Low gpa due to special circumstance, CHANCE ME PLZ

<p>Hey Guys,</p>

<p>So I made an almost identical chance thread to this one a little more than a month ago, but I have recently received my official unweighted gpa and rank and I made a decision about my Early Decision (Which will be JHU).</p>

<p>These are the other schools that I MAY be applying to either EA or RD</p>

<p>Caltech
Northwestern
MIT
Uchicago
Rice
UVA
William and Mary
Duke
Vanderbilt
Georgia Tch
Notre Dame
Georgetown
Wake Forest
Carnegie Mellon
Brown
Columbia
Dartmouth
Princeton</p>

<p>I know that Im applying early action to Uchicago, MIT, UVA, JMU, and Rice. Chance me for the other ones too though XD</p>

<p>Ethnicity: Asian
Sex/state: female
Major: Hopefully double major in polysci and physics (astrophysics, nasa stuff)
School: Last year we were ranked 180 something I believe according to newsweek, pretty average public high school in my opinion but whatever. We rarely send kids to competitive schools, I think a few got into yale, princeton, mit, but not more than a handful.</p>

<p>SAT: 2400
SAT2: 800s in chem, bioE and biom, math2, and physics (going to take chem this Oct)
APs: 11
GPA: 3.72(uw), 4.14 (w) <that scares me
RANK: 77/472...</p>

<p>The reason why my GPA is low is because during junior year, one of my friends passed away . My first semester grades suffered, basically my transcript looks like this:</p>

<pre><code> 1S 2S
</code></pre>

<p>BC CALC C B+ B-
AP PHYSICS C B A- B+
AP CHEM B- B+ B
AP PSYCH B+ A A-
APUSH A A- A-</p>

<p>And apparently, I have three Bs from middle school that are lowering my gpa too, but those are the least of my worries. Without those I have a 4.3x weighted and am comfortably in the top 10%.</p>

<p>My Recs will be great, both teachers have known me for over 3 years and love me <3 One will be given to my math teacher, the other to my history teacher/debate coach. Counsilor will write about it in the LOR.</p>

<p>EXTRACURRICULARS:</p>

<p>Karate (12 years)
-black belt 3rd degree
- now work as an instructor (I teach little kids)
- "Captain" of the demo team (kicks and flips and stuff)</p>

<p>ORCHESTRA VIOLIN/VIOLA (8yrs)
- First chair of school orchestra (3yrs)
- First chair of county orchestra (2yrs)
- First violin regional orchestra (1yr)
- First violin state orchestra (1yr)
- Started my own orchestra at school that plays contemporary music ( I conduct it)
- Violinist in a quartet, we play for money (at malls and stuff)
- Teach as a job
- Wrote duet music for guitar+violin/Viola
- Write music and performs for church orchestra</p>

<p>VOLUNTEERING (1200+ hours) :
- Presidents Volunteer award gold, 4 years
- President of Key Club for a year, VP for 2
- raised over $15000 for causes and charities</p>

<p>-Volunteer for special needs kids since 8th grade (over 1000 hours)
- Coached sports (tennis and basketball) for these kids
- Created a club at my school dedicated to raising money for special needs programs
- Interned for a psychology practice dedicated to helping children that could not be taken care of by the public school system (2 yrs)
-Tutor math to mentally handicapped children at my school (alg+ geometry)</p>

<p>POLITICS:
- President of MUN at my school
- Created school newspaper dedicated to international and national politics
- President of JSA/Young dem/rep (they're all rolled up into one "politics" club at my school)
- Given public speeches to my school about political issues
-placed regionally and locally for MUN and JSA (not that big of a deal)
- student gov treasurer for 3 years (not politically motivated, but I couldnt find anywhere else to put it)</p>

<p>DEBATE (4 years):
- State Champion (2 years)
- Regional Champion (2 years)
- District Champion (2 years)
- Captain
- Qualifed for the TOC
- Qualified for CFL(s) twice (barely didn't break this past year...)
- placed semis, quarters, octos and won a ton of national level debate tournaments
- Made a camp for upcoming high school debaters (20 students, $250 per)
-Coach for local middle school policy debate and pofo (what a joke haha)</p>

<p>SCIENCY STUFF:
- 2nd place at astrophysics olympiad (went to Europe last year)
- Competing this year at an astrophysics olympiad, only 5 are chosen from the nation to compete
- Was chosen for a highly selective aerospace program that interns you with NASA
- Interned at NASA multiple times
- Did fusion research on sustainable energy, I'm really interested in He-3 research but the stuff is hard to get hold of >.>
- Done a ton of research on satellite communications and fusion, Was invited for a tour of the CIA for my work on satellite communication technology, presenting my fusion research this year
- Was invited to a state-sponsored program for physics, very competitive (50 people in the state I think?)
- Was invited to a summer program at NASA that had us do modules and simulations of Space (100 people were invited)
- Captain of quiz bowl team(s) (we have multiple), won 4-7 in the region multiple times throughout my years in high school, we actually won 2nd last year.
- Did a research project on Rwanda my freshman year, won the regional county history fair (is that even worth putting on a resume though?)</p>

<p>Im pretty sure that my SATs are up to par and my ECs are competitive, will they look past the GPA though? I was thinking of maybe retaking physics or chem online. Is it worth it?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>Make sure someone/somewhere you include the circumstances (death of friend) because that is a valid excuse. If your GC knows about the situation he/she can include it in the letter. </p>

<p>A 3.72 (especially with circumstances) will not disqualify you. ECs are good, maybe consider an arts supplement. Most schools really want violists so if you’re about equal on both violin and viola then definitely do viola (or both I suppose if you really wanted to). There are definitely way more violinists applying.</p>

<p>Thanks for your reply! Anyone else? :D</p>

<p>Lol I don’t know why people like you post chance threads. You will def get into those schools</p>

<p>If you’re instate you will 90% likely get into W&M and UVa</p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies, bump? :/</p>

<p>What schools did you end up getting into?</p>