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