Hello,
I am sophomore applying for boarding schools for junior year. I am half Indian and half white (not sure if this matters for chances of being admitted). I will also be applying for financial aid at any school I apply to.
Schools of interest: St. Pauls, Groton, Phillips Exeter Academy, Phillips Andover, Choate, Deerfield, etc. (Mostly top rated schools but am open to applying to others as well).
First question: Is it better to apply now (11/13/20) or to apply in December because I would still have time to improve my application by then?
My interests include finance (investing), programming and machine learning, I have experience in Python, HTML, CSS, and I am learning more about machine learning and and libraries in Python as of now. Other extracurriculars: ice hockey for a few years, student council, debate (just started), chess 2 years, classical guitar for about 8 years. I also enjoy speedcubing but that is not an official extracurricular, more of something I decided to take up on my own. I also now work with a professor from the university near me for science research in computational biology. In addition to that, I took a 3 week course at a local scientific research center in bioinformatics and protein research.
Volunteer:
Little volunteer experience, but I did volunteer for a few hours at a Christmas Party once as a result of being in student council.
Languages: French (Intermediate), English (fluent), learning German
I had a 98/100 GPA last year (freshman year) and got a 98+ average in every class. Right now, my grades aren’t great but I have a good reason for why they aren’t sufficient right now. I am worried that my first quarter grades could affect my application, but I was wondering if it is possible to explain to them why they are bad during the interview? I am taking 2 AP courses this year, I am self-studying for AP Economics, and I am in an IB school. I have also been in accelerated math at my school since 7th grade and I am taking Algebra 2 right now.
Test scores:
I haven’t taken the SSAT or any others like SAT, PSAT, although I do take the PSAT 10 in March but that is past
Worries: first quarter grades this year, haven’t done anything remarkable, not in enough advanced math courses at school, not enough AP courses, no standardized test scores, no awards (my school only gives awards if you’re in clubs and in 8th grade and senior year). I have a chance at receiving awards for debate because I have tournaments coming up.