Hi everyone! I’m currently a senior in the midst of the 2024 college application season and I have a dilemma that I was hoping could be answered.
I’m currently taking AP Calculus right now and it’s one of the most challenging courses I’ve ever taken (which I expected). I’m at a C right now and I’ve never been full of this much anxiety. I was originally at the regular level of math but I wanted to get ahead. I plan on majoring in English/Government/Humanities route. But even though math isn’t my strongest subject, I do enjoy learning it and I was hoping to experience/be exposed to and challenge myself by taking AP Calculus before graduating high school. I’m fighting to get at least a B but it’s starting to come discouraging and after all the hard work I put in every night.
Yale has been my dream school since sophomore year and it’s a goal I’ve been working towards since then and with this class affecting my GPA I’m afraid my goal has just been thrown out the window. I talked with my counselor and she offered I either drop the class, take the grade, or replace it with pass/fail or audit the class especially since it’s not required. I’m leaning heavily towards pass/fail because I don’t want to drop it. I enjoy the course and I love what we’re learning despite the exams, and I’ve already heard enough horror stories that AO’s view C’s at a negative light. I’m already getting ready to prepare to do pass/fail despite putting more effort in to not have to have a P on my transcript since all I’ve ever gotten was A’s and A-'s throughout my high school career. I’m hoping that if I do I can provide some context within the Aditional information section. But any thoughts?
If it helps this is the context of my application right now?
ACT: 33 (English: 35/Reading: 34/Math: 30/Science: 33)
SAT II: 750 (US History), 750 (World History)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.96
Weighted GPA (out of 4.33): 4.12
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable):
20/435 || 95% Percentile || top 5%
AP (place score in parenthesis):
Took 7 AP’s throughout my high school career out of the 16 offered and over 10 Honors classes. I got A’s/A-'s in all of them.
U.S History: 3
World History: 4
Language and Composition: 4
Major Awards:
-Book Publication (Getting to that)
-Twitter Recognition (“The ‘Buffer word’ Girl”)
***My professional editor pointed out the kind of technical slang and my use of my language in my book on her twitter and it blew up. Linguistic majors, professors, best-selling authors, and even Merriam Webster commented and acknowledged me.
-Two-time Gold Key and American Voices Nominee in Scholastic art and writing awards
-Honorable Mention and 3rd place winner in local Write On Contest
-Two-Time Mini Saga Publication in Young Writers book
-Prose published in Kenyon and K’in magazines.
-SAS Scholastic Full Scholarship recipient to Kenyon Young Writers
-Interlochen Summer Creative Writing Camp/The Loft/Hamline Young Writers
-Yale Young Global Scholar (Accepted to YYGS Literature, Philosophy, and Culture.)
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
I went down more of the spikey route. So most of my extracurriculars revolve around writing and social justice.
Writing
-Traditionally publishing a three-part book.
**Because I want to be an author too I decided to delve into the publishing industry rather than simply self-publish. I started writing this book when I was 14 out of interest and have been working on it ever since for 4 years now. I already got it edited by a professional editor, revised it, and have contacted numerous agents some of which I’ve already heard back from. (4 yrs)
-Co-founded/Co-President of my Creative Writing Club at school (4 yrs)
-Co-started a Literary Magazine for School (2 yrs)
-Established a Literary Committee for Magazine (2 yrs)
-Starting a Summer Creative Writing for Teens at Library
this upcoming summer. (1 yr)
**I actually meant to start that summer teen writing program summer of 2019 but because of YYGS, we had to cancel it and switch it to summer of 2020. So we ended up planning this for 2 years.
Social Justice/Culture
-Play violin duets with my twin sister during cultural ceremonies or for renowned people in our tribe (ex: chief, president of Meta)
**We used to play an avid role in our dancing group since Elementary school to Middle School. We even managed to win the 1st place dancing trophy for our cultural group representing the state of Minnesota which was awesome! But once we got more into the Violin we didn’t participate much in dancing and now play for them instead.
-Webmaster, co-speaker of SAGA Club
*Spoke to state representative about youth intervention
*Spoke at the Capitol with the SAGA President about social justice and youth intervention
*Presented a speech with the President of SAGA for the Social Activism Regional Program
-Board Member and Webmaster of VOICES Club
**Because my school is very homogenous and lacks diversity on so many levels, I, and everyone else in the group, spent most of our time trying to make an impact at our school. We did so by restarting a long gone Cultural Fashion show and, for this year, going all out on celebrating Black History Month.
Music
-Concert Orchestra
-Chamber Orchestra
-Summer Orchestra (ex: GTCYS, Summer Strings)
Intended Major: English/Government/Humanities
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: African American
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: Middle Class
Hooks: U.R.M/First Generation American
(I’m also planning on applying to UPenn, Brown, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, WashU, UMich, Macalester, and my matches/safeties)
Thank you!