<p>I go to a competitive school that typically sends around 10 students to ivies and many more to other great schools. I am ranked 42 out of a class of 497 and am Hispanic. I am of low income (Less than 50,000) and live in an area where the majority of people are wealthy and white. (Average Income is around 85,000). Most of the top kids in my class will be applying to many of the same schools I am applying and have better stats than me (I have 3.5 UW GPA, 2080 SAT, 760 Spanish SAT II and 670 USH SAT II). I am also a first gen college student (MOM didn;t go to college, dad dropped out after one year). Does my low SES and first generation status significant at all to help overcome my low stats? Im involved at school (VArious clubs, treasurer of school anchor club) , play club soccer (Captain of team), and am an NHRP scholar.
I am interested in:
unc chapel hill
duke
harvard
upenn
stanford
cornell
georgetown
georgia southern
auburn
u of Georgia
GA Tech</p>
<p>You have solid stats, don’t compare yourself to the superstars here on CC, they are not really representative of the real world. You have great hooks with Hispanic (incuding NHS), lower income, and first generation. I’d be surprised if you didn’t get into most of your lower tier choices. The higher tier choices are, as always, more of a lottery, not just for you but for most everyone.<br>
Work really, really hard on your applications. Ask your English teacher or counselor to review for spelling, grammar, appropriateness of your essays, typos, and anything else that might damage your chances.<br>
I am sure you weren’t editing your post for here (no need to and not a criticism) but you need to be really careful that things like typos and incorrect grammar don’t occur in your applications. Good luck!</p>
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<p>Colleges vary in how they define first gen. For some, it’s if neither parent ever attended college, for others it’s if neither earned a degree. That’s why college applications don’t have a first gen box to check, instead they ask for the college history of each parent (college attended, year, degree if any), then each college determines if you fit their definition.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to say how much of a bump you might get for coming from a low income Hispanic family and possibly first gen. They are also going to consider other factors such as your country of origin and association with the Hispanic community; as well as the rest of your application, including rigor of coursework, ECs and essays.</p>
<p>Duke, H, Penn, S & Gt are all extremely selective and are likely to have some of the most competitive URM pools in the nation as they are highly desired schools. And UNC will be more difficult and expensive since you are OOS (I’m assuming you’re a GA resident); they do have the Pogue scholarship, but it is very competitive.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t try to dissuade you from applying to some reach schools, but I’d suggest you consider replacing some of your high reaches with some excellent schools who have more difficulty recruiting URMs, often due to their location. I’m thinking of schools like Grinnell and Carleton, who give excellent FA and have merit scholarships. Even Amherst actively searches for URMs while schools like H & S can afford to sit and wait for students to come to them.</p>