I am a senior coming from a competitive school in Northern Virginia. I have about a 4.071 GPA (my school only does weighted) and an SAT score of 1940. I know by SAT isn’t stellar, but I have a lot of leadership roles, internships, and extracurriculars I have written about in my application (I also plan on majoring in communications/journalism). I also believe I had very strong essays (checked my multiple people/writing is my best skill).
Some include: 1. Internship working with a local photojournalist: worked on projects for Teen Vogue and H&M
2. Job with an up and coming music production company as a creative director.
3. Internship with a local newspaper, leading me into my current job: Paid freelance writer and photographer.
4. I also founded my own company/have my own website for my photography.
5. I started a project at my school like “Humans of New York”, interviewing students at my school so they can share their unique stories. Over 1,078 likes. I’ve also recently partnered with a local real estate company to create an even tighter-knit online community for my town.
Other academic credentials:
- Won a Spanish scholarship freshman year
- Member of three honors societies (Music, English, National)
- Varsity Scholar Athlete for 3 Years
I will graduate having taken 8 AP classes and an AP Scholar with Honor.
More extracurriculars:
- Section leader (bass player) of school’s highest orchestra (for three years), member of the orchestra since Freshman year (participated in a district orchestra as well). I’ve also participated in our German Exchange program all four years, traveling to Germany twice with my orchestra to perform(related this to benefits of being a global citizen in essay).
- Varsity track athlete Freshman to Junior Year (two time regional qualifier)
- I’ve played soccer from age 5 to age 18. I was team captain of a travel soccer team for the last couple of years.
- Founded photography club at school (and president)
- Raised over $15,000 with a few of my friends for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.
- Vice President of my orchestra in 2014, Social Chair for the past 2 years
- Head of decorations for my school’s homecoming this year through leadership class (theme I created: Midnight in Manhattan)
- Student mentor of underclassmen last year (competitive to get)
- Social Media manager of a nonprofit organization that has now expanded to a national level (organization started by a classmate over the past year)
Note: This past quarter, I had all A’s and 1 B in AP Statistics (I’m taking four AP’s in total this year). Although I’m unsure what my actual GPA is as of now, I know that it is higher than last year’s (hopefully above a 4.1).
In addition to sending in letters of continued interest, I reapplied through the music schools at UVA and W&M (I play the upright bass). W&M’s music department said they called undergrad admissions and both the bass professor and music dept. chair put in a good word for me, but they said they were unsure if it would do anything. In my letter of interest, I made my reasons for attending incredibly specific and listed several honors/new leadership roles I’ve gained since I last submitted my application. For NYU, I also applied to several more schools than I originally applied to (which was CAS).
I know chances of getting of the waitlist are slim, but does anyone know if my chances would be increased at all at W&M in particular due to my music application? Or increased at NYU because of the different schools I applied to (LSP/Gallatin/Steinhardt).