Demographics
- US domestic
- “Upstate” NY (literally right above the city but lets be honest everything not in NYC is upstate)
- Type of high school: very large title 1 public, average GPA of 3.3. It’s a strange situation where the very vast majority of the population is not competitive, but the kids who are competitive are insanely sweaty.
- First gen with a disabled mother
Cost Constraints / Budget
Income is about 40k at the most, likely even less. My family consists of 16 kids with the oldest being in their 40s and the youngest being 7. Not all of us live at home of course, but my mom still contributes money to all of us so I think at most we’re going to be able to pull a few thousand. With that being said, I’m aware of quest bridge as will be doing all I can to work with it to afford a better future.
Intended Major/Minor(s)
Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, might do a minor in Native American studies.
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
*(projected) Unweighted HS GPA by end of junior year: 90-92, current UW gpa is a 87/100.
- (projected) Weighted HS GPA by end of junior year year: 90-92 (GPA boost isn’t that crazy at my school), current UW gpa is a 87/100.
- Class Rank: I forgot the exact number but looking at it if I can achieve the aforementioned GPAs it’d put me in the top 10 percent.
- ACT/SAT Scores: Have not taken SAT, will be doing so in the spring, for now, just assume a 1450 or higher to make things easier.
- The “Issue” and extenuating circumstances: I’ll get this out of the way real quickly. I have an F and a few C’s on my transcript as a result of sophomore year. My end GPA for sophomore year was about a 79 which when put against my freshman GPA of 93 is pretty awful. During sophomore year, my father’s mental health deteriorated in private not only due to a severe familial conflict and his seasonal depression, but also due to his cardiac health issues and a recent diagnosis of a terminal illness. Early in the school year he got tired of it all and killed himself in front of me. To make things worse, my grandmother passed. These two losses ruined me and caused me to sort of forsake everything, including school, thus the huge drop in my grades and attendance for the year, with me failing Alg 2. Though there are still a lot of things I’m dealing with even now, I’ve managed to pull up my grades to the way they were freshman year. I’ve been excelling in pre calculus too (which has led me to believe that I’m not actually as bad at math as I thought.)
List your HS coursework (just listing special classes here)
My school doesn’t do AP classes, instead we have SUPA DE enrollment courses at Syracuse University, and PLTW 4-year courses which are DE for Rochester Institute of Technology.
Keep in mind, this year my school decided to cut down the number of classes we could take, so most of my more rigorous classes are slated for senior year.
SUPA US History
SUPA Chemistry I and II
SUPA Physics
SUPA Calculus I and II
SUPA Biology
SUPA Newsletter writing
SUPA Public Policy
PLTW Biomed Course 1: Principals of Biomedical Science
PLTW Biomed Course 2: Human Body Systems
PLTW Biomed Course 3: Medical Interventions (set to take next year)
PLTW Biomed Course 4: Biomedical Innovations (set to take next year)
PLTW Engineering Course 1: Drawing and Design for Production
PLTW Engineering Course 2: Principals of Engineering
PLTW Engineering Course 3: Digital Electronics (set to take next year)
Awards
- Statewide leadership/good citizen award (4 chosen out of 516)
- National Community Service Merit Award
- Reserve Grand Champion at County Fair (4-H)
- State music competition gold medal
- AP Scholar with Distinction
Extracurriculars
- School stuff:
- HOSA Chapter Founder & Executive officer. I recruited about 50 people and manage them all alongside a small team working under me
- Key (Volunteering) Club President. It’s the largest and most impactful club in my school, we do a lot of work helping businesses around the area, there’s about 120 members - this year I’m running for LTG which will mean I’ll be overlooking all the key clubs in my district.
- School Newspaper: Not lead editor or anything. I just write stories for the school
- LGBTQIA+ club: Nothing wild, we just spread awareness and hang out,
- Science Club
- (maybe?) NHS: I likely won’t get into it due to my GPA being below the requirement but I’m told if I can explain my situation right I could get put in.
- Volunteering: I know I have a lot of volunteering going on and colleges really don’t care about it, but honestly I just like doing it.
- Hospital Cath Lab volunteer: Lots of hours
- Cat Shelter volunteer: This is literally just because I like cats
- Writing
- Lead staff writer for a by-teens-for-teens medical newspaper: I focus on equity issues in the field of medicine.
- Short story author: I’ve posted my stuff to TikTok and have garnered a small fanbase of about five thousand, some of my short stories have been adapted into short films.
- Caretaker
- I take care of five younger siblings at the moment (7-12 years old) as my mom is suffering from an awful back injury and can’t do much for them and my older sister (only other sibling living with us at the moment) works and my stepfather is also on disability.
- Culture stuff:
- Professional dancer: I’m a member of a group that preforms traditional Panamanian dances in order to tell African and Afro-Latino folklore to audiences at festivals.
- Band member: I’m a member of a drum-and-bugle band composed mostly of Panamanian immigrants meant to spread Panamanian culture
- Language teacher: My father died never teaching me how to speak Lakota, so I taught myself have developed a program to teach others. I plan to use it to help kids back on the rez where my cousins are.
- Actual science stuff:
- Research: Alongside other high schoolers and a medical student at a local osteopathic school, I’m leading a research project starting in January. Like, actually doing research, not just plugging in data. The project will be on alopecia.
- More Research: I’ve been going at a research project on my own for a while now based around creating water filters through more environmentally friendly and affordable means. I haven’t published anything in a prestigious journal, haven’t sent this to shark tank or whatever, this is just something I did because I was curious. I did however submit this to like one competition.
- Competitions: Nothing insane, some high placements. I actually try with these but everyone else is like some prof’s daughter so they have more resources and win.
- Internship: I’m also doing a spring internship at the local hospital where I’ll be shadowing doctors in a cardiology lab.
Schools
I’m trying to be as realistic as I can with my courage college list, and I know that because of the issues with my profile I’m not getting into Harvard or Yale or whatever. Most of the schools I applied to are on the very unselective to average side, the ones listed here are the very big reaches I have no confidence in. I’m not a big fan of large schools as I like a tight knit community and home-away-from-home feel.
Swarthmore (likely EDing here)
Rochester Institute of Technology (exception #1 to the no big schools rule)
Middlebury
Haverford
Cornell (exception #2 to the no big schools rule, this is honestly just because my biomedical teacher ((my idol)) went here for undergrad for biology and she talks about it all the time and I fell in love with it.)
Dartmouth (I like the middle-of-nowhere feel.)
I’ve been considering adding Brown or Princeton to this list but honestly I don’t think I’m prepared to see eight reach rejections instead of six.
As well as this being a chance me, feel free to give me suggestions to what schools you think I’d have a chance for.