3.2 GPA Sickly Victorian Child Goes to T10
I promise that this isn't satire, and my life is just like this
Demographics
Gender: male
Race/Ethnicity: white
Residence: East Coast
Income Bracket: middle class
Type of School: Elite private
Hooks: Chronically ill (like so many conditions) (I have spent >6 months incapacitated in bed during HS), Scored 179 on Law School Admissions Test (99.9th percentile)
Intended Major(s): Philosophy
Academics
GPA (UW/W): 3.26/4 (I don't go to school all the time and I don't do work if it isn't interesting; as I have gotten further in school more work has been interesting so GPA was sub 3 at start of HS and was a 4 junior year (my stem classes stopped grading homework for credit which helped a ton).
Rank (or percentile): School doesn't do this (probably near bottom)
# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: Technically all classes taken?
Senior Year Course Load: moderated study: chaos theory, bioethics, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, jewish law, AP Phys C, American Law, AP Stat, AP Lit (2 separate classes (I skip lunch to do this (I am insane)), AP French
(Some of those are single-semester)
Standardized Testing
ACT: N/A
SAT: 1590
AP: 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Extracurriculars/Activities
Varsity Crew
Varsity Wrestling
I put reading philosophy papers & reading math papers as two separate ECs
2 Independent studies
1 Study with aid of prof @ Stanford
Awards/Honors
I forgot to fill out this section on the common app
Jewish law teacher: I thought 10/10, but then he said that he put in there that he thought I should go to a Jewish religious school so that my teachers would be able to physically beat discipline into me, so IDK!
Poly Sci Teacher: 10/10 for sure.
Chem teacher: probably 9/10 but I actually did at most 1 classwork/homework for him all year so any of the discipline or on-time-ness or whatever scores they fill out were absolutely the lowest option.
Interviews
I didn't do any (I just didn't like fill it out or apply to do them or however it works idk) except for DS which I will save until later.
Essays
Absolutely fantastic I think, where I put all of my effort, multiple of them have won writing competitions in the months since.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Rejections: (RD)
Williams
WL: (All RD)
Bowdoin
Swat
Amherst
Acceptances:
EA: St. John's College
RD: Duke
RD: Dickinson
Deep Springs college:
Made it to round 2, went for a week, interviewed, thought I did great, and then got WLed in the end. Looking back my first round essays were really bad and I'm very lucky to have made second round, and then my second round essays could not save me.
I'm committed Duke but going to reapply DS next year/until I get in.
Never let illness or lack of ability to make yourself care about things stop you from almost achieving your goals!