Hello CC,
(I posted this in the wrong forum before…sorry about that)
I’m currently a junior in HS. My grades freshman and sophomore year were ‘eh’ okay, with an average of about 3.5 because I did very poorly at the end of freshman year. I’m in a college prep program at my school, and all of my classes are given extra weight. This year, I’m really starting to realize that I need to step it up in order to get accepted to a school.
My main worry is this- I want to leave for college. I honestly don’t care where I go (within reason) as far as how good the school is, but I have a very crappy living situation and I will gget no help paying for school.
My stats so far:
3.5 GPA for freshman and sophomore year
Haven’t yet taken the SATs, did fairly well on PSAT with no preperation with 98 and 99th percentile in readings and writing and 72nd in math. I generally do well on and enjoy standardized tests so I am not worried about doing well on the SATs especially because I am taking an SAT prep class at school.
Also: I’m HORRIBLE at math. I have failed math multiple semesters since starting high school. My high grades in other subjects balance out my GPA somewhat, but I’m so worried it’ll look terrible…and the program I’m in doesn’t allow me to take lower math levels to recoup the information I didn’t learn before.
3.8-3.9 GPA so far junior year, taking 4 ACE (prep program) classes and 2 APs (I have strong As in both AP courses), have a Talented and Gifted class period, not doing so well but passing pre-calc and physics. I passed the World History AP test with a 3 (a 96 in the class) but I don’t think most schools take that. I’m doing everything to pull up my grades this year.
ECs:
-my biggest one: I’m the editor-in-chief and founder of The Hive Zine, an arts and culture mag for teens and other young people, hundreds of hits on our site a day and over 1k followers on Instagram since June, we make profit from selling print copies and feature contributors from all over the US and the UK and a couple of other countries.
-On my school’s lifesmarts team (a finance, environment, consumer rights etc competition), went to nationals last year as a sophomore on 5 person team, placed 9th in US. Also was the only girl.
-on schools Mock Trial Team, high scoring witness, we made it to the final eight in the state out of 72
-was the student in my school chosen to go to HOBY a weekend leadership program that my principal paid for last year
-editor and designer for school paper
-did a journalism academy before sophomore year with the editor of my local paper (one of the leading ones in our state), got published in it
-I’m doing track or tennis this year, still haven’t decided
I’m also a first gen college student!
I live in CT, I’d like to go to NY but i know the costs are high…some schools I’ve thought of, but am in no way stuck to:
The New School- dream school, but I know they give horrible financial aid so I doubt i can go.
Brooklyn College- not sure how the aid is for OOS students
UConn- last resort would be a CT school, but UConn is well priced for in state students.
Income:
My dad is a truck driver, I’m not sure of his salary but he makes probably 50-60k? And his girlfriend is a secretary so I’m pretty sure the income bracket is def >100k. My mother who I don’t live with is unemployed.
Oh, and I’m a female, half white (Portuguese) and half black/native american, but the tribe isn’t federally recognized so I think I’m just going to go with half black on application.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions, I’m new at this and if you have any at all advice for how to get into a school and get the most aid possible, I would greatly appreciate it 
