Should I apply to Selective Colleges>

Student Lounge Hispanic Students
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<p>Hi I'm a low income (my sister is the only working adult in a household of 4 and will soon be moving) Hispanic immigrant student (just finished junior year) who arrived to the United States about 5 years ago. I obtained straight in both my Sophomore and Junior Years in all of my classes. My core classes during these years include:</p>

<p>AP World History (got a 5 on the Exam)
AP US History
AP English Language
AP US Government and Politics
Pre Calculus
Algebra II Honors
Chemistry I Honors
Biology I Honors
English II Honors</p>

<p>The first three years of my live here in the US were hard because of the common obstacles: language and culture. Therefore I struggled academically in my freshman year. In classes like Basketball (got a c in this class) and Soccer, Geometry Honors, Algebra I Honors, Earth Space Science Honors, French I (in these classes I got B's) The only good class I got an A, ironically, was English I Honors.</p>

<p>My extracurricular include</p>

<p>Thespians Club: Here I volunteer as a sound Technician and recently was awarded the Cappies Awards for best sound with my other fellow sound technicians for the play It’s A Wonderful Life were I was in charge of sound effects. In my first year (Sophomore year) as in the club I was placed in charge of body microphones and the sound board.</p>

<p>Math Club: I volunteer as math tutor for students in Algebra I through Pre Calc</p>

<p>Public Library: Here I am part of the Teen advisory board were members meet to discuss new library policies and how will the upcoming events be managed. I also volunteer as Teen Room Host and by shelving books.</p>

<p>I am in the Mu Alpha Theta Society, The National English Honor Society, and The National Society of High School scholars and I have been asked to be part of a committee chair on the Thespians club at my school.</p>

<p>Next year I'll be taking</p>

<p>AP Calculus AB
AP Physics C
AP Microeconomics
AP European History
AP Spanish Language
AP English Literature</p>

<p>I am 50 out of 484 in my class and have a 3.7 GPA (Un- weighted) and a 4.5 weighted GPA.</p>

<p>I'm planning to apply to the University of Chicago, Dartmouth, and University of Florida but I don't know If I'll make the cut for these schools please write me back to let me know your opinions and other college recommendations you might have.</p>

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<p>Oh I almost forgot I got an 1850 on my SAT ( I know not that good ) and and 23 on the ACT ( this was horrible) so I’ll be retaking both along with the SAT II subject tests in Math level II, Worls History and Spanish Language.</p>

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<p>What are you going to be doing to increase your SAT & ACT at your next sitting? Have you seen the Xiggi sticky thread on the SAT Prep forum? It has excellent advice on using the Blue Book and other resources to increase your score. </p>

<p>You may be given some leniency on standardized testing since you are a relatively new immigrant and low income. However, colleges at the level of D and UChicago want to be sure that students can succeed in their very competitive environment, so they won’t usually accept students with very low scores. Are your scores pretty even with about 600s across the board?</p>

<p>About SAT IIs, you really only need 2 unless you plan on applying to Georgetown as it is the only college that still requires 3. I would recommend taking the Math II and World History.</p>

<p>As far as recommendations of other schools, what are you looking for in a school:</p>

<p>Is FL your state of residence? If not, what is?
What size school are you interested in: small LAC (less than 2k), mid sized (3-15k), large?
What geographic area: South, NE, midwest, West?
Urban, rural, suburban?
What do you want to study, do you know?
What kind of environment: large Greek scene, big sports, liberal, etc.
What is your financial situation: assuming you will qualify for need based FA, but that could include large amounts of loans. How much can you/your family afford to pay per year?</p>

<p>Have you checked out Questbridge yet? There’s a QB subforum under the FA & Scholarships forum.</p>

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<p>I seriously want to make it into top colleges however i want to attend schools in the North because they are closest to big cities like Philladelphia, Chicago, and New York because they open more rearch opportunities. I will raise my SAT Scores I’ve practicing and thanks for thr SAT subject tests recommendations I am sure that I will score High on those exams. My main consern is how the colleges will looks at my application. Will they take into accoun my hard work and imigrant and position and well as challengin curriculum?</p>

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<p>I ahve checkout questbridge I even obtained the College Prep Award, unfortunately I was denied a grant to attend the Yale confere. Since then Dartmouth, University of Chicago, and UPenn have contacted me however idk if i’ll make the cut due to my seemingly poor academic perfomance compared to other candidates. I want yo apply to those school maybely because of their small sizes but at the same time because of the variety of opportunuities they offer and their access to outside resorses and intermships. Do you have any other school recomenadations ( school size: small, LOCATION: NE, greek scene: doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t hamper social life) My income is bellow 40,000 a year to be more specify 28,000 a year my family does not own any assets and like i explained before my sister is the only owrking adult in my family in a house of 4.</p>

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<p>We actually have some pretty big cities out West here too, SF, LA, Seattle, etc. Just kidding, if you want to stay in the NE, that’s fine, but you might not want to leave out the rest of the country. These days there are research opportunities at just about any 4 yr college, and having a larger geographic area gives you more colleges to consider which can increase your chances of acceptance to a financially feasible school (as the NE tends to be the most sought after area in the US).</p>

<p>Rather than suggesting a list of specific schools, it seems that what you need at this point in time is a strategy of what characteristics to look for in a school. In addition to colleges via QB, it seems like you should look for a range of schools with one or more of these qualities:</p>

<p>Excellent need based FA for lower income families, look for those with no loan policies for families with incomes under about 60k/yr. These are usually going to be very selective schools and reaches on your list, Amherst is an example.</p>

<p>Actively searching for URM students. Many LACs fit this bill and several have fly ins for potential applicants, see the Diversity Weekend thread.</p>

<p>Your state colleges. These are often the least expensive options, particularly if you qualify for merit scholarships.</p>

<p>Colleges where you would be competitive for a substantial merit scholarship. This means that you should be in the tippy top of the applicant pool for the scholarship, so these will likely be admissions safeties. You might look at Centre, Beloit and Denison; these are also LACs that are interested in increasing diversity.</p>

<p>Beyond this, you should search the large outside scholarhips (eg. Gates) for low income Hispnaics or URMs in general. These scholarships are extremely competitive, so you need to be very realistic about whether or not you are a viable candidate and only consider it a financial possibility, not a “for sure” source of funding your college.</p>

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<p>Thank you and well the NE is my priority to go to college not so much my own state couse education is hindered to a few good schools that are isolated from the big cities < this does not include the University of Miami which i am not applying because of it’s expensive tuition and because i want to move out of South Florida> also while looking through QuestbRIDGE I found out that 2 of my top schools Dartmouth and UPenn do not offer loans as a means to pay for tuition but rather grants based on need. however when looking on the percentage of hispanics on these schools about 8-6 % of enrolled students were hispanic, does this mean that they will take special consideration to an extend towards hispanic and other less represented minority students. Please let me know more. Also does my short residence in this country, 5 years, help me when applying to these schools.</p>

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<p>As for competition won’t my senior classes show that I have challenged myself even more than my previous years, Freshman year i took 3 honors, sophomore year i took one AP and 3 honors, junior year 2 honors and 3 AP, and senior year 1 Honors and 6 AP. Also i know some schools have requirements for foreign language particularky Dartmouth and Rice, another instition i am considering apply because of location and academics, however doesn’t taking an AP Spanish Language class and scoring high on the exam and having strong dominance over the langauge, which i do since i came here at the age of 10 and not 5 or 8 like some of my other hispanic friends and struggle with spanish, fullfil that requierement.</p>