Ever since I was younger, I wanted to be in the medical field. I felt like being a physician or a general practitioner wasn’t really it for me because I didn’t want to go to medical school. Early in my high school career, I decided that I wanted to be a physician’s assistant, and the path to getting there involves nursing. Nursing is also a solid backup major if I decide to not go down that career path. 

I decided to apply to New York University early decision because it’s one of the few schools that offers direct entry to nursing. It was hard to find what I wanted experience-wise and I didn’t really think that I was going to get in but there was some part of me that said to be confident so it was a reach but not really.I spent the weeks leading up to receiving my decisions letter reading reddit threats and going through the college confidential thread, which, by the way, I do not recommend. Overall, I was somehow both super excited and super nervous in the weeks leading up to decisions being sent out. 

I liked that virtual learning made it less stressful for me, because I believe that my course load might have been a bit more difficult had we been in person. There’s also less of a possibility of being rescinded, because grades tend to be higher online. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the SAT 2 exams I had been planning to take to pad my application, but I feel like people make your stats seem more important than they actually are; if I’ve learned anything from this process, it’s that you should show your personality through your application essays, because they can compensate for many things. 

I’ve never been to New York City before, but I have cousins who do live there and I’ve learned about the city atmosphere from them. Additionally, I have family in Shanghai, which has a metropolitan life that’s comparable to New York City. I’m really excited to get there, though, and especially to be able to get out of the suburbs. I feel like the atmosphere here, especially at Irvington, is pretty competitive, and everyone’s competing for the same thing- being a STEM major, getting a job in software or medicine. The competition is more diversified in New York, too.