Senior Needs Guidance. No Support at Home.

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am a senior in high school and will be graduating in June. I was accepted to a couple of schools, but I don't know what I should do. I didn't apply to various schools during the application process. At the end of my junior year, I had to move out of home because of my father's inability to take care of me. My entire senior year has been spent living with a friend's family. During this time, I had to take more shifts at work so that I could pay for general necessities. Hardly anyone at school discussed with the students the application process, except for a class meeting in January about Early Decision vs. Early Action vs. Regular Decision. Additionally, I applied to schools other people thought I should go to. Basically, everything imperative about senior year has fallen apart and I have no clue what to do</p>

<p>Important things to know: I went to a technical high school. My classes and grades were fairly good- mostly honors classes and 3 AP courses. Regrettably, I had received a D in pre-calculus on my mid-year report after returning form a family vacation. The teacher refused to let me take the test I missed, saying I "don't deserve to take it" after not telling her about the vacation. This was a huge mistake on my part, but I had an A in class prior to the test. I didn't take a language in high school. I have started a non-profit entity and will hopefully be establishing it in the summer of 2014. During high school, I was a member of NHS for J&S year, Captain of the XC team, honor role student, self-initiated internship at a hair salon from Sophomore to Senior year (which has turned into my cooperative education job), Drama club member Senior year, hostess and food runner, and I advertised my organizing abilities through a self-started business called Simply Sorted. It's not the best resume, but I would like to know how to improve it. I wish to major in Film or Theater, but I need to build a resume and artistic portfolio. My SAT's are awful: 1710. I plan to retake the ACT in June or September. The schools I wish to apply to are Ithaca, Carnegie Mellon, Emerson, American University, Boston University, Syracuse, UMASS Amherst (rejected), and NYU. Several of these schools are a reach; especially NYU and Carnegie Mellon. Many of the counselors and teachers at my school said I was qualified for UMASS, and I was shocked at my rejection. Some people said it was because of the D and others said the D was a minor blip that wouldn't have affected my transcript. </p>

<p>My options are as follows:</p>

<p>Matriculate to Assumption College, Pace University, or a state university and transfer. *Pace did not award enough financial aid. However, I recently discovered that I might be considered as an independent student.
Attend Community College as either a part-time or full-time, and transfer
Take a Gap year so that I may apply to the schools I want. Meanwhile, get a second job to earn money, possibly travel abroad if I can accrue the funds, and work on my film/acting portfolio for applications.
Over the summer, I have the opportunity to take Spanish 101 & 102, and a drama camp at Hanover Theater in Worcester, Ma. A bartender at the restaurant I work for also works for a film company and said he would help me with my film portfolio. </p>

2

<p>How did you apply to schools without checking out their requirements for admission? The counselors are not fully responsible for your lack of school research, and the teachers don’t have your academic history. </p>

<p>You need to read, on these threads, about financial aid, FYI, NYU doesn’t really give out good financial aid. Most of the other schools wont either. </p>

<p>You spent too much time on your EC’s instead of your academic requirements. Yes, you do need to fulfill the general education requirements to be admitted to most universities, even if you want to study Film. </p>

<p>You need a gap year: to go to school, improve your writing skills, and work to make up your lack of requirements, but once you start taking courses at a community college, the universities will consider you as a transfer applicant. Oh, and if you don’t have money to go to school, you definitely don’t have the money to travel abroad.</p>

3

<p>Perhaps a gap year would help you prepare applications for schools that are the best matches academically and financially. </p>

4

<p>You would be classified as Independent if you were put into Foster Care or are otherwise a Ward of the Court, but not otherwise unless you are married, or join the military. </p>

<p>Sorry your parents aren’t helping you will college planning, you should have been planning this long ago. Many colleges do not accept applicants without foreign language minimum credits. UMass Amherst is one of those, I’m flabbergasted your counselor at HS didn’t know this–rejection should have been automatic. All colleges have a requirements page, see UMass Am:
<a href=“https://www.umass.edu/admissions/apply/admissions-requirements/freshman-admissions-requirements”>https://www.umass.edu/admissions/apply/admissions-requirements/freshman-admissions-requirements&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Ds are always a serious issue, never a blip.</p>

5

<p>what state schools did you get into?</p>

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<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking at taking some classes at Community College. That said, I’d advise you look at it as a two year investment. Many colleges offer scholarships to kids coming out of CCs and the best scholarships tend (broadly speaking) to be for people who did two whole years of CC. It gives you a chance to get your grades up and fulfill whatever classes need to be taken to be accepted at the school of your choice. </p>

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<p>It’s not fair to criticize the OP for “not planning earlier” or not knowing how to navigate the application process on her/his own. My sense from my time on CC is that many of the parents’ kids are super high-achievers who have been on top of the college game since freshman year, but that’s simply not true for most kids and ESPECIALLY kids who have been going through a major family crisis and life disruption. And guidance counselors in public schools are often WAY too busy to offer advice. I know my D’s didn’t discuss things in freshman year like “you better take 3 years of language in high school if you want to go to college”… they encouraged it, but it wasn’t made clear this was for college purposes. Nothing much was said at all about college until senior fall, which is probably what happened with the OP. </p>

<p>Anyway— I just don’t want to make her/him feel worse about the situation.</p>

8

<p>nicolerachel…hugs to you. I know that this has been a hard year…it sounds to me like you’ve done great…my D is in a school perhaps similar to yours…if it weren’t for me as a parent doing my own research, we wouldn’t have a clue…in our urban public schools, there is 1 guidance counselor for 300 seniors. no way is she helping anybody. </p>

<p>I like your idea of taking either a year at community college (you will be amazed by the folks you will meet there) or even a gap year if you can swing it financially…you sound like a bright, hardworking student…things are going to go your way…</p>