<p>I feel like throwing myself off of a building for all the competition for this school. it seriously makes me nauseous because i really do love this school and i want to go here.</p>
<p>I go to a crap school in Arizona where my counselors seriously PUSH students here to go to a community college, and think a 1200/2400 on SAT's is great. My school is mostly minorities, and its biggest problem is getting seniors to pass their AIMs score. What i'm trying to say is we have a bad academic reputation. My school implemented AP courses for the first time when i was a sophomore, and it was only available for seniors. My junior year the classes were opened up to juniors, but we only had AP English/AP US History. I took both. This year they have gained AP classes in other areas of study, but I have already taken those classes on an honors level and chose not to retake them with freshmen and sophomores. The two senior classes I need now are AP English 4 and AP Government. I declined to take AP Government because I am graduating early and it is only offered second semester (i will be out by december). The only other class i have now is Spanish 3, which is the highest i could have reached because when i was a freshmen my school didn't allow freshmen to have spanish 1 (you had to be a sophomore...i know wth)</p>
<p>All classes I have taken since I was a freshmen have been honors.
I rank top 3%; 10 out of i think 450
My GPA is 4.29 weighted and 3.7 unweighted
SAT: 1840
SAT Subject: Lit 660 US History 610
ACT: 29
AP Exams: English 4; US History 2 (i know)
I am African American in a single parent household with 6 children and my mother never went to college
The only extracurriculars I had were volleyball my freshmen and sophomore year and yearbook my sophomore year, because when i turned 16 I got a job and started working over 30 hours a week. Basically all i have going for me there is that i worked really hard to financially support myself where my mother couldn't, and that I saved for a volunteer abroad trip by myself to take in the spring after i graduate.</p>
<p>SO i'm thinking my acceptance relies on some outstanding essays?
Ahhh!</p>
<p>You have a compelling story to tell and your chances are much better than you think. The kids on these boards with perfect test scores don’t (usually) go to crummy schools or work 30 hours a week. Achieving at the level you have under these circumstances is truly impressive. Write great essays, and recommendations will help, too.</p>
<p>I think you have a decent chance. Adcoms from UChicago have made it very clear that the most important parts of their app are the essays. They consider test scores (SAT/ACT) to a much lower priority. As for your class rank, it’s fine. You may want to talk to your counselor to include your bit about not being able to take more APs for when she submits the school report.</p>
<p>Use your situation (background) to your advantage when writing your essays, that could help you quite a bit.</p>
<p>Good luck! Make sure you spend alot of time on the “why Chicago” essay–that is supposedly the most important part of the entire application.</p>
<p>Honestly, I worked 50 hours a week and managed better than that. If you aren’t the valedictorian, don’t bash your school. The 2 on the USH AP test is just downright shameful.</p>
<p>Luckily, U of C places a lot of emphasis on the essay. I say go for it.</p>
<p>@Guest0101…
I agree that the OP should use their situation to their “advantage,” but you have to be careful going about this. No one is going to feel sorry if you just talk about how disadvantaged you have been and what a terrible school you go to.</p>
<p>I encourage you to take sometime and look how your environment has shaped who you are in a positive way and while you go to a bad school the unique opportunities that are available to you as a result. Good Luck!</p>
<p>There was actually a CCer who wrote an essay about how being poor made him happy, because it made him an engineer from really young.</p>
<p>I think that my financial situation helped me become a lot more independent than my peers; I know what it is to try to pay bills on time, bring food home, pay for the heating, etc. There are so many positives that can come from negative situations. However, that negative academic result, has to come with a trade-off: a positive personal experience, and deeper more mature understanding / perspective of the world and how it works. You have to somehow prove that, had you the chance, you’d be a top-preforming Chicago student, and that the school is a fantastic fit for you. Luckily, the GPA is solid, but again, I think that you really should have been 1st or 2nd if your school is as bad as you say it is, especially when applying to a school as intellectually intense as Chicago.</p>
<p>I’d say that you have a good chance if you do well on your essays, but in all honesty, you don’t want to go to UChicago. I thought that I wanted to go there as well, but when I went to visit the campus, it was a cold, anti-social, hardworking (to the point of no fun), and just not a great college atmosphere for me personally. I know a lot of people who really love it, but it just wasn’t for me. I’d look into this school carefully, it’s not for everyone.</p>