Hello! I’m a rising junior girl and am just curious to see where people might see me fit!
Demographics:
- US Citizen, first-gen American from first-gen immigrants
- IN resident
- Public, somewhat competitive high school
- Asian woman (Filipino)
Intended Major:
Not super sure yet. I will probably end up in international relations, legal studies, political science, or maybe economics. Either way, I want to go to law school specifically to pursue international business law or anything like that.
GPA, Rank, Test Scores:
Unweighted GPA: 3.911
Weighted GPA: 3.97 (My high school only allows three AP classes for sophomores, and I chose Euro. My grade mainly was dragged down by my precalc/trig grade, a B- both semesters. My only other B was in AP Euro first semester, which was a B+.)
Rank: 37/867
Test Scores: I’ve only taken the PSAT 10, and got 1220. I think that makes for 1320 on the actual SAT. Either way, I didn’t study for the PSAT this time around, and will probably get higher scores when I take the actual SAT in the fall this year. I also plan on taking the ACT.
Coursework:
So far, I’ve only taken AP Euro as an AP class. All my other classes were honors courses, except for my precalc/trig class, which was accelerated. My elective for both years, as my school, requires a study hall for the first two years, was Debate I and II, which was considered the most rigorous of them all, at least in my school.
Next year’s schedule includes APUSH, APLANG, and AP Psychology. The year after that will most likely include AP Gov, AP Human Geo, AP Lit, and AP Macro/Micro.
Awards: I have a few debate and speech awards, but mostly from regular-season tournaments. Right now, I’m sitting at three top-five debate awards and three top-five speech awards. I’ve also been to the state debate tournament twice, once for the speech state tournament, to debate districts twice, and the NSDA Tournament of Champions for supplementary events next week, if that’s worth mentioning.
If anyone has any recommendations for writing competitions, that would be much appreciated!
EC: (I hope I’m not going into too much detail ^^;)
- Two years of debate, both in class and as a club, and one year of speech, only as a club. I am the recruiting officer for my district’s middle schools’ incoming freshmen and current freshmen. Additionally, next year, I will most likely be social media manager.
- Executive for Environmental Awareness Club for one year: My sponsor and I have been leaning towards collaborating with other schools in my state to go down to the state capital and advocate for greener public policy. We were also possibly thinking of having our local Congressman sponsor an environmental bill at the state level. Still working out the kinks of those though!
- Restarting Mock Trial Club - Our high school used to have a fairly solid mock trial team, but it died out a few years ago. I plan to hopefully get some people from speech and debate to join it.
- Head Mentor at the Middle School Debate Club: Next year, the middle school club will start up, and I’ve been designated as one of the head mentors for two specific types of debate.
- Head Mentor of a Local Debate League: Like the middle school debate club, I plan on mentoring in debate events I’m specific in. This debate league specifically aims at underprivileged students in my local area.
- Tutor for English and Debate
- I am a Sunday school volunteer teacher at my local church. I teach fourth graders currently and am planning on volunteering again next year and the year after that.
- Model UN for one year: Not much to say. I went to one conference this year.
- Piano for nine years
- Accepted into the Notre Dame Summer Scholars Program for Law, but ultimately I rejected due to cost.
Essays/LORs/Other:
Essays: I haven’t written for college apps yet, but in general, my writing skills are pretty good.
LORs:
Debate Coach: 10/10, we’re pretty close, I’ve been in his class for two years, and I know he writes excellent recommendation letters, so I think it’s really strong.
Assistant Debate Coach: 7/10 I don’t know if I get to call her that anymore because she’s actually a vice-principal next year. Anyways, even though we only met this year, we’re close. She knows my love for debate well.
English Teacher: 8/10, we’re also pretty close and I had a nearly perfect grade in her class. I think she knows my writing skills and personality well.
Cost Constraints and Budget:
Miraculously, my family’s not really held back by budget. We’re lower-middle middle class, but thanks to external help, the only real thing that my parents and I will have to worry about is room and board. I think that some of the tuition could be covered as well. In the case of my older sister, who is graduating this year, about 30k of her 50k tuition was covered for all four years of her college. The rest was covered by tuition reimbursement from the local university where my dad works.
I know this was a lot to read, but I hope someone can help me think of colleges, as well as any general advice they have for me. I’m an incoming junior, so I think there’s still a lot of time to improve myself. Thank you so much!
