Well, I can now call myself a Cherry Creek High School alum, which is a little weird to think about. Creek has meant and given so much to me these past four years that it is a little odd saying goodbye. But my excitement for the next four years makes it easier to do so.

I think it’s always worthwhile to look back and learn from past experiences, especially during a transition like this, but at some point the past is the past and it’s the future you must look to. That’s the point I’m at now. I’ve had time over this graduation period to think about all the great experiences I had and lessons I learned from high school, but now I’m getting excited for my next phase — college.

Moving on to college will be different. That’s for sure. But as I remember saying in one of my first blogs, different isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, I believe it can be quite good. And I think the attitude I go into college with, the attitude I experience “different” with, will help to determine whether “different” turns out to be good or bad. So, I’m going to enter college with an open mind and a good attitude, because I can at least control those two things.

Saying goodbye to friends I’ve had since kindergarten and a life at home will probably be difficult, but I’m glad it’s difficult. Because if it were easy, it would mean that the life I led here was not particularly meaningful, and it most certainly was.

Making new friends and living on my own will be exciting. That’s what I’m focusing on. It will be fun to meet a whole new group of people, many of whom I look forward to calling my friends. And living on my own is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time now because of the freedom and independence it entails.

All in all, I believe that the way you approach situations is almost as important as the situation itself in determining its outcome. So, as I get ready for next year now that the past four have come to a close, I feel a little better knowing that I have some control over the next step by looking at it in a positive light.

But in the meantime, over the summer before next year starts, I plan on taking full advantage of my friendships and family at home. I believe we seniors have earned this summer and I plan on having a blast before college!

To those other graduates out there, enjoy the next step and go into it with a positive mindset, and to those still in high school, remember that there is no substitute for hard work and being prepared — it’s all worth it in the end, I promise.

Subject-matter (such as advanced placement) tests start Monday. So for the next two weeks, students will experience a whirlwind of last-minute studying, test-taking, and then relief at being finished with a year’s worth of college-level material.

For some, this will be your 2nd or 3rd year taking subject-matter tests. But for others, this will be your first year.

Remembering back to my first year taking these tests, I was extremely nervous, having no idea what to expect when it came to my first big standardized test. Remembering how nice it would have been to have some idea of what to expect, I thought I would run through what subject-matter tests are like — at least from my vantage point — and how best to prepare for them in the days before.

The preparation for your test really starts weeks before the actual test. Over the past few weeks I ran through my notes from class/review materials and copied down things that were particularly important or that I forgot onto a review sheet. This way, the night or two before the test when I start to get nervous, I have a sheet with just the important things to refresh my memory instead of having to try and leaf through everything, which just tends to frustrate and confuse me.

Exercising always seems to help keep me calm and relaxed. So, after reading my review sheet the night before a test, I like to do something physical just to get the “jitters” out of my system. Whether it’s going for a run, playing basketball, or anything else, just doing something active after spending so much time studying always seems to help me. This way, when I get back to my house and get to bed, I sleep well.

When it comes to sleep, get your usual amount. When it comes to something that is going to test a full year of learning, one night isn’t going to make that much difference, so don’t stay up late trying to cram. There’s also no need to oversleep. Sometimes I find that when I sleep too much, I feel just as groggy in the morning as I would have had I not slept that much. Whatever amount of sleep you usually get on a school night should work best.

In the morning, definitely take a shower to wake up and then have a light breakfast. Not having food in your stomach will not be fun when food is all you think about instead of the test. But by the same token, overeating can make you feel tired or weighed down when you need to be awake.

Show up to your test early. You don’t want to feel rushed or stressed before you even get started on the test. And use the bathroom before you go into the classroom if you have to at all. Make sure to bring an ID, a pen, pencils, an eraser, and depending on the test, a calculator with spare batteries. Being prepared is key. You don’t want some silly thing like having your calculator run out of batteries prevent you from doing as well as you could have on the test.

During the test itself, stay relaxed.  Remember that there’s only an upside to subject-matter tests. If you do well, you may get some college credit. If not, you’ll have a leg up taking the class in college with some experience already in that subject. And don’t let any one particular question get to you. If something stumps you, slow down and think through it another way. If you’re really stumped, just skip the problem. Come back to it at the end if you have extra time. Keep in mind that subject-matter tests are graded on a curve. They’re not like tests in your regular classes where you have to get the vast majority of the problems correct to do well.

Also, use your breaks. Even if you don’t have to use the bathroom, get up and walk there. If nothing else, it clears your head and gives you a quick change of scenery before you start another section.

In short, be prepared, stay focused, and keep calm. And when it’s all over, celebrate!

Good luck to everyone taking subject-matter tests this week … see you on the other side.

During this past week, my school held graduation performance auditions. Because our school is so large, we do not have a valedictorian. Instead, our school has the principal’s “top ten students” for academic distinction and anyone can audition for a chance to speak or perform at graduation. Eight student speeches or performances are chosen to be given on graduation, and I auditioned for one of those spots with a speech I wrote for the occasion. The purpose of the speech is to highlight the importance of participation and not perfection as a goal.

Fourteen years, eleven months, and three days ago, the largely symbolic South African Rugby team, Springboks, took the field for the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship game. Led by their captain and cheered for personally by their country’s new president, Nelson Mandela, the Springboks defeated New Zealand’s All Blacks in extra time with a drop goal.

The 1995 Rugby World Cup was the first major sporting event to take place in South Africa following the end of apartheid, and it was the Springboks’ first appearance in the Rugby World Cup, having been barred from participating due to their nation’s persistent racism. To say the least, the Springboks had the spotlight on them, and they performed brilliantly underneath it on the world stage. So much so, that the legacy from that performance extends into the present through the recent movie Invictus, which portrays this story of the Springboks.

While Invictus deserves the critical acclaim it received for its historical portrayal of the Springboks and Nelson Mandela, there is at least one major discrepancy between the movie and reality.

In the movie, Nelson Mandela meets with the captain of the Springboks before the World Cup. Mandela provides him with the aptly titled poem “Invictus,” which means unconquerable, presumably as a source of inspiration for the team facing great odds. In reality, President Mandela met with the captain of the team and even gave him a piece of literature for inspiration, but this poem “Invictus” was not the piece of literature President Mandela gave to the captain. Instead, President Mandela gave him an excerpt from President Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “The Man in the Arena.”

I believe this distinction in Mandela’s choice of literature carries an extremely important message, especially for all of us sitting here today.

Mandela’s message to the Springboks was not that they were or should be unconquerable, as is suggested by the poem in the movie. Rather, his message was one of pride and respect because those men had the courage to be “in the arena.”

None of us are unconquerable. We are all human. But this realization is not an excuse for giving up. Instead, it should serve as motivation for learning from our mistakes. The only failure in a mistake is the failure to learn from it, the failure to better prepare to succeed in the future.

Our arenas will most likely not be as clearly defined or literal as a rugby stadium. But our arenas are no less significant.

Whether your arena these next four years and beyond is a college campus, office building, or military base, it is your arena, and you must learn to excel within it.

My hope today is that we all learn to recognize the arenas that are important to us and that we have the courage to fully participate in those arenas without the fear of losing. To recognize that by participation we are, like the Rugby team, already winners.

Those of us who ultimately succeed in life will choose to enter the arena, learn from setbacks and use those challenges as a motivation for success.  As Nelson Mandela himself once put it, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

With these thoughts in mind, I would like to leave you with the words of President Theodore Roosevelt. For these are the words that President Nelson Mandela shared with the South African Rugby team to serve as their inspiration, and it is these words I share with you today with a similar intention.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The biggest day in the college admissions process for most seniors is April 1st. This is the day students who applied regular decision will hear back from their schools. With this date having come and gone, the college admissions torch has now been passed on to a new class: the college graduating class of 2015.

With this in mind, I thought I would run through the part of the college admissions process that I had to do entirely alone, and the class of 2015 will do it alone too. It’s called the admissions interview and — having recently gone through it — I have a few thoughts on the experience.

First of all, don’t fret about your interview. It’s hardly as “ominous” as people make it out to be. Without exception among my group of friends, our interviewers were all very nice and really not that intimidating or scary. They are all active alumni who are trying to give your application a human dimension for the application committee to take into consideration.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared, however. The night before my interview, I found the office location on MapQuest, so I knew where to go to meet my interviewer.

The morning of the interview I made sure I had plenty of time to get there, especially because it was in a part of town I didn’t know well. I also made sure to get there early too, because I believe arriving early sends a great message to the interviewer about your level of responsibility and desire to attend that college (if you don’t care about the school, you’re not going to arrive early for an interview!).

Dressing appropriately is also a must. And remember that it’s always better to be over-dressed than under-dressed. I showed up to my interview wearing a coat and tie, and my interviewer certainly noticed and even commented on my attire, mentioning how he too wore a coat and tie to his interview some 30 years earlier. This established a connection and a sense of respect at the beginning that I believe worked to my advantage throughout the interview.

Stay calm and be yourself. Don’t put undue pressure on yourself, either. Make sure to prepare a few things you want to mention about yourself before the interview, but other than that just respond honestly and remember that this isn’t the time to be humble. Don’t oversell yourself, but make sure they understand the full extent of your accomplishments, especially if they include things the interviewer may not be familiar with.

Don’t memorize and regurgitate your resume for the interview. The college already knows what’s on your application! It doesn’t hurt to mention some highlights, the things that you are most proud of, but give the interviewer something to report to the application committee about you that they don’t already know. I viewed the interview as an opportunity to reaffirm some of my proudest qualities and accomplishments but also to give the interviewer an idea of me that wasn’t readily apparent in my application, like my personality type.

In short, for your interview, be prepared but don’t worry. Dress up and get there early. Be proud of your accomplishments and give the interviewer something new and interesting to add to your application. Class of 2015, your interview may not be for a while, but hopefully this post will make it less “ominous” when it does roll around for you next year.

Over the next couple weeks, most seniors will begin to hear back from the schools they applied to under regular decision programs. As the decisions come in, seniors will have to make the very big decision of where to spend the next four years of their lives. I hope that by going through my reasons for choosing to attend Dartmouth, I can aid those seniors hearing from schools in their process of choosing where to go.

Firstly, the college you choose will not only be your place of learning for the next four years, it will also be your home. You have to find a place where you feel comfortable living. For me, I love Dartmouth’s campus and location. I love the snow and the cold, the fact that Dartmouth is secluded in a small town surrounded by a forest, and even just the buildings on campus. I also feel more comfortable moving to a small town knowing that Boston is only a little over two hours away and that Dartmouth runs buses to and from Boston almost every day.

In addition to making sure a college’s physical location and campus suit your personality, you have to make sure the students do as well. I am a very active person. I love playing sports, and growing up in Colorado, having access to the outdoors is also something that is very important to me. The fact that 80% of Dartmouth students participate in some form of organized athletics and that the Dartmouth Outing Club is the largest club on campus made me feel right at home with the students.

You also have to find a school that is the right size for you. I go to a large high school with more than 3,400 kids. I wanted to find a college that was a little bigger than my high school, but not by much. I like the size of my high school. It seems large enough to provide me with the activities and facilities I need while not being so large that I feel like a faceless person in the crowd. Dartmouth has a little more than 4,000 undergraduate students, and that size feels right for me. Other kids may feel that only 4,000 kids are too small for their liking.

There are some “just because” reasons that you want to go to a particular college. For me, those “just because” reasons were tradition and community. I wanted a football team to support, and I needed a strong sense of school spirit. Probably because of its relative isolation, Dartmouth has a sense of community that I didn’t find anywhere else. More than 90% of students live on campus all four years and I have yet to meet an alumnus who hasn’t told me how they wish they were back in my shoes, about to start their Dartmouth experience.

Last, but certainly not least, are academics. You have to choose a place where you fit academically. I liked the concept of small class sizes and having professors and not T.A.s teach the classes at Dartmouth. But going to a smaller school like Dartmouth may prevent you from taking classes that are only offered at a larger institution with the resources to support different types of classes. Going to a liberal arts college also may not provide me with the technical expertise I might need for specific jobs. But this is something that I valued less than the benefits I saw from pursuing a liberal arts education. Dartmouth is also on a type of quarter system called the D-Plan which I fell in love with because it requires 3 classes a quarter instead of 4 classes a semester. However, some people may not like the fact that the D-Plan also involves staying on campus during sophomore summer, but it’s something for which I am actually excited.

As you can see, choosing a college is an involved decision which only the person going to the school can truly make. Input from parents and friends is definitely helpful, just as long as you remember that in the end it’s your decision because it’s the next four years of your life. Good luck choosing a school and remember that at the end of the day, your college experience will be what you make of it. No one school can guarantee you a good or bad experience. That’s up to you.

I’m no college admissions officer, but I do believe I’ve picked up some helpful ideas during my time writing college essays. Hopefully you will find them helpful too:

1) Start Early. Especially when it gets close to submission dates, all I hear from my friends is how they wished they had started earlier than they did. Learn from their last-minute mistakes! Don’t put yourself in that position. Being stressed about not having enough time adds unnecessary pressure to a situation that is already full of stress. You’re not going to understand how much time and effort it takes to write a college essay until you start the process yourself, and too often you underestimate the amount of time and effort it takes. The summer before your senior year is a great time to get rolling on your essays because then you don’t have the pressures of school or application deadlines.

2) Don’t limit yourself, especially in the beginning. You might think that you have a defining experience or influential moment already lined up to write about for your college essay, but don’t close yourself off before even starting. Take some time before writing to look at the specific prompt and let your mind wander within the parameters of that prompt to see where you end up. You might be surprised at where you do. The essays I used for college were not the ones I thought I would write. They ended up being the essays I thought of on a whim during such brainstorming exercises.

3) Sleep on it. Sometimes when you are caught up in the passion of writing, words flow that just sound remarkable, incredible, and seem to not need a second glance. But nothing that you write the very first time will be perfect. Always take the time to stop, sleep on what you wrote, and return to it the next day, or even the next week. All of the essays I used evolved over months of rewrites. Make sure to sleep on “finished” drafts and come back to them for review.

4) The more eyes, the better. Having your siblings, parents, and friends look over your essays is helpful. The more people you have to give input, the better. Just remember two things: (1) don’t lose yourself in everyone’s suggestions and (2) family’s and friend’s suggestions are great, but remember they aren’t your college admissions officers! Also, try to get an English teacher, counselor, or someone else more directly related to writing or college to take a look at your essay. (Current college students, especially freshmen, are great too because they just went through this process. Try to pick students you know at the schools you want to go to, if possible.)

5) Be yourself, and stand out. Colleges get tons of applications. Even though you spend countless hours perfecting your college essays, college admissions officers spend only minutes reading them. This may seem unfair, but it is understandable considering how many applications they have to read. Knowing this, however, should prove to you the importance of making your essay unique and of being yourself. Everyone has unique and fun experiences. Just spend some time trying to remember yours. And remember that the largest event in your life may not always be the most revealing of who you are. Sometimes quirky, seemingly less-significant stories paint an even better picture of who you are. Also, trying to write as if you are someone you are not is easy to see through. Be authentic. If you think that you need to change who you are in an essay to be admitted into a particular college, think twice about whether that college is right for you.

I hope these tips help you as you start to think about your college essays. If you give yourself enough time to make the process less stressful, writing about yourself and your experiences can not only be rewarding but actually kind of fun. And remember that when you begin to write your essays — have fun with them!

Each morning during my third-period class, the school announcements begin. Last week, a new announcement was added to the traditional list of sporting events and club meetings — next year’s scheduling sheets are now available in the registrar’s office for current freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

A few thoughts crossed my mind when I heard that announcement, the first of which was the realization that, for the first time, I was not a part of that challenging, yet exciting process of picking high school classes.

I took a minute to remember each high school year when I went through the process of selecting the following year’s classes. In remembering this process, I stumbled upon some tricks I discovered along the way. Hopefully they’ll be helpful to you in choosing your own classes:

1. Talk to your current teachers. Your teachers have a pretty good idea of how you are as a student and a pretty good idea of what the next level of classes are like. Be sure to make use of the fact that they know both! Your current teachers will give you a pretty good idea of where they think is best for you next year, but be warned — they teach the subject they do because they are passionate about it. You may not be, so make sure they aren’t pushing you in a direction that you don’t want to go because THEY like the subject matter so much.
2. Talk to students who took the classes you are interested in. For the most part, kids don’t sugarcoat their feelings about classes (after all, they don’t work with or have personal relationships with the teachers of those classes like your current teachers do). This is very useful for getting to know the things about classes that teachers won’t tell you — if the teachers are tough graders, if they care about tardiness, if they’ll bump your grade at semester if you’re on the border, etc. Just remember that students have their biases, especially if they didn’t do as well as they wanted to in a particular class. Make sure to get a few different opinions about a class from the kids who are most similar to you in personality, study habits, and interests.
3. Talk to your counselor. Counselors, although not in such a specialized way, know a lot about the different classes and teachers at your school. They, like your teachers, should also have a pretty good idea of who you are as a student, but they also know your overall goals and your planned path through high school, so they can recommend pretty good matches as far as classes and teachers go. You can also talk to the department coordinator. This person knows each one of the teachers and classes in their department very well, so they are always a great resource and are typically willing to help students who want to find the best fit for a class in their department. Just remember that coordinators are busy, so try sending them an e-mail to set up a time to meet that works for them instead of just barging in on their office.
4. Read through the course descriptions and try to get a copy of the syllabus if the teacher provides one. Although these formal documents may be a little dry, they are still worth reading. They tell you exactly how the class works and what you will be doing. They may not give you insight into the teacher’s personality or some of the details, but they help you to figure out if you’re at least interested in the subject matter.
5. Go for the good teachers instead of the classes when possible. You may not always be able to pick classes based solely on the teacher, but when you can, go for the teacher over the class. Teachers who are fun and interested in what they are teaching always make class the same way — fun and interesting. Some of the best classes I took in high school were ones that I may not have thought about taking were it not for the teacher. Take a risk; learn about something you may never have considered!
6. Take a rigorous course load. Most schools offer classes of different levels. It may not seem worthwhile at the time, but taking the most rigorous course load you can handle is important. Learning to work hard and get through challenging material is one of the best ways to prepare for college and beyond. At some point, some class will challenge you. The sooner you get practice with challenging material, the better prepared you will be to handle it in the future.

I hope these six tips on picking classes help those of you who are doing just that for your next year of high school, and remember each year of high school gets better than the one before!

It’s like I’m watching the same movie scene over and over again each time one of my friends gets into college. Immediately, he or she is understandably overcome with excitement; after all, four years of hard work has been leading up to this very moment. Then, deserved congratulations come from most everyone who hears about the acceptance. It’s not until later, after the exhilaration subsides (which can take days, even weeks!) that a realization hits — how am I going to pay for this amazing school I just got into?

In my search for an answer to that very same question, I have come across some resources that I found helpful and that I hope you will too. But before I discuss them, I have to clarify one thing about scholarships: they come in two varieties. There are need-based scholarships, and there are merit-based scholarships. You must qualify for need-based scholarships based on your family’s income. Merit-based scholarships require no such qualification and are open to anyone. Both merit- and need-based scholarships can be found through the following two resources.

The first resource I want to talk about is my first stop when it comes to any question of mine: the Internet. The best website I have found so far for scholarship searches is www.fastweb.com (opens new window). The Dartmouth financial aid website is actually where I first heard about it. For this website, you create a profile by answering some basic questions about yourself, your grades, your test scores, and your interests. Based on your answers to those questions, the website matches you with scholarships registered with the site. The first time I logged on, it suggested more than 50 scholarships for me, and every few days it seems I have an e-mail from fastweb.com (opens new window) about a new scholarship for which I am eligible to apply. (ACT note: Always read a website’s terms of use and privacy policy before disclosing personal information.)

There really are scholarships for everything, and some scholarships take less effort than you think. For example, I submitted an application for a $1,000 scholarship that only required me to fill in my name, e-mail, and address and to provide a digital copy of my common application essay for consideration.

In addition to going to the Internet, I used another resource to find scholarships: my school counselor. I set up a meeting with my counselor, and she knew about some scholarships that were unique to my school and area that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. For example, the retired teachers of my school district sponsor a scholarship for one of the district’s graduating seniors. I also found out from my counselor that even some of the clubs at my school provide college scholarships. Make sure to meet with your school counselor. Your school may also have unique scholarship opportunities like mine, but how will you know if you never ask?

Whether you look for scholarships on your own through the Internet or with the help of a counselor at school, or both, good luck scholarship hunting!

Second semester started today at my school, and with it came the relief of the senior class. College applications were out, 1st semester grades were in, and all anyone seemed to be talking about was this ubiquitous disease called, “senioritis,” which apparently infects the senior class starting about this time.

At first, even I started to notice some of the symptoms of this disease — lack of concern for future grades, an excessive need to be social at all costs, and even a general disregard for responsibilities pertaining to high school. But then I realized that it was my choice whether or not to catch this disease, and maybe it wasn’t as harmless as everyone had thought.

The fear of a rescinded application (which I found out is a real possibility when I talked to current students at Dartmouth about it) was enough to make me think twice about catching a serious case of senioritis. But at the same time, how could I treat the unique opportunity of second semester as something ordinary?

On the one hand, this is the last semester of high school, the last semester to be with high school friends under the same school roof. It is a rare opportunity when we have a smidge more latitude on grades, and being the oldest, we seniors are finally at the top of the totem pole. But our grades do still matter, and we still have responsibilities to the organizations and clubs to which we belong.

The conclusion that I have come to about “senioritis” is one of moderation: it would be a waste for us to ignore the benefits of second semester — we should enjoy the last months with our friends and the opportunity not to have to worry about grades as much — but we can’t forget about our responsibilities — our responsibility to our classes, to our clubs, and most importantly to ourselves. If the fear of not being prepared for tests or a rescinded application is what scares you healthy, then so be it, but ideally our personal integrity should keep us from developing severe cases of “senioritis.”

Good luck to all of you in finding your balance between fun and responsibility this last semester. Enjoy your friends, and keep working hard!

Postnote:
Right before the semester started I talked with a lot of my friends about “second semester resolutions,” and here’s what they said:

“I want to finally read a book for fun.”
“I want to become friends with more of our class before we graduate.”
“I want to go to lunch with friends every day instead of staying in and studying more.”
“I want to learn more about my favorite subject instead of studying more for a class I don’t like.”
“I’m going to start running for exercise.”
“I’m going to have breakfast with my Mom before I leave for school.”
“I’m going to help my younger sister with her homework more.”
“I’m going to pick guitar back up as a hobby.”
“I’m going to listen to lectures from iTunes U to prepare for college classes.”

Two p.m. MST on December 8th, 2009, is a date and time I will never forget; nor will I forget the series of events which led up to and followed that point in time. Let me explain. I’ll start at the beginning.

On December 4th I received an e-mail from the Dartmouth admissions office explaining that my admissions decision letter would be available online starting at 4:00 EST on December 8th. This was quite a surprise, as I had not expected a decision before December 15th, the date they had set for admissions decisions.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that weekend. I did try, however, to occupy my time by working on a government term paper, by volunteering at Denver’s parade of lights for my National Honor Society and by playing racquetball with both my Dad and my best friend. Those things helped distract me, but I still couldn’t wait for Tuesday.

Monday came and went with no news.

I woke up Tuesday morning earlier than normal, ready for the day to begin. Before I left for school, I opened the Dartmouth application status webpage and also opened the e-mail containing my assigned username and password. I closed the screen, knowing that the next time I opened it, I would know the answer to the question which had dominated my thoughts ever since I had clicked the Dartmouth submit button.

At 2:00 p.m. I met my brother (a junior at my school) in the counseling office where I work during the last period of the day. We grabbed my laptop and headed to the empty foreign language resource center.

I opened up the screen, logged on to the school’s wireless network, typed in my username and password, clicked the return button, and stepped away. I couldn’t read the letter. I told my brother to read it aloud.

The first word which came out of my brother’s mouth was “Congratulations.” That was all I needed to hear. I’m not going to lie — I went a little crazy.

The rest of the day was kind of a blur, but it was full of sharing that moment with friends and family over the phone, on Facebook, and in person, when possible. Successes aren’t worthwhile without friends and family to share them with, and I am thankful to have the friends and family I do.

Dartmouth has a class of 2014 webpage on their site, which has everything from menus for the different dining halls to tips on how to deal with parents experiencing separation anxiety! The webpage also has a directory of all the admitted students, which lists their name, high school, e-mail address, and a personal message from them. Using this and the Dartmouth 2014 Facebook group, I have already been able to make contact with many of my future classmates.

Even as I become excited with things like getting to know my future classmates, I still have to remember that I have another semester left in high school. I still have responsibilities to follow through with, however tempting it may be to say, “Forget this! I’m already accepted to college!”

To all of those who also received a good early letter, congratulations! And to those of you who are still waiting, best of luck. I know your moment will come soon enough, and I promise, it’s worth all the hard work and the wait!