To start off, I am Mexican-Honduran, first generation to attend college, played soccer since I was 5, high school varsity captain and played in travel elite socccer teams, also starting varsity football kicker. I am also an athletic trainer which has given me over 350+ volunteer hours, joined latin club (language not culture) as well. what frightens me is my parents income is barely $32,000 and it’s concerning me. My gpa is 4.4 and aiming for sat of 2000. I’m in the last quarter of my junior. when junior year began I suffered a shoulder injury which required immediate surgery to repair my ligaments. The 3 quarters of my junior year I was not able to write because it was the hand of my surgery and was not even able to study because of the pain and strong medications. That forced me to have a few C’s but they were C’s in Ap/honors courses. My last quarter of Junior year I had straight A’s and overcame the obstacles. I’m planning to graduate with 11 ap courses and the rest honors. My senior year I will be performing a lot better in class and getting in the field playing in all 3 teams as I am healthy and emotionally stable From the trauma I went through. I just want to know what are my chances at Ivy league if I show them my average performance in Junior year was not on my behalf, but it was on a trauma like I explained and was able to pick myself up as soon as I was able to perform at full and recover. Thank you!
From your post, I can’t tell if you are a domestic or international student.
If you are international student, see: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics. From the drop-down menu, select: Students, Honduras, and Harvard College and you will see that there is one (1) student from Honduras currently at Harvard. That means that, on average, Harvard accepts about 1 student every four years from your country. Although Harvard’s international office doesn’t list how many students from Honduras have applied every year, your chances are not great, even with a 4.0 unweighted GPA and a 2400 SAT.
If you are a US resident, your SAT of 2000 is on the very low end for Harvard. By all means apply, but I would expand your search to Division 3 schools and try to use your soccer skills to gain admission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_III_institutions. FWIW: At Harvard, your soccer skills will only help if you are competitive at a Division 1 level, have registered with the http://web3.ncaa.org/ECWR2/NCAA_EMS/NCAA.jsp, and have been in contact with a Harvard soccer coach, and have had that coach express interest in recruiting you. If you are not competitive for Division 1, soccer is just like any other EC’s – it won’t help you get in, but it will distinguish you among other applicants.
If you can discuss your injure and surgery and how it affected you, and how you overcame it, you can still be a very strong applicant. However, you must have an extremely strong essay and higher SAT scores than a 2000, I’m talking 2200 would be a good aim for a good chance to get in. Don’t be frightened about your parents income, you can always get financial aid. I understand how the trauma affected you, something similar happened to me in my sophomore year and I required surgery and it messed me up for the term for sure.
Actually, it’s better to have your guidance counselor explain this sort of thing in their Secondary School Report (SSR) because colleges often want an injury/illness that has adversely effected grades to be documented by an adult in a supervisory capacity. In addition, if the guidance counselor discusses the injury, this allows the OP to write their essay on another topic without fearing that their essay might become a sob story about their injury.
You have a strong hook, so if you can write a solid essay, and can improve your SATs, I’d suggest it will allow you to overcome a rough GPA in your junior year. I’d think you stand as good a chance as anyone else - sadly everyone else’s chances aren’t that great either.
Are you being recruited for any of your sports?
Good luck to you.