I am currently a Junior in a regular public high school, I am female, Caucasian, neither of my parents graduated from high school which I will be talking about in my personal statement, I have not yet taken an official SAT but my PSAT score was 196/240, and my cumulative GPA is 4.2. I will be taking mostly Honors and AP classes next year so my GPA will be rising, I’ve only ever had As and occasionally a B and I am bilingual after taking Spanish throughout my entire school experience. As for extra curriculars I was in recycling club for a year, I am currently in Student Government and will be doing it for another year, I am in Science Olympiad, Science Bowl, and Mathletes and will be the Vice President for all of those clubs (if not President of Science Olympiad) next year. I also do a leadership club that I am considering doing again next year. I apologize for the large amount of information but I want my answers to be as accurate as possible, thank you so much if you take the time to read this and respond!
You should really get onto taking those SAT’s (including Subject Tests).
Any idea what you want to major in? It’d make it easier to chance you if we know what you wanted to do (as some schools have uber-competitive major-sects)
Additionally, I’d recommend against talking about how your parents didn’t graduate high-school unless you spin it around about how heavily it affected you. The personal statement is YOUR story, not the story of your parents.
I was going to talk about how it affected me along with my personal story. I plan on being a pharmacist or something medical, I am still not sure yet. I am taking the SAT very soon.
I don’t think Pepperdine goes along with the rest.
It is very religious school, and it won’t be a good fit for you unless you are a very devouted Christian.
Are you Out of State? Those public colleges will be very expensive.
Stanford is a Reach for everyone.
I agree with paul2752, that Pepperdine seems to be an outlier on your list.
UCLA/USC are good possibilities if you get a competitive SAT 2100+.
If you are OOS, the UC’s will be full pay at $55K/year with little to no financial or merit aid, so that is something to consider.
Good Luck and repost your Stats at the end of Junior year to get a better chancing. Study hard for the SAT and get a good score.
I live in California. I also got that PSAT score without studying so I am not too worried about the competitive SAT scores to get in. I am more concerned about whether the amount of extra curriculars I have done will appear impressive. Thank you.