Areas to improve?

Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
63
Male
Age: 17, senior
ACT: 29 (retaking soon)
SAT: 1350 (not retaking because I prefer ACT)
GPA: 4.33 W, 3.7 UW (will improve a lot after first semester of senior year)
Senior courseload: AP Macro, AP Gov and Politics, AP Calc AB, AP Bio, AP Literature, AP Psychology, Honors independent computer science study
Athletics: 3-year starting varsity athelete, first team all area and all conference, hoping for first team all state this year, Captain, 4 year junior national club team
EC: Student Athlete Leadership Team, Business Club (3 time state qualifier), cofounder of one club, founder and president of another (young republicans club), anti-cyber bullying club, Christian athletes club (low time commitment), and NHS
Volunteer work: coach at my old school for 8th graders and local food pantry
Fitness: work out 4-5 times a week, currently sport specific with some other parts such as an emphasis on pull-ups and pushups for my CFA for USNA and PFE for USCGA, have a personal trainer I also work with 1-2 times a week
Work experience: had a job for ~4.5 years now and 2 summer internships (1 was paid, other was with a Fortune 500 company) in the IT and cyber security field.
LOR: a bunch of my teachers are super excited and happy I am applying to service academies and they know me pretty well
Intended major at USCGA: cyber systems

I think I need to really focus on my essays and obtaining my letters of recommendation as quickly as possible. Another thing is just grinding a few more points on ACT and banging out my daily pushups. Any other advice in this process please comment or PM me. Thank you!!
 
Last edited:
It is really hard to change the GPA in one semester. I wouldn't count on it changing too terribly much.
 
It is really hard to change the GPA in one semester. I wouldn't count on it changing too terribly much.

Getting straight As in all APs and honors can’t hurt though, not saying I will for sure because AP Bio is pretty hard at my school but part of the reason my GPA suffered was stupid Spanish classes. They were so much work and I truly did try my best but I’m just not good at it so I could only muster Bs and I took 3 years of that :/. But on the bright side I made it through Spanish 4 so technically that’s 4 years of a language.
 
Have you completed the athletic recruitment information on the USCGA website? Being a recruited athlete helped my son.
 
Honestly your ACT is low. Although you will see from the website that you are above average, you have to understand that recruited athletes and under-represented minorities will get a break on the ACT score in order to meet diversity goals and man the numerous NCAA teams at the academy. If you are a white male from an affluent neighborhood in a state that sends a large number of cadets to the academy then you are going to have to get your ACT above 32 (math ACT should also be above 32). Also I think you are way overdoing the AP classes. Pick 3 AP subjects ( I would include AP calculus) and try and relax a little.
 
My DS also took 8AP in his senior high school. But dropped varsity Football n lacrosse. He is now 2C at the academy taking 21 credits. Last year first sem took 24 credits it was hard time wise. He is Majoring in EE and operations research. All those AP classes surely prepared him to the Academy’s academic wise. You have 3 hard classes Calc, Bio, may be Lit. Keep focus you can do it!!
 
Back
Top