Homeschooler: Chance me?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Bonjour personnes de college confidential!
I am a homeschooler. Here are my stats.

SAT: Didn’t Send (2000-ish)
ACT (breakdown): 32 Composite: Engl 35, Reading 33, Math 33, Science 27(ouch), 10 Essay
ACT superscore (breakdown):
SAT II (subject, score): Biology 770 , Literature 680-(lol literally guessed my way through!)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Weighted GPA: ~4.4
Senior Year Course Load: Co-op: Anatomy & Physiology, Worldview History, Sewing B, French 1, French 2 (b/c already did 4 years of latin) Regent University: BIO 121, BIO 122, Statistics, Microeconomics
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): n/a
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): 9-10th grade attended private high school, so Summa Cum Laude x2 and Art Awards x2, nothing major. 2x national latin exam awards. 1st Place Regent University Oratory Competition

[ b]Subjective:[ /b]
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description):
13 Yrs Competitive Figure Skater (USFSA Gold-Medalist in Move in the field, many competitions/ both big and small awards)
7 Years classical ballet training for skating, school play solos, etc.
3 Years Varsity XC: 10k/6:50min miles, 9mi/7:12min miles, 1st in many minor/road races. Ran because I enjoyed it.
Leadership positions: Founder of “Books for Kenya” book collection for the Kibera slums. 2014-2105
(As I am Homeschooled, typical leadership positions are not available to me.)
Self-funded Homestay in France to become bilingual.

Job/Work Experience:
Certified USFSA Figure Skating Coach
Tutored elementary-high school students in math and reading.

Volunteer/Community Service:
2 Self-funded International Mission Trips to Ecuador (Med Team) & D.R. (School Construction)Summer Experience:
2 Magazine covers 2014: Maranatha’s National “Volunteer” & International “Adventist Review” that both featured international volunteering.
350+ hours at local hospital, library, local road races for disease awareness, shadowing doctors (that I self-networked).

[ b]Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):[ /b]

Essays: Common App was pretty good, or so I am told. 9-9.5/10. Included running up a hill on a mountain in rural Ecuador being chased by a dog with frothing saliva, transitioned to deepish thoughts, and ended with an exploding volcano.
PM me if you want to read it!

Recommendations:
Rec #1: My biology professor wrote that out of 20 years of teaching, I was in the top 2-5% of students he’s ever had, and that he would have ranked me higher if he could had taught me more classes. Short, so 8-9/10.
Rec #4: Worldview History: 8-9/10
Rec #3: Other/counselor recommender who has known me all my life (in lieu of my parents writing a counselor rec for me): 10/10. Corroborated every single EC and included magazine cover.

Interview: Only had one with Vanderbilt. My interviewer was a bit flirty eyed…lol
Art Supplement: Sent in skating videos, not sure about sending in drawings as well.
(I can PM the drawing for opinions)

School Type: Homeschool
Ethnicity: White, Asian, Pacific Islander (FEW!)
Gender: F
Income Bracket Range: middle class
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): URM

Planned AP Tests: Calc AB (self study), Microeconomics, and Psychology (maybe…?)

[ b]Reflection[ /b]
Strengths: Different, hopefully. 13 years devoted to skating.
Weaknesses: Lack of APs.
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Waiting to hear back
What would you have done differently?:
I wish I had SOME guidance for this entire process, and throughout my high school years! Had to figure out everything myself. Literally woke up one day 2nd semester of my Junior year to figure this college thing out. If I had known earlier, I would have taken a ton more APs and subject tests and would have totally have gone the IB route instead of homeschooling at a co-op, but at least I did all the ECs I loved for the sake of loving them without any ulterior motives.

Where else did you apply?
UVA, William and Mary, Vassar, Amherst (legacy), Bowdoin, Bates, Vanderbilt, Wesleyan, Kenyon,
then 4 super safety schools.
Rejected: Duke ED. I kinda sorta sent in an uncompleted application but didn’t make that mistake twice!!

I hate how insecure this entire process makes me feel. I literally cried all day for a week when I finally learned how many APs I should have taken to substantiate my homeschool co-op, but oh well. At first I was sad to not apply to ivies, but got over it when I learned about their prevalent pre-med weeding out culture. Best apparant place for premeds? Small liberal arts.
I plan to earn a high GPA in college and attend medical school, and if that doesn’t pan out as planned, become a medical researcher.

Also if I score a 34 on my ACT this summer, I am eligible for a full ride. I don’t care if the school is ranked #150 b/c I won’t be a bajillion dollars in dept.

Any who, I wish everyone the best of luck through this special process that we’ll hopefully never have to face again!

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debt* yay for not proof reading!

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UVA- high match
William and Mary- don’t know
Vassar- high match/low reach
Amherst- low reach
Bowdoin- low reach
Bates- high match
Vanderbilt- low reach/ high match
Wesleyan- high match
Kenyon- match

It’s a good thing you didn’t send in that SAT score, that could’ve hurt you.
I don’t think that being homeschooled will hurt you significantly, or at all. You certainly seem to have done quite a few things. Good luck.

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Thanks @avix215‌
I just checked my common app and forgot to mention that I self-funded a French home stay, but I do have a recommendation saying that I took the initiative to learn French (with my French immigrant father who never taught me smh). I probably should have included though…? D:

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You are quite competitive for all of these and I’m willing to bet you’ll get into most of them. :slight_smile:
The co-op homeschooling, good ACT and Subject scores, Dual Enrollment, and USFSA Gold-Medalist all make you desirable for these colleges, and the fact you’re Pacific Islander may tip the scales at those places that may not be sure.
Do keep us updated, I’m very curious to see how many acceptances you’ll get! :slight_smile:

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I sure hope so @MYOS1634‌! Applied for aid too however, so hopefully that won’t dampen things to much: will keep you posted!

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Most of your favorite schools are need blind/meet full need, so applying for aid shouldn’t be a problem. :slight_smile:
Keeping my fingers crossed… I am pretty sure you’ll get lots of good news!

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Thanks @MYOS1634‌ !! :slight_smile:

But I just realized I forgot to include a fan fiction I wrote one summer that got over 13,000 hits over only several chapters (terrible me left my readers hanging…) I also left out the self-funded home stay in France… Should I have included this? Should my counselor send an optional report?
Blah. Sorry to bog you down w/ these questions…!

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@JadeAriane‌ relax, you’ll be perfectly fine. If you’re still worried, just email colleges with the updates.

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Yes, your can email the colleges, detailing a bit the self funded home stay in France (ie., how did you raise funds, why did you want to go to France, what type of stay was it, what did you do once there, whether you measured French improvements in some way - DELF, DALF, SAT Subject, AP…-, what you learned about cultural differences…)

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Being a homeschooler puts you at an unfortunate disadvantage. The reason is that the Adcoms really don’t know how to interpret your ‘home-schooled’ grades. Having the dual enrollment certainly helps. Is there a reason why you left your private high school after grade 10? This will be important to understand.

I’m a Duke alumni interview and sorry to hear you were rejected from Duke. I think the reason was probably that your standardized scores are a bit too low. If you had great grades in high school, this certainly would have offset things. but since you were home schooled for the last 2 years, the high school GPA is less meaningful. Your SAT scores really need to be in the 700+ range to be competitive for Duke. For ACT you would need to get up into the total 34 range.

If your ultimate goal is medical school, then go to a college where you can get as high of a GPA as possible. The schools on your list look quite reasonable. Best of luck

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@sgopal2‌ Yes, I’m quite aware! I pretty much over killed admissions with homeschooled information with teachers credentials, my co-op system, and had my transcripts substantiated by the academic coordinator. (We also receive all our grades through an online system called Engrade). My co-op has over 300 kids, offers 80 classes, and all my teachers either once taught at a university or in a public school. (My parents never taught me a single class, which confuses a lot of people!) Also at my private high school, I was ranked first in my class, but things started to happen, which made a large percentage of long term students like myself pack up and leave. I had always been sucky at standardized testing, so there’s that too.
The most horrible part I think was how I pretty much winged it throughout high school with no thoughts about college, and with zero guidance.
I still received straight A’s all 4 years, and actually had enough classes to graduate as a junior (done w/ calc, physics, blah blah) but didn’t because that’s when I finally decided to google how to get into college. And now I’m here :slight_smile:
Either way, I’d much rather accept a great financial aid package at a lesser college, get a GPA at least over 3.7+ and continue as a skating coach so that I can graduate debt free when I start applying to medical schools.

And guess what… If I had been accepted ED, naturally it would have been binding… which is not smart when you’re dad’s salary suddenly jumps 30k in a single year over that “full-need need met” threshold… Those 2nd year tax returns apparently would have made everything really bad really fast for my second year. I’m super thankful knowing what I know now that now I can at least compare financial aid packages.

(I also had a friend who attended Duke with lesser stats than me, but she was a legacy). The sciences there bogged down her GPA to 3.2-3.3 which forced her to attend grad school there to become a competitive med school applicant.
That is my literal nightmare. Med school forums helped me a lot w/ my decisions, so I won’t be nearly as unprepared for those! :smile:

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Your*

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I think the local home schoolers who were admitted to MIT and Harvard recently submitted SAT I and subject test scores.

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Bump

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I think that’s why the SAT or ACT are taken since most of the university don’t know anything about the school. For example international students some schools are unknown and the way to see the performance is by taking the SAT or ACT. @JadeAriane‌ you have good stats. The most difficult is Vanderbilt. A friend of mine who is international student got 2270 and GPA of 4.0. He got a full scholarship there. Vanderbilt requires at least 2200+ to get there which I think on the ACT is 34 or 35. Which is your top University?

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@jr12317 The one with the best aid package… All I really need are my premed requirements, although Vassar or UVA would be nice…(I compiled my applications based on what small liberal arts had strong science programs). Hopefully I will tour more campuses this summer so we’ll see :slight_smile:

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Have you looked for merit aids scholarships?
@JadeAriane‌

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Bump

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Bump