Intended Major - philosophy or spanish, maybe journalism
Background - lower-middle class, mexican, female, applying for financial aid
ACT - haven’t taken it, dont know if i will
SAT - 1340, retaking in august with essay, hoping for 1400+
UW GPA: 98.11/100
W GPA: unknown
Class Rank: Top 10%
APs
• Human Geography - 4
• Gov/Politics - 3
• Spanish- 5
• USH - 3
• English Lang - 4
Planning on taking:
• APES
• APWH
• Psych
• Lit
• Calc AB
ECs
• Varsity Cross Country running (4 years)
• Varsity Track (4 years)
• Governors Honors Program (Nominated for English, Spanish, Agriculture, alternate-finalist for Spanish)
• GA Youth Assembly (Editor of the newspaper)
• Model UN (Security Council)
• The Wave (started a student quarterly magazine my sophomore year)
• Freelancing (i freelance write for a local Spanish newspaper)
• Work (i’ve worked ~20 hours a week since my sophomore year)
• Sprinkles Company: kinda random but my sister wants to open a bakery so her and I co-founded a custom sprinkles company
• FFA - I’m in the vet science program at my school, so i’m also in FFA.
• Obligatory honors societies: NHS, Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honors Society
• Awards: a few school-wide writing things, AP Scholar, governors honors program finalist, idk if this matters but i made it to 8th in the state spelling bee lmao
Other:
• in-state for UGA, GT
• my sister had a life-threatening illness my sophomore year, which changed my perspective on life and was very traumatic. she’s recovered now, but i spent most nights in the hospital with her then. thinking of maybe writing about it.
• bilingual
• i have a rly white-sounding name despite being half mexican and was thinking about writing about growing into my identity and learning to love it
You have a nice list there except it’s missing your most important school. The one you know will take you, give you the academics you need and that you know you can afford.
Also, have you worked through the numbers so that you know what you can afford? Get your parents’ financials’ (2018 tax info and current assets) and run an estimated FAFSA EFC and NPCs for those schools on your list. I know Georgia has HOPE and ZellMiller, but UGA and GT are no sure things.
BU, Fordham, NYU do not guarantee to meet full need and getting a lot of merit money is always a challenge.
For financial aid, your need is defined by the schools not by you or your parents and that figure may not be the same. Before you apply ES to Barnard, make sure you run a NPC on them. If there is a family business, divorced parents, step parents, the NPC may not be accurate and a pre read a good idea.
I think you have good choices, if you address the finances of each of the schools and get that one special schooladded to your list.
I think being Hispanic will help a lot. Also, your extracurriculars are interesting and related to your major. I’d guess you would get in many places. Also you are not from a well over represented states so that will help. Your biggest challenge might be getting enough money.
Hi Katie, how did you going about choosing your schools? And does financial aid matter to you?