Applicants should be careful about revealing mental health issues. Colleges’ mental health facilities are overwhelmed with too many students needing help for a myriad of mental health problems. When faced with a choice between similar levels of achievement/interests in applicants, colleges will choose the one who hasn’t related a history of mental health trouble. Certain mental health issues would probably deep six your application to any school that doesn’t simply select based upon GPA/scores. Colleges are just dealing with too many depressed, anxious students in need of serious mental health support, single rooms, emotional support animals, and academic accommodations to want to knowingly accept even more. I’m gonna take a lot of flak for stating this, but it’s too big a risk to your applications to ignore this.
If one really has faced serious trouble, it is best to let your high school advisor mention this in their cover letter, rather than your stating it yourself. Of course, many students have had to deal with very serious challenges, but it just comes across better if the counselor relates it than if you do. In your own essay, better to write about hopes, dreams, aspirations, passions, etc, rather than how you’ve overcome adversity, despite the common “How have you overcome adversity?” prompt. If you come from a dangerous slum town rife with gangs, and want to write about that, you’re going to have to come at it with some sort of an angle that also shows something about yourself, something that makes it good writing, to the level of art. Every year, the NYT publishes a few college application essays that were somehow related to money (whether coming from poor or rich). Go back and read as many of these as you can, and you’ll see what I mean. Some of them are very powerful, and manage to convey the applicant’s challenging background in a manner that both shows a lot about who the applicant is, and rises to the level of art. The more of these essays you read, the better. It might give you some ideas about stylistic approaches that manage to convey a history of adversity while also showing the person’s strength.
Your GPA and rank will open up a number of doors for a first gen low income Hispanic male. Don’t sell yourself short. Your safeties should be Rutgers and TCNJ (unless these are schools you don’t want to attend). I really hope you get into QB, and match through that to a great school. I think that you should consider more Ivies, because of the fact that they are more likely to offer you full funding without loans. Columbia. Penn, maybe Hopkins. You surely have an application waiver for Common App - I suggest you apply to the I think 20 schools you’re allowed on it, unless you wind up going Quest Bridge and that shapes your application process. Aside from your in-state flagships, the rest should be high reach safeties that offer a lot of funding, maybe high reach LACs that in addition to funding might offer more personal attention. It’s a tough transition from top of a poor high school to highly selective college, in terms of academics.
One more thing. You say you’re not submitting SAT or ACT scores. If your scores were very low, you need to consider whether you’d be best served by the intensely high academic level and academic competition at one of the highly selective schools, even if you were to be accepted to one of them. Especially if you’re hoping for med school, you might be better off being a superstar at, say, Montclair State U, than struggling at Columbia, when it comes time to apply to medical school. If you were interested in going into a field where your social connections mattered more than your grades, yes, then Columbia or Penn would serve you better. But if what you want is a solid education while managing to compile the very high GPA that you’ll need for med school, a less competitive school might serve you better.