u/SwimHappy5554

all throughout high school i have been called intimidating. scary. i look mean. everybody comes down to the same label. i hear from my sister's friends both guys and girls i am intimidating. i hear from other friends they used to think i was intimidating. teammates said i was intimidating until they talked to me. the amount of people who have also assumed i hated them too. not just classmates but also teachers. teachers have talked to my sister about how i probably didn't like their class, that i didn't like them as a person or their teaching or thought their class was boring or something. 4 teachers have either confronted me about this casually or told it to my sister. other teachers have mentioned to my friends they couldn't tell whether i liked their class or not or just simply didn't care. when playing sports im told i look mean and scary and that others would be afraid to go up against me.

i genuinely don't understand, i'm sometimes quiet / kept to myself during classes. im friendly to teachers and classmates and smile when they make conversation with me tho :(. friends / teammates say im very nice, outgoing and approachable when you get to know me. had someone tell me they thought i was mean but found out i was a very kind person.

i have been told by a friend i give the impression i was good at multiple things :") since i do take difficult classes / im really passionate in my hobbies and excel in them. i was told by teammates they believed i was skilled at the sports i do but i don't really think so.

i hear a lot of strong first impressions about me or comments -- she looks dead inside, does she hate me?

anyways it makes me really sad people think im intimidating. i get told it so often i think something must inherently be so negative or repulsive about me --- or maybe others have said wild things about me. and i want to be seen as friendly, not scary or mean looking. ok maybe its an rbf but i feel like reactions shouldn't be this ... you know...

i know people who have rbfs but i never jump to theyre intimidating / scary until i talk to them . i never see others as scary or intimidating as a first impression and i dont understand why anybody would make that assumption.

so i was just wondering like, why might you label someone as "intimidating" ?

I don't really want to apply to quest bridge because my stats are significantly below their median -- and I believe it's not worth it. (3.35 uw, 3.92 w -- testing in august goal is SAT 1400+).

but my college counselor (matchlighters) believes I should still apply regardless to "maximize my opportunities." With my financial situation, I can't go to college unless I have a full ride/near full ride somewhere.

I have "extenuating circumstances" such as family job loss, family responsibilities due to my mom's occasional absences throughout high school, family conflict that involved police, and other things like experiencing health concerns I delayed checking because of money constraints.

Compared to my peers, I do take a very rigorous course load. As for my extracurriculars, I have multiple national level impact activities in organizations as well as some regional awards.

I would say I'm a very ambitious person, and I do have a clear mission and spike in my activities.

Realistically, I struggled academically in school. I frequently had trouble focusing in class and usually felt fatigued. Furthermore, I found it difficult to study effectively, even when sitting at my desk for hours.

I don't want to be all negative, and I do believe I'm a passionate and intellectually curious person. But the program will find my low gpa concerning lol

So I’m back again, but this time… with updated stats that include a worse gpa than before. I’m kind of losing hope with college, because my gpa is so god awful, and I’d really like to be accepted into a T30 school. 

Demographics 

Gender: Female
Race/ethnicity: Asian-American
Residence: Competitive area / top public hs 
Hook: Low income (yes I am relatively poor in an affluent area)
Gpa: 3.34 UW 3.86 W (up to junior year T2), school also doesn’t rank
AP/honor classes taken after senior year: 11 APs, 6 Honors, 1 DE
Currently have taken: 5 APs, 5 Honors
Standardized testing: Aiming for a 1500+ on the SAT, but have not taken
Intended major: Marketing

Extenuating circumstances: sudden financial instability during middle school caused me to lose my academic tutors. Because of this change in structure, I struggled a lot studying on my own, especially in more rigorous courses. I believe my grades were also at times affected by family instability, which created a volatile home environment and impacted my mental health. 

I’m still currently trying to polish my ECs and only include my top 10, so I omitted a bunch of small ecs – but heres what I have so far: 

ECS 

• Managed and led an online art community with 200k members where I mainly helped graphic designed layouts, covers, and posters. I also helped look for collaborations that would encourage engagement as well as managed events. (2 years)
• Freelance art business – $5k+ profit, ~50 different clients. Worked on request for concept art, illustrations, and character designs. (3 years)
• Co-managed an online editorial and creativity committee with a team of 15 volunteers where we came up with causal events. (2 years)
• Occasionally collaborated with other online illustrators often with 15k+ followers on character design projects which gained a total of 7,000 views and 1,000 likes on social media. (3 years) 
• Currently a part of a volunteer initiative that sends art crafts to hospitalized children – I intend to donate about 20 custom artwork prints to nearby hospitals this summer.  
• Attended a young writers program where I practiced poetry and creative writing for publication – intending to publish soon in multiple youth literary magazines

 

Things I’m further building or intending to build this summer: 

• Gaining a marketing or graphic design internship to build experience 
• Leadership roles in layout design / audience outreach at organizations to build experience 
• Building my art account (this is going well currently) 
• Research on marketing trends – specifically with the art market

 

I am also trying to build my awards list this summer – and im hoping it ends up looking something like this –

Awards: 

• Polylit finalist 
• YA award 
• Adroit journal award of some sort
• Scholastic regional art and writing awards 
• AP Scholar

 

College list? I have absolutely no clue at this point, my gpa is horrible and it’s really discouraging me from even wanting to face the college admissions process at all. I may have solid ecs, but my gpa is a major downside to my whole profile. I have 4 C’s on my transcript, I was going to do a replacement program to remove 2 of those C’s, but they just cancelled on me.
I hate my life rn lol 

My reaches right now are: Brown, USC, Boston University, NYU 
My targets are just a bunch of state schools. Honestly don’t just chance me atp what other colleges can I even get into. Can I even get anywhere good?!?! Sometimes i just wish i was born insanely smart because I swear these T10 applicants have like T30s as their safeties. 

You know, you hear all these miracles of low gpa students getting admitted into top universities, but it’s really hard believing they’re true. In reality, the chances for someone to get admitted with below a 3.7 uw are extremely thin, usually students who do have insane hooks or circumstances. I know someone at my school who got into Stanford with a 3.6 UW, but this guy had rare ECs. 

So I’m back again, but this time… with updated stats that include a worse gpa than before. I’m kind of losing hope with college, because my gpa is so god awful, and I’d really like to be accepted into a T30 school. 

Demographics 

Gender: Female
Race/ethnicity: Asian-American
Residence: Competitive area / top public hs 
Hook: Low income (yes I am relatively poor in an affluent area)
Gpa: 3.41 UW 3.97 W (up to junior year T2), school also doesn’t rank
AP/honor classes taken after senior year: 11 APs, 6 Honors, 1 DE
Currently have taken: 5 APs, 5 Honors
Standardized testing: Aiming for a 1500+ on the SAT, but have not taken
Intended major: Marketing

Extenuating circumstances: sudden financial instability during middle school caused me to lose my academic tutors. Because of this change in structure, I struggled a lot studying on my own, especially in more rigorous courses. I believe my grades were also at times affected by family instability, which created a volatile home environment and impacted my mental health. 

I’m still currently trying to polish my ECs and only include my top 10, so I omitted a bunch of small ecs – but heres what I have so far: 

ECS 

• Managed and led an online art community with 200k members where I mainly helped graphic designed layouts, covers, and posters. I also helped look for collaborations that would encourage engagement as well as managed events. (2 years)
• Freelance art business – $5k+ profit, ~50 different clients. Worked on request for concept art, illustrations, and character designs. (3 years)
• Co-managed an online editorial and creativity committee with a team of 15 volunteers where we came up with causal events. (2 years)
• Occasionally collaborated with other online illustrators often with 15k+ followers on character design projects which gained a total of 7,000 views and 1,000 likes on social media. (3 years) 
• Currently a part of a volunteer initiative that sends art crafts to hospitalized children – I intend to donate about 20 custom artwork prints to nearby hospitals this summer.  
• Attended a young writers program where I practiced poetry and creative writing for publication – intending to publish soon in multiple youth literary magazines

 

Things I’m further building or intending to build this summer: 

• Gaining a marketing or graphic design internship to build experience 
• Leadership roles in layout design / audience outreach at organizations to build experience 
• Building my art account (this is going well currently) 
• Research on marketing trends – specifically with the art market

 

I am also trying to build my awards list this summer – and im hoping it ends up looking something like this –

Awards: 

• Polylit finalist 
• YA award 
• Adroit journal award of some sort
• Scholastic regional art and writing awards 
• AP Scholar

 

College list? I have absolutely no clue at this point, my gpa is horrible and it’s really discouraging me from even wanting to face the college admissions process at all. I may have solid ecs, but my gpa is a major downside to my whole profile. I have 4 C’s on my transcript, I was going to do a replacement program to remove 2 of those C’s, but they just cancelled on me.
I hate my life rn lol 

My reaches right now are: Brown, USC, Boston University, NYU 
My targets are just a bunch of state schools. Honestly don’t just chance me atp what other colleges can I even get into. Can I even get anywhere good?!?! Sometimes i just wish i was born insanely smart because I swear these T10 applicants have like T30s as their safeties. 

You know, you hear all these miracles of low gpa students getting admitted into top universities, but it’s really hard believing they’re true. In reality, the chances for someone to get admitted with below a 3.7 uw are extremely thin, usually students who do have insane hooks or circumstances. I know someone at my school who got into Stanford with a 3.6 UW, but this guy had rare ECs. 

So I feel super bad about my stats, especially because of my mid gpa and I feel like I could do way more impressive things with my ecs. The only hope I have is my hook/unique(?) ecs, praying for my SAT score… i think i am soo cooked my high reaches rn are like usc, nyu, bu, umich idk what schools i have a fair chance at ngl also been researching around the uc area like uc irvine . im also super terrified bc i have like no money for college too 

planning to apply through questbridge 

vague idea of a narrative I'm working on: experienced a lot of financial instability throughout my life. Because I didn't want my circumstances to simply hold me back from reaching my potential, I was enabled to seek as many opportunities and initiatives as I could based on my ambitions.

Demographics 

Gender: female
Race/ethnicity: asian-american
Residence: competitive area / top public hs 
Hook: low income / need financial aid 
Gpa: 3.6-3.7 UW 4.1-4.2 W (my gpa is super cooked … have a C and a couple B’s on my transcript, upward trend tho)
Some gpa context tho: lost access to financial support for tutoring my freshman year and saw a plummet in grades, struggled a lot — ended up turning to teachers a lot for personal help and did whatever I could to maximize and use my school’s academic resources.
School doesn’t do ranking either 
AP/honor classes taken after senior year: 11 APs, 6 Honors, 1 DE
Currently have taken: 5 APs, 5 Honors
Scores: three 5’s 
Standardized testing: aiming for a 1450+ on the SAT 
Intended major: likely something business route like marketing , digital marketing idk

Extracurriculars 

1. Freelance art business ($5k+ profit, 3 years) aiming for 10k+ followers on social media by end of summer 
2. Collaborated with other online illustrators with 15-20k+ followers on character design projects – gained social media traction  
3. Manager of an online community with 200k members – helped manage events, collaborations, and also layout designed to help encourage and increase engagement (2 years)
4. creativity/editorial manager of a creativity and arts committee (2 years) helped host events
5. assistant layout designer for school’s literary magazine (1 year) 
6. Layout designer for a lit mag – content curation (20k+ followers) 
7. Badminton (jv/varsity, 4 yrs) XC/tf (2 yrs) did some volleyball team management for a year too  
8. participated in a summer young writers program / workshop 
9. have publication in youth literary magazines – contemporary prose poet that critiques the human condition / sheds light on historical atrocities – been writing for ~5 years 
10. pinterest account with about 200k monthly views (2 years)
11. founded a literary magazine focusing on pushing creative boundaries (1 year)
12. do occasional monthly art raffles that gain like 200 - 300 participants (1 year)
13. got offered to be social media manager for my school’s visual arts department but idk if ill do it 
14. volunteered for running and a college art fair

 

awards/honors: 

1. ap scholar
2. scholastic art writing awards
3. national chinese honors society
4. some district/town award thing 1st place for creative writing, 
5. some badminton tourney awards

  

aiming for these awards (they're unlikely but ill pray yk): 

1. adroit journal semifinalist
2. polylit finalist 
3. youngarts award would be nice

  

goal ecs: research on art business trends, have intended plans to further my art business, hope to host workshops at my town idk