Greetings All:
I’m a current junior. Between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, my family went abroad to Turkey to do humanitarian work near the border of Syria for a year (We are originally Syrians). I did ninth grade again in a school for displaced Syrians (I wasn’t held back or anything because grades, I just skipped first grade and my mother thought it would be an appropriate time for me to go back with my age group as well as get this experience) and made really important friendships there as well as did volunteering work (besides normal volunteering work, I did stuff like draft papers that went to the UN or translate papers for the humanitarian organization my family worked with). For me, this was a very valuable formative experience. I was wondering how important this would be to my college app if useful at all. To me it seems like something colleges would think is somewhat unique, because I spent a year in a foreign country and did humanitarian work as well as immersed myself with the displaced Syrians. However, I don’t know much about what this experience would do for me on my college app and just wanted everyone’s feedback. Thanks!
Colleges are academic institutions first and foremost. Your transcript, class choices and test scores will always be evaluated first. Your work is unique – but know that only very selective schools would value that unique work. If your grades and scores do not make you viable for selective schools, it won’t matter.
My grades are as high as can be at my particular school and I’m very good at SAT style tests. I probably won’t be valedictorian because I came to a new school in tenth grade, but my grades will probably be high enough to be at that rank (my school doesn’t rank beyond valedictorian and salutatorian though).
EDIT: Also, I am also hoping on getting into a school like Georgetown and possibly applying to Harvard/U of Chicago.
It’s very interesting and your app will stand out because of it, but as the above post says, gardes, classes taken, and tests scores will be most important.
Your experiences are certainly interesting and worthwhile – perhaps they could be the base of a strong college admission essay. Agree with others that grades, course rigor, standardized testing are most important in terms of admissions to the schools you are considering. It is important that you find a group of reach (the schools you listed are reaches for basically everyone), match, and safety schools that appear affordable and that you would be happy to attend.