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2. Blessing from college rejections

UIUC was not my dream school. Going there was the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I stared at the time on my laptop, while I was on a video call with my good friend Peter. April 6, 2021, 19:00. Ivy Day decisions were to be released at this moment. I had decided on the order that I will open the university decisions by the order of ascending acceptance rate - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn and Cornell. My rationale was that any earlier rejections wouldn't dampen my hopes for following decision letters. Peter was there, so that I wouldn't throw a screaming temper tantrum if the worst case happened: 6 stinky eggs out of 6.

Harvard. Reject.

Yale. Reject.

Princeton. Reject.

Columbia. Reject.

Penn. Reject.

Cornell. Reject.

The worst case did happen. With the expectation to keep a face, instead I just sighed, and then discussed the acceptance offers that I have on hand: University of Waterloo Software Engineering, UIUC CS, UBC, University of Toronto, University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University. Narrowing the list down, I needed to break the tie between UIUC CS and UW SE. We looked at new grad job/total compensation offer statistics, then discussed school culture, and did some number-crunching on finances if I went to either school.

Now holistic decisions fell on me to choose a school instead of the schools deciding whether to admit me. The part that struck me was that UW SE was a 5-year program, for the sole purpose of funneling students into working SWE jobs in tech in Bay Area, Seattle or New York. UIUC, I figured at that time, that I could probably graduate in three years since I had a good amount of AP/IB credits coming in and it was a state school. I assumed career prospects would be similar graduating out of either school, but the two years that I could have work experience in would have been an opportunity cost had I went to UW. Financially, UIUC was a sounder decision, especially given that I was expected to pay back my parents the money I use in university.. Around a week later, I committed to UIUC.

On hindsight, my experiences told me I wouldn't have thrived more if I went elsewhere.

With a little bit of my rebellious self acting up, I started doing more research. I read the AP/IB credit transfer pages and the graduate requirement pages religiously. I found out I had a lot of credits already coming into UIUC since I did both AP/IB. By then, I already have credit for AP Chinese, Biology, and Chemistry & IB Psychology SL. Furthermore, in senior year I would be taking AP Calc BC & IB Math HL, Physics HL, English HL, History HL, and French SL exams. I found out that I could graduate within two years if I played my cards right.

Playing my cards right would have meant I needed to study and perform well on my senior-year AP/IB exams, register for some community college courses, and then study and take proficiency exams to get out of intro-level courses and advance more quickly to deeper courses. Those deeper, more difficult courses were interesting to me and I wanted to take them faster.

Grabbing a Calc III textbook, I started studying multivariable calculus (MVC) concurrently as I studied for IB exams. Most IB exams didn't fulfill particularly useful gen-ed requirements, although their credits were great for getting the number of hours counted towards graduation hours (128 for engineering), so I took more time for MVC and decided to gun for the June proficiency exam a week after graduation.

Concurrently, I registered for 4 general education classes at Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC). These were online classes: Micro- and Macroeconomics, African American History, Intro Anthropology. They took not much time in the summer, and I did that while studying for further proficiency exams at the beginning of the fall semester.

In the fall, I passed all of my proficiency exams. My fast-track graduation plan is falling into place. In my first semester, I was already taking 300- and 400-level classes, although these were the easier of the classes - still in the required curriculum. In my second semester, I was already taking classes for graduate credit.

But the biggest positive change I had in college is finding my outgoing self, and then forming wonderful, lifelong friends. I did a great deal of things that high-school me would have never thought I would have the time to do just in my first year of university at UIUC:

  • Playing piano blindfolded in Allen Hall dorm performing arts showcases
  • Going to Model UN and VR club
  • Travelling for a Model UN conference in Los Angeles
  • See concerts at Krannert
  • Go vinyl hunting with friends
  • Play piano for an architecture gala fundraiser
  • Having had a first (and quite happy) romantic relationship
  • Doing research in second semester that resulted in a conference presentation

I did a summer semester, completing two more courses taken for graduate credit. Then I had the good fortune of studying abroad for much of my second year, in Lausanne, Switzerland. I used EPFL classes to fulfill my remaining requirements in the fall, such that I can have half of spring semester dedicated to travelling around Europe. I learned to figure out life by myself, doing more chores, and improved my French significantly as well. If I went to another university, I don't think I could have studied abroad and knocked out my remaining graduation requirements by the spring semester, leaving me with a lot of time to pursue whatever I wanted to pursue.

And all of this was while saving my parents (and future me) over $150k in cost of attendance. The total cost of my studies, including study abroad and three semesters, was around $90k. It was not a small amount, but even compared to 3 or 4 years of in-state students, I was saving substantial amounts on college and done university by 19. Had I gone to a private school, my degree's price tag would have came out to $320k. And I might have drowned in the competition with other fantastic students, instead of letting myself develop personally, be happy, and have my degree by 19.

Now I am not saying that I wouldn't have found fantastic opportunities had I went to another institution. But the unique environment at UIUC allowed me to thrive and accomplish what I did. The biggest takeaway I want to give is that you never know the pots of gold that would find if you choose to embrace the opportunities you're given, instead of looking at the past with sorrow.