Any Advice?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone! I am a junior in high school who is beginning to think about the college process. I am realizing that I am in a bit of a unique position, and was hoping that I could share my circumstances with you and see if anyone could offer some advice!

From seventh to the start of eleventh grade, my parents went through an incredibly tumultuous, four-year divorce. My home was constantly filled with conflict, and although I had always been a good student with a love for learning, grades became less of a priority for me during this period. As I hope you are able to understand, an environment where emotions run high, voices are raised, and police are called is not conducive to top performance in school. It is for these reasons that for my first two years of high school, my grades were mainly in the B range, with a few A’s scattered in. My school does not calculate GPA or class rank, so I cannot share exact numbers.

Things changed for me this year, however, when my parents were finally able to finalize their divorce. After a difficult chapter in my life, I am now able to funnel my attention back into my studies. I anticipate that my grades will be mostly in the A-range this year.

I am planning on taking the ACT, and scored a 30 as a benchmark with no prep. I am currently working on test prep, and am hoping to bump this up to the mid-30’s.

I feel that my extracurriculars are my strongest point. I am the Editor-in-Chief of a nonprofit whose “face” is a Grammy-award winning celebrity, the captain of a sports team, have interned on a winning congressional campaign, have completed a six-month PR/social media internship with a bestselling author, and have written for the website of an organization that was featured on CNN this week! I also have won three writing awards at my school, demonstrating that I am the strongest writer in my graduating class, and two Scholastic awards. I have been published by over 19 publications, run my own personal blog, and wrote a song that now has its own music video.

As I do go to a high-achieving college prep school, I would really love to see myself at a top academic school (I am self-aware enough to realize that I don’t belong at a top-tier school, but would be thrilled to be admitted to a top 50-60 university).

This long build-up leads me to these questions:

  1. What can I do to make up for the way I dropped the ball in my first half of high school? Please note that I am planning on writing my essay on why my grades are so poor.
  2. Do you know of any schools that have a notably holistic admissions process? In other words, do you have any schools in mind that you think would weigh my extracurriculars more heavily and be more understanding of my low grades?

Also, if you have any ideas of things I can do with writing, I always am looking to do more! Writing is my passion and what I intend to pursue during and after college.

Sorry that this post was so long, and thank you all so much!

2

Congratulations on working hard and going ahead in a positive, forward-looking way. That is important. Resilience is actually highly correlated with success in college . . . and success in life.

You go to a high-achieving prep school. You probably have access to a quality school counselor and Naviance data for college admissions results for your school. Those would probably be the best source for advice/data most relevant to YOU.

Just to add, yes, explain your improvement in applications for holistic admissions schools. Be sure to do it in that positive, forward-looking way that you display in your question. Focus on what you’ve learned and how it will help you as you move forward. Your success this year, and a strong start next year, combined with self-reflective, positive, forward-looking essays will go a long way to overcoming grades that might not reflect your capabilities, at least at a lot of places. It seems like your EC’s will be strong.

My suggestion would be focus on fit for YOU over rankings. You will find many fantastic students, faculty, and staff at Top 20 schools, Top 50-60 schools, AND many others.

Will you be able to afford full pay at a private university or OOS public? Will you be looking for merit aid or financial aid?

Anyway,

I think of Kenyon (a reach grade-wise but sell yourself with your writing) (google Kenyon famous alumni to see the amazing writers who went here); Oberlin; Bard; Rhodes College (Memphis) (urban LAC with a great little campus, great academics); Sewanee (on a plateau of its own, Episcopalian affiliation) (I love this video); Whitman College.

https://www.rhodes.edu/about-rhodes

https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/visit/

https://www.whitman.edu/academics/departments-and-programs/english

3

What have your parents told you about paying for college? Can they commit to a specific figure? Is there wven any money left after the divorce?

Until you know about the money, you can’t get very far in this process. If you are going to need financial aid, spend some time in the Financial Aid Forum here to read more about it.

4

Your case is definitely unique and should be brought up in your essays. Best of luck!

5

I suggest giving consideration to choosing another topic.

I can only imagine how difficult those years were for you, and they are obviously an explanatory factor for your grades. That said, few HS students have the ability to write about factors affecting their grades without coming across as ducking responsibility or seeking pity. If you do use this topic then I strongly suggest it be reviewed by an adult you trust.

Rather than you addressing the topic, it might work better for you if the GC at your HS talks about it in their letter of rec. Third parties are more believable when explaining a problem. I hope that you were talking about your family and the turmoil you were going thru with your counselor at your “high-achieving college prep school” since that is what they are there for.

If you are determined to talk about this in some way, IMHO it is better to talk about what you have learned from going thru this experience and how you grew as a person. This gets the issue on the table
with a positive spin and keeps you out of excuse territory.

6

You can’t other than to show that upward grade progression. It’s done and it’s there and will hurt you at the most selective schools. They look for reasons to deny because they have to do so. Too many apps. So you have given them good reason.

I agree that your GC is better to mention the adverse environment you hade those first two years of highschool. Make sure you write it up in the notes you give the GC when the recommendation is to be written.

7

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful answers! I will definitely focus now on sharing my story with my guidance counselor and asking that he bring it up rather than me. That makes a lot of sense. Also, to address the question raised by happymomof1, I have spoken with my parents about finances and they have shared with me that this is not a major consideration of theirs in this process. I am very lucky in that regard.