 So get pepper spray. My only option at that point. You don't apply to a school expecting to be rejected. I've just arrived at Columbia University and today I have the honor of introducing you to two Peruvian students who got full ride scholarships here at Columbia and today they're gonna tell you how they did it. One of them did it as a transfer, one of them did it as a first year student. So regardless of your situation, there's something here to help you. Let's meet our people. Hey, I'm Claudia. I am a first year transfer student at Columbia University. I am a sophomore here and I am majoring in political science and economics with a minor in Latin American studies, which means that I am in Columbia College. I do want to like level with people, like what do we need to, what are we looking at? I went to high school in Peru where I had a 4.0 GPA every single semester ever in high school. I did a lot of extracurriculars in high school. I did Model U.N. for three years and I was head delegate the captain of my high school's team. I did an entrepreneurship forum in Peru, organized a company and developed a company basically. My company won best company of the year, best marketing at a national level and best commercial development. For five years, I did orchestra in high school. I was first chair of my high school's flute team. I was in a national orchestra in Peru, San Antonio, Peru. I took a gap year after I graduated from high school because I wanted to go to schools in the U.S. And I didn't feel like I had enough time or preparation to apply right off of high school because I chose to come here a little bit late. So I took a gap year and during that gap year, I worked for Amnesty International Peru. I organized a lot of their protests, marches and events with both activists, political scientists, politicians to help improve Peru and levels of human rights. And I absolutely loved it. I think that one of the things that helped me the most get into Columbia was that everything that I did, I did because I absolutely loved to do it. So I was able to write good essays on why I love it and I was able to have a consistency in my application. Nothing that I did, I did because of college. I did because I wanted to do it. Hi, I am Alva. I am a student at Columbia University. I'm planning to major in political science with a special concentration in business. I took a lot of effort and a lot of sacrifices. I started with Model UN since I was a freshman in high school. Three years as a delegate, I also helped the MUN team to host its first MUN conference as a secretary general and worked as a Model UN coach for my school and another school in Tarapoto. I also started developing a sense of community with a volunteering program called Encuentro to sentido. I also started learning languages like Italian and French. I had been working in a cultural center as a community manager, helping them with administrative tasks. I worked for a little bit in an online platform called Preply which I still work on as a Spanish tutor. I was the first one in my class during my whole entire years of high school. So I ran, I was the first place. Show what you have and what you're passionate about, what you are really committed to spend a lot of hours on. It's something that is going to make you stand out from a lot of the kids that apply to this type of school. I applied to 12. I got into UCLA, Syracuse University, Cal State, LA, Loyola, Marymount and one more that I don't remember. That's right, that must not have been that important to you. So I assume Columbia was a pretty easy decision then. Yes. No, yeah, definitely it's funny because I was going to go to UCLA but they don't give financial aid to international students. So I talked with the financial aid office and they told me, well, we expect you to apply again for 2023. And I was like, I am not going to do that. I was waitlisted at Columbia actually. I got off the wait list of Columbia University and that was mainly my only option at that point. I went to UCLA last year. I entered for the UCLA Community Engagement Office and I taught LA high school students about racial injustice in the US and how they could develop activism campaigns in LA. I also was the president of the undergraduate LA Human Rights Initiative that helps refugees and asylum seekers in the US. I worked really hard for my grades. I had a 3.97 GPA. I got an A plus in every single one of my major classes which is something that I think helped me get into Columbia and helped me just develop better here. You applied to come here. And I got rejected, yeah. I applied after high school, after my gap year. I got rejected by most of the schools that I applied to including Columbia, which was my dream school which was devastating to me because you don't apply to a school expecting to be rejected. I need a lot of financial aid and I need a lot of big scholarship to go to schools here and only the big private schools have the resources to give you a full ride which is what I have at Columbia right now. UCLA is an incredible school but my problem was that my scholarship is very unstable. My FAFSA said that I should have received financial aid. They didn't offer anything. I got around $30,000 outside scholarships. I applied to over a hundred scholarships because I knew that that was the only way in which I could go into college. That financial aid director at UCLA told me to drop out of school. It is ridiculous. It is ridiculous that a full on director of financial aid is asking that to a kid that just wants to go to college. So that's why I transferred out of UCLA. The stress of having to apply to scholarships every day just to be able to go to college. The treatment that I had by the financial aid office at UCLA, how they treated me whenever I asked for resources, I asked for help. I absolutely hated that. I was their enemy. They were not working for me. Told me that some of my scholarships were not coming back just because they lost some donors which meant that all of the scholarships that I had applied for and I've worked hard for, $15,000 of those were just not coming back next year. That's the moment where I decided to transfer out of UCLA. First of all, advice for people. Relax. It's a really stressful process. The best way that you can portray yourself in front of an admission office is leveling up what you love is the key. So for example, if you love doing debate, how can you be more involved in debate in your community? If you babysit, maybe you can give those activities a meaning that is unique to you which will end up making you unique from other people that are applying with the same type of extracurriculars. Because at least for me, I was like, okay, I've done MUN, but every kid I know has done MUN. What is special about me doing MUN and applying to colleges like Columbia? But it's what I did with MUN after I graduated and I continue doing until now. I think I'm pro-gab year because I think that you really get to know yourself when you're not doing specifically school. That gap year really helped me to explore more of that and ultimately helped me to have a better and well-rounded profile when applying to college. You have your whole life to go to college. One year, you're gonna miss your life. And probably you're gonna be more sure about what you're going to study. But not like a lazy gap year. It's a gap year to do stuff, to actually work. My high school didn't have any resources. If it weren't for a score, I wouldn't have been able to apply here. My high school didn't have any counselor or anything. And I was terrified about that, about getting it wrong, about just not knowing how it worked. There are a lot of resources outside that you can access. For me, that was score. Score is the best. It really is. You think you could have done this on your own? Uh-uh, no. No, because I would have been lost completely with the whole process because it seems kind of like easy, okay, you apply, you put all your stuff in a platform, but then there are other things that you don't think of that definitely score helps you to get it done, get the job done. And I think that was really a plus for me because I just needed to be focused on what really matters. So like the essays and the whole application, I knew that I could trust the score for the rest, for like the really hard process of filling out the forms and applying with like for the visa, they even helped me with the visa. So I think score is the best. For me, it was also the mental health support. Oh yeah. I could rant to the people in school about how stressed I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, like, I mean, when we were doing essays, 45 minutes of it would just be you ranting about something and then 50 minutes of it would just be you ranting, right? Yes, because I get stressed easily. And if you're like alone doing everything, there's no one you can talk to this about or that understands it, especially if you're from Peru because nobody knows what you're going through. Yeah. So yeah, I rant a lot. Me don't even help with your platform for a year interview that I had. Trust the process. Trust the process. Yeah, trust the process because it's a long one, but it's worth it. And tasers are illegal in New York, so get Pepper Spray, you live in New York. In 109, there's a homeless center and people get harassed. In 112, a guy just got murdered two days ago. Get Pepper Spray if you live in New York.