<p>I'm just going to go ahead and give you my stats:</p>
<p>ACT: 33
GPA: 3.49 (unweighted)
APs: 2 my junior year, will be taking 3 or 4 senior year
My school doesn't put much emphasis on honors, but I THINK 2 or 3 classes I've taken classify as honors...
I'm a very good writer, so I'm not worried about essays.</p>
<p>As for my extracurriculars:
-I've been my class representative for the Campus Ministry (it's like the religious student council) every year, and will be again in my senior year.
-I'm in Spanish Honor Society.
-I attended the state Math/Science competition my junior year, and will again next year.
-I'm founding/presidenting Art Club next year, if that counts.</p>
<p>I KNOW I'm lacking in the extracurricular (and GPA) department. See, both my parents have full-time jobs, so I constantly need to be home to take care of my siblings. To add to that, I live about 45 minutes away from my school, so it's not like I can be there often. Extracurriculars just haven't worked out for me and now I'm afraid I'll be stuck at some southern football-obsessed state university getting a mediocre education.
(The GPA is my fault. I'm one of those "smart but lazy" kids. Or... I was. I got much better with that this past year)</p>
<p>So, if I have any chance, any chance at all of getting into some kind of private university or somewhere with people prefer books to trucks and hunting, please let me know. I'm really scared!</p>
<p>Can you give us what your intended major is? Also, you SHOULD be worried about your essay. I’ve seen TOO MANY students who thought their writing skills were excellent and ended up writing VERY generic essays.</p>
<p>This is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Colleges and universities will understand it if you’re not in, say, Model UN because you’re providing child care (or working in your family’s business, or what have you). The thing is, for the most part, colleges don’t really care *what *you’re with your out-of-school time (unless you play a sport well enough to play it in college). They really just want to know that you’re doing something productive, instead of getting high and playing Xbox.</p>
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<p>But don’t word it this way. It sounds as if you think you’re put-upon because both your parents work full-time. Most of the applicant pool will have two parents who work full-time…if they have two parents at all.</p>
<p>If you build your college list properly, you could have a lot of good options available to you next spring. But when you write your essays, you’ll want to avoid the phrases “half-decent” (colleges won’t find that flattering) and “somewhere with people [who] prefer books to trucks and hunting.” And probably also “private.” It makes you sound like a snob, and it neglects the fact that this country has some truly phenomenal public colleges and universities.</p>
<p>And I wouldn’t actually word an essay like that! I figure I can be a bit lazier about how I type and the phrases I use when I’m writing on a forum rather than when I’m addressing the college admissions officer that will be deciding whether or not I can take the next step of my life at his/her school.
Also, ahh, sorry if I sound snobby. I just… it’s a frustrating situation. I live in Mississippi, where people are really, really dedicated to certain schools. Basically, I was told by my family that if I don’t go to Ole Miss I have to go to some fancy private school up north. I’m not attracted to the emphasis on sororities at Ole Miss, and I know the type of people that go there. I’ve spent high school being called a hipster and a yankee and liberal trash, and I really just don’t want that anymore.
Sorry, you really don’t need my life story.</p>
<p>I want to major in international relations, and I’d like to to a school where people really, really care about what they’re learning. I’m still researching…</p>
<p>Hmm, in my opinion I’d wanna bump up my GPA and the ACT a bit more, probably mainly the ACT, cause I just say on a University of Florida thread, someone with a 3.6 and a 36 ACT was just barely making it into the majority percentile even there(NOT saying it isnt a good Uni, but look at my comparisons). And if you’re talking like UChicago or Notre Dame or MIT, then yeah you’d atleast wanna be in a University of Florida range to be on the safe side.</p>
<p>Yeah I feel you on the Southern State Football mentality. I mean it’s great and all but it isn’t for me. Here in Atlanta it seems like alot of people favor the Bulldogs over the NFL team (Falcons), you see G’s everywhere almost. Cars, windows, kids with shirts even out from Athens all the way to Forsyth. I know I know, all College towns are probably like that but it seems like they kinda too deep on the sports, the sororities are kinda a pushover at UGa, Im not gay but Im not into those over willing kind of girls and then they say “Bro youre black, you know how it is!”, hate that, the guys Frat Life seem a bit over the top for me and it’s more than just Athens, the whole Metro. And when I went to Alabama I got so tired of hearing about HOW BOUT DEM TIDES YALL. I was all the way up in Hoover/Birmingham, not even in Southern Alabama. Im not saying its wrong at all. But Im not feeling the culture, kinda wanna do more than just mainly sports for activities, and it’s strange. Im from Ohio and it’s more variety up in the Midwest with the activities, atleast where I’ve been. And in Ohio we have Ohio State, one of the BEST(if not, except Alabama and a couple others) Football teams in the NCAA, and even still my friends told me it was still more variety and culture than just football.</p>
<p>I, too, get what you’re saying, enira. I have lived in the South (and not as far south as Mississippi, either), and I am glad I no longer do. But to be fair, Mississippi did also produce Faulkner and Eudora Welty, you know?</p>
<p>If you’ll provide a little more information about the environment you’d like (size, urban/rural/suburban, artsy/wonkish/techie, etc.), you can probably get some suggestions. But I must warn you, most of 'em will cost a lot more than Ole Miss.</p>
<p>Any sized school is fine with me! And I’d really prefer somewhere urban.
As for the people there? Anything will go for me, with the exception of the population being 100% hardcore Conservative Republicans.</p>