Applications, Abroad, and See you in the Spring!

Hello readers!

It has been a restful two weeks for me :). My younger sisters go back to high school on Monday, and while I wish I were still here to mock them by lazing about at home, alas, I head back to Boston early Monday morning. I will miss hanging out with everyone!

The first few days of my break were spent sitting in one of the living room chairs and reading all of the books I could get my hands on (also, a lot of sleeping). Then the panic started setting in (ah, where much of my motivation comes from ;)) and I set to work on re-vamping my Goldwater essay. I was selected as one of Wellesley’s Goldwater nominees (the Goldwater Scholarship is a research-based scholarship for sophomores and juniors) last month, but I’ve been told to rewrite my essay again since then. It is now finished, after the third major rewrite and something around eleven drafts. Whew.

But that’s not the only essay I’ve been looking at recently :). My middle sister Leslie is a bit of a procrastinator, so I assisted in fleshing out three college essays. WOW, that is a process. However, my intuition about college essays was correct; I am now definitely ready to write my college application essays, and I was probably ready last spring. Living a few years in college really helps you to know yourself well enough to be able to get into college in the first place. Too bad college essays can’t be written in retrospect :).

I have to say though, it was wonderful helping Leslie with her Wellesley supplement essay. I had been skeptical about the Wellesley 100 prompt when I’d been told about it by blog readers, but then I really checked out the Wellesley 100 page in detail, and there are some nice details in there. I think the strongest selections are the ones with movies attached, because then you get to hear Wellesley students speak, and that’s where I believe our school is the strongest. The women here are absolutely amazing: smart and thoughtful and ambitious—and you can definitely get a taste of that through the videos.

The only thing about the Wellesley 100 is that the selections take quite of lot of investigative work :). Take the Ruhlman Conference. There’s a three-sentence summary on the page itself, and then it links you to the Wellesley page. The Wellesley page is very helpful, as it gives you the vision of the conference, the schedule, what students need to do to be a part of the conference… the pictures in particular give a good sense of the event. After that, though, you have to go searching for the magic—what it’s like to actually give a Ruhlman presentation, and listen to one. Turns out, even I had trouble on Google trying to find narratives of Ruhlman presentations (and I’ve written a few!) However, I know that Wellesley has two major student-driven presentations during the year, Tanner and Ruhlman, and that Ruhlman is focused more on research, but the two conferences are similar in style. So I went looking for Tanner presentations, especially in the blogs (since they usually have pictures), and you can find some cool posts and Youtube videos for that. So the information is out there…

… but it’s just so much easier to know someone at Wellesley, who’s lived and loves each of these 100 things that makes Wellesley special :).

I see the problem with this. If I were a potential Wellesley student, it would be in my best interests to visit campus and ask about these events from the students there. However, when I actually applied to Wellesley, I personally couldn’t afford a plane ticket there and and back. My next idea would be to email one of the bloggers (since that’s what we’re here for and all!) and that’s something I definitely recommend doing. However, as a Wellesley blogger, I don’t want to write your Wellesley supplement for you. What I want to do is tell you all the great things about Wellesley, not in a written form (but hey, I’m willing to Skype occasionally!), and I want you to listen, extract what information you find relevant, and write your own essay. This was what I found most effective when helping Leslie—I told her my favorite anecdotes I’ve collected over the years, and then watched her form her essays around what she found interesting. Listening to the people “on the ground,” so to speak, really is the best way to get a measure of a school. Moreover, this applies beyond applications, to when you’re actually making college selections in May.

So for all of you who are getting your essays in by Jan. 15^th, here are my updated recommendations: 1) Do your best given the time you have and your situation. 2) Do some investigative work. You’re all smart girls, and there’s a lot of information that Wellesley provides for you! 3) If at all possible, talk to a Wellesley student. Visit, call, comment, watch videos online (do this! Especially the Wellesley 100 ones!), anything. I’ve found that pretty much any Wellesley student would be happy to give you a few minutes of their day to explain why they love this college. It’s our home, and we want you to love it too :).

Those are my conclusions on the application process (from my perspective, at this moment, not reflective of anyone who makes the actual decisions, etcetera), and after Jan. 15^th, we can all put it out of our minds! In the meantime, all sorts of happy things are happening to my Wellesley friends :).

The swim and dive team have left for their Wintersession training trip to Puerto Rico, paid for by teaching swimming lessons throughout the year. They don’t have many pictures up yet—Tiffany and Ika tell me they’re having a lot of fun, but are nonetheless exhausted by the practices—but I’ve stolen one from Maria’s facebook page anyway :). The team practices around 4 hours per day when they’re there, and the rest of the time they rest, eat, and hang out at the beach :). Can’t wait for some great photos of their adventures!

Gabby, one of the divers on the team, HAS ARRIVED IN CHINA! Gabby is a Chinese and Bio double major, not pre-med, and is spending this spring abroad in two different locations in China; and Beijing’s first, for a few weeks! She sent us her first email from there at 3:17 am, with included pictures of noodles and complaints about slippery chopsticks :). I’ll need her permission to post anything more, but I’m so excited for her!

And news from me: next week, you will find me in Sabana Grande, Nicaragua! That means that there’s going to be a few weeks hiatus from blogging, until the 24^th (or maybe the week after) when I return. I will be going through one of Wellesley’s Wintersession Programs, which I became interested in after taking Extradepartmental 120 (Making a Difference through Engineering) last spring. There will be six of us going on this trip, not counting our leader, Prof. Banzaert. I don’t know any of the students (one M.I.T. student and five Wellesley students), but I look forward to meeting everyone! I’m instructed to bring three shirts total for the trip, which is from Jan. 8^th-24^th, and I am really looking forward to the lightest packing I’ve ever done. It’s hard to express how thrilled I am—I’m going abroad again (it’s been too long!), to a Spanish-speaking country, where I get to experience a different lifestyle, and do something completely new! SO EXCITED. NOW TO PACK!

(Note that I’m bringing no electronics save my trusty camera, and that we won’t have access to internet, so I really will be off-board once I leave on the 8^th. That means I probably won’t be answering any comments for a while, so please don’t be offended :).)

Long post over, readers! Hope it was helpful, and wishing you all the happiest of holidays. I won’t post this until later in the evening (when hopefully I’ll get permissions from everyone), but from now until when I next post, happy holidays, best wishes, and see you in the spring!

Monica