help? i'm intimidated.

<p>i read all of these statistics about people thinking of applying. wow. how intimidating. should i even try? realistically?</p>

<p>a little bit about me:
*9/10: best public HS in Massachusetts (according to newsweek at least, personally i though it was a pressure-cooking hell hole) got B’s in accelerated classes.
*11/12: moved to california. finished junior year rank 11/450 at a less competitive HS, 3.83 UW GPA.
*weaknesses:
-lets see my SATs were horrible. 1900. i simply did not have time to finish anything. i have a reading disorder and mild dyslexia. applying for extended time and i will retake ACTs and SATs.
-umm my 9/10 grades i didn’t get any A’s. granted i hated school/learning with all of my heart. i didn’t know i had a reading disorder at the time, i would get so fustrated.
-very little involvement in my school grades 9/10. no community service those years either AHHH that is killing me.
-my current high school in on a tight budget and does not have the funding for many Honors/AP courses. i take all the hardest classes available, and i have to go to another HS to take an AP class not offered at mine.</p>

<p>*on a brighter note:
-i sort of made a “turn around” 11th grade, and i actually started really enjoying school, getting involved, doing 100 hrs of service, etc.
-i dunno if this helps me or hurts me, but i guess my learning disability. homework literally takes me twice to do as “normal” people…so i end up staying up til 2am or later just trying to finish stuff all the time.
-i took a pyschology course at a local college and got an A
-my one and only, beloved EC: an unkown sport called vaulting (a combination of gymnastics and dance on horseback, similar to circus like stuff) i’ve been doing it since i was 5 years old, and it is basically my life. my amazing parents moved to CA so i could train to go to the world games in 2006. so that was about 20 hours per week of practice time, and probably at least 5-10 hours a week of cross training. i hold a few national titles…however this past i tore ligaments in my elbow and i can’t really start again until december :frowning: so there goes that. now my only EC is dance and running to stay in shape.
-selected for board of directors at my HS for an organization that fights racism.
-worked teaching gymnastics to 4 and 5 years olds for 1 year.
-raised $500 for refugees in Kosovo through a Benifit Breakfast in my neighborhood. it wasn’t a lot of money, but i tried.
-since i couldn’t vault this past summer, i went to Peru to do build stoves that help cut back on deforestation.
-i guess my interview went okay. i bluntly told the admissions officer that i hated learning until last year which probably was not a good idea (lol)…but other than that i felt good about it.</p>

<p>i’m going to compete against all of these class presidents and students with straight A’s all four years and 1029834019283 hours of community service and 23290834 EC’s. </p>

<p>also i feel like my reading disorder is going to make the college work load impossible. ahh. im so overwhelmed. i love Midd so much, i would die to go there…</p>

<p>advice?</p>

<p>Well, first off, I’m not sure what Middlebury’s policy is on allowing students with learning disorders extra time, but I know that it does happen. As long as the school and the professors know, I’m sure you can arrange something so that you don’t die of work and stress. If anything, you can use your disorder to your advantage and write one of your essays about your struggle with learning and how you’ve discovered your passions. I don’t think the fact that you weren’t a stellar student at the beginning of high school is that important. What the admissions people care about is passion and unique qualities, of which you have several. So don’t worry, and give it a shot!</p>

<p>maybe i will write about it for one of my essays… i found out that i jumble words around as i read them, so sometimes i wonder if i have gone through life reading books incorrectly, and reading things that don’t actually exist. kind of freaky lol. maybe i will write the office and see if they have accomidations? thanks so much for the advice lindyhopper :)</p>

<p>Good news…I just found out that 1 out of 17 students at Midd have a disability of some sort, and we do have an Americans with Disabilities Act Office. If you click on “current students” on the Midd webpage, you can find their website.</p>