<p>I'm a rising senior getting ready to apply to colleges in the fall, and I was wondering if anyone was in or was close to someone in the same predicament that I find myself now. My SAT scores put me competitive for pretty much everywhere aside from the Ivies and other big name elites (2090 composite), my class rank is top 10%, my course rigor is the toughest possible in the school I attend (all honors courses, and APs), I am an 8 letter athlete (now wondering if some cc'ers will know what that means...), I have somewhat decent ec's for an apparent jock (mock trial lead attorney, good ole nhs, vp of my school's UNICEF club, boys state delegate), but my unweighted gpa is a very lackluster 86% (which is not factoring in phys ed grades ha ha). In all seriousness, my freshman year unweighted was very good, easily in the 90s with the same rigor. Both my soph and junior year, I was caught in the middle of a very messy divorce and yes I guess you could say slacked off in school and devoted most of my time to athletics as an escape instead of working to bring up my ailing physics mark. Not trying to make a sob story out of it, but I learned from my psychiatrist that divorce is a valid excuse in SOME circumstances.</p>
<p>Anyway, if there is anyone that is able to weigh in on where this puts me for college admissions (yes I understand this is not an IDEAL situation), I would be really grateful, especially if you or a loved one was in a similar position that I find myself in now. Now that I am in a better place mentally, I have been kind of freaking out at the mess I left behind for myself to clean up now, and any tidbit of information would really help me gain some perspective on the matter. Like I have heard somewhere that privates are a lot more hollistic in admissions, whereas state schools or more liable to treat you as more of a "number", if you will. Would that mean I could possible get further, considering my circumstances, sticking to privates? Basically I want to know is, considering where I put myself, where do I go next...</p>
<p>Also on a kind of unimportant side note, I am a recruited athlete at Amherst (the coach here is really cool), Haverford, and Bowdoin. I gave them all my GPA and rank and stuff, but I'm not sure how the coaches will react when they have my actual transcript, which I admit could be rather off putting. If anyone could weigh in here that would be also much appreciated.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance for any small amount of advice given and good luck to everyone currently in the college admissions process</p>