have been a holiday weekend and we did not see much action going on on
the campus at all there were a lot of students in the library a lot of people with their heads down
it was a dreary rainy day and I kind of remember going to school and thinking you know this looks
like a really pretty university but I don't see much action going on when we went back this second
time however we chose a particularly sunny weekend just by chance it was in the spring and if you
know anything about Johns Hopkins lacrosse which is in the spring is their big school
sport so because of that I think it was a weekend at school called spring fair weekend when there's
just an entire party going on on campus and everyone is tailgating for the lacrosse game
there are food trucks all over the quads it is a party the weather is beautiful
and it's just good vibes overall we went and we visited actually another set of twins from our
same high school that were a year ahead at Johns Hopkins and they showed us around and introduced
us to their friends and it was just a complete 180 from the experience we had previously when
we visited all of a sudden we were seeing the school in a new light we were seeing all these
really smart academic women who were having such a great time they said the social scene was bumping
and we were feeling like we would fit right in so we just mulled over it a little bit more at
this point remember I still thought I wanted to be a doctor in which case Johns Hopkins would be
one of the best places to go for medicine ally knew she wanted to go into economics and they had
a great economics program at Hopkins and we just decided to accept and I remember we accepted sort
of with the thought process of if we don't like it we can always transfer to Cornell which was
our initial first choice the year later because we still had the guaranteed transfer option we could
probably transfer our course credits from Hopkins to Cornell and we just sort of kept that in the
back of our minds but when we got to Hopkins for orientation week during our freshman year it took
us about 48 hours on campus before we realized that we were not transferring to Cornell we made
friends instantly actually on the train ride from New York to Baltimore we met a girl named liz who
is actually our best friend today she's from Connecticut so she was taking the train at the
same time we had a mutual friend and we met that day and then all of our other friends that we met
throughout orientation week at Johns Hopkins are currently our best friends today so we developed
a group of friends pretty much freshman year day two and we're still best friends today 10 years
later I can make an entire YouTube video about my experience in college and at Johns Hopkins if
you'd like but if you do go to the Johns Hopkins university admissions YouTube channel and you
click on their playlists you'll be able to see a lot of the video content that I created there
throughout my four years as a student the series that I created was called Learn More, See More,
Be More and it was a travel type show about the city of Baltimore four prospective students of
the university and ultimately I think everything happened for a reason for us Johns Hopkins is a
lot smaller than Cornell and I think because of that it really gave us a lot more opportunities
than we might have had at Cornell whereas at Hopkins it's sort of like whatever you want to do
they want people to do it and I remember I went into the admissions office as a freshman
I pitched this YouTube series they had never heard of anything like it and they set me free
and let me go do it and that YouTube series became basically the portfolio that I used to get jobs
after I graduated so Allie and I loved everything about our four-year experience at Johns Hopkins I
have nothing but positive things to say about the university if you have any other questions about
that school in particular or the entire college application process drop them down below in the
comments section and I hope this video was useful for you if not I at least hope it was entertaining
remember the college application process is changing dramatically day after day so anything
that I just told you about the process of applying or what the admissions counselors are looking for
could be totally different tomorrow I just know that often hearing about other people's college
admissions stories and hearing about how they maybe didn't go where they thought they wanted to
go and then they still wound up being happy that could help someone a lot and I think when I was
going through the process there was a time when I was completely tunnel visioned towards Cornell and
I thought that was the only place that I was gonna like and at the end of the day I'm actually really
grateful that they didn't accept us immediately because it gave us that year to sort of see if we
liked another place better and we wound up being extremely happy and I couldn't imagine my college
experience being any different from what it was if you're currently going through the application
process or if you did so recently and you have any more modern tips or updates that you'd like
to share please drop them down below and I hope that you tune back into my channel for more videos
in the future see you next time and I'm sending you so much love from my office in New York City
bye