Minority Benefit? and quick SAT/grade question

Zaphod
Tue, 11 Apr 2006 12:22:33 +0000

Potential Plebe,

At the risk of sounding insensitive, don’t rely on your ethnicity for jack, because that will simply lead to attitude problems on your end and resentment on the part of others.

When you check the box, just state the truth. I checked Hispanic because I am one, not because I thought it would get me any favors. If they’re going to give me something mearly because my parents were born across some arbitrarily-drawn line somewhere, then I’d rather not get that thing, as it is obviously worthless. I’d much rather get it because I EARNED it MYSELF.

Now, concerning your grades. You are not the only one to have “issues”. My first two years of HS were abysmally bad. C’s, D’s, and F’s were prevelant. What happened? Simple. I didn’t study. My own bloody fault. How did I fix it? I kicked some serious a$$ in my second HS for Junior and Senior years. It got me into NAPS, and NAPS got me into USNA, where they would have had to carry me out in a box before I’d quit.

So the advice is this: Be truthful on your application and documents. Continue working hard to improve where you are, and ensure that they know you have a burning desire to attend the place. After that, it really comes down to factors you can no longer control: your health, the number of applicants, the quality of those applicants, your MOC, and maybe even what the Admissions Board ordered for lunch that day.

Finally, if you’re serious about this, then ACT serious. Get into the fray and start swinging. I had classmates who had had drug problems in HS, yet they still got in. If they did it, you can, too.