Chance me? (Native American for Dartmouth ED)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Liking the idea of Dartmouth, but my heart is not completely set on it. In case of rejection, I’m perfectly content attending my home school, the University of Montana. I’m only applying to these two schools. (UM accepts anyone who isn’t a felon, basically.)

Demographics:
Registered, card-holding, member of Cree of Cold Lake First Nation
White from my mom’s side, Native from my dad’s.

Rural North (MT), lower-class (gross family income 35k annual) Deceased father who left no inheritance.

Major: creative writing and education

SAT: COVID-19’ed

ACT: 30 actual (taken in April 2019 as a 15-year-old, will attempt again when available), 33 average on practice tests (35E, 35R, 30S, 27M)

GPA: 3.5 UW at High School, 4.0 at University of Montana

I’ve got two D’s on my transcript, both from sophomore year when serious family issues led me to miss school and generally place focus elsewhere. Both classes in process of re-taking, expecting A’s.

I expected to early graduate as a junior and thus, took available online classes (In Montana, this is the Montana Digital Academy, which does not offer Honors or AP for most courses.) I completed most junior classes online.

Coursework: IB classes in 2019-20 school year (IB English year 12, IB TOK II, IB Arabic 3, IB 20th Cent Topics) Two university courses (200 level ANTY’s), Wildlife Bio, and Ceramics. 4.0 for these all!

Awards:
Placed top 16 in every debate meet attended (Lincoln Douglas) for Frosh and Soph years. (Left team as a junior due to change of coaching and lack of interest.) These include state, Varsity as a Frosh, two meet wins, one top speaker award.

Honor Roll (heh, 3.5), University of Montana’s Dean’s List

President of Arabic Honors society, 2 years

Various awards from 2018-2019 when I competed in many regional science fairs. My high school team took first in every fair attended. Geology awards include Best in Fair: Earth Science, NASA Earth System Science Award. I also was one of 18 students accepted to compete in a highly exclusive, ISEF-qualifying fair.

19 Credits at University of Montana

Accepted to exclusive, Project Bridge Program (it visits Korea as an international ambassador). (I ended up leaving the program after seeing that its recruitment was race-based, contrary to what I was told. I have a sick diss-essay about it.)

Extracurriculars:
Founded and Elected President of Hiking Club, which is exactly as it sounds, but has accumulated 28 members and 40+ volunteer hours

Have worked part-time since my 15th birthday, currently a barista at a local snazzy cafe (I’m not sure this matters, but BOY does it take up my time)

600+ verifiable volunteer hours via my church. All this time was spent working with refugees from DR Congo.

Creative writing: 2 essays have been published in lit magazines/journals

PS: I’ve applied for the Fly-In, but results don’t come back for a while. Any opinions on that?

2

Oh PPS: My letter of rec was already written (for IFI, but is a general letter) by a family-friend/ writing mentor who is a published poet/author, and a department head in Gonzaga’s liberal art’s program. it’s VERY well written and makes me sound absolutely lovely (it’s 3 pages long).

3

Looks like Dartmouth enrolls about 50 native americans each year. Your ACT score looks fine. A 30 at age 15 is pretty darn good. However the GPA might need to be explained. Can your guidance counselor explain this in their letter? The 4.0 university GPA is a good sign though.

Dartmouth has been long known to attract native american students. Do you live on the reservation? Or if not, do you have any connections with family members from your dad’s side? This would be good to emphasize in the essays.

If you don’t get into Dartmouth ED, have you considered an ED2 school? Your profile will be a hot commodity, so there are likely many schools who would like to have you.

4

First off, thank you for replying! It’s fascinating to hear your point of view.

I think my guidance counselor will have little trouble explaining the GPA if she chats with me about it first- we’re not close enough for her to know any details.

I live off-reservation, as my tribe’s Rez is in Alberta. In an essay for the Fly-In, they ask about your connection to your heritage. My essay is centered around a repeated disconnection from and loss of the Native side of my family. I have no contact with anyone from my dad’s biological family aside from an uncle. I also wrote a bit about the struggles of being mixed race in a homogenous white town, where you’re not white, but the tribes surrounding you are not your own either. (All of it was far more eloquent than this if I do say so myself.)

I’ve looked very briefly into some other small liberal arts colleges such as Colby and Middlebury, I was not as excited as I am for Dartmouth. My public AA high school sends an unusually high amount of students to Ivy’s, and I’ve been hearing all about the top-notch schools from friends. I looked at Harvard and Yale (some good friends are class of 2024 at respective schools). I really like the small and rural, liberal arts type. I’m very apprehensive about leaving Montana unless it’s for an amazing opportunity. The other schools I’ve looked into heavily are a tribal college 45 miles away from home, Whitworth, Gonzaga, and Montana State.

Do you have recommendations for colleges that my interests line up with?

5

Would it be correct to assume that you need close to full financial aid or scholarship to make college affordable?

Do you also have Canadian citizenship?

For liberal arts colleges, University of Minnesota Morris is tuition free for Native American or Canadian First Nation students, but the living and other costs are about $12k per year that you would probably need scholarships to cover some of.

6

Honestly the sky is the limit. They just need to know you can do the work. As long as the drop in GPA is properly explained, I think you will have lots of options. Run the net price calculators on each of the schools websites to make sure they are affordable. If so then apply ED to your first choice. Then have a backup plan for ED2, and then RD.

Just about any liberal arts college will give you a great education. Look at the ivy league schools, Stanford, UChicago, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt. If you want liberal arts colleges in a rural environment then consider: Kenyon. Amherst, Williams, Oberlin.

7

Look at applying through the Questbridge program. https://www.questbridge.org/ Dartmouth is a partner and the program may help steer you to other opportunities.

1 Like
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Yes to aid, no to Canadian citizenship. My home school also has that feature, thankfully. It’s the Native American tuition waiver and it would cover anything that the UM’s scholarships wouldn’t. I’ll take a peek at Minnesota, though! @ucbalumnus

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I’ll be sure to check these out. I really appreciate the advice! @sgopal2

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It looks like the Questbridge program deadline for application has already passed… Thanks, though! @BKSquared

11

The Questbridge app hasn’t open yet, see here: https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match/how-to-apply

You can sign up to be notified when the app opens, and I agree that you should consider applying.

12

Awww my son is Native and also looking at Dartmouth. Good luck with your application!

13

@mom2boys1999 That’s great! Best of luck to your son!