Am I being realistic?

Luckyjade2024
Tue, 21 Jul 2020 02:01:49 +0000

michellerekuc;d-2191629:

I know that I don’t have any crazy stats of accomplishments and my grades are a mixed bag, but I don’t know if I am being realistic with my college choices.
Here is some basic background information on me…
-Female
-From South Jersey
-Looking to major in Business most likely
-Low income family
-Bilingual Household (Polish)
The manufacturing business my dad started shut down when I was 6, since then my families financings have been in constant termoil. Both my parents filed for bankruptcy (don’t know exactly when), and my childhood house was foreclosed upon in the middle of the school year when I was in 8th grade. My dad also has had numerous heart surgeries since I was 8. My grandmother also lives with my family and she has many health issures and cannot speak English, so I often care for her and take her places she needs to go. A lot of this has had a profound impact on me and caused me incredible amounts of stress resulting in an anxiety disorder. When times are not looking good my grades often would take a hit. Sorry if I sound whining, I know that others have had it a lot worse, I’m just trying to paint an accurate picture of my life)

*Adv. = no weight; Honors = 1.1 weight; AP = 1.15 weight
Really hard at my school to get into AP before Junior year

Freshman year GPA - 90.5
Took all Adv, but got a C in Spanish (switched to Latin next year)
Sophomore year GPA - 93.6569
Took 3 Honors, 1 Advanced (Alegebra II and got a mid C in the class)
Junior year GPA - 94.4146
Took 3 AP (Got a C in AP CS), 1 Honors Dual Credit (Pre-Calc and got a C)
*All other grades are A’s or high B’s
Cumulative GPA - 92.9478
Class Rank 158/486

EC/Awards-
-DECA (will be 4 years)
Made it to states Sophmore year
-AFJROTC (Will be 4 years)
Attended CLC (week long summer camp) Fresh. and Soph. year; Soph. year was Flight Commander leading 13 other cadets and won Honor Flight (Best out of ~15 Flights)
Class Flight Sgt. Sophmore Year
Class Fight Commander Junior Year
OIC Personnel (In charge of all things administrative 4 cadets under me) Junior Year
Member of Drill Team (meet 6am-7:30am 3X a week) Junior Year
Memeber of Raider Team (meet 2:12-3pm 3X a week) Junior Year
Part of Color Guard Team (~100 hours of Community Service)
Will be Inspector General of the Corp Senior Year
Awards Include: CLC Honor Flight; Tuskegee Airman Award; Sons of the American Revolution Award; and National Society of the Daughters of 1812 Award
-Worked Every summer since Freshman year (often having to “loan” large amounts of the money to my parents)

I will be taking the SAT in August, but according to practice tests I should score around a 1400-1500

I plan on writing an my essay about the life lessons I learned going to flea markets with my dad on Saturday mornings (waking up at 4 in the morning to drive 2 hours) in the winter to sell phone cases (which is how the bills got paid for while)

UPenn is my absolute dream school, but I anolage that that is probably unrealistic
My current list of schools that I plan on applying to are
-Wake Forest
-Boston University
-Lehigh
-Syracuse
-Rutgers NB
-TCNJ
Safety Schools being Rowan, and Montclair State

What do you think?

You have a great resume and overcame a lot of difficult circumstances. Colleges will look at your school profile and realize the lack of AP offerings. I really like your essay idea.

You should be good for Lehigh, Syracuse, TCNJ, Rutgers and your safeties.
UPenn, Wake and BU are all selective but don’t count it out. It’s good to have some “reaches” and even a dream school on your list.

Once you take you SAT you will have a better idea on where to use your ED. If your north of 1500, you could be in range for UPenn.

If you really have a dream school, and your stats are close…don’t count it out. Especially in these times of uncertainty in admissions…you never know.

I was told if I didn’t ED to my “dream” school, I probably wouldn’t get in…guess where i’m going in the fall…yep my “dream” out of reach school.