Ohh, I see, sorry I misunderstood. My family doctor does concierge medicine, so if I go to a school nearby and am able to commute back home for a day or two, I may be able to keep seeing her. Definitely will look into other options in case I go further away.
Thank you!
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Here are some other colleges to consider. If interested in Marine Bio, maybe consider schools like UO, or UCSC. How about the University of Hawaii? These schools have reputable programs that would seem to be valid actions for you. Likely targets if money is not an issue.
I really wanted to go to one of the Hawaii schools actually, but seeing videos of the dorms made me change my mind fast… my dad also really didn’t want me to go there for some reason. For the others - I will look into them!
My kids definitely utilized urgent cares/minute clinics more than on campus health centers, they’re always overwhelmed. This goes for mental health issues too, usually long waits and limited number of appointments for students. It can be a first step and hopefully they can guide students to a more permanent situation.
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Ahh, this is very good to know - thank you!
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Best wishes with this. It is important to get yourself on a steady track. If waiting a year makes sense for you, the universities will still be there a year later. Convincing your parents could be a different issue.
By the way, universities in Canada will only consider your two most recent years of high school. Whether this helps might depend on how your grades varied from year to year. This can be either sophomore and junior years or junior and senior years (I have seen a small number of rather late acceptances for students who got in based on junior and senior years of high school). Two that are very good for marine biology are Dalhousie and Acadia, both in Nova Scotia. Dalhousie (mid size, 20,000 students) is very good for pretty much any subject with “marine” in the name, and recommends that you get your application in by February 15 but will consider late applications on a space available basis. Acadia (smaller, 4,000 students) has rolling admissions and I was not able to find a deadline. At Acadia you would not major in marine biology, but could major in biology optionally with a marine concentration. Both are also good for environmental sciences. A reasonably steady 3.5 GPA should be sufficient for either school (and is actually a pretty good GPA, except for a small number of very reachy colleges and universities).
You should be looking for a university that is a good fit for you, although fit can be difficult to determine.
I am very sympathetic with the notion that university admissions in the US is somewhat screwed up, or at least wildly unpredictable. The counter issue however is that there are a very large number of very good universities, and strong students generally do manage to get into some very good schools that are a good fit for them.
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So, I’m still trying to understand the UAlaska thing. This was a direct application? This means, at some point you still needed to respond with an application, correct?
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“I can’t even get a job cause my grandma is dying and my weekends are spent looking after her and her pets when I’m not at the aquarium, and all of my after-school time is spent doing homework, chores, and cooking dinner.”
OP, while your family and familial duties are important, you need to take care of yourself first. It sounds like your parents can afford to hire a caretaker for your grandma and her pets and other housework helpers; please ask them to do so and give you a break, not just in terms of time, but a much needed mental rest. I glance through the very thoughtful college suggestions made by others; I second that the University of Maryland, St. Mary’s and University of Oregon might be worth looking at and their application deadlines have not passed (both on 1/15).
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@houndsharkk, you’re being inundated with thoughts from (mostly) adults who don’t know you, and you’re thoughtfully and maturely listening and responding. It’s very impressive, and also please feel free to go live your life and have your birthday, we’ll still be here.
Now, two more responses 
I know that it’s hard to see this so far - noting that you’ve been only denied from one school at this point! - but the schools that are asking for this information really aren’t ignoring it. They just have a lot to balance! They need to make sure they’re accepting folks they believe will be successful at their school (academically and otherwise), they are building a class with a vision for reasons that have nothing to do with you individually, they simply have more qualified applicants than spots, and they are hearing from many many applicants - none of whom have your exact set of challenging circumstances, but many who have unique challenging circumstances of their own. As I’ve said to others, there are just so many great students for the admission office to build a class from, and some of those classes won’t include you.
By the way - if you do end up at (say) Roger Williams, there will be plenty of students who also could say that their GPA would have been higher, they would have done X or Y or Z, if only their circumstances had been different. It will be true! They will be smart and they will challenge you.
Here’s the thing. It doesn’t get easier. You just learn to handle hard better. You aren’t going to rest, whether you’re at Bates or Stony Brook or CC. College acceptance is not the destination, it’s part of the journey, and nobody wants to see you burning out. (The link is to a <3min video from the Duke Women’s Basketball Coach - I recommend it all the time.)
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I want to chime in and say I think you should submit an app to SUNY ESF. The school has great vibes (quirky outdoorsy nerds), and its uniqueness and relationship with Syracuse U is hard to describe unless you visit. I understand that you’re not able to visit soon, but it’s a really neat place, and you may like it more than the other schools to which you’ve been accepted. As a bonus, the ESF / Syracuse campus is basically surrounded by hospitals.
Keep your chin up, you may have some nice surprises with RD results!
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What was that college? Is it GMU? Or what? Are you saying you haven’t applied to the rest of that list of direct admission schools you posted here. You won’t get acceoted if you don’t apply.
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OP, this is the first I’ve read of your posts and I want to say that you seem to be handling a lot of stress, from health and family, with a strength that is unusual in a young person. Further, you’re responding to feedback with grace, which can be a hard thing to do. So congratulations.
I want to make just two points. First, for future apps, one thing that schools are really looking for, when they ask about overcoming adversity, is whether you have the inner resources to get through what EVERY student goes through when they hit college – no matter how physically and emotionally healthy they seem, they experience for the first time being not the smartest person in their class. They must, for the first time, spend a lot of time on classwork. Some students collapse under it.
And second, I’ve been reading this recent thread and it’s so interesting to me to hear people’s impressions of high-acceptance-rate schools. I know you can’t visit a lot of places, but this thread is short and it might give you some ideas.
Know that you’re in my thoughts through this process! I don’t know how kids today do it.
[Edited to add] I’m suggesting this thread, instead of the lower-percentage one that’s linked in it, because it seems like these schools might have later application dates and possibly more merit money, which might sway your parents even though they told you not to worry about money. Not because I think you need a high acceptance rate school!
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Have you thought about Oregon State? They have a great marine bio program. My D was pre-med and they talked so much about the marine bio to the exclusion of humans that it turned her off from considering it. They also receive a ton of research funding.
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By “put in an application for” I meant a separate non-direct admit one, and yes, it was GMU!
The direct admissions application is way shorter than regular ones, only needing my transcript and an intended major - all of the direct admits that I listed were ones that I accepted and sent my info to. I had many more that sent me offers that I didn’t accept.
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Going offline now because my best friend just got here, thank you all for the kind words!!!
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So, you have 6-7 completely different direct admits under your belt, including one from a member of the very prestigious Five College Consortium in Western MA. They all sound intriguing to me. Are you sure you’re not just giving them short-shrift because they came too easily for you?
And, definitely. Go celebrate your birthday.
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Hey there. Look, I am in the camp of people who see the advantages of attending a highly selective and well known school. With that said, almost nobody here or in my broader network thinks that’s either a guaranty of future success or the only way to get there. Far from it. Just empirically, the world has more successful people from non-elite schools than from elite schools. Just from a numbers standpoint. I think big names make things easier out of the gate and maybe for a little longer, generally, but eventually where you attended undergrad isn’t that determinative of how your life’s going to go.
So, with that said, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. Why not take a shot? The answer is 100% going to be no if you don’t apply. But with a 3.5, even with mitigating considerations, you’re extremely unlikely to get into Bowdoin even with a hook. You picked one of the NESCACs smaller schools. The smaller the school, the more sensitive they are about each person who makes up the class. An AO actually told my D that during an interview on campus … that when they make a mistake, they really feel it because Bowdoin is kind of isolated in a super small town and it’s pretty small. So, I would have probably taken a shot with one of the bigger NESCACs. By reputation, some of them are more willing to reach a little lower on a few students who show some kind of promise. But the bottom line is that Bowdoin was a really tough shot take, so don’t feel badly about it. That’s a hard school to get into. Colby is small, too, so that’s going to be another long shot. I’m sorry to say all that.
But here’s the good news. While your GPA is a couple of clicks low for UW, my alma mater, your test score will help. And with a student body on the gargantuan side of the spectrum, they have more room, and are used to, taking shots on kids who show them something. If you are OOS, they’ll like you even more because they’ll want your OOS tuition. They don’t protect like some schools (e.g., UofTexas). And more good news: if you are admitted there, in my estimation (and I wouldn’t be alone in thinking this), you’d be on the most beautiful campus of all the schools you applied to, by a margin. You’d be in a great city and at a school with resources and options and a lot of life to take advantage of. Washington is a well-respected public, one of the nation’s premier big research powerhouses and will get you anywhere you want to go.
Just know that UW has plenty of kids attending who got into, or could get into, Bowdoin and chose to be where they are. If you get in and everything else lines up (affordability, distance from home, etc.), don’t hesitate to go and don’t look back at this with regret. I went there, and there are plenty of Ivy League, Stanford, Emory, Cal, UCLA, USC and other alumni at my company who report to me.
I sincerely wish you the best of luck.
ETA: I agree wholeheartedly with @movingtothebeach 's observations about you. I’ve been impressed with your maturity, open-mindedness, candor and transparency. I also think you know yourself very well, which is a virtue. Many people don’t, and Socrates tells us we should. I only hope that you give yourself some grace and kindness. You’re making an effort, and things tend to work out for people who make an effort.
ETA: your test score may help.
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That is an amazing video! I’m sharing it with everyone!
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St. Mary’s MD suggested above is really good school in a beautiful location. I know many happy students there. I would strongly suggest to research it.
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