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title = "the strangeness of applying to us colleges"
date = 2026-02-05
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**context:**
> i am applying to various foreign universities, including in the us. in the states there is a quirk where the vast majority of universities have a rule that if you’ve started studying at another university, you can only apply via the transfer procedure, where chances are notably worse. however, there are universities where you can refuse credits and apply as a freshman (amherst and dartmouth). my applications there are already submitted, while transfer applications are still being prepared

**my thoughts.**

all in all the applications already submitted took me about a hundred hours not counting two days in kazakhstan to take the sat. during that time about a dozen different essays were written, another 5 recommendation letters drafted, some 200 questions answered, every possible financial document dug up, and an unreal amount of random facts prepared. put simply: self-reflection happened

applying to most other countries represents an attempt to tick many boxes on a specific list:
- in russia you score n points on the unified state exam which are then used to cut you off by a very simple spreadsit. or you tick boxes next to the necessary olympiads
- in germany or the netherlands you demonstrate that you meet their formal requirements regarding gpa (in some cases this is translated into numbers and also simply cut off by a spreadshit)
- in japan they evaluate both essays and recommendations, but there is a simple formula published on the official website
- in south korea you demonstrate certain facts (in some cases compensating for one with another) and you get in

one way or another in each of these systems you can engage in simple and clear optimization. you can kill 1000 hours and score 100 points on the exam. you can optimize your gpa. you can write the necessary olympiads. you have criteria for grading essays

but in the states it’s not like that. instead there is a principle they call holistic review. to describe what that is, it is their attempt to look at you in the most comprehensive way possible:
- they don't set a specific minimum score for the sat
- they don't need a specific set of magic words in the essay
- they don't look for an ideal format of extracurricular activities

instead they look for "spiky" students. not a room full of straight-a students from ideal families and best schools. they need those too. but they would prefer to also have a guy from hungary who can bring an interesting example of authoritarianism, someone from a poor family with an interesting view on art, someone becoming the first in the family to get higher education.

of course you can "optimize" for this too. but only if in other cases it’s about carefully studying the machine and fitting into it, in the us this process is two-way: you open yourself up and allow the machine to see everything there. and "optimization" in this context means primarily the correct stringing of red threads and hanging notes between facts.

you are telling a story. trying, oh cringe, to build a "personal brand". to do something that will make you specifically stick in the mind of that small committee reviewing every application.

but to tell that story you have to understand it well. instead of ticking boxes you try to compile a list of things you can brag about, and then analyze it, and thus yourself, to see how it comes together. what led to such diverse things being on your resume? why do you talk about computer engineering but study law? why do you build servers and play dnd in your spare time?

yes, of course there is a very simple answer: you just like it. but you are expected to ask "why" further. why do you like it?

and in the end it turns out that besides spending a lot of time directly working on essays, questions and forms, you also reflect on yourself every day before bed, at lunch and in class.

and so you come to some conclusions, finish writing all essays, nag everyone who needs to upload recommendations, reread the application for the 1000th time no longer feeling cringe at how you praise yourself. and hit the "submit" button in the common app

but the process doesn't end there: ahead is another separate application for financial aid. very often need based aid is provided, frequently guaranteeing full coverage of need. and that means now you will be occupied with opening up this part of your life for the financial aid office to study.

after spending the previous six months praising yourself and deep analysis of who you are and who you want to be, you suddenly start diving into heavy everyday life. preparing documents, looking for every possible paper, while thinking about the huge barriers between you and what you described in the initial application.

it feels very strange.

**conclusion:**

the whole strangeness of this process lies in the fact that under the guise of applying to university you showed both your strong and vulnerable sides, de facto laying out a very, very complete perspective of your life.

it is very rare in everyday life that you suddenly lay out before yourself a detailed and systematized document showing a wide view of your life. for it you did huge mental work, spending a lot of time thinking about every detail, without diving into every hole, since then this document will fly off to a reviewer at the university.

maybe universities demand too much. we aren't used to opening up so widely to strangers. and there are good reasons for that.

but at the same time i just don't see another way to account for not just a random set of parameters that better or worse show the static state of an individual candidate, but a whole picture in which "distance traveled" is visible.

it is hard to argue with the fact that 1480 on the sat from a native english speaker from near chicago, who was prepared for the exam for years at a private school, who had 3-4 attempts and was driven to a familiar place by parents in the morning and 1480 on the sat from someone who had to fly to a new country at their own expense without the ability to work with a tutor and in an unfamiliar city with jetlag and knowing there is only one attempt, writing the same exam in a foreign language.

i can't think of a different system that can give opportunities to outliers.

i don’t know if i’ll get an offer or not, but i definitely do not regret having had this experience