u/Unique-Ad-7650

17F and going to be a senior in a US high school next year. My parents have always had an obsession with me getting into a "good college". One time when I was 6, my parents told me that I should go to Harvard when I grew up, and (because I didnt know what "harvard" was) I said that I wanted to be an astronaut and a writer instead. My father ended up beating me and telling me that I *have* to go to Harvard and stop having "stupid" aspirations.

This behavior just continued up until now, where they would continue threatening to k*ll me if I didn't get into Harvard, and how I would be an embarassment to the entire family. They just impose very extreme standards onto me, including yelling and beating me in my sleep if they find out that I went to bed before 12AM, because "going to sleep early proves you are weak and trades off with studying". My father yells at me almost every day and gives long ass monologues ranting about how I NEED to get into Harvard and that I will be a failure in life if I dont. He's genuinely so paranoid and weirdly obssessed that last year, he took me to the doctor and made me get an MRI because he thought there was something wrong with my brain and that I was "stupid" just because I wasn't meeting his extreme expectations of "studying hard enough" (ie: getting under 5 hours of sleep every day including weekends, waking up at 4 am every day, staying up after 12 am every day, constantly reading textbooks, having no breaks, etc). Last week, he beat me with an electric cord because he found out his colleague's son got into Yale and I didn't (mind you, his colleague's son is an entire year older than me and I have not even started applying to college yet...).

And the worst part is that this is actively detrimental to me getting into a "good college" anyway. My father is a narcissist who thinks that his ideas are always right, and he tells me that as long as I have a good GPA and good SAT score, I can be guaranteed to go to Harvard. He thinks that extracurriculars, leadership roles, teacher recommendations, etc are "useless" and has prevented me from leaving the house or staying after school to participate in extracurriculars because he views them as "childish activities for losers". I have won national level awards and he dismisses it as "childish" because he doesn't actually understand how US college admissions work.

This was just kinda a long rant but genuinely, what should I do in this situation? This is actually insufferable. My mother wants me to go to a selective local college (Rice, UT Austin) because it will allow her to control me better, as she thinks me moving to Massachusetts or some other state will cause me to cut off contact with them - but my father genuinely thinks any school besides Harvard is pointless and "full of failures".

For context I go to a super competitive school in a community that is actively being gentrified, and there is a huge wealth disparity in my school. It costs 70-120$ to even JOIN an extracurricular activity and there are so many barriers that prevent low income students at my school from being in the same classes or extracurriculars as the wealthy people in my school.

I had a teacher and coach who I thought I was really close with and was looking to ask him for a rec letter for NCM, but recently I just found out that our team has an entire separate group chat without me in it, and they constantly talk bad about me behind my back. And the worst part is that my coach is in on it too and actively participates in the racist and elitist comments directed at me. I literally have screenshots of him telling other people on the team that I was "less worthy" and would "never be as good as" everyone else, and making fun of me for not being able to afford to travel to certain competitions. idek what i did wrong besides just being an FGLI because i always show up to and stay the latest at every practice and this season i literally starved myself so i could afford as many competitions as i could and the only thing i got in return was people on the team spreading rumors that i had an eat*ng dis*rder.

Besides one of my other teachers, I dont have anyone else that I am close with and would be able to write a good rec letter for me, and i'm genuinely worried if I ask my coach he'll write a bad rec letter on purpose because of all the things he's said about me. if I explain this in the additional info, would questbridge + the colleges i'm ranking understand? or would the bad rec letters still have a negative impact on my application

Does anyone have information about this program? Like what specifically is this for and if its prestigious / well known? I got accepted but idk if I wanna go yet

I know that extenuating circumstances can be used to explain a downward trends but do they actually help even the playing field or is it hardly considered?

Like I had pretty much all As but then during second semester junior year I had illness + malnutrition in addition to being fgli (basically I couldnt afford groceries and had to work several shifts and take up a bunch of random jobs and freelance work to help with family finances as well as send money to relatives in a different country who are struggling to make ends meet) so now I have a 3.89. How would AOs evaluate this and would they consider my GPA equivalent to ~4.0 given these circumstances?

Genuinely stressing out rn, btw i'm fgli and I do have a reason why my gpa dropped this semester (illness + malnutrition) but I was told by so many people that I won't get into a single reach school regardless of my extenuating circumstances.

I have pretty good AP scores (mostly 5, a few 4s and one 3 and one score that I'm cancelling) and a 35 ACT. pretty good ECs but not like insane (one prestigious summer program, published research, club president etc)

title. also was your GPA a downward or upward trend

PLEASE BE HONEST AND GIVE ME ADVICE ON WHAT TO IMPROVE!!!

rec letters will not be as good because i dont attend school very often (illness + extenuating circumstances). i also had malnutrition and other issues that severely affected my ability to engage in class on the days i did attend

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: South
• Income Bracket: low income
• Type of School: competitive public school
• Hooks: low income (idk if i count as first gen bc my parents went to college in a different country)
• 11th Grade

 

Intended Major(s): Cultural studies + psych double major

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.89/4.3 --- I have a downward trend of all As freshman year (both semesters), 1 B sophomore year (first semester but got it up to an A second semester), 1 B junior year first semester, and probably 3 Bs for the second semester.....
• Rank (or percentile): 20/524 (rank will prob drop once grades are finalized because i got 3 Bs...)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 3 APs sophomore year, 7 APs junior year, going to take 7 APs senior year

Standardized Testing

• ACT: 35 Superscore: 36 reading, 35 english, 35 science, 34 math
• AP: all 5s for the APs i took sophomore year
• PSAT: 1420
• SAT: 1460 (trying to get this up this summer)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. published psych research in international peer reviewed journal on gender disparities in mental health. going to do a follow up study this summer on cultural differences as well (9th-ongoing - i've been working on this for FOREVER)

2. varsity debate co captain - helped with fundraisers and coached JV/novice teammates. besides winning a state championship I do NOT do well on the national circuit 💔 (9th-ongoing) (i might not be able to debate senior year tho because its hella expensive to go to these competitions and last year i was literally starving myself to pay to attend debate tournaments)

3. personal blog - I write short essays about politics, social structures, and identity (11th-ongoing)

4. kenyon young writers summer program + another kinda niche summer writing camp that only accepts ~20 people per year --- attending this summer (11th)

5. regional chapter director of a really big nonprofit for STEM tutoring - taught classes in the summer, made lesson plans, and do one on one tutoring during the school year. idk how this is connected to my intended major tho so idk if i should include in my app? (10th-ongoing)

6. cybersecurity club president - grew team to 30 members, coordinated logistics and traveling for statewide competitions. not related to my intended major but this is just something i do for fun, idk if i should include this in my app??? (11th-ongoing)

7. organizer and coalition leader for student rights - organized student walk outs and spoke at state capitol against a law in my state (10th-ongoing)

8. english tutor for community elders - taught ESL and held fundraisers to provide more resources for asian american elders in my local community (10th-ongoing)

9. babysitting business - providing babysitting for people in my community/city to support my family (not like a registered "business" lol, i just offer the service to people) (9th-ongoing)

10. fellowship for a national youth civic education nonprofit - learned about civic solutions and wrote a case brief paper related to my community (11th)

Awards/Honors

1. scholastic gold key + american voices nominee
2. semifinalist of a niche writing scholarship award
3. FBLA state first place (qualed to nationals but can't go because of schedule conflict)
4. NHD regionals first place (didnt place at state)
5. questbridge college prep scholar
6. ap scholar (hopefully getting ap scholar w distinction after junior year AP scores are out)
7. first place at state level debate championship (no other good debate awards unfortunately 💔)
8. honorable mention for really niche civics related solvathon
9. superior distinction ranking for clarinet state solo ensemble

Additional notes:

I initially wanted to apply for questbridge NCM, but is it still a good idea given the downward trend in my GPA? Idk if waiting a semester so I can show my grades are up to an A again is better, or if the GPA is not that big of an issue and I still have a chance at NCM/REA/ED

literally spent all my time trying to lock in on summer program apps and now I have a research position + 2 prestigious programs but now my gpa is COOKED (went from almost all As to 3 Bs) and i have a downward trend now as a rising senior 💀🙏 help wtf do i do.

AND NOT TO MENTION I HAVE A B IN THE 2 CLASSES THAT ARE RELATED TO MY MAJOR....

our school does grades by semester (so 2 grades per class by the end of the year)

freshman year: all As both semesters, no APs

sophomore year: 3 APs, got a B in a non AP class (unrelated to intended major) first semester but got it up to an A second semester

junior year: 7 APs, got 1 B first semester in an AP class semi-related to my major (like i literally have research published in this field but I got a B bc i missed the last day to make up an exam and had to take the 0 💔) my grade in that class is back up to an A for second semester though.

But now I'm gonna have 3 Bs second semester in other classes (one of them is an AP capstone class and i literally wanna do research in the future so this is kinda bad....the other 2 classes are my AP math class and my AP econ class)

- so my cumulative UW GPA for all 3 years is 3.89

what should I do about my grades 😭 and is the downward trend significant / noticable to negatively impact my application for t10s/t20s

There has not been a single day this entire school year where I have been able to pay attention in class. I always have to pull several all nighters and teach all the materials to myself, and even then I literally start disassociating and not being able to focus in the middle of exams.

Last week, I had a timed writing exam where we had to write an essay in 2 hours. I spaced out for half of the entire exam period and only wrote an introduction paragraph. I also had a different exam the past few days and I ran out of time to fill out the answer choices because I couldn't concentrate. It just makes me very anxious trying to ask for help or tutoring as well because I'm scared I will just stop being able to focus in the middle of a tutoring session.

Everything is just starting to affect me more seriously now and I dont know how long I can keep this up. Getting desperate for help at this point because this is seriously affecting my mental health and idk if I can even make it to graduation unless I somehow figure out how to start focusing again.

17F, I've always had extreme issues with focusing and its starting to severely affect my performances in school and even everyday interactions. Last week I took an exam and then completely blanked out and wasted 30 minutes on absolutely nothing and ran out of time to fill in my answer choices, and now I might not even pass the class (which is terrible bc my parents genuinely threaten me if I dont have all As)

It's also affecting my ability to listen and focus in general. This entire school year, there has not been a single class where I have been able to focus in. Even in everyday conversations I'm genuinely struggling to pay attention and focus, and this is starting to harm my mental health because now I just avoid conversations because its embarassing to space out in the middle of conversations and forget everything ++ its also really disheartening to show up to school everyday not being able to understand a single thing going on. I've lost 30 pounds this past year stressing over not being able to pass my classes, and pull all nighters basically every other day trying to teach myself the materials alone.

I've told my parents that I have trouble focusing, and sometimes at home I play music, fidget, or take breaks to help myself complete assignments at home - but my parents view this as "childish behavior" and will yell, insult or be@t me when I do these things. They literally just expect me to sit still for several consecutive hours.

My parents are just extremely ableist people in general. They think that ADHD and other disorders "do not exist" and that people who claim to have them are all weak and that if I just tried hard enough I would not have any issues. I have started to beg my parents to let me get a diagnosis because there is no way I can continue like this anymore, and all they do is insult and threaten me.

Rising senior; I have 2 papers published in an international peer reviewed journal (second and co-authored) and I want to pursue a follow up study over the summer for one of the papers (probably going to be sole author) - is doing research an EC or an award? Because the 2 papers I've published are pretty different from each other (besides being in the same field of study). Also, if my research is in progress but not published yet, how can I (or should I) talk about this on my app?