High-income straight Asian male from Northern Virginia (sucks…)
GPA: 4.2 W, 3.76 UW (end of junior year - my GPA is rather low for NoVA standards)
ACT: 32.5 (technically rounds to 33)
Major: Poli Sci/History
Coursework (senior year grades pending):
English 9 regular (A), English 10 honors (A), English 11 regular (A - I took this class over the summer, and in the summer they unfortunately don’t offer AP or HN classes)
Spanish 1, 2, 3 regular, 4 honors (all As)
Math: Alg I HN (A-), Geometry HN (B), Alg II HN (B+), Precalc regular (A-), AP Calc AB (B-), AP Stat (B), Calc II dual enrolled (B); I suck at math completely and hate it
History: History 1 HN, AP World History, US History Dual Enrolled, Economics 1 HN (all As - history is definitely my strongest subject)
Electives: Air Force Junior ROTC, Gym 1, Gym 2 (all As)
Senior classes: Band 1, US Govt dual-enrolled, AP Psych, AP Econ, English 12 dual enrolled, AP Envi Sci, AP Spanish Lang
Total: 12 AP/DE, 10 HN
ECs:
Regional head of over 400 people in kiwanis key club; i doubled my area’s membership from its COVID low, gained 400 instagram followers, collected 100 missing inactive club contacts from across my state, and reactivated a club (9th-12th).
PR Captain, FIRST Robotics; sent press releases to sponsors, lead submission for impact award (highest robotics award that discussed our team’s social contributions), and taught freshmen how to fundraise.
Cohort captain (highest rank) in a national youth online sexual abuse prevention nonprofit (11th-12th).
Youth Outreach Lead in a Northern Virginia-based nonprofit (led by adults with a special youth board, not student-run ■■■■■■■■) which donated $10k to local charities (11th-12th).
Founder of my school’s first rho kappa nat’l social studies honor society; I brought guest speakers from the legal field and raised $220 as dues money with 15 members (12th).
Chapter treasurer, Best Buddies; I’m in charge of dues management for my chapter (11th-12th).
Summer Intern, county government; $1000 stipend (12th).
Spring Intern, Teach for America 501c(3); helped decide which American schools would be awarded a $10000 grant for educational innovation and got a $1000 stipend (10th).
Virginia Space Coast Scholar, NASA (10th).
Research helper for a local law firm dedicated to making government electric vehicle funding more accessible that I luckily cold emailed.
Awards:
Congressional Bronze Medal (100 service hours, 50 fitness hours, 50 personal enrichment hours, and an exploration into nature or a new culture in 7 months - 10th).
PVSA Teenage Gold (100 hours in 12th months; I double-counted my Congressional hours lmao - 10th).
2x Nat’l Council for Geographic Education Global Bee Champion (Someone told me about this contest and although it’s open internationally, only 2 kids competed across the globe lol - 10th, 11th).
2nd place, Virginia State Future Business Leaders of America political science (10th)
Northern Virginia Region National History Day Special Awardee, National Museum of the Marine Corps (came with $1000 scholarship - 10th)
Essays: I’ve drafted my Common App essay about how I love learning about world banknotes and can recognize the origin country of any world banknote from the past 50 years + how that motivated me to study history and poli sci.
In addition to @tsbna44’s points, I want to address this comment of yours:
It sounds like you think you are demographically disadvantaged, but…
“high-income” - is a boost at need aware schools
“straight” - sexual orientation makes no difference in college admissions.
“Asian male” - is a boost at several LACs
No and a 34 while better than a 32 doesn’t compensate for your academics.
Tons of great schools. 4.0 and 1600s get shot down. My daughters valedictorian applied to 16 of the US News top 20 with a 4.6 weighted (4.0 unweighted) so 10 or 12 APs and a 36 and was 0 for 16. Got into NYU. goes to UTK
By the way top 20 is a misnomer as there’s LACs too. Williams, Amherst, etc.
Why the fascination with top 20 ?
You will make your success - not your school.
You’re focusing on the wrong things.
Have a balanced list. Take your shots but most importantly find the right fit.
Let’s just be very candid. You are a high income, Asian Male in NoVa with good but not top grades.
Your chances are very, very low for T20, Ivies, and LACs like Wiilliams and Amherst. Unfortunately you are in the lowest probability demographic group for the schools you want.
But as others have said, there are lots of good schools who want you.
I assume you’re not at or near the top ? Just wondering how tough your school is. Maybe yiur gpa stands out. The counselor will give an approximate rank.
You have a chance for anywhere but maybe not a great chance. But when they admit 10-20%, who does?
UMD is possible but not likely.
W&M - as an in state you’d know better.
What would you study at the VT College of Science? Not Poli Sci or History.
No one is saying don’t try. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
But you need a balanced list.
Lots of schools would love to have you and Pat to have you. UGA is strong in Poli Sci. Schools like Alabama and Ole Miss (another strong Poli Sci) would give you big merit. Indiana is another fine school to consider. Tops in public affairs at the grad level, ahead of Harvard. And a safety for you. Syracuse a good school for your interests as well.
My assessment is the USC, NYU, Emory, BC, Michigan, and UNC-CH are all pretty high reaches. You’ve got a better shot at UVA and William & Mary because you’re instate, and UMD and Virginia Tech are slightly easier admits as well (although I’m not sure why Virginia Tech is on the list if you want to major in social sciences). But even those last four would be reaches. There are soooo many schools that have amazing political science and history departments, though, and you’ll definitely be able to go to a great school!
I would start not by looking at lists of the top 50 universities in the country, but instead with what types of school you’re looking for in terms of 1) size, 2) area of the country, 3) programs, 4) greek life, 5) urban/suburban/rural, 6) college sports, etc. Then, build a list starting with safeties and targets, finding ones you really really like. Then definitely add in some reaches and take your shot!
Just based on the schools on your list so far as well as your ECs and major interests, I’d recommend you take a good look at American and George Washington.
With your interest in history and political science, and your service-oriented ECs, and your ROTC background, you should absolutely apply to William and Mary. I’m not sure if you intend to continue with ROTC, but they have a strong ROTC program you might be interested in. W&M is difficult to get into, but you’d absolutely have a shot at it. (Also, I’ll echo others above that you should be looking to develop a list of matches and “likelies” as well … JMU, VCU, etc.)
Wherever you apply, I’d encourage you to think about the coherent narrative of your ECs and academic interests. You seem to have a lot of interests across a range of subject areas (robotics, education, space, law, service, numismatics, SA prevention, JROTC) … and it’s true that broad curiosity and conceptual bridge-building across disciplines is one of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education. But it also creates a bit of a struggle for an admissions officer to get a sense as to what your “thing” is (and why it’s uniquely yours). You might spend some time thinking through what you’d want people to come away from your application knowing about you, and to figure out how to emphasize that throughline.
Also, as a side note, I’d encourage you to rein in negative self-talk. A number of lines in your self-description above are needlessly negative. There’s a fine line between humility and being overly down on yourself. You have a lot to offer the world, and a bright future, wherever you end up going to school.
Need aware schools like Georgetown and Tufts would be top of my list if I were you. You could take a stab at Notre Dame.
Those would be my pick since you crave prestige, whatever that means.
I took JROTC for a single year during the pandemic and hated it lol; it isn’t a component of my story at all.
My broad theme is “civic engagement” since all my activities have something to do with helping the community in many different ways. It isn’t limited to tutoring or advocacy or whatever, but what I’ve tried to do is learn about every societal problem I can and tackle it however I can. Does this take away from the spike factor, or can civic engagement itself be my spike?
