Just curious as to what I can improve before application season. (Brown, Wesleyan, W&M, etc.)

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hello everyone! How are you all today? I hope you guys are well. I never thought that I would be creating one of these posts someday, but I just wanted to make this post to get a good idea of where I stand in the applicant pool and what I can do to improve my application and resume. Before I begin, thanks everybody for your time. I really appreciate it.

Intended Major: English and/or Creative Writing (Because there are a lot of top English schools that don’t offer Creative Writing majoring, I probably will minor it if necessary.)
State: Virginia
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Asian; I was born in the U.S. and hold American citizenship.
UW GPA: 3.765 (Overall, I got all A/A-s except two B+ freshman year in Bio and Geometry, one B+ sophomore year in AP World, and a C in AP Physics 1 this year- yikes! There are no A+s in our grading system.)
W GPA: 4.191 (I am aware this is very low for a lot of my reach schools…)
SAT: 1430 (700 EBRW/730 Math) SAT Essay: 8/7/8
ACT: 31 (34 E/28 M/34 R/27 S) ACT Essay: 12
(I will be retaking both the SAT and ACT, as I am aware my composite scores are pretty low for a lot of my favorite schools.)
SAT Subject Tests: I took Literature, US History, and Math Level 2 in June, and I am awaiting the results. I have taken Literature before, but the score was not even close to being acceptable.
AP Exam Scores: World History (5), I opted out of the AP Physics 1 exam, but I’m waiting for my other three AP exam scores for this year.

Coursework:
9th- English 9 Honors, World History 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, Biology Honors, Spanish 2, Orchestra, and P.E.
10th- English 10 Honors, AP World History, Algebra 2 Honors, Chemistry Honors, Spanish 3, Sociology/Current Affairs, and P.E.
11th- AP English Language, AP US History, Pre-Calculus Honors, AP Physics 1, Spanish 4, AP Psychology, and Philosophy/World Religions
12th- AP English Literature, AP US and Comparative Government, AP Calculus AB, Astronomy, AP Spanish Language, AP Art History, Creative Writing

ECs: (I’m definitely going to have to trim this down on the Common and Coalition App.)
-Class of 2020 Board Member- We are a rankless group of student leaders for our class, kinda like a student council. I have served all of high school and have been part of some form of SCA/Student Council since the fifth grade, serving President in sixth and eighth grade.
-Varsity Swim since beginning of high school.
-Community Swim Team since I was six years old.
-English Honor Society, applied for a leadership position for senior year (11)
-Spanish Honor Society (11)
-UNICEF (9, 11)
-Speech and Debate (10, 11)
-Film Club (10, 11)
-A close friend and I created a club in the middle of the school year. We haven’t done anything with it yet, since we made it too late in the year, but we want to make it active senior year.
-Public Library Volunteering (11- Almost twelve hours, and I plan to volunteer a lot more in the summer.)

Awards:
-Scholastic Writing Award- Silver Key (11)
-Current Affairs Excellency Award from the school (10)
-Randolph College Book Award (11)
-PTA Reflections District Winner (11)

Hooks:
I don’t know if being a first generation American means much because my parents did go to college in their native country, but I am. I know that Asian Americans, especially guys, are underrepresented in the humanities, particularly writing, but I don’t know if this is that much of a hook either.

Excruciating Circumstances:
I don’t know if this is worth mentioning in my college apps, but I have a lifelong medical condition which affects the skin and acne. I can’t mention it explicitly because it’s very rare and revealing it could release my identity. However, the side effects are incredibly intense when untreated from intense bleeding throughout the body, stinging with water contact, fevers, general pain of living, intense thorn-like feeling when touched in any way, etc… I suffered immensely in ninth grade with intense symptoms, even having to pull out of swimming for six months near the end of my freshman year right up to the days before the beginning of high school varsity swim. While I don’t directly experience side effects anymore, I am still on Accutane, and the disease has drastically changed my life and my character. Would you guys recommend stating this in my apps?

School List: (I’m trying to shorten it, but for now, these are all on my list.)
-Brown ED (Definitely my first choice school. I have wanted to attend Brown since the start of high school.)
-Wesleyan RD
-Vassar RD
-Grinnell RD
-Hamilton RD
-Vanderbilt RD
-Amherst RD
-Yale RD
-University of Chicago EA
-George Mason EA
-Virginia Tech EA
-James Madison EA
-UVA EA
-William and Mary RD

Again, thank you guys so much. I know this is long, and I’m rambling so much, so thank you for everything.

Have a nice day.

2

You might want to start by considering your tentative list of colleges as carefully as possible with respect to your interest in creative writing:

https://contently.net/2014/11/06/resources/tools/training/10-best-colleges-creative-writers/

http://flavorwire.com/409437/the-25-most-literary-colleges-in-america

I agree though that some of the top colleges for the study of English literature may not offer a major in creative writing.

Among schools not present on your list, but that I’d suggest you consider, look into Kenyon and Oberlin.

3

I agree with merc81 in his approach. Here are some more recent surveys and I would caution not to put much stock in any individual survey or inranking. Any of the schools listed are well suited for an aspiring writer. I have deliberately tried to find ones that were compiled in recent history (I would be skeptical of anything 4 years and older).

I can’t provide direct links but Google will provide the lists below…

1- collegemagazine- top 10-schools-for-aspiring-writers

2-Preps.com top creative writing colleges majors and programs

3- thebestcolleges top creative writing programs

4-niche best-colleges-with-creative-writing

5-niche best-colleges-for-english

Several schools appear on numerous lists.

4

@Nocreativity1 @merc81 Thank you guys for suggestions on the school list. It’s very much appreciated. I actually did have Kenyon, Emory, and JHU on my list, but I forgot to mention it here… sorry, my bad!

I’ll definitely take a look at some of these lists later on. I’ve looked at a lot of them already to help discover schools i would like, but I haven’t ever used Preps.com.

Have a nice day.

5

If you would like to consider schools that would be easier admits than most of those on your current list, think about adding one or two from Skidmore, Bard, Sarah Lawrence.

6

@merc81 Thank you. I have researched those schools before, and I appreciate you telling me about them.

Have a nice day.

7

Any honors in middle school do not count for colleges (Student Council President) and being firstgen American doesn’t either. However, being an Asian male in English is a hook, however small. I would add more safeties to your list and not talk about your excruciating/extenuating circumstances, as it seems that it hasn’t affected your resume much.

8

@daunt18 Thanks for your response. I appreciate it very much, but I do want to ask you about what you mean by not talking about my excruciating circumstances, if it is okay with you.

Have a nice day.

9

In regards to your skin affliction, you asked in the original post, “Would you guys recommend stating this in my apps?” I drew my suggestion, which was to not mention it in your college essays, from that paragraph which stated you had to drop out of swimming because of it for six months. Since you still were/are on “varsity swim since beginning of high school” and didn’t mention any specific ways this impacted your life/career/college choices, my advice is to focus on your achievements, talents, and what you bring to each college, rather than what held you down. If it did impact your life/career/college choices significantly, then definitely bring it up. But from your post, I just didn’t see a need.

Also, just a heads up in case you do explain this in your application, excruciating means painful, so I think you’re going for extenuating.

10

@daunt18 Thank you so much for your response. It is very detailed, and I appreciate it.

Now that I read your response, I realized I forgot to explain that the disease is incredibly rare- there have been less than 3,000 cases worldwide- and they are lifelong and if untreated can lead to death. They also leave permanent scars, meaning that every time I am shirtless, my chest and back are full of holes. When the diseases were active, I could not wear a backpack because the spots on my shoulder were so painful, and many other side effects, like not being able to wear clothes properly, take a shower without pain, etc. occurred. I also missed about a week worth of school due to my disease in freshman year. This is why I asked if it would be okay to mention it because it is so dire.

I also have this as one of my topics for the personal statement, so it’s probably going to be mentioned anyway, so sorry for my poor writing. I should have asked for opinions over whether or not I should mention it.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that my June ACT score has been released, and it is a composite of 30 with 35 English, 31 Math, 31 Reading, and 24 Science. Sadly, my Reading and Science dropped a lot, but for schools that superscore the ACT, I now have a superscore of 32 with 35 English, 31 Math, 34 Reading, and 27 Science. Do you guys think this new superscore is helpful or not really all that useful? I just wanted to mention it in case.

Have a nice day.