Help out a confused first-gen student with a unique extracurricular/award!

Applying to College
1

Hey everyone. First off, I want to congratulate you all for how hard you’re working finishing up college apps and taking the next big step in your life :slight_smile:

Here’s my dilemma. I have a good-ish profile as a first-gen low income student with 4.0 uw, top 3/550 in a competitive public school, 18 ap’s, and national/internationally competitive soccer player. Outside of school and sports, competitive gaming has taken up A TON of time. And I don’t mean casual gaming with friends; legit competing in professional $$$ tournaments with/against signed pros. In the game I play (fifa), there’s a weekly competition where everyone in the world competes for prizes and professional ranking points. Almost every week in the past year, I have finished top 100 players in the US and about a dozen top 100’s in the WORLD. For reference, 6,000,000+ players compete every weekend so I’ve finished in the top ~.00001667% 10+ times. It’s tough to prove/quantify since leaderboards and stats are internally regulated, but I have screenshots of each time I’ve got top 100 in the world. Personally, this is a pretty big accomplishment and something I’m proud of given how much time I’ve dedicated towards it.

Is this something I could/should include? I don’t have many awards aside from national ap scholar so I’m thinking this could be something unique that helps me stand out? If so, does anyone have any ideas how to include it? ANY and ALL help is appreciated, I’m basically navigating this whole college thing alone since my parents didn’t go to college & im the oldest xD

Oh and btw my dream school is Stanford/MIT & I’m applying to most t20’s UC’s usc and state schools.

Thanks to everyone who made it this far- you got this. Love you guys. Bless up :slight_smile:

2

You sound like a very competitive applicant. Of course you need to apply to safeties, but I do think that it is worth an application to each of MIT and Stanford. It might also be worth reaching out to the Stanford soccer coach, although honestly I do not know anything about how to do this. I do know that Stanford teams look for strong athletes who are also academically strong, which sounds like it might be you.

I think that it is worth mentioning the competitive gaming.

My take on ECs for top schools: If you are competitive to play on a varsity sports team that is very good. Otherwise do what you want to do and do it well. The point is not what you do, it is that whatever you do, you excel at it. It sounds like you have done exactly this.

Are you in-state in California?

3

Of course you should include your professional gaming on your application. The common ap allows for 10 activities while the UC ap allows for many more. But you only have a line or two to explain each activity. Good luck!

4

Why aren’t you being recruited?