For many high school students, the college application process can quickly become a maze of essays, activities lists, deadlines and decisions. For Shoshanna Ryan, LWSF’s Find Your Fit College Bootcamp helped her step back from all those individual pieces and focus on a bigger question: What kind of college is right for me?
That question ultimately led Shoshanna to Chapman University in Southern California, where she is now beginning an exciting new chapter focused on music, dance and entertainment.
A Path All Her Own
Shoshanna graduated from Emerson K-12 in June 2026. As a small Parent Partnership school within Lake Washington School District, Emerson K-12 gave her the opportunity to collaborate closely with teachers and take an active role in shaping her education.
Outside the classroom, performing has long been a big part of Shoshanna’s life. She has danced tap and jazz and performed in musical theatre since second grade, in addition to singing and playing piano. Her high school experiences included playing Sandy in SpongeBob the Musical and Nancy Nostradamus in Something Rotten, performing in a young professional production of A Chorus Line, and becoming one of the first Snow Belle dancers in Bellevue’s Snowflake Lane parade.
When it came time to think about college, Shoshanna knew she wanted to preserve some of what she had valued about her experience at Emerson K-12.
“I knew I wanted a small liberal arts college that would feel similar to the experience I had at Emerson K-12 with a tightknit community of students, and teachers who took the time to understand each of their students as individuals,” she says. “I also knew I wanted a college that would support my passion for dancing, singing, and acting in some capacity.”
Knowing what she wanted was one thing. Navigating the application process was another.
Seeing the Bigger Picture
The summer before her senior year, Shoshanna had already started brainstorming her personal statement and activities list. But choosing an essay prompt and imagining the many supplemental essays ahead felt overwhelming.
That summer, she and her mom attended LWSF’s Find Your Fit College Bootcamp, led by independent college counselor and Find Your Fit Creator, Mary Pat O’Neil.
“I remember telling her after the first session that the application process made better sense to me,” Shoshanna recalls.
Instead of treating each part of the application as a separate task, Mary Pat helped Shoshanna understand how the pieces worked together to tell a larger story.
“Mary Pat’s presentation allowed me to see the bigger picture and the application as a whole rather than discrete individual pieces,” she says. “She also advised us to think about the personal essay as a presentation of a value that was important to me, and that message stayed with me as I incorporated my values into all of my essays.”
The Bootcamp also encouraged students to think beyond applications and admissions to the practical realities of choosing a college. For Shoshanna, who knew she would likely attend school a plane ride away from Kirkland, that meant considering things like access to airports and direct flights.
Another message was particularly reassuring: with thousands of colleges to choose from, students don’t need to restrict their search to the handful of schools everyone around them seems to know.
“The Bootcamp reassured me that there was a college out there that would be the right fit for me,” Shoshanna says, “and that I needed to focus on what types of classes, activities, location, school size, and other aspects of college life were right for me—not what was right for everyone else.”
Guidance for a Nontraditional Path
Mary Pat’s support became especially valuable when Shoshanna considered how to explain her own high school experience.
Because Emerson K-12 offered a different educational path, Shoshanna had completed Running Start during her junior and senior years and had not taken AP or Honors courses, which were not part of her school’s curriculum.
“Mary Pat took the time to talk with me about how I could share my school experience with colleges and use the supplemental section of the application to explain that,” Shoshanna says. “She even offered to look at what I wrote and helped me edit it.”
That willingness to work directly with students stood out to Shoshanna throughout the program.
“Mary Pat offers very practical advice, and she took the time to answer every student’s questions both during and after the sessions, including mine,” she says.
Mary Pat also offered to review students’ personal statements. Her response to Shoshanna’s essay gave her an additional boost of confidence at an important moment.
“I will always remember her kind words to me about my personal statement and how touched she was by what I had written,” Shoshanna says. “It made me feel good about myself and what I had to contribute to a college campus.”
“I’m going to Chapman University”
Months later, as Shoshanna weighed her final choices ahead of the May 1 decision deadline, she returned to one deceptively simple exercise Mary Pat had shared during the Bootcamp: imagine telling someone, out loud, where you are going to college. How does it make you feel?
“As I was making my final decision, I said out loud, ‘I’m going to Chapman University,’ and I felt joy, pride, and excitement,” Shoshanna remembers. “I knew I was making the right decision.”
At Chapman, Shoshanna plans to earn a B.A. in Music with an emphasis in Music Industry Studies, along with minors in the Business of Entertainment and Dance. She is also part of the Honors Program.
The university offered the combination she had been looking for: a liberal arts education alongside opportunities to immerse herself in music, dance and entertainment. And for a self-described huge Disney fan, Southern California sunshine and proximity to Disneyland didn’t hurt.
Her dreams for the future are just as creative as the path that brought her there. Someday, she hopes to produce music/managfe artists and perform as a voice actress for a Disney Jr. show—or perhaps become a Hallmark movie star.
For now, she is enjoying her classes, meeting new people and getting involved in activities at Chapman.
“Taking the time to find the school that was the right fit for me was so important,” she says.
Looking back, Shoshanna believes Find Your Fit gave her a framework that helped make an intimidating process feel more manageable—and more personal.
“Find Your Fit and its College Bootcamp really gave me the opportunity to look at the bigger picture of choosing a college and not get lost in the specifics of essays and activities lists,” she says.
Her advice to students approaching their own college application journey?
“I think everyone should take the time to attend these workshops before starting their summer of applications because it provides such a good framework for thinking about that most important year ahead.”
LWSF’s Find Your Fit program helps students and families navigate the college application process with practical guidance designed to help each student find the path that fits them. Learn more at www.lwsf.org/our-work/find-your-fit.
