Chance/Match Me! Unusual 17 year old Junior transfer/FTIC Florida student

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • Relatively large city in West-Central Florida
  • Small, moderately competitive collegiate high school
  • Female/Black/AA
  • First-generation, bilingual (Spanish), hospitalization due to MDD/personal issues

Intended Major(s): CSI / Criminology / Criminal Justice with a minor in Spanish

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.23 UW
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 3.75 W / ? sorry !
  • College GPA (for transfers): currently 2.32, predicted 3.5 by May / 3.14 with failing grades calculated in
  • Class Rank: HS rank 68/80
  • ACT/SAT Scores: April 2023 1230 SAT (680 R/W, 550 Math), took the Oct 28 ACT

Coursework

  • 2 AP (Human Geo, AP Lang) As in courses but 3 and 2, respectively, on the exam
  • Currently 32 DE credits, graduating early (HS) in December with 48, and 63 total + GEN-AA in May
  • 2 IB, 7 Pre-IB, 2 Honors

Awards

  • AA/minority excellence awards Sophomore + Junior year

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience):

Not much due to hospitalization/personal issues.

  • Part-time job (15 hours/wk)
  • 105 community service hours at local nursing homes, shadowing APRN
  • Year-long economic program, developing communication skills and financial literacy, hosting a Christmas drive for disadvantaged community members, encouraging voters to participate in the 2020 census, and working with Habitat for Humanity
  • Rollerblading as a hobby
  • Language learning (Spanish) as a hobby

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.):

  • Essay was a short narrative for my ENC 1101 class, the first and last 100 I received from one of the college’s most meticulous and difficult professors, so 10/10?
  • LOR from a counselor who has been actively involved in getting me back on track, knows my situation well and can vouch for my dedication toward academics, 10/10
  • Brief explanation of my situation in Common App and how it has affected my academic progress, plus steps I have taken toward improving myself and my academic standing, 9/10 (forgot to proofread … )

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.):

  • Mom has only agreed to pay for me to finish my AA at my college next semester.
  • Dependent student of divorced, single mother (less than $24k/yr), FMS eligible, Pell Grant eligible, EFC 0
  • Stetson sounds nice, but ideally, I can only afford somewhere public and in-state like UNF
  • Top choice is FSU

Schools

I don’t know why, but my counselor encouraged me to apply for schools along with my classmates despite my situation. Not knowing any better, I applied as a FTIC student to all but FSU and USF before realizing that I didn’t qualify as such since I’m doing 15 credits next semester (post-high school).

FTIC applications

  • UNF (accepted) - applied to Spanish (forgot to change my major)
  • Stetson (accepted) - applied to Sociology
  • FIU (conditional acceptance) - applied to Criminal Justice
  • UCF (waiting) - applied to Forensic Science - Biochemistry track
  • UTampa (waiting) - applied to Forensic Science

Transfer applications

  • FSU (need to submit my fall grades) - applied to CSI program
  • USF (same as FSU) - applied to Criminology program

Even though FSU and USF say you need a minimum 2.0 GPA to go into these programs, my GPA would still be 3.14, not honoring grade forgiveness, which is just barely above the 3.0 recommendation. Any advice/suggestions? Thank you!

I just recalculated the GPA. The GPA calculator my college uses is telling me 3.14 instead of 2.90, with failing grades calculated if I maintain all As through May. That’s reassuring.

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