Abril Castillo, a Catalan student at Harvard University in the United States.
By Marc Amat
Last year, Abril Castillo landed at Boston airport in the United States. She was very excited. After months of research, preparing documentation, attending courses and wondering if she would really be able to do it, an American university had responded positively to her application: Harvard University wanted her as a student. Now, for months, she has been studying subjects related to the social sciences, a world she has always been passionate about. She has adapted to American culture, made friends on campus and learned from professors she had always admired.
Like her, every year a handful of Catalan students who finish high school consider going to study at universities in the United States. Getting there is not easy: you have to follow a strict bureaucratic process. To help students who have this dream, the U.S. State Department undersigns the EducationUSA program, a network of 425 academic advising centers around the world. The headquarters of the Institut d’Estudis Nord-americans (Via Augusta, 121) hosts the Barcelona center. It is a space that provides up-to-date, accurate and impartial information about the U.S. education system to Catalan students, but also to families, guidance counselors and teaching staff.
This month, we talked to Castillo to find out why she decided to study in the United States; how she went through the process of preparing the application for admission; what advice she gives to Catalan students who dream of achieving the same; and how she has adapted to the U.S. university system.
When did you decide to go abroad?
It had been clear to me for a long time that I wanted to study abroad. When I was a child, I was lucky to be able to travel a lot with my parents. They instilled in me the importance of travel, meeting people and discovering new cultures. In high school, I realized that I loved the world of international relations and politics. The idea of being able to study these fields and, moreover, to do it in another country, was very appealing to me.
Why did you choose the United States?
For many reasons. First of all, because it was a country where I knew that, in addition to immersing myself in American culture, I would be able to surround myself with people from all corners of the world. There, the number of international students is very high. But I was also attracted to the university system itself: from having the opportunity to live on the kind of campus I’d seen in the movies and attend classes with professors I admired, to taking subjects that in Catalonia fall under entirely separate university degrees.
To get to study in the United States, you have to go through a very strict selection process. How did you experience it?
It was hard, but also very rewarding. To enter an American university you have to follow a completely different process than the one required to study in Catalonia. That’s why it is so necessary to have academic advising programs that help you understand all the steps. No one in my close circles had ever gone abroad to study, so family, friends and teachers didn’t know exactly how to guide me. Still, their support was vital. Throughout the process, you experience many moments of uncertainty, doubts and fears. I often asked myself: are you sure you want to go for four years to study in such a different country and where you’ve only been once on vacation?
What parts of the process were the most complicated for you?
Perhaps the most difficult part was having to write the main and supplemental essays. In Catalonia we are not very used to writing texts about ourselves, that sell our achievements and allow others to get to know us better. Besides, I was going to do it in English, a language in which I can express myself well, but which is not my mother tongue. I worked on the main essay that I sent with my applications for six months. In total, until I had one that satisfied me, I did about ten drafts. It really helped me learn a lot about myself.
It is important to reflect before taking a step like this…
Yes, and with the essay I was able to ask myself a lot of questions about myself: how I think, how I am, why I act in a certain ways… Writing it out allowed me to practice a lot of self-discovery. However, it also helped me to ask myself questions about my future: why I wanted to go to study there and what I would do afterwards with the professional and academic opportunities that my time at the American university would give me, for example. Looking back, it was a complicated but gratifying process.
There are many universities in the U.S. How did you decide where you would apply?
To begin with, I must admit that I was not very selective. I applied to many. But I did take into account a lot of parameters. One of the most important was that the school had a good reputation in the social sciences. I also looked at what the campuses were like, their philosophy behind their community, and what job and extracurricular opportunities they could offer me.
What resources did you use to prepare the application?
Apart from the advising programs, I signed up for several webinars organized by the U.S. Embassy in Spain. I also requested information from the universities I was most interested in and researched them thoroughly. In addition, it was very useful for me to get in touch with Catalan students who had gone on this adventure before. However, beyond that, the support of family, friends and professors was very important. They may not be experts in the field, but they are people who love you, who trust you and who give you strength in the moments when you think you won’t be able to go on. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have made it.
Why do you think the colleges that said yes to you admitted you?
I should clarify that resilience was a value that I worked on a lot throughout the process. Before I got a yes from some universities, I collected a lot of no’s. I still don’t know what they liked about me, but I do know what strengths I focused my argument around. Right off the bat, I emphasized leadership. I had the credentials to back that up, because I had been a member of the executive team of an international organization made up of only students. Apart from that, I tried to show by all means possible that my interest in social sciences was not fleeting: throughout my life, I had done programs and extracurriculars that were very much focused on politics and economics. I proved to them that I was not only interested in the discipline, but that I was actively looking for ways to work within it.
Finally, Harvard University opened its doors to you. How did you feel?
When I received the news, I was overcome with a feeling of absolute happiness. After such a long process, I had achieved my dream. It was really nice to tell everyone and to see how my loved ones were so happy for me. I’ll never forget it in my life. Of course, after the happiness, I got my feet back on the ground and the fear and nerves of going to live in a country as different from Catalonia as the United States reappeared.
You’ve been there for a year now. How is it going?
Very well. The first day I landed there, I was afraid of not being able to make friends, but that soon faded away, because the university brought together all the people like me with international students from previous years and showed us around the campus. Today I have a network of friends from all over the world. It’s exceeded my expectations. I’ve grown a lot both academically and personally. I have learned how to learn from other people, which is much easier there than in the Catalan universities.
What advice would you give to a student who is considering going to college in the United States?
I would tell them, if that’s what they want, to go for it. Don’t be afraid. It’s difficult, but not impossible. There are people who have made it. I’m living proof. Lots of people don’t consider going to study abroad because it is still too unfamiliar a path for Catalan students. It’s easier for them to study in Catalonia, because it is much more common, but I encourage them to make their own way.
¿Do you want to study in the USA?
Write to us at barcelona@educationusa.org and we will be in touch to resolve any doubts and offer more information about our services.
