Brian Kim, Marketing Editor
My name is Brian Kim, and I am a senior at Quartz Hill High School. With college applications approaching, I have spent some time working on my UC application. I finished many of my essays over the summer, but I still need to wrap up my activities list portion. Due to the financial limitations of applying to private schools out of state, starting my common application comes second.
As I continue the IB program, I fear for my future. All of my IB exams take place this year and I feel slightly burnt out and overwhelmed by my next semester’s workload. I also plan on taking the AP Government, AP Literature, and AP Environmental Science exams, along with my IB exams. However, I am still considering taking the AP Environmental Science exam and course as a whole if the work proves too difficult, which I hope is not the outcome.
The IB exam I am most nervous about as of now is my math exam. I hope the teacher will prepare us well enough for the exam. We may also have difficulty attending lessons due to the issues with the IB group having different lunches for the first time. We may have to miss classes to participate in the meetings during A lunch.
January 30, 2023 Update
It is currently the second semester, and college application season is finally ending. As a result of many discussions with my parents and the rest of my family, we have decided that it would be best for me to only apply to colleges within California. This is because my father receives benefits from the CalVet organization for being a military veteran, so it would be best to only apply to colleges considered Universities of California to receive such financial aid.
A few universities have been releasing decisions already for early applicants, as I have observed from my peers. Most relevant to me was the release of the decisions for the University of Southern California, in which I, along with most of my peers, was deferred. It was surprising for some of us but also expected when hearing about the acceptance rate for the early decision being approximately 6%.
Although this decision was unfortunate, I made active attempts not to allow it to become a setback to my current academic performance. With the IB exams and the deadlines for our Internal Assessments closing in, I need to retain as much of my healthful and beneficial study habits as possible throughout such a stressful time.
