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**Decision: Accepted/Finalist for Presidential Scholarship **
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1440 , 760 CR, 680 M
ACT (breakdown): 29 Composite, 35 Eng, 32 Reading, 26 M, 28 S, I forgot the rest but as you can tell, not the best :’)
SAT II: 750 USH, 690 Lit, 560 Bio (didn’t send)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.98? My school weighs, so the GPA I sent was 4.348
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/363
AP (place score in parenthesis): 5-USH, 4-World H, 3-Bio, 3-Lang
IB (place score in parenthesis): n/a
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Lit, AP Gov, Leadership Class, Guitar, Anatomy & Physio
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): AP Scholar w/ Honors, photography in 2 local art shows and local community service awards/ honor roll, small scholarship for scientific research I completed my junior year
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Mock Trial Team Captain & Prosecuting lawyer (3 yrs), ASB/ Leadership (Frosh Prez, Soph Prez, District Board Rep, Senior VP) (4 yrs), Feminist club founder & pres, GSA Club officer, Robotics Club CEO, Local newspaper intern (publish 4+ times), Self taught photography & guitar, etc etc etc
Job/Work Experience: tutoring, interning at newspaper
Volunteer/Community service: student guitar teacher, newspaper intern (100 hours or so) nothing impressive
Summer Activities: Took classes at local college and volunteered, scientific research at local aquarium
Essays (rating 1-10, details):
MOST IMPORTANT
I can’t legitimately rate my essays in a way that could be of any help. However, I do think my essays were an integral part of application and ultimately, why I got in. My Common App essay was based on an essay I wrote in a Intro To Chicanx Studies class I took this past summer. I reflected on my identity as a Chicana and I think it conveyed my voice, but it is definitely not my favorite essay. I ended up starting from a scratch and sending a brand new essay to all of the schools I applied to with a January deadline. For the USC Supplements, I wrote on a feminist theory I learned this summer and how it sparked my intellectual curiosity as well as changed how I identified myself. For the why USC prompt, I went full on cheese. I even ended it with “Fight On, Trojans!”. Moral of the story is don’t take yourself too seriously.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: Professor I had over the summer. I think she liked me lol
Teacher Rec #2: Math teacher of three years & huge support system
Counselor Rec: knew him well, chaperoned a college visit trip of Ivy Leagues
Additional Rec:
Interview: n/a
Other
Applied for Financial Aid?: yes
Intended Major: Philosophy, Politics, and Law
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant): USA
School Type: public, 2k students
Ethnicity: Mexican American
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: 100,000-150,000
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First generation, underrepresented rural community, Mexican-American woman 
Reflection
Do not take yourself too seriously on college applications. People will tell you that there is list of things you need to check off to get into a school but don’t listen. You are not a robot. That being said, it is important to know when to be serious and show your academic excellence and mature thought process.
I have been scrolling through College Confidential since I was a freshman, comparing my stats to others. I took the SAT 4 times and ACT 2 times, hell bent on getting a perfect score because I thought that I needed it to get into a “good college”, whatever that means. After getting the same score over and over again, I realized that I’m just a crappy test taker lol. Don’t try to be something you are not. I was having the hardest time writing my Common App essay because I was trying way too hard to be poetic, witty, and intellectual all at the same time. When I let that go and decided to just write about how I truly felt about myself, my passions, my aspirations, I think my strong sense of self was conveyed. A huge piece of advice that helped me was a quote I heard somewhere in the depths of “How To Get Into So&So” Youtube was something along the lines of “Go back and read your essays, if they don’t sound like something you would honestly say than they aren’t the right ones.” I think doing so really helped me feel confident in my applications.
Strengths: ESSAYS, ESSAYS, ESSAYS! Passion for law & social justice. Quirkiness in short response questions
Weaknesses: test scores, maybe ECs
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Essays & short answers
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: I was rejected from being a QB Finalist, however USC is my first college decision. Applied to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Stanford, Vandy, WUSTL, BU and state schools
General Comments :
I was genuinely shocked when I got my giant USC package in the mail. So happy it was my first decision when I was expecting a state school. I’ve been doing a lot of research on USC and I am quickly starting to fall in love. I need to stop myself though because I am waiting on 13 other decisions! I think that the USC Admissions process is truly a holistic one. Going into college application season, I was afraid my test scores and ECs were not significant enough to get me into into any of my dream schools and yet here I am. To any other Presidential finalists please message me about which Explore USC date you are attending!
