Would having a prominent recommender help applications to US universities?

[DadOfJerseyGirl]

Here you go…

Homeschooled-ish, no GPA…

What you are describing is really pretty normal for a lot of homeschoolers. You can go back through your activities for the past 4 years (high school) and turn it into a transcript. Just search on “how do I make a homeschool unschooling transcript”. There are lots of tutorials out there. Here are the first few that popped up for me: You can also look at taking some CLEP tests: CLEP Benefits for Everyone – CLEP | College Board if that is possible for you.