Potential Schools: UCLA, UCSB, UCI, UCB, UCD, UCSC, UCR, UCSD, SDSU, Cal Poly SLO, Emory U, SCU, Colorado College, USC, Vanderbilt and Georgetown
I was sort of holding out on asking this as I feared that parents, other students, and admission experts would not approve of my resume or crush my dreams, but I believe that I am ready for that now. Just to give you a background about my life, I was diagnosed with autism and ADD from a young age. As a result, I struggled in school from a young age as I just figured that I was not an intelligent person, despite being knowledgable in many subjects aside from school work. I decided because I was not good at the system of learning taught in school, I would need to work on my social awkwardness in order to work my way through life, which is something that is also true and has helped me a lot. I focused on making friends, making people laugh, and being just a normal person- something that I felt insecure about due to my autism. People accepted me in my community and most people had no clue that I had autism from my social skills that I picked up along the way during my years of schooling, but I always felt picked on by adults. My baseball coach would constantly call me ■■■■■■■■, Forest Gump, and many other things, doubting my capabilities. He changed the way I thought about life, and I decided that I would allow for his doubts about my future to force me to do better in school and outside the school, changing the trajectory of my life. I improved my GPA in the 2nd semester of 9th grade from a 2.3 to a 3.3 in weeks, proving that I had some ability. I decided that I would try once again to improve my self, aiming for a 4.0 in each Sophomore semester, allowing for me to take honors classes in junior year. I encountered one of the meanest and most brutal teachers in the HS for Integrated Math (Common Core) who told me several times I would not do well in the future, would demean me in front of the class by commenting on my grades, and being incredibly harsh in general. She would never show us final test grades, which she would use as a tool to lower grades, giving me a C+ each semester. However, just like my baseball coach, I used her criticism as motivation to do better. I ended up getting 6 As, and the lone C+ in her class each semester, making me not eligible for Calculus in HS. I signed up for every AP class I could have for Junior year, and I ended up earning a 4.33 1st semester and a 4.5 (all As and A+s) 2nd semester. Now that the years that have the largest impact on a college application are done, I am looking at colleges and not sure what colleges I would like to apply to simply because of the lack of similarity between me and many of the applicants here on College Confidential.
Background: Upper-middle class male, Hispanic/Italian/Portuguese- One highly educated parent (has four degrees, three from prestigious colleges and universities, including one where she was full-ride), and one parent with a AA (local college)
Income: fluctuates due to my Mom and Dad’s state of employment: 2014: $40,000, 2015: $110,000, 2016: $230,000, 2017: expected to drop at least $50,000 due to an expanding competitor
State: California: San Joaquin Valley
High School: Top 500 public high school in the Nation (idk if that’s good): will typically send between 3-7 kids to HYPSM, Six to Stanford last year, 3 to MIT, 2 to CIT, but huge down year this year, usually 100 attend UC Schools
Weighted GPA: Cumulative: 3.8, UC GPA: 4.1, Major upward swing
Unweighted GPA: 3.6, UC/CSU: 3.85
9th Grade (Junior High): 3.143 and 3.3 (No weighted courses offered)
10th Grade: 3.7 and 3.66 (Not eligible for weighted courses)
11th Grade: 4.33 and 4.5 (Took every AP and Honors class I was eligible for)
12th Grade: 4.6 and 4.8 possible (Senior year is very easy at our school due to a focus on college apps)
ACT: Expected to be a 33-35, had special ADD accommodations
SAT: 1310 w/o accommodations, pushing for 1450-1550 w/ accommodations
EWRB: 580 (did not finish any section and could not start a passage), Math: 730, Essay: 19
APs: AP Art History (3 or 4), APUSH: (Most likely a 5), Next year: AP Human Geo, AP Physics A, AP Econ, AP Gov
ECs: Mostly focused outside of school: UCs put not much emphasis on this, and CSUs do not care
Member of WCC (Wildlife Conservation Club)
Member of NHS (National Honor Society)
Standout awarded football player (Sorry if this sounds pompous)
JV Baseball player: decent but injured arm, minimally awarded
Will be an Eagle Scout by application time this year
Received National Youth Leadership Training certificate
Worked on the NYLT Staff and led 40+ campers (took roughly 20 days, 240 hours of service)
Recognized as one of the most improved students academically, earned "(School Mascot here) Spirit Award
500+ service hours alone for Boy Scouts outside of NYLT
Employed at local snack store for six months (small but worth mentioning)
Have spent 180+ days camping across the state
Participated in Report to State: Boy Scout event in which we met with politicians in Sacramento, including Jerry Brown
Can play multiple instruments: Violin (Played in school orchestra for six years), Piano, Xylophone (learned on my own)
Hooks: URM, ADD or autism?, Eagle Scout, upward trend?, very interesting life story.
I do not intend to boast by displaying all of my ECs, I just want you to see what I have done, and if I have any glaring holes in my application that I could potentially fix.
As of now, I am thinking about applying to just about every UC, San Diego State, and Cal Poly SLO for my public school choices. For private schools I am thinking about applying to Emory U (not Oxford College), USC, Colorado College, SCU, Vanderbilt and Georgetown. I understand many of these are high reaches, but I feel confident that I will be happy wherever I end up, whether it be Georgetown or SDSU. I would like to major in Economics, but with my previous issues involving math (low grades and lack of Calculus in HS), I will like apply Political Science to many of the more prestigious schools, as it is a major I feel just as passionate as Econ about, and I have a solid set of AP classes focused in that major. There are many different things i would like to do in the future, but I would ideally want to to become a lawyer, work in a large firm for a couple of years, then become a law professor. I would be interested to hear many perspectives about different options I could take advantage of, such as CC or a gap year. Thank you so much!