Chance someone who didn't work enough during their Freshmen year and is regretting it

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I’m a first-generation kid and I was never really told about college admissions, so I had no idea what to do with my Freshmen year and that is holding me back. A LOT.

Info/ Hooks: Low-income, first-generation LGBTQ from rural Appalachia. Disability. Know multiple languages. My school also doesn’t really allow for Dual Credit/ AP Classes until after you’ve taken the ACT.
Majors (Only choosing one): English, Writing, Journalism
Minors: Public Policy, Education, Literature
(Considering a double major in History with an emphasis on the 19th Century or Tudor Period)

GPA(Weighted): 2.7
ACT Composite (No studying): 25
AP Tests(Taking Later This Year): AP English Composition, AP Calculus
Advanced Coursework: Honors English 9/10

ECs (Current):
Upward Bound/ MCAC (3 years for UB; 1 year for MCAC, a leadership program within UB), Student Voice Team/KY Education StoryTellers (1 year), National History Day (Made it to State, 1 year), RISE Competition (1 year)

ECs (Future):
Currently working on an after-school program for my school district (No name yet), Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Adroit Journal Mentorship, Great Jewish Books Program, NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing, Hoping to do National History Day again, National History Academy, Looking to find a school newspaper, NSLI-Y

Colleges:
Mainly looking at smaller, liberal arts schools. Most competitive one I’m looking at is either Middlebury, Carleton, or Grinell.

2

What is your unweighted GPA if you ignore your freshman year of high school?

What is your budget?

Middlebury seems like a VERY high reach.

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3

My GPA without my Freshmen year shows up as a 3.2 (I think). Then COVID happened. Yayyyyy. I’m hoping to explain my low GPA with a mixture of a lack of support for my disability and lack of resources (such as transportation to the free tutoring my school provides.)

I know Middlebury is a very long reach, so my actual hopes are either Northland (in Wisconsin) or Allegheny (Pennsylvania). I feel more confident applying there because Allegheny has a pretty ok acceptance rate and is known for taking in “diamonds in the rough”. Northland is just pretty and has the same acceptance rate.

4

Take a look at some of the schools listed here. It’s OK to reach but you’re not looking for the best school, you are looking for the best school for you.

https://ctcl.org

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5

Thank you! I’ll look over it later.

6

You need your guidance counselor to mention your disability and your freshman year in the letter of recommendation. It will carry more weight and be more credible if the GC discusses it. Are you a junior now? Ask to meet with your GC. Your GC can explain how your school is unable to provide much support for your disability (if this is true. Don’t go the route of attacking the school for not supporting you.) GC can also note the lack of transport and you being unable to participate in extra tutoring.

There will be an additional info section on the app. There you can mention your disability, the lack of transport, and a brief statement about freshman year. This section is not about eliciting sympathy, but providing additional context for your app. There will be a separate section for Covid, but remember that colleges don’t want to hear that it was hard to concentrate with Zoom, because it’s universally true for all kids. If you choose to complete that section, it’s far better to discuss any direct impact: my family was unable to work due to covid, my family member became ill, I was unable to access ______ due to covid closures, or,similar…

Being from your rural location might help your app, as will being first gen and low SES. Your sexuality is not a hook and colleges don’t care about it. There are a lot of LGBTQ students at most colleges these days. I would not mention it. Are you more than a LGBTQ person? Multiple languages are not a hook.

Again, not sure of your grade level, but do your very best to get the best grades possible. Everyone is living with the effects of Covid right now, and colleges understand this, but remember there will be students who are living in really sad circumstances but are still managing to get high grades. Those kids will be your competition to the schools you mention.

7

The good news is that you are looking to major in things that all schools have. You’d be surprised - you have just as good a chance of running into amazing teachers at small, non-competitive schools as at large, highly competitive ones, because profs are chosen based upon their ability to get published and get funding, not their ability to teach.

I don’t think that you would get into any highly selective schools. Unfortunately, that low GPA, even after taking out your freshman year (and yes, online school during Covid was tough for everyone), is going to take you out of the running for highly selective schools. I don’t know if you intend to re-take the ACT, but your current score will not help you.

There are threads on CC about B students (which, when you exclude 9th grade, you are) looking for match schools. Find these, and read them, and see what schools the applicants got into, and with what money.

Right now, you want to do EVERYTHING possible to pull up your grades for this semester. Try as hard as you can to get straight A’s, and to make a connection with a couple of teachers for letters. Also, you want to prep for the ACT to re-take it and get a higher score. You can get a copy of Official Guide to the ACT from a recent (not current, too expensive) year, and it will give you five practice tests. Do those, and work through the solutions for what you got wrong. Then download legally released tests from the internet and continue to use those to prep for the ACT. If I were you, I’d plan to take it again in the early summer and the late summer, and just prep and prep for it. In your case, a high ACT plus an explanation of your circumstances says, “Bright kid who grew up a bit late, and didn’t have the chance to prove it because of Covid”, rather than “Smart but lazy kid who will probably not do the work here.”

If you have a local state college at which you can take a class or two this summer, with a well-reviewed prof (check rate my professor), in which you can really shine, and get a great recommendation from, that might help, too. Ask for free tuition! Most colleges will let a high school student take a class for free during high school - if you ask nicely, they might let you do it during the summer before senior year. You’d be surprised at what you can get by just asking nicely.

A place to get an idea of colleges that tend not to fill is to look at the NACAC list of schools that are still looking for students this early May. There’s a thread on CC about it.

And don’t forget to apply to your in-state flagship, and 4 yr colleges too. Cheapest options if you don’t get aid at privates. Also, in your case, the community college to flagship state U path might be your best bet. Cheap, and you wind up with a degree from your flagship state U.

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