♿♿ severely physically disabled student and competitive yapper clutches EA round with no rejections

disclaimer: i do not reddit but this is my punishment for losing the friends card game last night

Demographics

  • Gender: female
  • Race: white
  • Residence: PA
  • Type of School: public high school
  • Hooks: severe physical disability (8 extensive surgeries in last 9 years, 3 of those surgeries during high school, hundreds of bone tumors, chronic pain, 4+ months of medically excused absences)

Intended Major(s): International Relations / International Politics / Global Economics (also put that I wanted to go to Law school if the college asked)

Academics

  • GPA: 4.6889 🤓
  • Rank: top 1% of about 700 class (school does not send rank tho so it doesn't matter)
  • # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment: graduating w 17 ap exams (for tests so far all 5s except 4s in physics 1 (but 5 for physics 2 😔) and comp gov + sent every score to Georgetown)
  • Senior Year Course Load: 5 aps and 3 honors semester electives + 1 academic semester class

Standardized Testing

SAT: 1570 (Superscore and took twice 1520 and 1540 - had to report both for Georgetown)

didn't take ACT

Extracurriculars/Activities

  1. Raised money for cancer I'm susceptible to ($60k)
  2. President of Debate Team (+ champed 3 national tournaments)
  3. Employed (on resume focused on work at family business)
  4. Social advocacy (Disability rights, equality in speech + debate, youth voice, etc)
  5. Christmas lights (put up 15k/year, fun hobby!)
  6. Governor's school
  7. Critical literature (wrote + peer reviewed)
  8. Crochet

Essays

Common app

10/10 - I hated it when I wrote it initially but it grew on me. Wrote about my disabled identity and what it meant to grow up crippled. I tried to answer why I choose to keep walking towards my dreams even when it hurts, and I concluded by explaining why some of the things I've been through have taught me to view each day as a gift. It's a pretty common but powerful sentiment within the disabled community.

(AOs contacted me about the essay, though )

For supps:

Tulane - wrote it about how much I love soup, and compared attending Tulane to making soup

Georgetown - wrote biggest involvement one about charity, the special talent one on crochet, and the "why Georgetown" on chicken McNuggets + global structural violence

Nova - wrote about being a woman in debate

Letters of Recommendation

Counselor: 10/10 - She scribes my AP exams so I spent 80+ hours in her office in May. Gotten to know her super well and grateful for everything she's done for me.

AP Lang: hopefully good! He was nice to me and super smart with words. He gave me some pretty valuable advice when thinking about the college process. Very thankful!

AP Calc: had a D in her class for a minute but pulled it back up to an A, and that's what counts! She was really nice to me - especially after I had surgery mid year (not fun). Super grateful!

Decisions

Acceptances (All EA):

  • Georgetown (School of Foreign service + Dream school, wipee!!)
  • Tulane (Honors + Full tuition (Paul award) + Altman program app invitation)
  • Villanova (Honors + Presidential scholarship app invitation?)
  • Pitt (Honors + merit)
  • Case Western (merit)
  • Colorado College (merit)

I didn't care much about college until I toured campuses before my senior year. I decided on a dream school during summer, applied early and got into the school (for which I am so so thankful), and now I'm free! I didn't submit any RD apps.