<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>Basically I'm a stereotypical junior in highschool who just recently realized that trying in school was actually an important thing in my life. Honestly, I know that colleges don't care that I'm a "late bloomer," because any selective college will have plenty of applicants who have done as well throughout their entire highschool careers as I'm doing now. So I don't have any excuses, and I realize that I only hurt myself my freshman/sophomore years. That being said, I luckily didn't completely shut myself out of getting into a good college either. My freshman/sophomore GPA was about a 3.3uw, but this year I'm maintaining a solid 4.0uw with essentially the hardest course load I could be taking. I haven't taken the SAT yet, but I've been preping a lot, and am confident in my ability to score around a 2100. I actually am hoping for higher, but "predicting" a score above that seems pretentious.</p>
<p>I do believe that despite my average GPA, I can make up for it in the more subjective areas of the application. I'm a black belt in karate, have a good amount of community service, am co-captain of mock trial, 3 years of varsity golf with an award, and have a few other minor things. However, the thing I will be highlighting through my essays and in my app in general is my band. I've played guitar in a band... and not just the average "garage band." Since my freshman year we've played probably around 200 shows, including shows in front of crowds of over 500 or 600 kids. We've come out with two CD's and are working on a third, and have sold probably atleast 600 or 700 of the old CD's online and at shows, including having shipped them to places such as Japan, various European countries, South America, and more. We also have sold a good amount of merch such as t-shirts, pins, etc. One of the most amazing experiences anyone can have is playing guitar on stage and seeing the entire crowd singing along and enjoying the music you helped create, or when my friend went to France last summer, had a bag with a pin of my band on it, and had someone in France recognize it and ask where he could get one. We have over half a million plays on Purevolume and around the same on Myspace, and thousands of comments on Myspace as well. Recently we've even been negotiating a record deal with a real record label, and this summer we'll be going on a small tour from NH to IL. Basically you get the idea; although a highschool band may not seem like the best EC, I feel like the amount of hard work, talent, and determination it took to get this far is equal, in my mind, to just about any other EC I've seen here.</p>
<p>I also feel very confident in my ability to write the essays, as well as my rec's, but then again, so does everyone, so that's not for you or me to judge.</p>
<p>So all that being said, I'm looking for a college. I'm very interested in majoring in something along the lines of Int'l Relations, Political Sci/Gov, History, etc. I'd like to stay in New England, but I'm definitely open to going to see somewhere in say NY, PA, and even a little farther sound along the east coast, such as MD, VA, or SC. As far as size goes, anywhere from 3,000-12,000 (maybe a little bigger, but not too much) is fine, but 5,000-6,000ish is preferable. My dream school is Tufts, but I know I realistically don't have a chance at all, so any other schoosl you guys could recommend would be awesome.</p>
<p>So yeah, that's about it. Thanks for reading, and thanks for any help anyone can be.</p>