I would just smile and nod. The majority of students do not get accepted to these schools.
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This. Put any discussions of specific colleges on the back burner for now.
If you donât engage and just smile and nod, the conversation willâŠend.
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Keep working on the list with safeties, likelies, and matches you like, to present and get approval from your GC. Save 8 spots for your motherâs reaches. Thatâs still 12 schools for you. Meet with GC one on one, discuss your situation&your list.
Once your GC is onboard, GC, you, and mom can meet, preferably at the END of the school year.
BTW, one applies in reverse order of selectivity, with the safeties being a sort of training wheels apps 
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Give this question some thought as you can re use the concept for multiple essays. For example, my daughter write about criminal justice reform for most of her supplemental essays. She has interned at the District attorney so this topic made sense with the rest of her application. Perhaps itâs an environmental issue, mental health, racial inequities, immigration, etc âŠor something else that you care about that will relate to your major.
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I actually didnât know the reverse application order. Iâll def remember this
Itâs not a requirement, but itâs a really good idea.
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I think @MMRose/@MYOS1634âs advice is good, though thereâs always nuance involved, and it depends on how many schools you intend to apply to, as well.
If someone was going to apply to 20 schools (which is a lot), this would be my plan:
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Make sure you have all the application deadlines for each school, including the deadlines for honors colleges and scholarship consideration. On your spreadsheet, also keep track of whether a school offers rolling admissions. The caveat for all the steps below is that you make sure to meet the deadlines youâve marked down.
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Gather all the essay prompts for the colleges and see which ones overlap and where you could make minor modifications to customize the essay for a particular school (like changing out which professor has research interests you like, or clubs that you want to participate in, etc). Itâs important to choose the essays prompts (when given a choice) that speak the most to you, but if youâre looking at a lot of apps (like 20), then being able to reuse the bulk of an essay becomes important.
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Start with schools that have easy apps and a high admittance rate (i.e. Stockton, or similar) and/or schools with easy apps that offer rolling admissions (like a UPitt). Easy apps would be those that require nothing more than the common app essay, or very little more. Rolling admissions can hopefully give you an early acceptance, and if you get a deferral or denial early on, thatâs also important information to assess the rest of your college application list.
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Select a school that youâre interested in that does not award scholarships/honors based on the essay (i.e. it requires a separate application for honors/scholarships). That way, if itâs not your best work, it doesnât matter as much. Do a couple of these, as this is where youâll get some of your practice jitters out.
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At this point, order your list in terms of the schools youâre most interested in to the least interestsed in. There are people who end up getting burned out on the college app process and end of dropping schools near the end because theyâre just done with college apps. If that happens to you, you want those to be the schools that youâre least interested in. If the last schools on the list happen to be the reachiest schools of all for you, you can always explain to your mother that youâve heard that peopleâs writing gets tighter and better with the more applications they do (which can be true in many cases).
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Once youâve ordered the rest of the list in terms of preference, Iâd work on them in that order. If you have schools that you are similarly interested in but one has a significantly higher admit rate, Iâd work on the higher acceptance rate school first over the lower admit rate one to get that additional bit of practice in. Keep on doing this until youâre done.
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This is REALLY GOOD, PRACTICAL advice and would deserve being pinned
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Omg Tysm!
Iâll save this and work on my activitĂ©s and grades right now. I just qualified for deca nationals and I find out about girls state tomorrow. Ty for ur help
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Can I just ask what would compensate for low gpa? I heard test scores but would anything else help?
Test scores wonât exactly compensate but if you have good rigor (eg., 5 core subjects every year with 12-15 of those 20-24 honors or AP or equivalent) and high test scores (top 25% for that school) theyâre willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you attend a good school where As are hard to earn.
This is the number youâd need to hit at these various colleges to sort of âcompensateâ:
Muhlenberg: 1400
Agnes Scott: 1350
Penn State UP: 1460
Penn State (branch): 1320
Rutgers NB: 1450
TCNJ : 1350
UConn : 1420
Drexel: 1400
Goucher: 1250
Stockton: 1230
Rowan: 1300
Hobart&WS: 1400
Mount Holyoke : 1500
Bryn Mawr: 1500
Barnard: 1540
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I mean I do sports and stuff on a varisty level, I take CC classes (my school doesnât factor in GPA, will colleges recalculate that?), and I talked to this girl at Barnard and she said that they value personal and character in essays and stuff. I think Iâll be able to have decent extracurriculars. I know itâs a huge reach but their EA is like 1/3 acceptance rate and if I get accepted itâll appease my mom, if not, oh well.
I heard you can also write like why your grades are low. I was okay first semester but around third marking period I had physical and mental health issues (stemming from the physical and I guess my home life in general) and went to the ER a lot. I know itâs not an excuse for low grades but do you think colleges would care or consider that
And yeah Iâve taken purely honors and AP except for like elective classes and stuff. Would it be okay to share my schedule to ask if it is rigorous or not
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Praying that math module 2 doesnât keep me from a good SAT score. I took it Saturday and Iâm taking the ACT in April
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Hi - Which High School? Thanks
If youâre asking what HS a poster or posterâs kid attends, that should not be posted in the open forums (if they choose to answer you). Remember the âconfidentialâ in College Confidential and be careful about posting any potentially identifiable information.
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So just an update Iâve changed careers. I think I want to do something advocating for black people being discriminated against in the healthcare field. I think thatâs either public health or a civil lawyer Iâm not entirely sure. I know itâs so late to switch but Iâm going to apply to law internships and try and take a lot of legal classes over the summer. Iâm not sure if this changes the schools I should look at and I feel like itâs pretty much too late to get extracurriculars. 
Your ECs in HS should be things that interest you. They donât have to align with a future career.
One of my kids was an engineering major. Zero of her HS activities had anything to do with engineering.
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I wasnât able to do a lot of the things that interested me either because my mom disproved or I spent time doing something else which I am upset I let that happen. People in the thread earlier said a lot of my extracurriculars were weaker I think. Iâm trying to apply to a lot of creative writing stuff now but I know itâs not as prestigious as the scholastic key thing, in which I actually do like creative writing.
I just want to end up somewhere good enough to leave. I think sacrificing some happiness now helps in the long run unless itâs too late.
Howard and Spelman will be great whether you stick to your earlier major or the new one⊠or even want to find a way to combine both!
Something to look into:
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