Am I a good candidate for competitive colleges despite my initial and uncontrollable impediments?

Answered

I'm no admissions officer, and am just another senior in HS looking to apply, but in my opinion, your impediments and the living situation you describe almost serve more to help you in your college application processes than you think they would hurt. The amount of stuff that you have done is, in my opinion extremely impressive for a student who is privileged to live in a much better situation. My best advice is to keep your head up, and realize that this can help you more than it can hurt, because your level of accomplishment paired with the amount of things trying to weigh you down should provide alot for you to write (and yes, brag) about in your applications and your essays. Best of luck to you, and given what you've done so far I'm sure you'll do great, just make sure to avoid burnout!

Hi @myrrh_and_gold!

I think you're doing very well. Your grades are near perfect — enough to clear the threshold at even the most selective schools — and you have a very impressive extracurricular list. You've also managed to accrue 8 AP courses, which is already more than most applicants (and more than many schools offer).

I wouldn't worry about not having taken AP Euro or Honors Spanish 4. Colleges simply expect you to take the best courses available to you (particularly in your major). So, it likely won't even register to an admissions officer that you don't have this specific AP class. Spanish 3 should also be enough to satisfy the people looking your transcript (again, I doubt they'll notice the absence of Honors Spanish 4).

Your extracurricular list is strong, but remember you can only list the top ten activities in the Common App. You'll have to adjust this list based on your intended major, but on first glance it looks very competitive. My only concern there is that there's not a clear, discernable spike — it's hard to tell what your main passion is, because your achievements are spread out in so many fields. You'll have to think of a way to connect your main activities (music, computer science, etc.) in your essays to give admissions officers a clear idea of what kind of student (and alumni) you'll be. But I wouldn't worry about that too much — you already have a lot to work with.

The last thing you'll need to do then is establish a personal narrative for admissions officers via your essays. I would try to convey your situation more through your personal statement than the additional info section of the Common App. Admissions officers will then contextualize your (already-impressive) academics and extracurriculars against your circumstances, which will only make them stand out more.

If you want further advice as to your chances at a specific school, I'd definitely recommend our chancing engine (https://www.collegevine.com/admissions-calculator). But overall, I think you're in good shape.

Honestly, missing out on maybe two hard classes, won't affect your statistics that much. Your grade only takes you so far. Your extracurriculars take you the rest of the way. I would say you have a wide range of ecs but I don't see a spike, and I don't see big leadership roles, other than co-founding your own pickleball club, which is impressive. i think that you have a good shot at many top 30 schools for sure.

You have taken an insane amount of classes and EC's with insanely good grades. These are the kind of grades that will definitely get you into top colleges. While you have endured a lot of school issues, I think that those will be looked at as an accomplishment rather than an impediment. If you would like to do anything better maybe take on some more rigorous leadership roles in order to show your dream school that you can be a leader, not just a member. Other than that I would almost guarantee that you can make it into one of the top colleges in the United States.