Congrats to all RD applicants that had to submit their application today !!! You did it !!!

Props to all you hard-working seniors that "grinded" over Winter break to get your Common App submitted to your RD schools. Take a few days off and use generous amounts of self-care to help piece yourself back together. Catch up on your sleep, shower, eat something good and take your vitamins.

Anywhere between 2 and 3 months you will know where you are going and I hope for all your sake, you don't get waitlisted at your dream schools.

Let me impart you with some words of wisdom.

1. Where you go to undergraduate college, does not define you as a human being !!

2. No college can transform you into someone great !! You are either great already or not.

3. The fact that you might not get into your top choice or top choices doesn't mean your doors have closed. There are plenty of people regardless of whether they go to a community college or a state college who are super successful in life. Plus, you can always transfer to a better school after 1 year.

4. If you have decent, normal, kind, and caring parents and family members, they will still support you regardless of the outcome. Do not think you have failed your friends and family if you don't get admitted to your top choice(s).

5. There is nothing you can do to intervene in the college admissions process unless the college contacts you for more information. Therefore, sit tight, relax and focus on your senior year. What is done is done. Let go. Make the most of the little time you have left with your friends and people you interact with regularly.

6. Be empathetic and compassionate to your schoolmates and friends when they are given bad news. Some of them will freak out others will have a meltdown. Remind them that they are the same person that they were 5 minutes ago regardless of the outcome. Now they have to shrug it off and keep living because college is only 1 small aspect of your identity.

7. If you get into your dream college, great. But don't gloat. Don't make a YouTube or TikTok video about yourself. Be humble and have gratitude that the admissions Gods picked you. Your friends will like you better.

8. Regardless of where you end up going, make the absolute best experience of it as you possibly can and be exceptionally positive. You will end up meeting more future friends and being part of something greater than yourself.

9. Pay it forward. If there is something you learned during this college admissions process that can help younger classmates definitely share it with your younger friends at school.

10. Don't hold a grudge. College admission like life is very messy at best and a work in progress. Nepotism, legacy admissions, donor admissions, and other admissions policies are unfair and highlight the inequity in higher education. Hopefully, things will get better for future generations but in the meantime just focus on what you can control, not what is out of your control.

Good luck in the NEW YEAR !!!! Happy 2023 !!!!