How to Improve ChancesAnswered
Hi! I was just wondering if anyone can provide me insight on how to improve my EC's and grades for schools I'm looking at such as NYU, UCLA, UCSC, Pepperdine, Brown, Yale, those kind of schools. Here's what I have so far:
-3.7 ish GPA
- 2 AP classes (Psych - 4, Gov - 5), 5 Honors
-Full IB Diploma, with an extra IB class (people take 7 IB classes, I took 8, 4 HLs)
- I have a youtube channel where I post about fashion and photography
-Projected 9 musical theater shows, 4 leads
-Vice President at a nonprofit
-President of Thespian Honor Society
-A media/film/fashion blog
- projected 600 service hours
-Elected class officer, elected vice president of the school
-I volunteer at local theaters, (like 30ish hours)
-Member of my city's choir
-Musical lessons
-I won the Presidential Service Award (Should I include this?)
-I've lead webinars on LGBTQ and mental health, about 50 people in each
How do I turn these into important things? Are these already important? How do I bring up my GPA (I'm only a sophomore). I intend in majoring in film and acting, is there anything I should do to buff my chances for that?
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4 answers
You have really good stats especially for a sophomore, I would say to try and add some extra APs and make sure to construct a narrative, as with these more prestigious colleges they focus on constructing a well rounded student body. Try to make your career tell a story that would show how you would be a valuable student for the school, since you already have really good stats otherwise. I would say continue with your focus on acting as consistency in one area looks really good, and try to construct your journey into a story that describes you.
You have a wonderful list of ECs!
It seems like your focus is fashion, media arts, film, & social awareness. Those are wonderfully varied interests. I would recommend creating a contrast profile of 2 full interests and doing the exercise of writing who you are/what your interests are in one sentence. Your activities are already stellar! Here is what I recommend to fully flesh out these activities:
Some competitions! These seem to fit your interests and can help you build up your honors & awards section.
1. Musical competitions
2. New York Times Writing Competitions
3. Scholastic Arts & Writing Competitions
4. All State for Choir
Community work!
1. Starting a teen council in your city for your local Arts Museum or even joining as a volunteer or member of your local Arts Museum. Your teen council could discuss social justice issues such as LGBTQ rights and mental health in your city. To start or join this, I would recommend contacting your local Arts Museum and proposing your idea.
2. You already have a nonprofit, but maybe you can start a fundraiser campaign or club (or even another nonprofit) about thrifting theater costumes and fabrics and using them to make new ones for local plays. This fits your areas of fashion and theater into one!
More clubs! Here is a list of even more clubs you could start or join.
1. Film & Photography
2. Environmental Fashion
3. Teen Arts Council
4. Beautificicaiton Committee
5. Gender-Sexuality Alliance or Gay-Straight Alliance
6. Mental Health Awareness Club
Keep up the good work. You are doing an amazing job!
All of this is already pretty great and not gonna lie, actually really impressive. You have the qualifications but what you need to focus on now is making them sound good when you're writing your essay. How do these things make you a more well rounded student? You don't want it to look like you were just doing random things to fill up your resume, it should come across as genuine interest in those activities. Talk about why you care.
Your EC list is top notch so far! I would say that you should include the Presidential Service Award and not change any other activities, but you should also try to produce your own film before college applications are due later on. Film programs usually ask for a film portfolio submission, so it would greatly improve your chances of acceptance if you made at least one film in advance. The film does not need to be a 2-hour blockbuster production or be distributed in any way, though this could only benefit you if it happened. You also do not need to make the entire film yourself - taking part in a collaborative project would be impressive too.
As for your GPA, keep taking rigorous classes that are in the subjects that you are most interested in. A 3.7 is already good enough to get into top schools so long as the other parts of your application are exceptional. Hope this helps!
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