I am a female Mexican student (immigrant status) . Big public school in California (~2800 students) (99% Hispanic) Most students go to a community college after.
First gen college student. First one in my family graduating High School as well. Low-income. Parents make less than 24k. Intended major/ Interest: Architecture/ Engineering
SAT
1810
Math: 570
Reading: 630
Writing: 610
Subject Tests:
Math Level 2: 680
Spanish: 790
Chemistry: 610
Class rank: 1/650
GPA: 4.65 W
3.85 NW
AP Tests/ Scores:
AP World : 4
AP Chem: 2
AP English Lang: 3
AP Calc BC: 1 / 1
AP Spanish: 5 (didn’t take class)
AP US History: 4
Courses:
Freshman Year:
French 1 [A]
Physical Education [A]
English 9 H [A] / Second semester **
Algebra 2 H [A]
World History H [A]
Biology H [A]
Sophomore Year:
English 10 H [A]
AP World History [A] / Second semester **
Math Analysis H (pre-calc) [A]
Chemistry H [A]
French 2 [A]
Tennis [A]
Junior Year:
French 3 [A]
AP Chemistry [A]
AP Calculus BC [A] : Second semester [C] simply didn’t learn the material, should’ve done better. Teacher didn’t teach BC chapters
AP English Lang [A]
AP US History [A]
Tennis [A]
Summer Before Senior Year:
College Math class equivalent to First Semester Calc [A]
Senior Year:
Physics H (AP not offered at my school)
AP Macro Economics
AP Government
AP Spanish Literature
Art
AP English Literature
Tennis
Extracurriculars/ Awards:
Junior Varsity Tennis (10th)
Varsity Tennis (11/12) [Varsity Co-Captain 12th]
Religious preaching (9-12) (300+ hours)
Quiz Bowl Team (11-12)
California Scholarship Federation (10-12)
Performance Engineering Program 12
Volunteer at a local preschool (11-12) (aiming for at least 100 hours)
Internship offered at my school working with social media and student connections. [12]
no significant awards except maybe AP Scholar from College Board and Honor Roll Recognition in Bio and French 3. was invited to last year’s commencement ceremony for being part of the top 10 juniors.
I have good teacher recommendations (one from my math teacher and the other one from my chemistry teacher). I will get one from my supervisor at the preschool I volunteer at.
This is what I can think of as of now… please be nice and thank you.
As an admissions officer, seeing a valedictorian (in a class of 650) with an 1810 SAT and average subject tests, I would assume that your school is not rigorous in the least.
It’s impossible to really chance you without some idea of the schools you’re applying to, but I’d say you should aim for schools where the 75th percentile SAT score is around 2,000.
What schools are you applying to?
I don’t think you understand ‘Chancing’, what are we chancing you for? If you want help, go to College search and Selection or the College Admissions forum. Chancing is just a children’s game. Or you will get stupid comments from not very smart people. I have no doubt you could get some good acceptances if you choose carefully and put together a good application.
Never blame your teachers for your own failings, otherwise why are you hurting our eyes with your bolding and expecting is to read every detail when you could summarize.
@zatno101, congratulations on your record to date. It sounds like you have come a long way given your background and the resources available to you, and that will certainly be of interest to colleges, who will take those things into consideration. I’m sure you should have better options available than most students at your school have had in the past.
That said, you need to come up with a list of target schools, as others have already suggested. Here are the 25th-75th percentile scores for many colleges from 2011 (they haven’t changed much):
https://njsca.org/pdf/SAT_%20college_Class_of_2015.pdf
You should look at schools where your SAT score would place you somewhere in the middle of the range. Given your background and valedictorian status, you would have a solid shot at getting into such schools. Your ECs are a bit thin, but that will be judged in the context of the resources available to you. It’s fine to pick a couple of schools where your scores fall at the lower end (reaches), as long as you have a range and a few safety options.
More importantly, once you have a list of possible target schools you need to do some web searches and research those schools to find where you think you would be a good fit, and which ones seem to appeal to you.
If you are able to retake the SAT and get your scores up another 100 points or so you will likely have access to some stronger schools. But the concern right now will be that your school has not prepared you adequately to be able to handle the rigor at some of the more selective schools.