I’m about to start my senior year and I have already started my college application process since the Questbridge application is due the 27th of September. I’m just wondering if it’s going to be actually worth applying and if i even have any chances of getting into any of these schools and the Questbridge program / if I should apply to less selective schools / what schools seem like a better fit or choice for me. I also wanted to know what you guys think I should do in terms of my senior schedule and what to include in my essays that will maybe make my application better overall.
Schools I’m Currently Thinking of Ranking: Stanford, Yale, Princeton, UPenn, Vanderbilt, Duke, Brown, Vassar, Northwestern.
Here are my stats:
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1400/1600 (700M, 700 CRW) - was forced to take it by my school, didn’t study at all.
ACT: 33 C ( 36R, 30M, 31R, 35E, 10 on writing)
SAT II: N/A
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.91
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): school doesn’t rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): Biology (4), Spanish Language (5), Psychology (5)
[school offered no APs to freshman, and only APUSH during sophomore year (I don’t really like history) so I didn’t take it. should I include this somewhere on my apps?]
IB (place score in parenthesis): school doesn’t offer IB
Senior Year Course Load:Honors Criminal Psychology, Honors World Literature, AP Stats, AP Calc AB, AP Spanish Literature, Honors Environmental Science (should I switch this to AP?),
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Nominated for National Hispanic Recognition Program (get results in September), AP Scholar,
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Key Club (11th and 12th) , Literary Magazine (10th,11th,12th) (Editor), Volleyball (9,10,12) (MVP and Starter)
Volunteer/Community service: Helped coach Middle school volleyball team, volunteer at Open house at my school every year, did a 2 week summer volunteer program at my school where we do fun things and introduce the school to incoming freshman, volunteer at registration, and an array of different events that I heard of through Key Club.
Summer Activities: Taught myself how to play acoustic guitar one summer, then made a goal to save money throughout year to buy electric guitar summer before Senior year, which I just bought! Also read a lot and volunteered.
Essays: Okay so we wrote our Common App essays in school before summer and I wrote mine about Toaster Strudels and how they marked a significant time in my life when my dad was diagnosed with cancer and it kind of just changed all of our lives. My mom had to take my siblings to school and didn’t have time to make me breakfast so she bought Toaster Strudels and I began to wake myself up and make myself breakfast every single day ( I was like 5 years old). Talked about how my mom’s face lit up after seeing me ready to go to my school (a couple of blocks away) when she got back from dropping off my siblings and how that motivated me to keep doing things for myself. Tied it into the person I am today, how I want to succeed and do my best to make myself feel competent and how I learned to utilize the resources available to me to make the best out of a challenging or difficult situation. A quote: " I shall never present work that does not similarly radiate the enchanting golden glow of those Toaster Strudels" I just realized how much of a rant this is but yeah that’s what it’s all about.
Teacher Recommendations: one from Spanish teacher and one from Psych teacher (who both saw me put a lot of hard work into each of their classes, both knew 3 APs was a lot for me but I still did it anyway. Both loved to talk to me and loved the work I turned in and highlighted how much effort I actually put in unlike many others in their class).
Counselor Rec: My counselor just left and I’m getting a new counselor so I don’t think this will be as good.
Other
State (if domestic applicant): Illinois
School Type: Public Selective Enrollment (have to test in to get accepted or rejected)
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: around 22K
Assets: None
Property: None
Extenuating Circumstances:
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Gay, Hispanic, child of immigrants, very low-income, Dad is disabled and has had cancer since I was like 4 or 3 ? so we rely a lot on disability checks since he can’t work anymore. Mom doesn’t work because she has to be with him during the day to help him with anything.
I also took an accelerated math 2 course over the summer between freshman and sophomore year so that I could take math 3 during sophomore year, math 4 (precalc) during junior year, and AP Calc as a senior. Without doing this, I wouldn’t have been given the chance to take AP Calc.
Also know how to play guitar (acoustic and electric), flute, cello, and saxophone (alto and baritone). Should I include this somewhere?
