<p>i know its EXTREMELY competitive for these but if i dont apply i have 0% chance... my case is long winded so i hope poeple on here like to read-here goes.......</p>
<p>ill start with ugly parts of my app that will hinder my chances:</p>
<p>3.1-3.2 gpa :( APs/IBs suck......
(i got striaght As in 9th to get into APs then got striaght Cs in 10th while adjusting but worked my way back to mostly Bs in 11 12)</p>
<p>1700 sat (i sent my act instead to cover this but i think they still have access to the sat because when i took the sat i put one address but on my app i put another and they sent a viewbook to the sat address?..( fellow applicants beware admissions may be omnipresent or incredibly reckless)</p>
<p>i put 10 hours employment instead of 30 per week by mistake</p>
<p>i have to compete with top notch asians/indians from my school with 4.whatevers and 2400s (no offense guys asians/indians are tight)</p>
<p>i visited campus but didnt interview and i live in socal!!!!!!(family issues but didnt get a chance to write a letter to explain)</p>
<p>maybe some of this stuff can help me though......
33 ACT
BLACK MALE
Low income-(heard that doesnt help at pomona or williams)
Recruited athlete-(turned down UC Davis for liberal arts education and now regreting it)
Needed money to keep parents from foreclosing so i started my own business
Teacher recs to Williams explaing why i should be the first student from my school they accept EVER!
commuted an hour one way for 4 years(all for a low gpa at a private school)</p>
<p>what do you guys think...should i write letters to kiss up or is my cause hopeless? input much apreciated!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>3.1/3.2 at a competitive private is not a deal breaker. I’m going to guess that is just a little below the middle of your class? That’s like a 4.0 at most publics.</p>
<p>Good move with the ACT instead of the SAT.</p>
<p>The adcom will look for reasons to accept you rather than reasons not to.</p>
<p>You live in socal, are a hs student, and work 30 hrs a week? According to my counselor, you’re not legally allowed to work more than 15-20 hours (something like that)…definitely not 30 hours. Under the table..?</p>
<p>Oh, and I think you should apply. You have a shot at all of them - don’t discount yourself b/c your GPA. Your minority status + recruited athlete and a few other things help out. Also, if you got Cs/didn’t do well in your AP/IB classes, and did well on the tests - that helps out a lot too. You mentioned it in your academic honors, I assume. If you did well on the test and not well in the class, it can be indicative of grade deflation (which chicago might be able to relate to ;))</p>
<p>to answer noobcake fin aid doesnt have to start in college…</p>
<p>and to Optimization right around tenth things started fine only worked less then 5 a week then my situation changed in a few different ways so now that im in my senoir year im working more than i should be legally, but my parents need the help and i never work more than five hours on a school night its the weekends where i rack the hours up…but anyways do you guys recomend that i send the ap score reports along with a letter and the mid year report? and if i correct the hours thing wouldnt they find that suspect?</p>
<p>more importantly im just worried now because with a 3.1 im in the bottom 1% of my class!!!can you belive that? in a class of 120? and i know for a fact that there are at least five people on my football team with below 2.5s! the math doesnt add up. and with poeple in the top 10% that i compete with there seems like theres just no hope to gain admission to any college because t my school “drama” is going behind your friends back and applying to their school and then pretending ike nothing happened and i know im competing with the best at my school</p>
<p>That only applies to you if you are a minor. If you’re 18, then you could seriously work somewhere full-time. I don’t see why you’d want to, though…</p>
<p>bottom 1%? yikes. i hate to say this, but your chances drastically go down for those specific schools you mentioned and admission is very unlikely with that rank. =( i’m sorry.</p>
<p>on the flip side, you’re bound to go somewhere decent because of your great ACT score/your ethnicity/income/athletic ability. I recommend somehow seeing if you can change your work hours from 10 back to 30. That seems like something major you might want to get fixed on your app. When colleges know you put a lot of time into something responsible like a job, they tend to understand a low gpa/low sat (even though they don’t like to admit it).</p>