By Alexander Pimentel
Editor
Despite discouraging statistics, many Amat students have several prestigious options for the fall. Dance team captain and IB student, Chika Anidi will attend Vanderbilt University. Jocelyn Cazares is one of four Amat students planning to attend UC Berkeley.
As the National College Response deadline approaches seniors anxiously return their intent notifications to their college choices. Bishop Amat seniors may have outstanding applications with different Universities, but according to the application conditions they may only respond to one by Saturday, May 1st.
The stress and pressure of November and December is long gone and the current focus is making the best choice. They weigh the cost of attendance and educational opportunities of each institution before making the final decision.
A majority of the nation’s leading Universities witnessed a spike in the number of applications for the class of 2014. Several of the Ivy League Colleges had acceptance rates well below 10 percent with most of them receiving over 25,000 applications.
On the west coast Stanford and the University of California system witnessed some of the fiercest competition in history. California’s public university system reached an all-time low with an overall acceptance rate of 71 percent. UCLA and UC Berkley held the lowest individual offers for admission with 21 and 24.5 percent respectively.
The practice of submitting several applications is commonplace in this atmosphere.
IB student Analisse Marquez dreamed her entire life of attending Princeton, but childhood aspirations are not enough to receive an admission offer so she submitted eleven other applications. Fortunately she was admitted to Princeton, but she ultimately chose Yale University.
“After visiting, I weighed all the choices and while Princeton is still special, I thought that Yale would be the best place for my pre-med undergraduate studies,” said Marquez.
Marquez’s choice reflects how easily college expectations can change.
AP student Jessica Gonzalez was offered admission to Stanford University, but was admitted to an accelerated medical degree program at the University of Southern California which helped her make her decision.
Maxine Vergara is attending USC also, but with different motivation. She is one of the privileged few to qualify for tuition reduction due to her mother’s employment at the University Hospital.
Some still haven’t made their final choice. Athletic Training Student Khrystianne Padua is still deciding between Rochester Institute of Technology and UC Riverside.
“The two posses different merits and opportunities, making the choice even harder,” said Padua.
Even after visiting several top choices some still cannot make up their mind. Katrina Malaiba spent a week New York looking at Fordham University, but still cannot rule out Loyola Marymount University.
The Class of 2010 has less than a week to finalize their plans and many still have some deciding to do. Fortunately, there are many promising options for this year’s seniors with one of the best overall rates of acceptance for Amat Seniors.
