<p>I'm OOS (Virginia) and I'm a Caucasian female, so no help there. I applied RD with an Undecided major in Arts & Sciences.</p>
<p>If it helps, I've already been admitted to University of Virginia (Echols Scholar), Virginia Commonwealth University Honors College, University of Georgia, and Drexel University Honors College.</p>
<p>GPA: 3.9 unweighted, 4.2 weighted
SAT: 2210
CR: 780 W: 760 M: 670 :(
SAT II: Bio 770, Lit 700
School Type: Competitive public magnet for visual/performing arts. 80 kids in class
Ranking: School doesn't rank</p>
<p>AP/IB: school does not offer</p>
<p>Classes: No IB/AP, taken the maximum Dual Enrollment credits I was eligible to take. Will be entering college with 36 credit hours. Exhausted school's math/science courses. Basically the toughest schedule I was eligible to take, and then some.</p>
<p>EC's
Varsity Volleyball
Swim Team
Model United Nations
Peer Tutor
Yearbook staff (Editor)
Art Club (Vice Pres)
National Honor Society
Virginia Junior Academy of Sciences</p>
<p>Awards?
Some letters & Academic awards from volleyball
Science awards from Virginia Junior Academy of Sciences
National Merit Scholarship Commendation
Smaller school awards</p>
<p>Summers
Two jobs and summer programs at the Savannah College of Art & Design and Virginia State University</p>
<p>Community Service: About 200 hours logged</p>
<p>Work: Waitressing at local restaurant for about 6 months sophomore into junior year. Employed at a convenience store for the last 9-ish months/</p>
<p>Recommendations
My teacher wrote me an absolutely glowing letter of recommendation in which it truly sounded like I walked on water.</p>
<p>Essay: Talk about a time when you failed.</p>
<p>In the real world, driving is regarded as something between a means to an end and a nuisance. But not in high school. At age 16, a driver's license is a status symbol, the physical embodiment of a rite of passage, something to brag about.
During my sophomore year, I was an anomaly in that I had neither a learner's permit nor any real interest in obtaining one. As my junior year drew nearer, however, I thought that I should try to keep up with my classmates. I had never sat behind the wheel of a car in my life, but the DMV handbook read like common sense, so I wasn't unduly nervous the day I sat in the waiting room for my first attempt at the test.
I went through the motions of signing paperwork, taking a vision test, having my picture taken. . . An hour later, I sat before a computer screen, faced with the task of matching ten road signs with their meanings. Answering one question incorrectly meant automatic failure.
Divided highway begins. Check.
Railroad crossing. Check.
Now for the last question. Oh, triumph. But what was this? Two arrows converging into one, a smaller one joining from the right. . . Among the digitized choices were Merge and Traffic in right lane must slow down.
Having an overly analytical brain is not always a good thing. My mind started whizzing, and I remembered something from the handbook – when you merged onto a busier road, you must always slow down and select a gap in traffic, as you don't have the right of way. Hesitantly, I clicked on the latter choice.
A black box popped up on the screen, and I squinted at it, but nothing written there even vaguely resembled praise. Failure, see instructor.
During the drive home, I sat obstinately in the passenger's seat, bawling to my mother. I wasn't really upset about failing – I could try again in 15 business days. But I had told a few of my friends that I had been going to take the test today, and now I would have to admit failure to those who were already licensed drivers. At the time, I thought the only way I could count as a teenager was driving around in a shiny car and keeping my keys on one of those cute key rings, probably with an initial charm hanging off of it.
My problem was that for several years of my life, I had been blinded by one definition of teenage success, and that was the one popularized by MTV and Seventeen Magazine. You had a pimple? You spent time reading for pleasure? Better get suited up for the rest of your life with a furry bathrobe and eight cats.
The more I sat around and moped, the sillier I felt. There were so many more ways to be worthwhile, I realized, other than fulfilling teenage stereotypes. I now have my driver's license, but who cares? Everyone has one.
What other teenager has seen, and can quote from, every episode of Seinfeld? Can anyone else scale a cliff face in cowboy boots? Stand up if you can differentiate a function blindfolded. Hands in the air, everybody who has a working knowledge of the effect of Cormac McCarthy's barren prose on American literature.
So what if I have to beg a ride home from school? I choose to be successful in my own right. </p>
<p>Thanks for the chance! I should be delighted to return the favor.</p>