Hi.
So I am currently a rising senior and I moved to a pretty well-recognized IB school in the DC area after living in Romania for five years doing the full IB program - I am talking MYP, PYP and then IB. My parents do foreign service so I have lived in 7 countries and 2 states in 16 years.

I have always gotten pretty good grades - above a 3.5 doing an international school curriculum (which I have heard is seen as more challenging? It seems to be the groupthink opinion…) I am not sure how it calculates because I have been on a 1-7 pretty much my entire life.

So then I moved in the middle of 11th grade to this new school and all this accumulated stress/anxiety build-up and I ended up being in the hospital for most of the last semester of 11th grade - 42% attendance for fourth quarter. Yes, it was that bad.

My grades are abysmal by my standards: they were Cs to Bs before exams and the majority raised to Bs to As after exams. This increase/change is without weighting. Nevertheless, concerning how long I was gone I would say I did okay.

My real point is that now I am totally freaked out about my chances for admittance because of this drop in grades and I am wondering whether I should apply Early Action to my all-time dream schools: University of Richmond, Wake Forest, Carnegie Mellon, and Elon. My ACT was a 30 and I am taking it again to improve. My favorite is UoR because of its atmosphere, opportunities offered and proximity so if I had to choose one to apply ED for one, it would be UoR.

Before I was thinking that I would apply Early Action to the Honors programs at my safety schools: James Madison U., George Mason U., and Virginia Commonwealth U.

Advice? Should I apply Early Action to my safeties? Or should I apply Early Action to my dream school(s)? Or should I do neither wait until I get back into the all As range to apply to show that I have recovered etc??

I have pretty solid extracurricular: international recognition for tennis, Speech and Debate, great Student Council work, part of the emergence and formation of the Romanian chapter of Amnesty International - very successful campaigns etc, MUN. My life - and the stories that comes with it - are definitely unique and I have ample material for life-changing/stand-out essays, in my opinion.

Thanks! Really, I would appreciate this so much. I will send you awesome things virtually!
Paula, you are speaking of Early Decision not Early Action. Early Decision is the "binding" one.

You’re only supposed to apply early action to one school. The thought is that if the early action school accepts you, then you are required to go there. I would apply early action to one of your dream schools (if you’re sure that you can afford it). Then for the other schools I would apply as early as possible, but not early action. Even if you’re not applying early action, many schools accept on a rolling basis, so the earlier you apply, the better. Good luck!

Edit: Sorry, you’re right, I was thinking about early decision. If I were you, I would try to apply Early Action to all of them, if you can get your applications in on time. The later you apply, colleges become more and more selective, so it is definitely to your advantage to apply early.

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