Waitlisted chances? Huge upward trend in senior year...

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
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<p>As the title says I was recently waitlisted. However I interviewed very well and feel confident that I would succeed at Rice. I already have a backup at UC davis and I love their pre-med program, but I feel Rice might give me more individual attention. As my username indicates I have quite severe ADHD. However this was remedied in Junior year when I went on a light dose of adderall XR. The main reason I never went on medication for my ADHD was that I was getting a 3.85 or so GPA w/o AP classes since HW was a huge issue. </p>

<p>Unfortunately I was already enrolled in my Junior year classes and could not modify them to fit a more rigorous schedule. I received 1B first quarter in a math class (was sick before a test on a new concept, 100% on midterm =/) but managed to finish that class up with an A (15A's 1B, we take 8 classes a year). As a result my GPA was a 4.2 for junior year which isn't particularly impressive (note that taking more classes hurts your GPA vs standard 6 =(). </p>

<p>In senior year I was ready to show colleges that I could take on a large workload I enrolled in 5 AP courses and 3 normal. Currently I have all A's and it looks like I will maintain this trend until graduation. Due to Raynaud's disease I am limited in which schools I can attend(my blood vessels constrict causing pain when exposed to moderately cold weather). Opting to reject Stanford before they could reject me, my options were limited outside of the UC system. As a result I have applied to one other school outside of Rice (unknown status).</p>

<p>The UC system calculates GPA without senior year included. This means that I was rejected from UCB/UCLA (although I'm not very interested in them since they seem too large and cutthroat for pre-med). UCSD is somewhat appealing but the central UC place forgot to forward my UC app to UCSD so they are deliberating on whether or not to even consider me. </p>

<p>What are my chances providing I notify Rice of some of these obstacles and update them on my grades? I never mentioned I had ADHD since, while I feel it would help my application, I didn't want to be AA'd in or something. Looking back however I realize that it was illogical not to address these weaknesses stemming from medical disorder in my application. Thoughts?</p>

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<p>ADHD is fairly common, so it’s not a big deal one way or another. I’m glad you found some meds that help. Many kids struggle with that. As far as informing Rice about a medical disorder, I recommend you don’t bother. Your issues are something that might have fit in an essay, but not in a letter about why you want them to decide to admit you.</p>

<p>I’m not at all familiar with Raynaud’s disease (although I hate the cold too), but that’s not Rice’s goal to select kids who need to go to school in warm Houston. I hope you considered FL schools and other TX schools.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t planning on creating a sob story about Raynaud’s, lol. It is quite severe so I can’t actually go to cold cities (losing fingers doesn’t appeal to me). My comment was directed toward CC folk to clarify why Rice + one other school are really the only other schools I applied to. I am not desperate, I have the UC system, so I didn’t apply to standard schools in Florida and Texas. Only the more selective ones. I didn’t put ADHD in my essay since I had far more compelling stories about terrorist attacks, and it seemed like it would be forced(in addition to the whole wanting to not AA myself in somehow). The topics were about why you wanted to come to Rice and I felt like I really nailed it (mentioning all the specific courses/programs that appeal to me). While my ADHD issues are severe they lack the depth required for an interesting essay.</p>

<p>I still think it’s worth mentioning my senior year GPA and without any explanation it seems weird.</p>