As a senior, the application process has already been initiated but I am lost and don’t know where to start. Quite frankly I don’t feel ready for college. I am still 16 and most of my peers are beginning their Junior years.
Throughout high school I have maintained decent academics but external pressures have kept me from being involved in the community. Not to sound like a sob story, but I had to deal with alot of crap. My parents divorced in 9th grade; and as a result I was transplanted half way across the country to Texas. With no friends for the majority of my freshman year I kept mostly to my self. As the year progressed I became good friends with two people who would later change for the worst. During sophomore year my two best friends turned to drugs and alcohol and I was caught in the middle of it. Before you judge me, I never smoked or did any drug, but I was involved heavily with people that did. My best friend was busted for selling extascy and had to spend two years in an alternative school and the other just dropped of the face of the earth. I exerted my best effort to help them but nothing I did ended up working. Professional intervention was the only thing that could help. That aside, I also spent that year living under the wing of an abusive boyfriend who espoused my mom. Fast forward to junior year and I started to branch out and become more sociable. In October I was diagnosed with mono and spent 19 days out of school, jeopardizing my grades and was on the verge of repeating junior year due to attendance. Once I got better it was too late as clubs where established and I was extremely tired following school. Now that I am better, I intend to make the best of my senior year. I plan to join BPA and another volunteering club to help boost my extra curriculars for college, but I fear it is to late. Applications are already starting and I am in between a rock and a hard place.
If you were in my situation, what would you do? I can give you a list of colleges I want to apply to and my “stats” for analysis. Do I have any chance of attending these universities or is my future ruined?
Texas Resident
2000 SAT Score
32 ACT score
3.8 out of 4.0 GPA
6 AP classes including Government, AP US, AP World, Ap Micro, Ap Spanish 4, and AP English Language. (5 on AP world, 4 on ap us, 3 on Spanish language,and 4 on Ap English test)
Top 20% of my class of 700 students
As far as extra curricular go I have:
Been webmaster of school website during junior year
Member of Spanish club
Volunteered at the library after school 4 hours a week
Owned my own business as a web master that developed and hosted websites for local clients
Future member of Business Professionals of America
Future member of Graphic Design and Art Club
What can I do to get involved, andup my chances of going to a good university?
I’d love to attend :
1.Ut Austin
2. Texas A&m
3. UNC Chapel Hill
4. University of Chicago (bit of a stretch but I get letters from them weekly)
5.NYU or Columbia.


I’d say you could go to Texas A&M UNC Chapel Hill and maybe NYU but like Columbia mayeb and UT Austin maybe. They will carefully review your stuff plus you look like you were involved with the school in your extra curriculars and you are a volunteer and you are in AP classes. You may be able to get into all of them. But those I listed are like 95% and the others like 75% then all the other schools in the world yes. Lol other than those like yale harvard and places like that , those are maybes.
I’m not famliar with these schools, but looking at your grades, you are definately above the average student. Depending on the application and the school, extracurriculars may or may not be very important (you have a good list by the way). But if you’re still worried, talk to your guidance counselor for more advice (she’s going to write a recommendation for you, so you should get to know her). BTW, if you need an essay topic, choose one of the major obstacles you faced in high school and discuss how it made you a better person.
I would say you have a good chance at all of them, Chicago isn’t as hard to get into as you might think considering your great ACT score and if you think you can raise it take a chance and take it again, it cant hurt you. You will get more finn. aid if you can raise it higher. Volunteer work could be considered the library time you did which is helping with the community i’d say your solid with your extracurriculars. The only way to know is to apply to them all unfortunately and see where that takes you but i don’t think your problem will be getting in, it will be deciding which one you really want to go to. University of Chicago or NYU or columbia are far away sooo you might want to consider the airfare and the added costs of going to school far away.
Good luck on your journey!