chance me? (JUNIOR)

notjoe
Wed, 06 May 2015 01:03:12 +0000

That gives a more complete account of your high school career. I think you can see some of the areas you will need to address when making applications to colleges. You need to highlight your course rigor, your high grades once moving past your domestic issues (this is something best done by your guidance counselor), and your involvement in your extracurriculars. Again, try to improve your SAT result if you can. What you have is good, but for some of the schools you’re mentioning, it’s a little low.

You seem to communicate effectively in writing. This is a major asset for you. Make sure your essays are superlative. Allow yourself to reveal something about yourself in them. You can use your essays to make yourself real to the admissions committees. Make sure your letter writers mention you in the most superlative terms.

In terms of “opportunity costs,” it is absolutely true that if you apply to all these schools, it is likely most will reject you. If that scares you off, then don’t do it. It is true that you will put a lot of time and effort into your applications (at least if you do it right), and most of it will be “wasted” effort.

Certainly, you do not want to spend so much time and resources on your college applications that you shortchange the rest of your life. Obviously, you can’t allow the process to interfere with your grades.

But if you have the time, the energy, the gumption to do it, even a little bit of success goes a very long way.

Both of my sons applied to a range of schools, including a number of “reach” schools. They both received their fair share of rejections. But they didn’t receive only rejections…