General:
I’m a rising junior at a private, Catholic high school in the Northeast.
I do generally have a good relationship with my teachers.
I’m a second-generation immigrant to Latinx parents. I am going to apply for financial aid.
I speak four languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
I plan on applying to a few schools. However, Exeter is the one I have most in mind. I am willing to repeat a grade if that would help my chances.
Stats:
My GPA isn’t very good. My GPA as it stands is 3.4 (86/100). I have taken the hardest classes my school offers, including AP courses.
My school has a scholars program, of which I am not apart of as it is for students who scored above the 90th percentile on my school’s entrance exam (HSPT).
Here are my test scores:
8th grade - 1350/1600 on SAT
9th grade - 28/36 on Pre-ACT
9th grade - 99th percentile gold medalist on the National Spanish Exam
10th grade - 1520/1520 on PSAT 10 (I would’ve qualified for a National Merit Scholarship)
10th grade - 30/36 on Pre-ACT
10th grade - 99th percentile gold medalist on the National Spanish Exam
Extracurriculars:
Model UN Officer for two years. I’ve also won awards at regional conferences.
Mock Trial: Attorney for two years.
Chess Club
School Newspaper
Young Democrats - Founder
Student Body Government: Sophomore Councillor and Junior Councillor-Elect.
I also do my school’s required community service.
I am a volunteer for my Senator’s electoral campaign, and I have recently started working with for my local Congressman. I may be able to gain a letter of recommendation from them.
I play the violin.
I’ve done no sports. I like to dedicate my time to clubs and other interests.
Please chance me. While I feel that I have a good chance, I feel that my GPA will be a blemish on my application. There is no ranking system for my school.
If you have your heart set in going to boarding school, I would definitely recommend looking at other school as well as Exeter. Exeter is very very very hard to get in to and nobody is guaranteed admission. If you go to boardingschoolreview.com you can find different schools by looking at acceptance rate, location, size, etc.
Thanks for your response,
I understand that Exeter is difficult to get into, and I have been looking into other schools as well. However, Exeter is my first choice.
Even so, an AO can figure out where you are relative to the rest of your class. The reality is that your GPA places you in the fifth or sixth decile at your current school which will seriously impede your odds for Exeter (or any school at that tier) regardless if you apply as a junior or a repeat sophomore. That said, there are many schools that may love to have you in their student body and may provide you with the FA needed to attend. But you’ll need to cast a wide net. Ypu should read through the following thread for starters:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1545276-2013-14-hidden-gem-applicant-thread-p1.html
Good luck.
Occasionally prep schools will admit a non-athlete for a PG (post graduate) year. Rather than repeat a year & rather than disrupting the sequence of your current high school curriculum, finish high school & reassess as to whether you would like to progress on to college or to apply as a PG for a post graduate year of further high school studies.
Based on the limited information shared in your original post in this thread, I think that you should graduate from your current school and consider a gap year to study abroad as a PG or to teach English in a non-English speaking country.
The difficulty in suggesting options for you is that it is not clear as to why you want to attend Exeter as it is clear as evidenced by your GPA that you are currently being challenged academically in your Catholic school.
In regards to my class rank, I believe that I’m at least in the top half since I’ve made honor roll every quarter, and in every one of those quarters only around half of the class made honor roll. I understand why these elite schools schools may be hesitant to admit me based off my unweighted GPA, but I am aiming to remedy this through my extracurriculars, test scores, recommendations, and hopefully my interview if all goes well.
Thanks for your responses.