College Acceptance

Are you a minority or have a unique talent?

1000's of kids have your grades and better. What the college boards look for are "interesting" students who will have something to offer the school other than a warm butt in a seat.

SO, find a way to be interesting or a minority that can fill in a survey sheet. Then you can be closer to getting accepted.

To add to this, this is why kids get internships or volunteer. They need to have something to put on their essays.

My daughter is a college freshman so I have been through all this just recently.

You seem to have a similar academic grades as my daughter but it also depends on what level of class you take (college prep, honors, AP). She had mostly college prep (which would be just below honors); several honors and a couple of AP classes.

What colleges look at - grades, GPA, difficulty of courses (ie did you take all easy type classes - what level of classes honors?); SATs/other standardized test; position in your class (ie number 10 out of a class of 100); student involvement (ie clubs, sports, etc); volunteerism; work; interests; talents

Then other things - for example colleges want a diverse student body so say you are a certain ethic group and they don't have many from your group you get an edge over others; if you play the trumpet and they have no trumpet players; or you are applying to a school that has never a student from CT go there - you have an edge.

Have you worked with your guidance counselor? They should help you decide on appropriate schools for your interest. Usually what they tell you is choose a couple of easy schools that you can get into, several best fit schools and then a couple of stretch schools.

So you need to determine where you fit - guidance should be able to direct you on that. My daughter did this - she actually got into every school she applied (including her stretch school) and scholarships to each.

But she was very involved, had a good internship, worked and volunteered. So she had a lot of "extras" that made her desirable to schools. You are a junior so you have time to build your resume.

I suggest first - set up an appointment with your guidance counselor - bring your concerns. Ask them to help you with an internship and if it is difficult to get one, try volunteering somewhere especially if you can somewhere in which it would be applicable for your major but anywhere would be good; if you can get anything that would help show you have leadership skills all the better; even now - find a club where you could be an officer; or maybe find something where you are helping younger kids that you are interested in - sports, art, band, etc. because that shows leadership skills and mentoring.

Also work hard on your personal statement - make it different and unusual - make it speak of who you are; colleges use this personal statement to envision who you are as a person otherwise you are just another number and stat to them. I know one girl who got into an ivy league school (now she has the grades) by doing a video of her solving all these rubic cubes but it certainly fit the type of person she was.

You don't need to go that extreme but you need to make the college see who you are.

Also have you visited any of these schools in person? This helps as well - as they know you are really interested if you visited.