One additional reminder. USC is still recovering from its high profile admission scandal. It will be sensitive about who it is letting in, that may not meet traditional standards. If your parents can donate a building, that will be fine, but expecting "nepotism " to get you admitted when the lawyers and auditors are breathing down the admissions office back is naive.
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Six year old data point, but my son only needed to show one year’s proof of funds to Oxford.
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I believe @collegemom3717 said the same thing upthread. So that’s better than four year’s upfront if somehow this OP manages to improve academics enough to be accepted.
The rareness of your extracurricular isn’t what matters; it’s the impact of the activity and the way it demonstrates exceptional skill or personal quality. While I’d agree with you in that not many students have started a record label, this does not make your activity extraordinary. How did you impact your community? What does this EC demonstrate about you that is so incredible? This is what matters more. I’m not saying your achievements aren’t impressive; they are. But when you’re up against applicants who have started 6 figure companies, lobbied senators, and discovered proteins, you can never be confident that any one activity will get you in to a T20. Additionally, extenuating circumstances don’t render your freshman year grades moot. The whole point of being an extraordinary student is being able to rise above challenges and put out a consistently high level of work. AO’s don’t care that you felt bored by your classes; they expect you to take advantage of all the resources at your disposal and push yourself hard. Everybody in your cohort has also experienced the pandemic and most of them have had some major life event that had the potential to interrupt school.
I’d say this: you have a unique profile, but your priority should be getting those grades up. Start SAT and ACT prep sooner rather than later, because with a 3.5 GPA I wouldn’t be so confident. Develop your ECs and make sure that your passion is tangible. I don’t think T20s are out of reach yet.
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This could be problematic in terms of these very elite schools.
Need blind is an admissions term. It means that your financial need is not considered when your application for admission is reviewed.
Need blind is NOT a financial aid term. The vast majority of colleges in this country are need blind for admissions but do not provide tons of financial aid.
I think you mean you are looking for a college that meets full need
Those colleges are highly competitive for admissions. At this point, I think you are way overestimating what you can do to raise things like your class rank and GPA to be competitive for these highly competitive colleges.
But I don’t have a crystal ball.
Wait until the middle of your junior year. It’s also very very likely you will need an SAT or ACT score for some of these colleges (not in CA because they have gone permanently test blind). By January of your junior year, you will have a better idea of where you have realistic and affordable college admissions possibilities.
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I of course would be getting a bit defensive as many people usually would get when they’re going through a situation like this.
I also really just don’t like it when people are saying “Yeah you have no chances” and then not saying anything to help. In my eyes, it’s about as bad as this thread is in general as one of the things I’m asking is if I’m on track and it’s usually supposed to be inferred that in the situation where if someone is asking “am I on track” that they get some level of objective criticism for what they can improve to get their chances up.
I know that my chances are ass but I want at the very least something that can help me improve my chances and when nobody at least gives some material on what to do to help out my situation, the only response I can give is an argument until someone learns enough about me that they can give me something that can help in my situation.
Well could you give me at the very least something that might be able to help my chances out? As I said in an earlier comment, I really don’t like it when people say “yeah no it’s not going to happen” and then proceed to not to at least point me in a direction that might help.
While me being bored is a reason that contributed, it’s not ultimately the reason why and the actual reason would just straight up kill all my chances at making it in (tl;dr: falsely accused of doing a horrible crime and I needed to spend a long time trying to get it to not escalate to the point where police would get involved). Yeah, it would not be a very good idea to place something like that in my extenuating circumstances especially with a move not aiding me out.
I am currently starting practices for the SATs next year and am currently practicing on mostly paper until Khan Academy gets Digital SAT prep up and running. Do you know any sites that do digital SAT practice?
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It is, luckily I’m not too certain if my school does actually report this to schools. I’m assuming they do only because I can see class rank in Aeries but my old school used to put class rank on Aeries but didn’t report it (somehow?).
For now, just assume it’s 222 with a chance to go up.
I’m saying nepotism as a bit of a humourous point but I’m not entirely certain if a student who peaked the interests of a staff member would actually cause any form of scandal.
The relationship with these staff members isn’t anything like paying them or being related to them by blood but rather that they took an interest in my work and want to see me do more work in USC. Of course, this could go wrong but I do not think that this kind of behavior is outlawed or anything. If this is wrong then please correct me.
People have given you many concrete ideas (focus on good test scores, work on getting measurable results from your activities, commit to your studies) to improve, and I don’t believe anyone has said you have no chance.
They have also explained to you the challenges you have given your current record because you seem to not yet acknowledge the extent of some of them. It likely feels quite harsh, but people want you to succeed, and success may or may not include a T20 school.
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I think you have gotten a lot of advice.
The obvious is to improve grades and to really prep and do well o the SAT/ACT when the time comes.
The other advice is people are saying - you need to accomplish things - you want tenure and if possible, quantification. In other words, you’re trying to create a DECA club. That means little - but saying you started and got 30 people to join and 2 teams went to regionals…that’s something.
Aiming to get President’s position - that sounds like - I want my resume to look good - so that doesn’t work? One doesn’t need a leadership role - but you need to show purpose - I am President of the music club because.
I recorded 3 rap albums - but you won’t find them on line because I won’t releasae them. That means you’ve done nothing…but if you released 3 and they can find them - then that’s something and quantified.
So you’re a bit all over - but you have nice things - raising money for refugees. But how - in a group? Was it a one time thing. Will you do it for 3 years and raise $20K, etc. Tenure.
You don’t need a lot - but concrete things.
But nothing trumps academics - and the reason people say these schools are reaches - let’s look at USC - 80% is in the top 10% of the class and you are in the 43%. 91% at Brown. So these aren’t realistic reaches.
Yet you talk about big time reaches - but you did note Roger Williams - that’s realistic. Perhaps a reach would be a U of Miami vs. a Brown, etc.
You also have American of Beirut…it’s an odd choice.
Anyway, you’re a sophomore and what people are saying is - it’s too early. There’s little in common with CMU, for example and others - but it doesn’t matter - you are early.
Do the best you can school wise. If you want a non-CA public school (meaning OOS public or in/out private) crush the SAT/ACT - and finally - gain yourself some activities with tenure and accomplishment.
Come back in a year and the picture might look vastly different.
It’s up to you. And there’s no reason that you can’t improve your profile.
Best of luck.
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When I say “I will in the future” it’s also referencing the fact that I’m working on these things that I’m talking about right now. By “Currently Writing” I mean that I’m in the process of figuring out a solution and the likes. I’m nowhere near a formal proof yet though it probably also doesn’t help that my current highest level of mathematics education is Alg II.
I do not have a mentor at the moment. I want to find one at some point but I’m unsure where to find one and I’m unsure who to send a cold email to as most of the professors that are near me are adjuncts and I know the workload adjuncts go through is extremely high and I don’t want to burden them with more work (+ they don’t get paid enough!).
Is there perhaps some site or service I can use that would help me out? I did to a little bit of snooping around but I’m struggling to find anything of use.
The point with USC is that, given the backlash related to Varsity Blues, it is highly likely that their admissions process is extremely closed and monitored. It isn’t illegal for a staff member to put in a good word, but it is very unlikely that USC allows staff members to do so right now. Their goal is to regain the trust that their admission process is fair and not influenced by factors outside of the admissions office.
Just because something is legal doesn’t mean a company or organization like a college will considered it to be ethical or permissible.
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A large portion of the people here have outright stated that I just don’t have any chance at all. I do appreciate the people who did give me some advice and the others that haven’t I really cannot appreciate as it just sort of feels like they are attempting to “slam dunk” on someone.
I understand all of those things but those are quite literally just the basics and the sad truth is: at least for me I need to start considering ways to get into a competitive space while trying to fix an error I made a year ago. At least for me, I need to start going beyond the basics so the basic advice is not really all that helpful.
As for the tangible effects, I am glad to say that since I last checked in on this thread one of my artists have finally gotten to a end stage of their music-making and are expecting to release an album this summer. I know it’s not much but hey, it’s at least something.
That is a fair point, but by the time I apply the Varsity Blues Scandal would’ve been at least 7 years old which, while not have fully boiled over, seeing that it’s been a little under a decade by then the universities involved would probably be a tiny bit more laxed on putting in a good word which is what the staff are trying to get for me.
Of course, who knows what happens between now and then, but I do not think a staff member putting in good word for me is completely out of the picture
I will disagree with one thing a lot of people are saying: it is an accomplishment for an applicant to have recorded an album, written a novel, etc., even if that project isn’t published. Think about ways you can share the work — perhaps a link to it on YouTube the common app — so that you have tangible proof of the hours you use to represent the work in an activity listing. An AO won’t be evaluating the musical value of your album, but they can appreciate the dedication and commitment it took for you to get that project to the state that it is. It may not be worth your time to continue pursuing that album, but you can still show that you had an interest and how you pursued it.
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AUB is mostly because I come from Beirut, Lebanon and I’ve always found that the university there was gorgeous and pretty interesting (also helps that my mom graduated there. I think my dad did to but idk).
I know that so far my dreams are a bit small at the moment but I do see that there’s at least something I can work towards whcihI appreciate.
As for the presidents position: I do have a reason, I believe I stated it but it’s the same reason why I’m saying I’m at least somewhat likely to win: I want to bring a Junior prom to my school and reduce Prom tickets to 60 dollars or less.
As for the rap albums, yeah, those will always be locked away at least the first three. Maybe I’ll record others in the future but for now I’m worrying on releasing other projects. Should I instead mention that I’m working on releasing projects made by other artists in my label?
The refugees thing is a single person thing that was meant to give an opportunity to the Elementary school kids. I’ve also expanded it’s scope a bit since I last checked in to make a community nerf battle so that way I can get the High Schoolers interested.
I will come back in a year but for now I want to know what I can do between now and a year when there’s still an opportunity to change my trajectory. As far as I know, dramatically improving your chances at getting into a high school behaves a bit like a upside down exponential curve where once freshman and sophomore years are over, there’s not much else you can do to improve your chances.
I might do that but I’m also just more interested in publishing something I can be proud of. If I’m going to release something, it’s going to be something that I’m proud to say I released and these projects I’m simply not proud of.
2 of the novels I wrote when I was 13-14 and I find cringy, the 3rd one is one I wrote last year and while better, is more of a hodgepodge that I threw together for NaNoWriMo. As for the albums, 2 I wrote and recorded in a week and the last one is just bad all around as I often gave my good verses and beats to the artists in my label in an attempt to make them succeed.