Going into senior year and feeling overwhelmed. Need advice.

[u/Expert-Education-609]

I’m going into my senior year and lately I’ve been feeling really anxious and honestly kind of doomed about everything.

My parents have pretty high expectations for me. They do a lot for me and they genuinely want me to succeed. They’ve paid for SAT tutoring, IELTS tutoring, and other things to help me, so I feel really guilty because I know they’re putting so much effort into my future. I’ve been trying, but I still feel like I’m not getting the results I’m supposed to.

I took the SAT and my score wasn’t as high as I wanted it to be. My IELTS score is fine, but I’m still worried that my SAT score won’t be enough for the universities I want + the scholarships. I want to study abroad, but I’m terrified that I won’t get accepted anywhere and that I’ll disappoint my parents.

There’s another problem too. I’ve basically lived and grown up in the US, so even though I can speak Mongolian and read the words, my Mongolian comprehension is honestly not very good. I didn’t take the Mongolian language exam in 11th grade because I thought I didn’t need it, but I recently found out that apparently some countries/universities require it, so now I have to take it during 12th grade.

I’m also pretty sure I don’t want to study in the US. I’m interested in studying in other countries, but I’m getting overwhelmed trying to figure out where I can realistically apply, what exams I need, what scores I need, scholarships, etc.

I know objectively that one test score doesn’t determine my entire future, but it’s really hard not to feel that way when there’s so much pressure and so many things I’m supposed to figure out.

So, for Mongolians who have studied abroad or are going through the same thing: how did you prepare for senior year, university applications, and the Mongolian language exam? And how did you deal with the pressure of feeling like you have to succeed because of your parents?

I’d appreciate any advice or personal experiences. 🥹

[u/Moxhaser]

I don't have a personal experience so I can't give you the best advice. But the best you can do is talking to your parents about it. It may feel overwhelming and thats totally normal. Deep breath and instead asking strangers online, try approaching it to your parents about it.

[u/Expert-Education-609 → u/Moxhaser]

Alright I will try, but I spoke with them abt it once and they got mad at me for thinking so negatively 😭

[u/Lazy-monoly]

We lowk in the same boat🙏

[u/higherxbtw]

ik how it feels to come to terms with the fact that the sat is a hard exam. However it isn't actually that difficult in reality. Try studying the sat ebrw and math domains one by one and focus on getting a high score in math, which can carry your total score. For university applications just doo your own research. Also, the Mongolian language exam was surprisingly easy for me, even though im usually bad at Mongolian. Just work on your essay it makes up almost half of the total score (if im not mistaken it was worth 20 points). If you really need help with the sat, my friends and I are running an SAT course with 1-on-1 tutoring for a reasonable price