<p>I attend Fairfield Preparatory College, a school with around 230, male freshman and I rank among the top 5 with a 4.0 non-weighted GPA. We don't do class ranks so I could be 5th or 1st for all I know. Being a Freshman I obviously have very little gauge as to what I will receive on my SATs. I play football and rugby, I'm in the investor's club, SEED (a diversity program), and I am also the treasurer of an organization dedicated to service and have every intention on becoming the president Junior year. </p>
<p>My question is how much being half-hispanic and not needing financial aid will help me get into a Georgetown, Duke, Dartmouth, etc. College students can get some sort of idea as to how much being hispanic helps.</p>
<p>How do they know whether or not you are disadvantaged because many have scholarships at our school? So I have a 4.05 and my friend whom Fairfield Prep gives full financial aid has a 3.95 would have a better, equal, or worse chance than I?</p>
<p>Schools (even need blind ones) get indications of SES and other disadvantages in many ways. Some things are inferred from information such as zip code, parental education, HS, ECs, etc. Also, an applicant can indicate if they are low income or have overcome adversity directly, for instance it might come out in their essay or other information that they provide. If I was a student attending a private prep school on FA, I would definitely find some way to state that on my application.</p>
<p>I don’t do chances, CC has an entire forum dedicated to Chances.</p>
<p>On the main forum page you will see: What are my Chances?</p>
<p>I’m afraid I told you about that forum a little tongue in cheek, as I think it’s the biggest waste of time here on CC. The most anyone can reasonably tell you about your Chances at the level of schools you’ve listed is whether or not you’re a competitive candidate. And other than this forum, CC is full of misconceptions about what being Hispanic means in college admissions. But it’s up to you where you want to invest your energy, time and confidence.</p>
<p>you are a very abrasive person. Sorry for being a ignorant high school freshman who wants to learn. Just continue being your pretentious, stuck-up self.</p>
<p>an* ignorant person. Clearly I am not well-versed in basic grammar as well as the dynamics of the affect one’s minority has when applying for college.</p>
<p>jackoconnell-you need to remove your comments and apologize.Entomom is one of the most helpful; kind; sincere persons on the hispanic board and entomom works tiredlessly to provide information to all of us. She is the “super moderator” of the hispanic forum and keeps us all informed of information which benefits hispanic students applying to college. Your posts are uncalled for!! Entomom; myself and others have created a “community” here on the hispanic board where any helpful information is shared. I for one will not tolerate your comments and I am sure others will join me. Please be so kind as to remove your posts. If the posts remain then I for one will not answer your questions. Sorry for being so harsh but your posts were way out of line especially in the hispanic board.</p>
<p>I believe you have also misunderstood what entomom said but I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt since you are a freshman. To explain further the point Entomom was making- “What are your chances?” post are the least relevant and helpful in the college admissions process. None of us here on CC are actual college admissions reps (in the cases of there being an actual rep like Dean J on the UVA forum-they all refuse to answer what are my chances threads). Asking what are my chances is simply no better than having a crystal ball or throwing dice. Most people do not pay attention to what are my chances postings because the “prediction” could either mislead a person or discourage a student with no real basis. Entomom was kindly advising you to be careful of such threads because they really do not inform you of your true chances. There are plenty of stories of 5.0; valedictorians being rejected from the schools you are interested and I bet the “what are your chances?” posts all told those students that the chances were “excellent.” </p>
<p>With respect to the issue of the impact of being Hispanic in the college admissions process; Entomom again was advising you to be careful of reading about it in forums other than the Hispanic one. I imagine she did that so that you were not mislead about being Hispanic and college admissions. In those other forums I have seen ridiculous posts such as “if Hispanic you only need a 3.0 to get into Harvard” or “if hispanic you can get a 1500 on the SAT and get into Yale.” None of that is true and so therefore i and Entomom caution you when you read such comments. Being Hispanic does not have an across the board affect in the college admissions process for every college treats it differently. </p>
<p>Entomom’s comment of where you invest your time; energy and confidence; I imagine has to deal with learning about opportunties available to your as a Hispanic high school student that can possibly help you in the admission process. For example:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>you could prep very well for the PSAT so that you could achieve a score that would award you scholar status in the “National Hispanic Recognition Program.” </p></li>
<li><p>You could learn about summer scholarship programs offered to hispanic students such as "LEAD: Mosaic; Cosmos; Notre Dame Latino Leadership Project; etc.</p></li>
<li><p>You could learn about “diversity weekends” “diversity events” or “diversity fly-ins” that colleges hold for Hispanic students.</p></li>
<li><p>You could do service projects for the Latino community (I want you to do this anyhow in payback to the comments made about Entomom since I think you could use an attitude adjustment-:))</p></li>
<li><p>You could contact the Office of Minority Affairs admissions counselor at the colleges you are interested in to get on their radar and learn what they are looking for in the Hispanic student. </p></li>
<li><p>You could look at the posts here in the Hispanic forum for the names of Hispanic students accepted at your dream colleges and talk to them about what they did to get into those colleges. </p></li>
<li><p>You could take the AP classes and work on grades to keep you in the running.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Everything on my list can be found here in the Hispanic forum and that is why it is a better use of your time and energy to find that info rather that speculative “chances” questions. </p>
<p>My goal as well as I am sure Entomom’s goal is to provide assistance to Hispanic students in order to increase the numbers of Hispanic students in good colleges. We are neither “ignorant” or “abrasive” so as I am sure your Latino parent would say “go apologize now!!!”</p>
<p>jack,
I apologize if I was flippant in my response. The message that I was trying to give was that you should be careful about people on CC or elsewhere who say that they can tell you whether or not any specific school will accept you, whether they will accept you over another student, give you percentages, etc. And particularly with admissions for Hispanic students, most people don’t know how it works, they assume that all Hispanics are treated equally and get a tremendous bump.</p>
<p>As you can see by itsv’s post, the members here on the Hispanic forum have experience and a practical view of how admissions works for Hispanic students from various backgrounds. Our ultimate goal on this forum is for students to develop realistic lists of safety/match/reach schools in order to realize viable choices of schools to attend in the spring.</p>
<p>Even if you wanted to, you can’t delete or edit your comments as there is only a short (15 minutes or so) period to do so. I would advise you reread CCs Terms of Service, because if it were any other member you made those comments about, you would have received a warning and possible TO for ad hominem attacks. </p>
<p>Again, there are many valuable resources and experienced, helpful people here, I sincerely hope that you stick around and become a participating member of the community.</p>
<p>I would like to apologize to everyone here. My blatant facetiousness was clearly out of line. I have just heard such a a variety of takes on what being Hispanic means for applying for college I’ve heard everywhere from get a 2000 and you can pick your college to it doesn’t help even if you are disadvantaged. I will be sure to put appropriate posts in their respective threads next time. Sorry you are all wonderful people.</p>
<p>I understand your frustration, it is painfully hard to get a handle on how exactly college admissions works for Hispanic applicants. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, we can’t see behind the doors of admissions committees, so we can only interpret the relatively few results we see, so there is much room for error. Second, and probably most importantly, I think think that how adcoms view Hispanics varies with both the school and the various attributes of the applicant (eg. country of origin, SES, etc.), making generalities pretty useless I’m afraid.</p>
<p>You look like you’re doing great in your coursework and are pursuing the things that interest you both in and out of school, that’s exactly what you should be doing at this point in time. I’d suggest a couple of things:</p>
<p>Take the PSAT as a soph. You don’t have to study, just look on the CB website and see how the test is laid out and what kind of questions they ask. Since soph year doesn’t count, it’s a great time to see where your strengths and weaknesses are so that you can efficiently prep for the jr year PSAT, which in turn acts as prep for the SAT.</p>
<p>Look at summer programs listed in the sticky Resources thread on this forum. Most are open to students for the summer after their soph and/or jr year; these are great opportunities to show your dedication to your various interests.</p>