Fittingly, the email came during journalism.
It was the email that Emma Gustafson, senior leader of the OVS journalism program, had waited for since March, the one that would tell her whether she had been taken off the waitlist and admitted to NYU.
The girls’ dorm lounge, where journalism students were watching a movie, fell silent as Emma debated whether to read the email and find out the course of her future.
Finally she opened it. And the room erupted in screams.
After months of waiting, Emma learned in early May that she had beat the odds and had been admitted into NYU’s class of 2022, where she will study Media, Culture, and Communication.
“When I found out I was waitlisted, I was alone in the barn, and, honestly, I was crushed,” Emma recalled about receiving the initial news from NYU about her waitlist status.
“But when I learned I was admitted, I was with the whole journalism class and we were jumping up and screaming and hugging and there was so much love and support in that room,” Emma added. “I’m so glad that was where I was and who I was surrounded with when I found out. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Photo by Fred Alvarez.
Similar stories abound for the Class of 2018.
This year’s seniors sent out approximately 170 applications and received 87 acceptances, according to OVS College Counselor Fred Alvarez. More than half of that group applied Early Decision and Early Action, an increase in the number of students who have done so in previous years.
Next year, the current crop of seniors will scatter across the country as they attend schools in Austin, Berkeley, Boston, San Francisco, Savannah, and Washington D.C.
“I’m incredibly proud of this year’s class, and they should be awfully proud of themselves,” Mr. Alvarez said. “They are racing off into the next chapter of their lives, and every one of them is well prepared to do so. I can’t wait to hear all about their adventures as college students.”
For some OVS students, like Emma, choosing the school where they want to spend the next four years of their life is one of the easiest decisions they have ever made.
For others, like Joy Campbell, this process consists of weeks deciding where to apply, avoiding applications, anxiety, and eventually making the big decision.
It all started with a summer college tour up and down California. Joy knew she wanted to go to college on the West Coast, but that only narrowed her list down to ten schools.
That was only the beginning of her application process. With the University of California applications due November 30, she clicked the submission button late into the night of November 29.
However, there were still several applications waiting to be completed when the Thomas Fire forced her and her family to evacuate Ojai in early December, causing a delay in the application process. With just days to apply, and with 2000 words to write, Joy spent day and night typing away until they were all done.
“Applying to colleges was really nerve wracking because it was taking a step toward something that was completely unknown to me, it was a huge commitment,” Joy said. “Once the application was out of my hands, it wasn’t even really up to me, and that really scared me.”
With the application process done, the wait for acceptances began. Suddenly, there was a new worry, as Joy began to have a recurring nightmare of being waitlisted at every school to which she applied.
Those nightmares wouldn’t come to life; instead she’d end up getting into almost every school to which she applied including UC Berkeley, UCLA and the prestigious College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara.
This, however, wasn’t the end of the challenges for her senior year.
Joy now had the equally challenging task of choosing which school she’d move to after attending OVS since kindergarten. Oh, and she only had a month to make that decision.
“I figured that it was better for my emotional state to go into the applications blindly,” said Joy. “I’d just choose a top school from the ones that accepted me.”
Only a few days before the May 1 deadline, Joy decided. After long debates with herself, and a list narrowed down to three schools, Joy finally decided to join the Bruins and become a member of UCLA’s class of 2022.
Location, cost, and majors were all important factors in this decision, but UCLA ended up being the perfect match for her.
“Looking back, in a way I’m glad I was that freaked out because it made the acceptances and the subsequent decision making that much more rewarding,” Joy reflected. “Now that I’ve decided, it’s such a good feeling. It’s like an anvil was taken off my chest.”
For Leila Giannetti, the application process was far easier.
Leila spent three summers at college programs in Washington D.C., started preparing for the ACT in sophomore year, and before the common application was even available, she knew which university was for her.
George Washington University was Leila’s top choice. She had fallen in love with everything about the school, from the location to how perfect it was for her interests in international politics.
That motivated her to apply Early Decision, taking part in the nationwide trend that has an increasing number of students taking advantage of early application opportunities during the college application process.
By the beginning of senior year, her application was ready to submit, weeks before the Early Decision deadline.
Making the choice to apply Early Decision was not easy. Since ED is binding, she needed to make sure that she wouldn’t regret her choice.
“It’s not for everybody, and it’s something that I had to talk about with several other people,” Leila said. “But it’s been several months and I still haven’t regretted it.”
Several other seniors made their college choices early. And there seems to be a trend this year of students heading off to college in pairs.
Wendy Hang was accepted Early Decision to Boston University and she will be joined there by Sunny Chang, who sifted through a few college offers before deciding to head Beantown. Two students — Jenny Zhang and Ellen Hou — will attend the Savannah College of Art and Design, however Jenny is headed to the Hong Kong campus while Ellen will attend the main campus in Georgia.
Liam Castagna and Albee Xu will enroll at UC Santa Barbara, while Peter Weckerle and Usmon Mirzoaliev are off to pursue their entrepreneurial passions at the Hult International Business School.
“At OVS, we talk all the time about the importance of finding the ‘right fit’ school for our graduates,” Mr. Alvarez said. “I think the members of the Class of 2018 exemplify that ideal.”
For Emma Gustafson, there was never a question of whether NYU would be the right fit. She almost applied Early Decision to the university, a move that would have greatly increased her chances of getting in on the first go around.
But she waited, testing her options by applying to the prestigious communications program at USC and a handful of other schools that were less appealing to her. She earned plenty of acceptances along the way, and when NYU put her on the waitlist, she was all but prepared to attend the communications program at Loyola Marymount University.
Then, in the middle of journalism class, the email arrived. She knew her chances of coming off the waitlist were slim. Her fellow journalism students huddled around her, no one making a sound as she fumbled to open the email, moving back and forth from phone to laptop, rapidly trying to sign into her NYU account to find out what exactly the letter contained.
“To learn I was expected was such a relief and made me so incredibly happy. NYU was always my plan and I got a little lost along the way, but I’ve made it and I’m so excited to attend.”