Does being Hispanic have any impact at all?

entomom
Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:47:06 +0000

Just asking about your mom to see if you were first gen.

Questbridge is a program for college admissions for low income students. Unfortunately the application period is over for your class.

It’s great that you’re taking a demanding courseload and are reaching beyond what your HS offers. I asked because your gpa is what I’d consider at the lower end for the highly selective colleges, but since you have a strong class schedule, that will help.

I was going to suggest that you mark AI/AN if you hadn’t already. Yes, you should mark white as well, doing so will not take away from your Hispanic status. The AI/NA category is aimed mainly at applicants with North American tribal affiliations, but since their definition includes ‘the Americas’, you are correct to mark it, we just don’t know how much impact being descended from South American original peoples has in admissions.

You might want to reconsider EA to Y. I agree about your gpa, it is at the lower end, but the fact that you are low income and have a difficult courseload may compensate for it. Also, Y defers a large percentage of EA applicants to the RD round:

[Early admit rate rises slightly | Yale Daily News](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/dec/15/early-admit-rate-rises-slightly/)

If you were considering EA to Stanford, I would definitely suggest going RD, since they have a different approach and tend to defer relatively few applicants:

[Restrictive Early Action : Stanford University](http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/decision_process/restrictive.html)