For background:
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Black/African American/Caribbean
Family size: 6
Intended Major: Computer Science
Grades:
GPA:3.45 unweighted/3.7 weighted
ACT Composite: 22
2 AP Classes on transcript
No IB courses offered
School does not rank
Extracurricular:
Member of National Honor Society
Member of French Honor Society
President and founder of local Hack Club chapter (Coding club)
Member of school Leadership team
Won 1st place in local programming tournament against other high schools
President of Anime club
Student Council Rep of Video Game club
Video Game club also donates to charity
Lector, sacristan, Extraordinary minister, and altar server at local parish
Second generation to attend college in America
Spent last 3 summers repairing computers for my local elementary school, learned various IT skills
300+ volunteer hours
Economic:
Low-income neighborhood
All children attend private schools on scholarships or some form of financial aid
Questbridge typically wants 3.75+/27, so I don’t think your EC’s will be enough to offset that.
You should also try the SAT, since you should be eligible for 2 fee waivers and some people do better on the SAT than the ACT (and vice versa). Scholarships often depend on test scores, so raising your scores in November and December is likely the best thing you can do to help with costs of college.
Practice a lot: standardized tests are, well, standardized, so, once you’ve figured out the “standardized” system, you can master the questions and therefore how to get to the answer.
Look for the book “ACT for bad test takers”, it’s meant for students with a B+ GPA who end up scoring in the 19-23 range. It gives good tips to increase one’s score.
You can also practice for free using Khan Academy - although it’s for the SAT, a lot of the content is similar, so practicing every day through them will help for the ACT too.
Great books to have are Erica Melzer’s ACT English and ACT Reading.
Emphasize your ability to speak French (are you currently taking French IV or AP?), as well as your work on repairing computers.
Look at Colleges that change lives - strong colleges such as Beloit, DePauw, Centre, Earlham Gustavus Adolphus, Luther, Muhlenberg, Kalamazoo, Wooster, Elizabethtown, Goucher, JuniataOhio Wesleyan*, would all be within reach. Most are either free to apply or can waive the fee if you email Admissions and explain you’re a lower income student from …, hoping to apply to their college, but blocked because of the fee, might they consider waiving it for you?
Other universities to look into:
Catholic universities: UScranton, UDayton, UEvansville, St Michael’s, Saint Louis University, Catholic University of America, Lemoyne, Loyola Chicago, Loyola New Orleans, Marquette, Niagara, Regis, LaSalle, St Bonaventure, Siena.
test optional universities: those with a *, Clark, Illinois Wesleyan, Ithaca, St Lawrence, Willamette, Earlham, UPuget Sound, Lewis&Clark, Allegheny, Transylvania, WPI (topnotch for CS), Temple (excellent for CS).
Express interest at Marist and Champlain. Marist has a special CS school in partnership with IBM and they’re test-optional (you can get in based on grades, essays, EC’s, and recommendations).
RUN THE NPC on all - all of the above meet at least 80% need but they calculate “need” differently and may not be affordable.
Read reply #2. Run the NPC for every single of these colleges. Fill out the request info for all the colleges whose net price is within budget for you.
You got an advantage from QB because you already have applications ready. This way, you can meet many colleges’ EA deadlines, as well as their Merit aid/Honors college deadlines.
Well, all the questions/essays cover one sort of essay or short answer on basically any application out there.
all you have to do is refine the essays and of course make sure your “why college z” template works.
Marist is test optional! We also have amazing opportunities to join our computer science department on partial or full scholarship. We take into account your extra-curricular activities, your grades and classes, and for scholarships we look at your economic background as well as award aid based on academic performance.
You can learn more about our computer science department and meet our faculty here: http://www.marist.edu/compscimath/
Apply to test-optional schools. Plenty of Questbridge colleges, like Wesleyan, don’t require you to submit ACT/SAT. Your ECs are good, so just make sure you have good essays and recommendations.
