<p>I'm a male senior from Houston Texas and I'm planning to apply early decision 1 to Vassar. I really love the school feel it would be a good fit for me. Plus their financial aid seems incredible when I ran the calculator it said my total cost would be 3000 all year.
I'll have taken 10 AP classes, duel credit class and 12 honors classes in total.
My GPA is 4.2 weighted 3.3 UW( I know that's awful but it's mainly due to a rough second semester junior year when my dad's drug addiction was really bad and we had other family issues. I have put this info in my common app but I know it's not an excuse)
SAT 2110( 760 cr, 690 m, 660w)
I'm considering taking ACT and signing up for the SAT subject tests today.
Extracurricular:
•I have been a never of HOSA 3 years and am more involved this year,
•I'm a member of TSA,
•I'm an officer in best buddies and help with the life skills class every day for my seventh period.
•I'm also a member of of my county's health corps.
•My family fosters dogs for a rescue group and I have been involved with that throughout high school
Work:
•Summer internship with Sundance fuels company. I worked 40 hours a week for 10 weeks
• now I'm hired by the district as a peer tutor
I just would like to know if I have a chance ED with the low GPA and not great ECs. Also any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>Vassar is a reach for you in my opinion, but you should apply and you just might get in. The fact that you are male I think helps, and your SAT score falls within their 25-75 range. Definitely need those SAT subject matter tests or the ACT with the writing portion (verify on Vassar’s site). Your low unweighted GPA is an issue, but Vassar does like to see lots of difficult classes taken, and you have done that. Also, you REALLY need to play up dealing with the family issues you’ve had to deal with. Make your ESSAY about that if at all possible.</p>
<p>ALSO, at Vassar, Early Decision applicants have a higher acceptance rate, so definitely do that as you are planning. You would get similar financial aid at most of the other full financial need colleges too by the way. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help! I have been working on the essay. It needs work but I think it’s relatively strong. It talks about how I lost my dad to drug addiction and how he was a role model to me before that. Then I go into how I became stronger and more determined after getting off track. I do really like Vassar and it did give me the lowest price estimate but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I think Grinnell is the better fit for me. This is of course no easier of a school to get into but they do have similarly hopeful early decision numbers. It’s right around fifty percent and a representative I talked to said she expected it to stay there this year. I’ll probably do Vassar ED 2 and if neither work I have a full list of common app schools that also claim to meet full aid and I’d love to attend. I’m feeling good but I really hope I’ll get lucky with Grinnell! </p>