<p>black female, parents can’t afford college, one parents working, i’ve been taking care of my mom who had a stroke in '03</p>
<p>Stats:</p>
<p>gpa: 3.9
rank: top 10%
lots of Honors classes (including AP Bio, Calc AB, Government and Brit Lit)
SAT: 1640 (yes i know miserable…absolutely miserable)
ACT: 24 (…ahh…miserable)
EC: sax player for 8 years, marching band (4 yrs), concert band (4 yrs), band section leader, conflict mediator (4 yrs), mentored jr. high kiddos (2 yrs), Fisk University national scholar, Honor roll (4 yrs), led a hall mural project at my school, peer tutor (2 yrs), had poetry published in national publication in '02</p>
<p>Get study books, or take a course, do something to bring up those SAT's. In your application, make sure they know you are a published poet. They love that! Amherst is big on diversity, but you need to get those scores up! They also give good financial aid.</p>
<p>just send in an application that can only be written by you - just unique. I talked to my admission counselor after I got in; he said the thing that he remembered about my application was how smart I was. So just write about something that stands out. Also, on the supplement, choose an essay that looks like goes unchosen by many. My adcom told me that they stopped reading the photo essays last year because there were so many, and if you don't have anyone fighting for you because they didn't get to know you that can keep you out as well. The SAT might not keep you out, but it will bring you down a bit.</p>
<p>Try to bring up the test scores if you can---other than that, I think your chances are good. Also--from your post, you sound like an interesting and very nice, generous sort of person, make sure you convey that in the application, rather than trying to make it really polished and less personal. </p>
<p>One other thing: if you do get in, they have a wonderful financial aid policy. My family is very very low income, so my college choice was very much influenced by financial aid offers. Out of nine colleges I was accepted to, Amherst ended up being by far the cheapest, even compared to my state school where I had lots of merit aid. Low income students don't get loans-need is met with grant aid. 7 of those schools promise to meet "full demonstrated need" but the yearly amound I'd be expected to come up with differed by over 10K (including loans and work study).</p>
<p>Sure--I applied to WVU, Davis and Elkins (in state safeties, good merit aid), Bowdoin, Amherst, Wesleyan, Reed, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Colgate and Harvard. Rejected at Harvard, accepted at the rest.
Amherst--very very good aid, won't have to pay much of anything, no loans.
Bowdoin--Good aid with National Merit Scholarship (2K and changes loans to grants)
Wesleyan--Decent aid, would have had to come up with(loans/work study/summer job) +/-5K per year, similar aid at Swarthmore, Reed.
Colgate--I would've been an alumni memorial scholar, so my aid was better than it otherwise would have been. Would have had to come up with around 2500 per year (loans, workstudy, etc)
Oberlin was pretty dismal. I had the John F. Oberlin scholarship, which is merit based, and still would have had to take out lots of loans, plus a fairly big work study. over 10K all together.</p>
<p>The way I calculated the cost was just tuition plus room and board, minus total grants. Part of the reason the packages were so different was that some colleges included a whole lot more than others when determining how much money I'd need. Amherst included tuition, room and board, books/supplies, travel, and personal expenses. Oberlin included only tuition and room/board (i think...that might've been Bowdoin).</p>
<p>i'm wondering why people havent responded more to your situation with your mom who had a stroke. DEFINITELY add a note or another brief essay or even write one of the essays about your mother's stroke and how you have to care for her. it shows you are mature and responsible. Amherst is ok with people adding unasked-for stuff to the application, unlike some larger schools - i had 5 letters of recommendation that served to display my academic development since the beginning of HS. I'm NOT saying send 5 letters of rec., they may not like that - mine were all very different, so maybe they took pity on me - but you can add a page about your mom into the mix, or onto the Additional Info page if you do the online app (i listed a bunch of stuff in the Additional Info section). </p>