Hello, my name is Brooke Jeffress. I’m going to Berkeley in the fall and I’m going to be studying integrative biology and hopefully minoring in Spanish.  

So my school has a sports medicine program and I was lucky enough to get involved in that sophomore year and I became fully immersed in the program and I, through it, got to do national competitions and conventions. 

 I got to do a physical therapy internship and I’ve also just always been drawn to the sciences. Honestly, I’ve always loved my academic coursework and I’ve always been drawn to getting involved in science extracurriculars. I would say I just try to be very involved in my community. 

 I’ve always, ever since like elementary school, I’ve always just been very big on volunteering and community engagement. So I’ve become really involved in various organizations in my area, including like Operation Gratitude, which is a military support organization. And my internship is also counted as volunteer work. 

 So I intern at Primary Care Sports Medicine. And yeah, I always just love working school events. I love working random events, and I just like the great race in the community too, just to get involved and meet new people. 

 Now, I personally am fortunate enough to know your parents. I know your older brother. So I have a really good idea of kind of certain attributes that were instilled in you as a young person, especially with how your parents kind of analyze things and how I think that they’re both so absolutely hysterical to speak to as well. 

 I think my parents both have worked very hard their entire lives to create kind of what we have today. And I think that was instilled in me from a very young age was the value of just hard work and dedication and putting yourself in that rigorous program or taking on that extra extracurricular because it can all benefit you in so many different ways. 

 And just going that step further can help open new doors for you. So that was something that was always instilled in me. So, I mean, it could definitely seem daunting. 

 I know I applied to a pretty big list of schools. So I had a lot of essays to write. So I guess my biggest tidbits of advice would be one, to just try to tell a story that sounds authentic about you. 

 Tell a story that just really shows multiple aspects of your personality and allows them to really understand who you are. So one of my main essays was about hearing issues that I’ve dealt with, but I also kind of wanted to tie that into learning Spanish. And I also started it with a bit of humor. 

 So it’s just like kind of trying to tie in many different aspects about you. And I also would say, try to write your essays on various topics because they don’t just wanna read the same essay over and over. And I guess just kind of pick the things that are most important to you and the things that have been most impactful in your life, because those are the best experiences that you emotionally can write about, I think, because they wanna find a connection with you in your essays. 

 I have always loved Berkeley. My brother was interested in Berkeley when he applied. And so we went and toured it in the pandemic. 

 And we toured a lot of schools in the pandemic. So it was just kind of a drive-through tour. But I absolutely loved the campus from the moment I saw it. 

 And I thought it was incredible. And the more I researched it, I was like, wow, this is an incredibly academically rigorous school. It’s very well known. 

 It has a really interesting major for me that I haven’t seen something like integrative biology at any other school, honestly. So I think I was just drawn to many different aspects of Berkeley. And then now coming to Berkeley as an admitted student and just getting to see student life, I just absolutely love the environment of the campus. 

 I mean, the buildings themselves obviously are gorgeous. The campus is so many different things. In one area, you’re in a forest. 

 In one area, you’re in completely new modern architecture. And I absolutely love that. And so I think there were so many things about Berkeley that I just felt like pretty much as soon as I opened my decision letter, I was like, okay, I’m going to Berkeley. 

 Yeah, I mean, obviously, you guys were so helpful throughout my entire process and just kind of keeping me on the right track and giving me reassurance that I was doing the right things and just answering any questions that I needed. But I think one of the things that I personally found the most helpful was you looking over my essays because that is something that I knew I would need going into this because I have a strong background in English, but I just didn’t know if I could exactly tell my stories in the way that sounded the most cohesive and fluent. And so to have you available to look over my essays and maybe even bring up new ideas that I didn’t think of bringing up before was really helpful. 

 And I think it strengthened a lot of my portfolios that I sent out to schools. The college process is so different now than it has been in the past. And so everyone receives different results no matter what their application looks like or what statistics they achieve. 

 So number one, you’re going to end up where you’re supposed to end up. And I have been told this a thousand times at this point throughout my process when different decisions were coming out. But you definitely are gonna end up where you’re meant to be. 

 And I think another thing is, like I said earlier, it can be daunting to be like, okay, I have been in this structured life for my entire childhood. Now it’s me trying to choose where I’m trying to go. So there’s a lot of different factors to consider when you’re choosing a college. 

 And so think of the things that are most important to you first. So like, do you wanna live in a specific location? What kind of academic environment do you want? What majors are you looking for and what school is best for that major? So just kind of taking those factors into consideration to help you create the list that’s the best for you. And the whole process itself, it can be a lot of work, but there are people here to support you, obviously. 

 And yeah, it all works out how it’s supposed to. 

Hi, my name is Storm Smith. I’m going to Cornell’s Hotel School.  

 I had a job most of the school year, senior year, and I also had a job during the summer before. I also had the chance to start a business during the school year with an entrepreneurial-minded peer of mine. He’s a farmer. He’s going to school for agriculture. 

 What he specializes in is hay and basically turning under-used land, land that otherwise would probably just sit there and not make any money, and using the rainwater and simple irrigation, a little bit of tractor work, to grow hay there, like planting it, a little bit of overhead cost. So me and him went into a business together where we planted like 42 acres, I believe it is, of hay, which we, you know, it’s all grown, cut, baled now, and we’re selling it. So that was one thing I did. 

 Can you share with us how you found your major? 

 I learned a lot about it from my boss. He’s the chef. He’s the owner. 

 Very cool guy. He went to CIA, they call it, the Culinary Institute of America, which is in New York, and it has like an association with Cornell’s Hotel School, which is like the creme de la creme of, you know, HRM, hotel restaurant management programs. And I found out about it because I was looking into the CIA, the Culinary Institute, and I found out about the hotel school, and then I was like, oh, that’s kind of cool, that’s right up my alley. 

 There’s only a couple schools that have the kind of program I was interested in, and Cornell has the best one, so. How did you decide between Berkeley and Cornell? Well, what really pushed me over was, it was tough though, because I had such a family draw to Berkeley. I have like, both my parents went there, they met there, you know, I’ve gone to Berkeley, like Cal Bear Games my whole life. 

 You know, I’ve been around UC Berkeley a lot, and I kind of always, when I was a kid, thought of myself as, oh, I’d like to go there, that’s where I hope I go. So when I got in, it seems kind of like a shoo-in, easy, like yeah, I should definitely go to Berkeley. But the program I got into there, I would have just been going to the College of Arts and Sciences and trying to major in economics, but that didn’t seem as, didn’t really meet my goal as much, like with my intended life path. 

 I wanted to pick a degree that would propel me into a career in hospitality, and I knew that Cornell’s hotel program was a perfect, the perfect place to start. So it was a tough call for sure, because I felt like there’s nothing, I couldn’t go wrong just going to Berkeley and kind of, you know, taking up the family banner. But I’m excited to kind of blaze my own trail and go to do my own thing and go to Cornell and study what I’m trying to study. 

 Yeah, just having someone you can talk to. And, you know, when you’re struggling on these apps, because there’s so many questions, and they might not seem so complicated or so demanding of questions until you really start to break them down and actually like write out answers and like come up with meaningful stories, you know, to tell, because you’re trying to explain who you are, your character, through just a couple like very, very simple questions. And I think that that process itself is very challenging and very like, if you’ve never had to do anything like that before, which I know I hadn’t, kind of like explore yourself and like, who am I? How do I explain myself to these colleges through just, through just so many words, I mean, through 500 words or whatever, however many characters they give you. 

 Yeah, just having someone that knows how to wordsmith and how to share the best parts of yourself and like really share stories that are, you know, pull people in and, you know, yeah, draw people in to your story. You want people to, you’re selling yourself a little bit. So it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s super challenging. 

 I’d never done that before and having someone that knows what they’re doing and can help you along the way is super, super helpful. Man, in 9th or 10th grade, I would just, I would take it easy a little bit. I mean, don’t worry too much about the future. 

 Just like I said earlier with meeting, with moving to a new place, just kind of let things come naturally and flow to you and try to, try to get good grades, try to, you know, do your schoolwork, but don’t kill yourself doing it. Just, you know, try to stay on top of everything. And by the time you get to your junior or senior year, you’ll have a little bit better idea of maybe what you’re trying to do. 

 And if you don’t, that’s still okay. I mean, I didn’t have a really solid idea of, this is what I’m going to do until I feel like right before I, you know, like ED to Cornell. I was on the fence, you know what I mean? So it’s, it’s not going to come to you right away. 

 You know, I wish I knew really early on what I wanted to do, but I didn’t. If you don’t know though, you’re fine. Like that’s, it’s completely normal. 

 That’s completely okay. And just letting things come naturally and like, just, just trying to stay on top of everything and do your best. 

Hi, I’m Brooke, and I’m going to be majoring in government at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. 

 Can you think or point to anything in your upbringing that maybe created some type of value system for you that kind of motivated you to do well that you really find is like grounding for you?  

 Yeah, I would say that my parents have always been very supportive in having me explore different things. 

 So when I was little, I actually tried a bunch of different activities and I would quit things and some things I realized I wasn’t good at. But it got me in that rhythm of being willing to try new things and see if I liked them, which really helped me out once I got to high school and was trying to figure out what extracurriculars I thought I would be interested in and what I might want to major in. And I’m just thankful that they’ve been supported through everything. 

 That’s actually really interesting. So, tell us the things that you did outside the classroom that just kept you busy.  

 So I love to write. 

 I did a lot of creative writing outside of school because my school actually didn’t offer any creative writing classes or programs really. So that was one of my main hobbies. And eventually, once I got confident enough, I started submitting to youth literary magazines and competitions and got some recognition there. 

 And during COVID, when I had extra time, I actually started my own youth literary magazine online. So I found that was a really helpful creative outlet and I encourage anyone to find their creative outlet in some way. And then I was also involved with volunteer work and some political organizing, working on campaigns and trying to help out with issues that were important to me, like environmental advocacy and voter engagement. 

 So I tried to keep myself busy. I would say I had a mixture of letting myself see how things were going to work out and setting distinct goals because I knew that I wanted to take challenging classes and do well and do everything I could so that I would set myself up well for college applications. 

 But I definitely didn’t know what I was going to do. At the beginning of high school, I tried cheerleading, which I ended up quitting after a couple of years. And I didn’t realize that I wanted to major in government or political science until probably junior year after joining youth in government. 

 So I would say I set goals for myself at the beginning of each year of wanting to try a certain amount of new things or join a club and get straight A’s. But I definitely allowed myself room to explore within that. 

 What was the most challenging part of planning for college?  

 I think for me, the hardest thing was just my mindset. The essays were definitely a lot of work because especially applying to a lot of reach schools, there were so many essays. But I feel like once I had a schedule for myself and organized everything, that wasn’t terrible. 

 But I think with how unpredictable the process can feel, really what was hard for me was staying positive. And I feel like I needed to distance myself from the process a little bit and remind myself that my results weren’t reflective of me as a person. And I just had to do my best because it’s a very challenging and long process since it does go throughout the whole year. 

 And I think at first it was rough to balance that with first semester of senior year. But once I got the hang of it and realized that it was just going to work out how it was meant to, it was a lot easier to deal with and eventually get my results. Because at that point, I was just excited to see what was finally going to happen. 

 Excellent. So if you have someone that’s maybe coming up the ranks behind you, and now that you’ve charted your path, you’re on the other side now, what advice could you maybe give to a student?  

 That’s difficult. I would say that I’d encourage people to, I would say, don’t doubt yourself or be too hard on yourself because you’ll end up where you’re supposed to be. 

 And I know that a lot of people will tell you that, but it really does work out. And don’t limit yourself. Make sure you apply to reach schools and, you know, just go for it because it will end up working out. 

 And it’s a difficult process, but I know that I went through so much stress thinking that I wasn’t going to end up at a place that was right for me or thinking that the process would never end. But it eventually does come to an end and you will get through it. And yeah, it will work out. 

 I think the main thing is to try and stay calm. There was so much unnecessary stress and you are prepared for this at the point where you apply to schools and everything. You are ready to do this and it will work out how it’s supposed to. 

 That’s such good advice. Sound advice, actually. Thank you. 

 Could you think of was there any point in the time that you spent with us that you found to be beneficial during your college process?  

 Yeah, of course. I think the most helpful thing for me was just the essay feedback, because that was the most daunting part of actually applying to school for me, especially because a lot of schools have so many supplemental essays now. And I think that that really helped me be confident in my applications when I actually submitted them and also just made the process smoother of me not having to just sit there and wonder how many drafts I needed or be frustrated staring at the computer. 

 So I think it really helps polish your application and take a lot of stress off because the essays can be the most time consuming and stressful part. 

 Any parting words or anything?  

 I would just say, you know, be confident in yourself. It’s going to work out and you can do this.