Client Success Story: Atticus Sweat

Overview: CollegeAdvisor.com Client Success Stories

Our CollegeAdvisor Client Success Stories feature students who achieved their college dreams. For each of our Success Stories, we interview a student who worked with CollegeAdvisor to find out what it took for them to reach their goals. This series provides a peek into students’ experiences with college advising, from building their college list to mastering the art of essay writing–and taking advantage of CollegeAdvisor’s many resources.

For us at CollegeAdvisor, there’s no better feeling than hearing from a student who has achieved everything they set out to do in their college admissions journey. Applying to college is a daunting task for many students. Hearing the ways in which we support these students through that process is incredibly rewarding. At CollegeAdvisor, we’re proud to work with students from all backgrounds and help them to achieve their best college potential.

If you’re a prospective student, we hope these CollegeAdvisor Client Success Stories give you hope for what the college process can be.

Getting to Know Atticus

For this CollegeAdvisor Client Success Story, we interviewed student Atticus Sweat. Atticus is a graduating senior from Federal Way, Washington, just south of Seattle.

Atticus was active in his high school theater community—he just finished up a run as Barnaby Tucker in Hello, Dolly!—and also participated in the Queer Inclusion Community and the National Honors Society. He was also part of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) and participated in their college preparatory programming in addition to CollegeAdvisor.

What challenges did Atticus face as a college applicant?

When Atticus first began the college process, he didn’t have a roadmap. “My parents are both high school graduates, but they never went to college or even applied to college,” Atticus said.

As a first-generation student, Atticus was anxious about applying to colleges. “[I] was like, scared out of my mind about the entire process.” Outside of his parents, very few of his friends’ parents had attended college, and older community members like teachers and grandparents just didn’t understand the modern college process.

“I feel that getting started with no prior knowledge as a first-generation college student was the hardest part,” Atticus said.

How did Atticus learn about CollegeAdvisor?

When Atticus signed up, he didn’t fully know what CollegeAdvisor was offering. “I was signing up for all of those scholarship websites, like Niche, Bold.org…all of those,” Atticus said. “Then, I came across CollegeAdvisor and signed up. I did not understand that it meant I would be getting a college advisor.”

When our team reached out to schedule a consultation over Zoom was when Atticus really got to learn what CollegeAdvisor is all about. “I went to the meeting with my parents. I had no idea what I was getting into,” said Atticus.

Luckily, the meeting went well. “They were pitching this person who will review your essays and give you direct feedback, you can meet with them and discuss your plans. They can talk to you about finance options when it comes to your college of choice.”

For Atticus, it was the personalization that made the difference. “There’s all these templates and articles online, but they’re all so generalized and not specific to the individual that I didn’t feel truly helped by them,” he said.

After the overwhelming experience of trying to find scholarships and advice on his own, CollegeAdvisor’s offer of personalized counseling resonated with Atticus.

“I was like ‘Ah, that’s exactly what I need.’”

His parents were convinced as well. They purchased the Elite Package and started counseling.

Getting started with CollegeAdvisor

Atticus was assigned a rockstar advisor: Corbin Chu. Corbin is a Senior Advisor with over 12 years of experience supporting students through their college application processes and has helped place students in elite universities across the globe.

Because of Atticus’s interest in theater, CollegeAdvisor also matched him with Kelly Killorin. She advised him specifically on his application supplements. Kelly is a recent graduate of Northwestern University, where she studied theater and religious studies.

There were a few hiccups at the beginning of Atticus’s CollegeAdvisor journey, but he eventually found his way to Corbin. “Honestly, I’m very thankful I had to go through that process of getting reassigned… because Corbin was very much a good fit for me.”

At CollegeAdvisor, we have a wide network of expert college advisors who are passionate about helping students maximize their college admissions potential. While Corbin worked with Atticus on editing his essays and building his college list, Kelly was able to come in and provide specific, personalized feedback on Atticus’ portfolio.

How Atticus’s advisor helped him find success

A big priority for Atticus was finding a school that was within his family’s price range. With CollegeAdvisor, he was able to get a better feel for the many different scholarship paths and options available to him. By working with Corbin and Kelly, Atticus got a better understanding of the college landscape and what he really wanted out of his education.

Corbin also worked extensively with Atticus on his essays, which Atticus found very rewarding. “I felt like he found that perfect balance of how to give me honest feedback without being overly critical.”

With Kelly, Atticus worked on his portfolio. This can be stressful, since your work is so personal and unique to you. Ultimately, it can be hard to know what to include—what kind of work will make the biggest impression on an admissions team? Kelly helped Atticus fine-tune his submission. “Saying ‘you should add this to your portfolio… if you cut this down to this specific moment in the scene, that would be better.’ And I felt it really helped me feel more confident when submitting my portfolios.”

But, before Atticus could start working on his applications, his first big hurdle was building his college list.

Choosing the right colleges for you

Adding and removing schools from your college list is one of the most important steps in the college application process. “When I was first looking at colleges, I was actually not educated on how to actually research a college,” Atticus explained. “I didn’t know what I wanted in one. I didn’t know anything about what I should be looking for other than the price.”

Corbin helped Atticus narrow down what he was looking for in a school. Atticus initially thought about applying to schools in the Midwest. However, he realized with Corbin that he doesn’t want to leave the coast—he loves the beach too much. “I learned that I valued the location my college is in a lot more than I valued the prestige of it, or how good the program was, because I wanted to be happy. And not just on campus, but outside campus,” said Atticus.

“I learned through CollegeAdvisor that I would have preferences I never thought about before—other than that ‘I’d like to pay less.’”

Through working with Corbin and using CollegeAdvisor’s college search tool, Atticus was able to build a college list full of schools he was excited about.

Reviewing essays and supplemental materials

Crafting exceptional college essays was another valuable part of Atticus’ experience with CollegeAdvisor. With Corbin, Atticus felt like he was getting useful feedback, but still had the space to voice his own perspective.

Atticus valued Corbin’s honest, blunt feedback. “He would straight up tell me when it was like, ‘Oh, this is weak. I don’t think this is a very strong part of your essay.’” Atticus continued, “And I understand that a lot of people don’t like being told, ‘Hey, this is just not that good.’ But I appreciate it.”

But it wasn’t just Atticus being receptive to Corbin’s feedback—Corbin was receptive to Atticus’ ideas as well. “I remember writing my personal statement… I wrote it very much about how I, as a person, struggled with self-love and value in this world.” Corbin suggested that Atticus bring in more about his experience with the Queer Inclusion Committee. But Atticus felt that his experience within theater was more valuable and endowed him with more skills, including the ability to accept and love himself.

“And he allowed me to challenge him on that, and supported me through what I felt was authentic to myself. I thought that was a very valuable part of working with him,” Atticus said.

As advisors, we strive to work alongside our students to help them strike the right balance between telling an engaging story and showcasing their authentic voice. Examples like this show us how truly collaborative the process can be.

What was Atticus’s favorite part about working with CollegeAdvisor?

To Atticus, there’s nothing like the feeling of finishing an essay after a long road of edits. “I really enjoy essay editing,” Atticus said. “I’m weird like that.”

Where sometimes the back-and-forth of essay editing can feel exhausting, to Atticus, slowly improving his work with Corbin’s feedback was rewarding. “I really enjoy the process of, ‘here’s a draft, here’s how to improve it’,” he said. “And then I improve it, and then I sent him a new draft.”

After that long process, it makes finally being able to submit the essays feel all the more sweet. “I feel like I gotta go buy myself ice cream or something. That’s how good it feels, I have to celebrate.”

What was Atticus’ other favorite part about working with CollegeAdvisor? It was earning acceptance into colleges and winning scholarships, of course. “That was a lot of fun,” Atticus said.

Without Corbin’s guidance, Atticus feels like he wouldn’t have known how to make as strong a case for why institutions should award him scholarship funds. “I was just able to provide them a very clear understanding of who I am, my financial needs, why I would deserve their scholarships for things like merit and just academic success or my extracurriculars, because I had someone to help me,” he said.

“My favorite part was seeing the result of all that hard work,” Atticus said.

Atticus’s admissions results and the road ahead

Even though Corbin and Atticus had a lot of communication over email, Atticus made sure to save his biggest news for his in-person meetings. “Being told I got accepted into colleges and got a ton of scholarships was something to say out loud, I felt.”

Atticus earned acceptance into many of the schools that he applied to and was granted a number of scholarships. In addition, Atticus received the Washington State College Bound Scholarship, which grants him $14,000 per year to attend an in-state college.

Within Washington, Atticus had the choice of attending The University of Washington, Seattle University, and Western Washington University. At Western Washington, he got into the Woodring College of Education, which he had to interview and apply for separately.

Atticus also gained acceptance into The University of Oregon, The University of San Francisco, Binghamton University, and Hofstra University in Long Island, New York. Hofstra offered Atticus a significant merit scholarship, but since it’s a private college, he still would have had to pay substantial tuition costs.

So, with so many great options, which school has Atticus decided to attend?

This fall, Atticus is excited to attend Seattle University, where he will have the opportunity to apply for their Honors College. As an added bonus, it was his top choice school. “I would consider Seattle University what I really wanted to do ever since I toured it in like my junior year,” he said.

And the best part? He only has to pay $1,000 out of pocket. “Less than an iPhone,” Atticus said.

What will Atticus major in?

After his involvement in theater during high school, Atticus is following his dreams and becoming a theater major. But that’s not the only course of study on his horizon. “I’m thinking of double majoring in possibly education or english language arts, because I want to be a high school drama teacher.”

As Atticus talked about in his personal essay, theater was a large part of his high school experience and has taught him valuable life skills and leadership. Theater was also a place where Atticus learned to accept himself as a queer person.

We’re excited to see Atticus pursuing something that he’s passionate about. We hope that if he does become a high school drama teacher, he gets to pay it forward and make a positive impact on students’ lives the same way that theater made an impact on his.

Atticus’s advice to future applicants

Atticus has learned a lot during his college admissions journey, and has no shortage of advice to give to fellow students just starting their process. “Overall, learn to be wrong, learn not to know,” Atticus said.

“Learn to be rejected by something, because a lot of what I struggled with at the beginning of this process was the idea of not being accepted by a college—even if I didn’t want to go there.”

We stand by Atticus’ advice. Even with the best advisors, and the best possible application, there’s no guarantee that your dream school will offer you acceptance. Rejection is a scary and sometimes inevitable part of the college process.

“By the time I actually got those college rejections, I was just like, ‘Oh. Okay,” Atticus said. By working hard to find the right schools for you, and crafting the best college essays through multiple drafts, the college process can still feel rewarding—even if you don’t get accepted into every school you apply to.

Atticus also had some practical advice. “If you can, tour your colleges.” Atticus knew he liked Seattle University after touring, and rejected some other schools after seeing them in-person.

You can also find other ways to see what life is like at a college. “Watch dorm tours. But not the ones made by the college, the ones made by the random students who were just doing it for fun,” Atticus said. “Because they’ll tell you a lot about the dorm that the school will not tell you.”

And lastly: “Learn how to write a professional email,” Atticus said. “Learn how to write good emails, that’ll get you so far.”

With just these bits of wisdom and advice, it’s clear just how much Atticus learned and grew through the college application process.

Why CollegeAdvisor?

As a first-generation college student, Atticus didn’t know where to start when it came to applying to colleges. Calculating school prices online and combing through scholarship websites overwhelmed him. Working with CollegeAdvisor, Atticus was able to reflect more deeply on what he really wanted in a college, and how to balance that with his financial needs. Atticus also learned how rewarding it can be to edit something like a college essay, passing drafts back and forth with an advisor until it’s finally ready to submit.

If you’re a student like Atticus who doesn’t know where to start, CollegeAdvisor can help. We work with students from all backgrounds who have incredibly varied goals. Our counselors are there to help students achieve their college dreams, whatever those dreams may be. Through help with essay editing, crafting a college list, applying to scholarships, navigating financial aid, and post-application assistance like handling waitlists or writing letters of continued interest, our CollegeAdvisors are there with personalized guidance every step of the way.