Mary had received an e-mail from Woodbury University asking for volunteers for the first annual Burbank International Film Festival. I signed up and volunteering for two days and, although it wasn't the greatest learning experience, I met some pretty entertaining people. I also met a Woodbury professor who is a recent USC Screenwriting graduate. He is signed up to teach a Screenwriting course in the Fall; I also discovered Woodbury offers a Film minor. He seemed like a very great guy and we discussed the possibility of signed up for his course. Unfortunately, I don't think non-students can enroll in a course at the school.
Other than this, I am still waiting to hear from USC, Chapman and NYU. I also applied to Woodbury as a Psychology major, just in case everything else fails, I suppose. I would love to do my undergraduate in Psychology and possibly minoring in Film. The Screenwriting professor would also be a great Letter of Recommendation if I applied to MA/MFA in Film. I guess we'll see if I'm accepted and, if I am, we'll have to see how long it will take.
Now that the application process is completely over, I'd like to share some thoughts. This was truly a very difficult process and I think everybody in my family will agree. It wasn't as difficult as I had imagined to write everything. However, the process itself was devastating, at least for me. I've been constantly surfing forums and discovering other applicants. I've been getting extremely discouraged as I've been reading their stats: better GPAs, better extracurriculars, better experience, etc. I'm directly competing with these candidates so how can I keep myself hopeful? The only part of our application we can't directly compare is our Letters of Recommendation and Essays/Writing Samples. Even then, how good are mine in comparison to theirs? Good enough to find my way in?
I think I'll be receiving my answers in mid-May (best case) or mid-July (worst case). I've been checking my mail, e-mail and online status dozens of times a day. I've analyzed this application process more throughly than anyone else; is it mainly based on grades, extracurricular activities, or writing samples? Is my GPA good enough? Is my Personal Statement good enough?
At the end of the day, I'm just talking to myself.
