<p>Marrissa
I'm a female African-American junior going on senior and just recently took my SAT and ACT tests and am awaiting results. My stats are
Gpa unweighted:3.65
Gpa weighted:4.65
Core gpa:4.0
Class rank: 10/485
AP:
AP calc ab
AP English language
And also I took dual enrollment where I earned 12 college credit hours
Senior year:
Planning on taking AICE Math & Marine Biology which is a Cambridge university program offered newly at my school
Duel enrollment with Geographic information systems for 6 more credit hours
AP psychology, AP calc bc
Honors economics and government
ECs:
I'm involved BYC (broward youth coalition) and volunteered during the summer every year. Its a leadership camp.
OSTEM for the last two years during summer in which we learn about ocean conservation
Plywood Regatta for two years where I've built and raced boats
Math honor society
Should be getting a job soon
Flag football for two straight years (made it to districts but lost :c)
*** l believe I can get decent test scores for act and sat but im not confident that I got at least a three for ap calc ab
Special Circumstances:
6 household family that makes >30k per year
Food stamps
Lost section 8 (helped with housing) so now we're struggling in a tiny square foot duplex with lots of structural problems (wouldn't make it through a hurricane)
Family struggles to pay bills
Had to shower at a beach for about a week when water bill wasn't paid (I know)
Didn't have a car for about a year (this happens regularly) now we have a car worth 1k
***I know my gpa isn't the highest but I work hard to raise it. My ECs aren't great because I don't have any definitive leadership roles</p>
<p>Thank you for reading this mess and sorry for any typos! Hope I qualify c:</p>
<p>I recieved the Gates Scholarship this past year, so I’ll post my stats so that you can compare
Hispanic
ACT: 28
Unweighted GPA: 3.6
Weighted GPA: 4.067
Class rank: 28 out of 291
AP: AP Lit and Comp, AP World History, and AP US History.
Dual Credit: 21 credits at time of submission and 7 in progress credits.
Honors TRIG, Algebra 2, English, French, Pre-Calc, and Geometry.
Volunteered at my local hospital over the summer, putting in 128 hours. Also involved at my church for two years. That’s pretty much all for community service that I placed in my application.
I didn’t list a single award in my application. However I think I did a pretty good job at explaining why i didn’t receive any.
Family situation: 5 member household with an income around $36,000.
My recommendation letter came from my dual credit professor. He wrote a six page recommendation letter and also submitted my nomination form, having submitted a 2 page nomination. </p>
<p>@Aggs533 I recently received my SAT scores and got an 1880 composite. I also got an act score of 25. Does the scholarship even require this information? When do I give them this information? Thanks so much as your stats are similar to mind so they give me hope and I really hope I can get this!!!</p>
<p>It seems as though you have a good chance. Remember, Gates doesn’t simply look at numbers. They also look at your essays, recommendation, and nomination, so put a lot of effort into those. Good luck! I hope you get it! Let me know if you need anything. :D</p>
<p>@rhythmandbible I’m applying to UF FSU and in all honesty I have no idea what else. Any reccomendations? I’m not totally against going out of state but do want to be able to afford college as my parents simply can’t pay for any of it. I’m a great essay writer and I do believe my essays will be absolutely amazing. </p>
<p>@Marrissa I would recommend applying to a total of 4 schools at minimum. Seeing that you already have two schools in Florida that you are interested in, I would certainly suggest applying to two out of states school as well. Here’s what I did: 2 VA in-state schools, 1 DC school, 1 NC school, 1 GA school, and 1 NJ school. I ended up choosing the NJ school. :-)</p>
<p>@rhythmandbible just out of curiosity, what school are you going to. I saw you were being very active on the GMS threads this year. And congrats!</p>
<p>Stats don’t matter in this scholarship. You can put down that you invented a cure for cancer and they still wouldn’t care. All that matters is if you think you’re a great person, and you can put it on paper than you’ll get. Take it from me, I got the Gates Millennium Scholarship with an ACT score of 15, hardly any volunteer work, and two curricular activities that I just participated in with no titles. However, I wrote my heart out on my essays, and made sure that they told what kind of person I am. I wrote about an embarrassing situation and got over it, and how I struggled in science but I always went to tutoring. It also helps if you have great nominators or recommendations. I invested a lot of time becoming friends with a counselor in my high school and she wrote a lot of awesome things about me later for the scholarship.</p>
<p>So to answer your question, YES, you can get the gates scholarship. You should write about how you overcame hardships like the shower at the beach or your family struggles. They want to see if you can overcome real problems in life, and see if you can be a leader from it. </p>
Hey bro! What state are you in? Cuz I’m gonna doing dual credit in Ohio, I’m a minority I’m part of stem club,math-club and student council. I also work with a non-profit group. Uh… I’m gonna be taking 4 AP classes next year. I go to a under represented school district. I changed my life around and now I"m getting straight A’s. What are my chances?
</p>
your advice definitely helped!