White low income male with average grades and ECs - will the “I couldn’t afford more” angle help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The GPA is hard to evaluate without understanding rigor and where he ranks in his class.

There are no class ranks and no, he isn’t taking all APs. He will have maybe 2-4 by the time he graduates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So there’s a teen I am trying to help who is white and low income, has a mix of As and Bs (GPA will probably be around 3.5), has one sport (he isn’t good at it), a part time job and a couple of hobbies like reading and sewing.

The goal is to help him get into one of the UCs, maybe some private schools, not T10 or anything but a decent school. He won’t be majoring in STEM.

Should I advise him to pursue an angle in his essays and PIQs where he writes about his life in low income housing, working to support his family, helping his grandparents? Will this help offset his mediocre grades and ECs? Or it doesn’t matter and he can write about his passion for reading or sewing for example?

I think he should leverage his family background.

I'm not sure the sewing angle does much because I'm assuming it doesn't connect to intended major. If it did, then maybe.

It would be very helpful to do some career interest inventories with this kid. If his grades are mediocre, does he have a clear plan for investigating majors? How do you know which UCs will fit best. Are you hoping that getting him into a "better" UC might transform his situation? Maybe it's better to target a "just right" campus?

For someone who has a mix of As and Bs in high school with probably limited rigor, and without something that promises a strong support system (Family, D1 sport, etc.), a "better" UC might be a bad situation. I went to Berkeley and it's big, and a lot of classes can feel very "sink or swim" and a decent number of people do drop out or struggle and take a long time to graduate (which is more problematic if you are low income), especially if they weren't used to rigor in high school. A "just right" school will still be attractive to employers and would likely give better chances of graduating in 4 years and having a positive experience.

OP here. This is valid, thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would play up the sewing, because it's different and memorable. If he can tie it to his family circumstances, great. It does not need to connect with his major.

The problem with focusing entirely on his family circumstances is that other kids will have much "better" (worse, tougher) stories. "I'm poor for my rich neighborhood" is not, by itself, compelling. But it can be one part of an interesting story.

Okay thank you! His family is definitely not destitute. While it is hard to live in a small apartment when your classmates live in mansions, this is probably more of a first world problem.

[Anonymous]

Kind of you to be helping him.
You should calculate his GPA using the UC (and Cal State) method (9th grade doesn't count, no +/-'s and a cap on the AP's/honors). That will help see where he lands. Might have a shot at UCSC, UCR and UCM. Look at the free resources at https://askmssun.com/blog/
Consider the Cal State schools as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One last thing, he should relate his experiences in his voice. You can help with editing with a light touch. His voice is what may sway an AO.

Yes, that’s the plan, he is writing his own essay and he is a fairly decent writer too.

What kinds of reading could he talk about? Honestly, I feel like reading real books is declining among teens. There might be an angle there. Does he read books that would impress an AO or a teacher? Could he call out some of his favorites?

I'm the person who talked about a career interest inventory. Could you maybe help him read through the list of majors at the schools you want him to go to and discuss them with him?
That's what I did with my kid. I printed off the entire list of majors and had him put a star by the ones that he thought he'd be interested in. Then I discussed with him what I knew about those majors. And then he derived some ideas of what to look for at the 5 schools he applied to.

A tip I have for working with today's students is to use videos (usually ones filmed by current students) to preview campuses and application processes etc. My kids were more interested in videos than reading books about going to college. There are lots to choose from. Here's a random example I picked just to show you the genre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kind of you to be helping him.
You should calculate his GPA using the UC (and Cal State) method (9th grade doesn't count, no +/-'s and a cap on the AP's/honors). That will help see where he lands. Might have a shot at UCSC, UCR and UCM. Look at the free resources at https://askmssun.com/blog/
Consider the Cal State schools as well

Thank you, I used to work with his mom and she is a great person.
Will take everything you said into account

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One last thing, he should relate his experiences in his voice. You can help with editing with a light touch. His voice is what may sway an AO.

Yes, that’s the plan, he is writing his own essay and he is a fairly decent writer too.

What kinds of reading could he talk about? Honestly, I feel like reading real books is declining among teens. There might be an angle there. Does he read books that would impress an AO or a teacher? Could he call out some of his favorites?

I'm the person who talked about a career interest inventory. Could you maybe help him read through the list of majors at the schools you want him to go to and discuss them with him?
That's what I did with my kid. I printed off the entire list of majors and had him put a star by the ones that he thought he'd be interested in. Then I discussed with him what I knew about those majors. And then he derived some ideas of what to look for at the 5 schools he applied to.

A tip I have for working with today's students is to use videos (usually ones filmed by current students) to preview campuses and application processes etc. My kids were more interested in videos than reading books about going to college. There are lots to choose from. Here's a random example I picked just to show you the genre.

Thank you! I will show him some videos and we will try to figure out a major or two or more.

As to reading, yes, he is reading some “real” books, I asked him what he liked and he said Catcher in the Rye, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and The Secret History. I mean, at least I know two of those books lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One last thing, he should relate his experiences in his voice. You can help with editing with a light touch. His voice is what may sway an AO.

Yes, that’s the plan, he is writing his own essay and he is a fairly decent writer too.

What kinds of reading could he talk about? Honestly, I feel like reading real books is declining among teens. There might be an angle there. Does he read books that would impress an AO or a teacher? Could he call out some of his favorites?

I'm the person who talked about a career interest inventory. Could you maybe help him read through the list of majors at the schools you want him to go to and discuss them with him?
That's what I did with my kid. I printed off the entire list of majors and had him put a star by the ones that he thought he'd be interested in. Then I discussed with him what I knew about those majors. And then he derived some ideas of what to look for at the 5 schools he applied to.

A tip I have for working with today's students is to use videos (usually ones filmed by current students) to preview campuses and application processes etc. My kids were more interested in videos than reading books about going to college. There are lots to choose from. Here's a random example I picked just to show you the genre.

Thank you! I will show him some videos and we will try to figure out a major or two or more.

As to reading, yes, he is reading some “real” books, I asked him what he liked and he said Catcher in the Rye, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and The Secret History. I mean, at least I know two of those books lol

PP. I like those book choices. I honestly think those might be good choices to talk about. As I said, reading for pleasure is getting rarer and rarer. My kid's in at a highly-ranked flagship and I don't think my son read any unassigned books during his senior year of high school. Now that my son's at college, he's actually started reading for pleasure again. And he does read his textbooks. But it seems to be a problem for kids his age. A problem because college is still text heavy - instruction hasn't been reinvented (whether it should be is another question).

If your applicant has any interesting reasons for reading those books, that could also fit into an essay.

I'm still pondering how the sewing angle could be worked. One can get a theme out of anything but sometimes it takes a lot of creativity to pull it out. The other angle is just to be authentically oneself, and then it fits. But the question is...is this marketing the student effectively as as an applicant/successful enrollee? Or is it just "slice of life" background on their interests. Reading real books for pleasure is an obvious demonstration of capability to go to college.

It's okay to go to college undecided. I didn't pick a major for good until junior year. But it is a lot higher stakes for lower income kids. There is a lot to coach there. How to try to find something well-paying that you also enjoy or are satisfied to do in a "work to live" manner. Another way to reverse engineer this is to look at public LinkedIn bios. If he has a yearbook and knows names of some seniors that went to UC schools, you could try to find their social media and see what kind of internships and jobs they have done. Or just look for younger graduates of the campuses he is considering.

Here are two examples I just Googled. I Googled Linkedin uc riverside business major without quotes.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/skye-anders/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-moore-12b025305/?trk=org-employees

I think looking at resumes and bios can help visualize how one might get from Point A (senior in high school) to Point B (successful college student, ready for first real job). This is something your applicant can research on their own time to figure out how various majors might suit them.

In addition to actually having and believing in a plan to work towards, I think it sounds better on applications when you can say: "I want to go to school X because I am considering majors 1 and 2. I read about program z for Major 1 and that is something I would like to test out." Vs. "I'm applying undecided because I have a lot of interests such as x, y, z."

A final note - can you, as an adult, infer anything about the pattern of Bs that would tell you where your applicant's weaknesses lie? I believe it's important to fix knowledge deficits or at least to know if you have them before leaving high school. I sent my kids to math tutoring after the pandemic because it was clear they had gaps, and it was going to be a problem. Grade inflation is definitely real. So it would help if you could figure out if your applicant has some skill shortages in algebra or anything that could trip him up in required freshman math or statistics or language distributions, etc. It's tricky to coach young people about skill deficits but they need to be self-aware enough to pick classes effectively for the first semester and plan strategies for managing requirements. In my state, at the two best big universities, there is a common hack that kids take required calculus at community college and transfer it in. Because it's very hard at the universities itself. And let's get real...very few of these people use calculus at work. Your applicant might need some "watch outs" so they can avoid harm to their college career and wallet.

I'm wishing you and your applicant a lot of success. It's so helpful to have a person to trade ideas with during the application process. And nice to have someone who is not a parent because parents can literally be too close to the situation.