Well... what schools DO I have a chance at?

<p>White, male, junior, live in Los Angeles county (San Pedro)
I've given up on dreaming about all the colleges I really want to get in to, so where do I go from here?
Heres my life story about why I suck, if it really matters:</p>

<p>"The background is that my family moved away from our hometown and lived there for a year before it turned out that my mom was a lesbian and my dad was having an affair. we moved back to my hometown with my wealthy grandparents until my grandpa died and we had absolutely no money, but couldn't find a place to live with room for all of us and struggled to live in the high end part of the city. So my aunt and cousin moved to one apartment and me, my mom, my sisters, and my grandma moved to another. My mom payed for both apartments rent, groceries, bills - everything. It was really hard. Then, my grandma found out she had lung cancer (she had been smoking 2 or 3 packs a day for years) and slowly died on our living room couch for a year, which was very sad having to have to live around and very expensive with hospice and things. My sister couldn't handle it at times, and ran away from home often. She ended up dropping out of high school. Because of this, my sister and I moved in with my aunt, where finance is just as tight, but we get by.</p>

<p>These things really impacted me sometimes, and at times I didn't think it was even real, I didn't think anything existed, not even myself. There were very hard and confusing times for myself internally. "</p>

<p>Here are my ECs:</p>

<p>section leader in marching / concert band
high marching position in the LAUSD all district honor band.
3 years in cal ymca youth and government (authored/sponsored a bill and worked as a lobbyist)
president of philosophy club
vice president of physics club
USC california youth think tank conference
people to people student ambassador trip to 6 countries in europe
(with academic credit in Ambassadorial Studies)
Rifleman of AFJROTC Color Guard (I also got like 10 ribbons, I was only in it for a year)
Online courses - Introduction to Sociology with Princeton
Introduction to Pharmacology with U. Penn (starts this month)</p>

<p>Volunteer:
400 from LAUSD All District Honor Band (200 more next year)
60 from SPHS Band (20 more next year)
40 from JROTC
Forest preservation in Germany during People to People trip</p>

<p>3.4 W GPA with 2 APs this year (5 next year)
32 ACT</p>

<p>I want to major in philosophy, or political science.</p>

<p>For UCs here’s where I’d put you (take with grain of salt, I’m only a CC member):</p>

<p>Safeties: Merced/Riverside
Match: Santa Cruz, Irvine
Reach: Davis, Santa Barbara, potentially San Diego</p>

<p>Chapman/USF could be another good match for you, LMU/USD might be a good reach, probably want to apply to some CSUs as safeties.</p>

<p>Thanks man…
Anyone else? bumpp</p>