@wiscomdg What is your career goal?? Lawyer?
You’re a NMF…did you apply anywhere that would give you HUGE merit? It’s not too late to apply if you didn’t.
How much money will your parents spend each year on college now that your mom is ill?
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I'm awaiting several decisions over the next few weeks and would like to see what people think I'll be hearing! I'll be sure to update when results come in (good or bad).
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Personal:
White, Male
I go to a small (<1000 students), public, suburban high school in Wisconsin
My dad earned an associated degree when I was a toddler and my mom took some college credits after high school but has no degree. Some schools consider me “first gen” but others don’t.
I’ll be applying for financial aid but not expected a ton.
Stats:
ACT: 35 w/o writing (I sent this to every school but Harvard)
35 w/ 26 writing (only school to receive this score was Harvard)
GPA: 3.761 (weakest point of my application in my opinion) my school does not rank or weigh GPAs. Within my school I have a good GPA but certainly not the highest in my class. I have a harder course load than anyone else I know.
APs: Bio (5), Psych (5), Lang (5), Euro (4), US (4)
Current course load: AP Calc BC, AP Stats, APES, APGAP, AP Lit, and Art. I took Spanish every semester until this one; it no longer fits into my schedule (my school has limited spots for getting desired classes) so my guidance counselor wrote a note explaining this to every college I applied to.
National Merit Scholarship Finalist
AP Scholar with Distinction
Extracurriculars:
Run my school’s Political Action Club (PAC)
Intern for a state senator (I’m the first high schooler to intern with a state legislature of either party or chamber, every other intern has been a college student).
I gave a lot of volunteer time to various campaigns leading up to the 2016 election. (If you can’t tell already… I plan to major in polisci)
FBLA (nationals last year, state the other two years)
Model UN (a variety of awards)
Math Team (sophomore year I won a bronze medal)
Youth Delegate to my church’s Pastoral Council last year
10 night homestay with a host mother in Peru
NHS
Boy Scout (I recently became an Eagle Scout but that isn’t reflected in my applications)
I’m in a bunch of other smaller clubs and do volunteering but that’s all hardly important to the overall scheme of my application.
Recommendations/Essays:
My common app essay was about taking PAC from having literally one member to being a vibrant group with many members and everything I learned about myself along the way.
To several schools I wrote supplemental essays about an inexperience I had with a local judge through my internship in which I reevaluated what I think the role of government and public service in in light of revelations about the role of incarceration in the lives of local youth.
I wrote a Harvard essay about what it means to study Spanish and how one day I hope to join the Peace Corp (like my aunt) and use my Spanish skills.
I wrote an essay to Boston College about how my grandma lives near their campus (10 minutes max) and how my dad grew up near there and how much it would mean to me to be able to grow academically, spiritually, and personally as a student there.
I had recommendations from two teachers (AP Biology and AP Lang) both said that it was refreshing to have a student who cares so much about learning but so little about grades (LOL though, I wish I had cared more about grades). They both talked about my writing abilities. My biology teacher talked about how I was the only ever student she had who volunteered to come in on a Saturday because I wanted extra data for a lab. My Lang teacher said I’ll be “eternally etched” in her memory and had a powerful quote about how I’m destined to succeed and it’s up to these schools to decide whether or not my mind will be challenged like it deserves (she’s a dramatic, but powerful writer haha). My guidance counselor wrote his recommendation about how he met me my freshman year during an FBLA competition and how I knew more about the Affordable Care Act that he every thought any high school student would. My principal wrote me a letter of rec (to my knowledge he’s never done with for another student) it was really generic but just being from him meant something.
Schools:
Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Northwestern, Boston College, Boston University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Loyola (in Chicago), and University of Wisconsin–Madison
I applied EA to Harvard, UNC, and Madison. I was accepted to Madison but deferred from Harvard and UNC.
The only school to offer me an interview was Brown. They are notorious for their easy interviews but I still think mine went very, very well. We talked about my internship and my interviewer had actually read a press release I wrote so he was super impressed and we really clicked. We talked about a ton of historical issues and current event and even pop culture (we both loved the Hamilton soundtrack). He asked what I wanted to “major in” and I told him what I wanted to “concentrate in” (Brown doesn’t do “majors” they do “concentrations” but they’re the same thing) and he told me no other student had ever known that before the interview. At the end he told me that he “wished the recommendation could count for more” because he had “never met anyone better suited for Brown” and assured me that I would end up somewhere incredible (fingers crossed he was right!).
Please let me know what you guys think! Also if I forgot anything, I’ll try to update you! Thanks!
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