Most of the schools I am considering are hard targets/reaches and I am worried!Answered
OK. so I will start this with the fact that I have not been the best student throughout high school and tend to take the easy route/baremin. My GPA and course rigor has been a steady incline from my freshman year, and I predict to get at least a 1400 on my next SAT. this being said I attend a college preparatory high school which is very competitive and I have made myself comfortable being average academically. I am president of two national honor societies, and two interest based clubs, and have been captain of one academic team and 2 jv sports. My unweighted gpa at the end of my junior year was around a 3.5 so I am worried that my transcript will hinder my chances of getting accepted into the schools that I have been looking into (smith, holy cross, Connecticut college) and I am worried that I will have to lower my expectations of the colleges that I am looking into and focus more on safety/target schools- if anyone has any advice on making my portfolio stick out more to colleges it would be greatly appreciated
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2 answers
The first thing I recommend that you do is to log into your school's Naviance account. Hopefully, your school provides you with something like that. This will allow you to create a college list and see how many former HS peers applied, who got in and who matriculated. Since each HS is different, this is a very useful tool because it's catered to your school's grading scale and school profile. You will be able to see the stats for Connecticut College, Smith, Holy Cross, and any other schools on your college list.
If Naviance is not available, then set up an appt. with your HS college counselor as soon as possible and ask them to provide you with a printout of the stats for the schools on your college list.
I think your concern is shared amongst many many HS seniors because everyone is aware of the "UBER-competitive" admissions cycles during COVID.
One of the best weapons you have in your arsenal is to apply with a high SAT or ACT score. I would recommend that you use the rest of the summer to prep very hard. I don't know if you are currently enrolled in an online prep course but if your family can afford it, it will help you achieve a higher score than you typically can by studying on your own. The SuperTutorTV one is probably the most affordable pay service out there.
Next term, it's important that you continue on your upward trend in grades and continue honing your ECs.
You might want to consider applying to CC or Smith Early Decision because that will improve your odds a bit. Also consider other good colleges in the NE like Mount Holyoke, Trinity College, Marist, Bennington, St.Lawrence University, Skidmore, and Bryn Mawr.
Good luck.
Its never a bad idea to have some safety and target schools you would be willing to go to anyways.
Focus on the leadership roles. Not much else you can do now.
Good luck.
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