How I Got to College: Trevor Menders
This past spring, U.S. News visited La Jolla High School in the San Diego Unified School District to ask several seniors who had recently gone through the college application process and were then weighing their options for lessons learned along the way -- and their best tips for high school students just getting started.
Set in a postcard-perfect seaside community, La Jolla High is a comprehensive high school serving about 1,650 students. Because of the district's emphasis on school choice, students from an array of San Diego neighborhoods attend La Jolla.
The school provides Advanced Placement courses in 21 curricular areas; 98 percent of students graduate, on average, and 70 percent go on to four-year colleges (about 22 percent go to a two-year school). White students comprise 56 percent of the student body, with Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans accounting for most of the rest.
Trevor Menders got into his top choice, Columbia University, to major in dance (and perhaps in chemistry or math as well). He had great grades and SAT scores, but "did very little community service, did not attend a multiweek overpriced SAT prep course and did not destroy my junior year with all AP courses," he says.
"Instead, I pursued what I wanted to do, took the courses I wanted to take at the appropriate level -- and it all worked out."
He does have a clear passion for dance, though: He was a trainee with the City Ballet of San Diego for the season ending in May.
Menders also got into Tulane University in New Orleans; Pomona College, the University of California--Berkeley and the University of California--Santa Barbara in California; and Vassar College and Skidmore College in New York, but not Harvard University and Princeton University. He was wait-listed at Duke University and Vanderbilt University.
GPA: 4.0 unweighted
SAT scores: 720 math; 730 critical reading; 720 writing
Extracurriculars: Editor and writer on the school newspaper; city ballet preprofessional division and junior company; took classical voice lessons
Essay: Making good decisions after seeing friends making not-great ones .
Noteworthy: He scored 2100 on the SAT after prepping with a $2 used study guide. The next time he worked math problems over a weekend before prom and scored 2170 the morning after it. "The prom helped me to relax," he said.
Biggest surprise: Admissions officers are willing to work with you. "Reaching out to these people is scary, but it's really helpful," he says .
Worked for him: Doing one application at a time, rather than completing a number simultaneously.
Campus visits: Showing up paid off. On the tours, he ruled out applying to Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College because he didn't get the right "vibes."
Advice: "Double- and triple-check your application," he says . He had to amend his Columbia app after submitting it because he put links in the wrong place and one of seven essays under the wrong prompt.
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News "Best Colleges 2015" guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
