<p>Your essay should NOT be about your drug addiction. The essay is what “you’re about”. describe a passion, take the reader into a defining moment for you, make them understand your year, who you are now, how you’ve changed, etc. Your essay will be that by which you’ll be remembered. You don’t want to be remembered as “the druggie applicant”. You want to be remembered as “the rock climber”, “the mushroom picker”, “the reader”, or whatever. </p>
<p>The drug addiction should be included in the “additional information box” ONLY, starting with “A medical certificate from Dr.A, Pr.E and Institution C will be produced on demande to certify that my low grades were due to a drug addiction that has now been thoroughly overcome and left behind. My counselor/ My doctor will gladly discuss this with your college’s admission staff.”</p>
<p>AND your counselor MUST be ready to explain how you overcame addiction and especially how you’re doing, because they WILL call.</p>
<p>I must say that if your addiction was pot, it may fly, but if it was heroin, they probably won’t take the risk.</p>
<p>As for now, you need to get straight A’s. Working (especially if it was more than 5-6hrs/week) and community service ARE EC’s.</p>
<p>Knox MIGHT take a chance on you but the other schools wouldn’t. Purdue is numerical and you don’t have the numbers. Same thing for OSU - your SAT would be enough if you had a 3.0, perhaps a 2.9. USC receives dozens of thousands (literally) applications, you won’t make the first cut.</p>
<p>By the way, SAT scores aren’t the guiding factor for Ivies. As long as you have 2100 (or even 2000) you’ve passed a hurdle, they look for other things like tenacity, creativity, generosity, ability to handle high-level work on your own, etc. </p>
<p>If you really want to attend school in California, a solution would be for you to go there and work, to establish residency, while taking part time classes at the closest community college from your work. Find a community college that has transfer agreements with USC and UCLA. Get straight A’s. After 2-3 years, you high school record doesn’t matter (except for SAT scores if you want to submit them), and only your college GPA counts. Both UCLA and USC admit lots of transfers. This is a risky move, to be contemplated only if 1° you have a support system in place BEFORE you apply to community college (ie., support group, doctors, etc) 2° you are currently getting A’s only.</p>
<p>Depending on what’s in-state for you, the community college route may be your best option. In addition, lots of students transfer into their flagship through “lateral” transfers, ie, from another 4 year college, so if you get admitted to a college nearby, you can use that as your stepping stone to your state flagship.</p>
<p>I would recommend “sober” and “dry” colleges, and/or requesting living in substance-free housing all 4 years. When you’ve beaten an addiction, you DO NOT want to be around drugged out/drunk students.</p>
<p>Once again, this isn’t really a chance thread, you should post in the Parents’ thread.</p>