<p>Hello
So.... I am currently a junior, and I am honestly quite near lost when it comes to how I can impress colleges.
Background:
I am about to finish my sophmore year with a 4.2 weighted GPA, and an awful 3.8 non weighted GPA thanks to the high school credit classes I took in middle school and screwed up in. I'm currently preparing for the SAT, got a 1900 without any prep or anything, but by the time I will officially take it I am aiming for 2250+. I am currently the editor in the schools biggest club, I am running for office in another large club (possibly president). I swim for the school and I swim for a club team. In terms of ethnicity I'm Afghan and I don't even know what group that puts me as, I just use other or Asian. In term of what I have planned for next year, I have already got public forum debate started in my school, but we have not had any teams representing us in a WACFL (the debate competition). I am still not sure about what I want to do in the future, or what I want to major in. I'm leaning toward biology/neuroscience/bio medical engineering and maybe a second major or just a minor in business. I plan on taking 4 APs next year and leadership (either leadership or another AP, which I REALLY don't want). If I got all A's next two years I could achieve a 4.4, otherwise realistically I will hopefully and probably have something in the 4.3's. In terms of unique experiences, I guess the most would be getting a baby sister just the other year, which is shockingly life changing (you should have heard my reaction when I first found out... not pretty XD)</p>
<p>Colleges that I am interested in (in order of most realistically wanted XD):
Johns Hopkins University
Emory
Georgetown
Stanford
Harvard
MIT
Brown
University of Virginia</p>
<p>so basically I realize that some of those schools are unrealistic, so that's where I would love some help, what can I do my next two years to give me a chance to get accepted into some of those top schools. In terms of what actually matches my qualification and desires the most I think Johns Hopkins might be my best bet, but again I would really love to go to a top school that will give me a wide variety of subjects and opportunities. </p>
<p>So yeah... again, what should I plan on doing for the next two years to be accepted by some of the top schools I have listed. </p>
<p>Oh and how do colleges take religion into consideration and what the deal with the chance of being admitted for Early action vs. Early Decision vs. normal time (don't know what its called) vs. Affirmative action (I think that's also referred to as rolling admissions)</p>
<p>Oh one more thing, my school is VERY competitive, I know a lot students who are well on their way to Princeton/Yale/Harvard, and other notorious ivy league schools. By a lot I mean probably at least 5 percent of our class XD, and I don't even know if I'm in that 5 percent....</p>
<p>A few words of advice here: Don’t spread yourself too thin. With ECs, it’s quality, and not quantity. Find the things you like best and invest your time in effort in those few areas. As a general rule, the normal school-related clubs are nice to do, but don’t especially differentiate you. If you swim, debate, and do one other thing - whatever it is - that’s plenty. Leave yourself enough time to think.</p>
<p>Spend some time looking for a good safety and match schools. You have a lot of highly selective schools on your list and no safeties at all. Have the financial talk with your parents - are you going to need a lot of aid? What is their attitude about debt to pay for college - and will you need more money for grad school? </p>
<p>Spend the rest of your time figuring out what characteristics of schools matter to you. Prestige is obviously important to you, but think more about what else you care about. Do you plan to swim in college? Join a frat? Do you care about there being other Afghani students? Does having a religious community matter to you? How important is being part of a city vs. a suburb vs. a college town? </p>
<p>And the terms you are looking for are: Early Decision, Early Action, Single Choice Early Action and Regular Decision. If you google them or do a search, you’ll get the definitions. Know that if financial aid matters to you, you probably won’t be doing Early Decision.</p>
<p>A school that sends 5 percent to ivies is a strong school, but not very competitive by ivy standards. Very competitive to them are the schools sending 30%. So you will need to be very high up in the class to make them a reality.</p>
<p>@ Waverly well i mean we were in top 100 high schools last year if that means anything, we normally get a lot of kids that don’t want to go to Thomas Jefferson, which is number one high school in the nation and their right next door so :/.</p>
<p>@M’s Mom, in terms of quality what do you mean, I assume time spent in the EC is a factor, and that’s probably not going to be in my favor seeing that I have only begun Debate, Key Club, and Red Cross this year. However, I have been doing swimming for quite some time. Oh and the schools listed were more or less my goal big schools, in terms of backups I’m thinking Penn State, George Washington, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, and George Mason. </p>
<p>Do you plan to swim in college? Probably not, unless I get good enough XD.
Join a frat? I plan on doing so, but I don’t know which, I also plan on joining Circle K
Do you care about there being other Afghani students? Nope
Does having a religious community matter to you? Nope
How important is being part of a city vs. a suburb vs. a college town? Doesn’t matter really, I guess i’d prefer city or suburb, but I can live with college town.</p>
<p>In terms of financial aid, I will need it, but my sister choose to go to a less intense school for its hefty scholarship this year and she is from Thomas Jefferson High School (yep I didn’t get in xD) so I have a surprisingly good amount of money saved up for me. Still, we are a middle class family and I have a new baby sister that we have to spend a lot of money on so…
Oh and I am not sure about grad school, maybe medical, still not sure. </p>
<p>but what range of colleges do you think I would qualify in, for the people from my high school that get into Johns Hopkins the average SAT score is 2207 and average GPA is 4.36. From our school to UVA it is a 2083 SAT and a 4.17 GPA… so I feel like Johns Hopkins might be in my range realistically.</p>