<p>Yeah, I was just there this past week Tuesday and Wednesday I just got home today because it was a long drive. I guess you could say I have longish red hair. It doesn't seem long to me because I donated it for cancer patients a while ago, but i guess it's getting pretty long again.</p>
<p>aha, I remember you : ) are you choosing Wellesley over Harvard, then? if so, why?</p>
<p>woah! either you have me confused with someone else or you misunderstood whatever I said. I applied to Harvard, but unfortunately or fortunately didn't get in. I will be attending Wellesley in the fall despite great offers from other schools like Vanderbilt and Emory. I like Wellseley because it's small but big enough for me (twice my high school) I also like the boston area and applied to / considered lots of schools in that area. When I visited all my top choices Wellesley seemed like the best social atmosphere for me, and also the best open acess to academic help, resources, and oppertunities.</p>
<p>wait now i'm confused Jabberwocky who are you?</p>
<p>I'm the girl with short blond hair who spoke to you briefly as we returned from classes tuesday afternoon. We were going up the small hill to the admissions building, there was an asian girl to the left of you that you seemed to be getting along well with, and I was to the right of you. Sorry about the mix-up with Harvard and whatnot >__< the last week has been a haze of people and college visits, I must have mixed you up somehow.</p>
<p>OK I remember you now. I think both of you are from the west coast so that was kinda confusing. Your major is english right? I think I sat with your mom and talked to a current student in the admissions building. I understand the mix up I got so many e-mails during visits that I can't remember who is which one. I'll be at Wellesley in the fall, best of luck making your decision.</p>
<p>Wow, after reading everybody's stats I'm pretty shocked that I get to be a part of this amazing class next year! I think my extracurriculars make me stand out as an applicant, rather than my test scores/GPA. I came out with a 3.92 unweighted, 31 ACT and 760 Literature/630 Biology E on SAT IIs. However, I am also a teen mediator for a nonprofit in Seattle, a journalist for a professional newspaper in my community, and have worked with an immigrant rights organization. Something I did on my application that may have helped is that I listed some of my interests aside from school/volunteer activities. For example, I talked about my interest in French culture, and told the board about my exchange student. Also, I'm interested in IR and did a summer program at Georgetown. Anything you can do during summer to show just how passionate you are about something is great!</p>
<p>Hi everyone! I, too, was accepted at Wellesley RD with Likely for EE.</p>
<p>SAT: 800 CR, 800 WR, 680 M (2280 composite)
SAT II: 780 US History, 760 French (taken as a sophomore), 710 Eng Lit, 640 Math IIC
AP's: 5's on US History, Eng Lit and Composition, French Language; will be taking AP Euro History and Calc AB in two weeks
GPA: My school is weird and doesn't actually tell us what our GPA is (no idea why), but including my first semester senior grades it's around a 4.1-4.2. My school is a fairly competitive private one that doesn't weight honors courses (which for me have been harder than the AP courses!), so it's more on the deflationary side.
Rank: unknown as my school doesn't rank, but I'd estimate it to be somewhere around top 10%-15% of a 60 person graduating class
Extracurriculars: Editor of the biweekly paper (involvement for the past 7 years), summer intern for PR and sales at a non-profit children's mental health clinic, hand bell chime choir leader, freshman world history course TA for 2 years, FIRST robotics team website designer, film score reviewer
Other factors: legacy (my mother went here), have attended an all-girls middle and high school (supposedly the acceptance rate)
Summer programs: Harvard (B+ in Behaviorism and B in Beginning Journalism), Stanford, JHU's EPGY long-distance</p>
<p>I consider myself to be a fairly strong student but there are definitely many smarter people in my class and at other schools; what you have to do is make your personality stand out. Yes, grades and test scores are important but Wellesley really does care about who you are as a person. Being well-rounded in interests helps-they want to know that you like to learn. They like to see that you're passionate about something (as cliche as that sounds) and that you have a heart. I'm an unofficial film sore reviewer, and in my past three years of reviewing I've never encountered anyone my age in this field. There are very few female composers, let alone reviewers (I personally don't know any, at least) so I guess that helped my case. I wrote my essay about film music and its importance to me. And I think I wrote a fairly good "Why Wellesley?"-I'm passionate about all-women's education after having gone to an all-girls' school for the past seven years and the sort of empowerment and bonding that goes on.</p>
<p>What you do with your summer is also important, whether it be working, training for a sport, doing community service, taking classes at a local college or online, etc. All colleges want to see that you're responsible and mature enough to take on some kind of development activity when you could be relaxing and not doing much with your time.</p>
<p>Of course, demonstrated interest in the college also helps; I visited the college, had an interview with an alumna, and hosted the Wellesley college rep when she visited my school. I accidentally asked "Can you take classes at Wellesley if you're a student at Wellesley" (I meant to say MIT) during the rep's college presenation, and they still let me in! Alas, the dumb legacy appears in every college :P</p>
<p>andrea, what's a pretty girl like you doing in a forum like this? : )</p>
<p>Dude...I didn't realize that you were at CC! The internet is a wonderfully weird place :P</p>
<p>Do you think I have a chance???
Profile: African-American female-- first generation to go to college
Possible Hook: Soccer---Wellesley sent me a soccer recruitment letter, but I'm not sure if that will really help me. </p>
<p>GPA: 3.69 (my school doesn't put weight on any grades, but all my classes are honors)---I don't have any Ap's as of now because they could not fit into my schedule---but Next year, I will take AP Biology and English [my school doesn't allow more than three per year--but I am taking the most challenging courses that I my school offers and that can fit into my schedule!] </p>
<p>Extra-Cirriculars
Soccer---Awarded Honorable Mention All League--2004; also received coaches award (2004)
Secretary for my school Scholarship fund(2005- present); [Habitat For Humanity Member (2004-present)]; Model United Nations Delegate (2003-Present); Chorus Member (2003-present); United Methodist Church Praise Team Member (2005-present); Student Council Homeroom Representative (2003-2004); Hosptial Summer Internships (2005 and 2006)]. </p>
<p>I have to retake the SAT b/c my scores were horrible, but I will not give up until I get 700+ in each section. I am planning on taking the Biology and Literature SATII's this June.</p>
<p>I, as are many people on this thread, will be a member of Wellesley's Class of '10.</p>
<p>So, late but whatever, answering to your questions... On the SAT, I got 760V, 700WR and 680M. SATII: 730 Lit, 720 BioE, 710 French. (Taken into consideration that I am a foreigner). As for ECs and special accomplishments, I wrote a couple of newspaper articles over the years, went to a leadership conference in DC last year and did a lot of church things, including leadership positions. What also helped, I know five languages (required in my school are at least 4, though).</p>
<p>I think what really helped my application the most was the alumna interview. Sign up for it as soon as you can; try to interview with as many schools as possible, and also be prepared; I found it helped to have specific questions about the school prepared, so they saw that I really care about it. My interview lasted for more than three hours, that is, for about two of them, we discussed politics and the economic situation and so on...</p>
<p>Anyway, hope that this helps... O yeah, be sure to start your applications as early as possible!</p>
<p>hey, I'm class '10 too--just out of curiousity, what languages do you speak and why do you know so many? You sound really interesting : )</p>
<p>Well, as to why I know them, that is easy... I am from Switzerland, where there are four official languages, two out of which every student learns starting in elementary school, (German, which we speak at home, and French for me). Later, English becomes mandatory, and, at some schools, Latin (like at mine). I took Italian as an extracurricular. </p>
<p>Where are you from?</p>
<p>I'm from California, though I've stayed in Geneva with family and lived for a while in Annecy le Vieux--are you from the more German-speaking part of Switzerland (I have friends who live in Bern and Zurich)..?</p>
<p>My father is from Zurich, and my mother lives in a small town nearby. How did you get to live in Switzerland? But I am curious... why did you choose Wellesley, and what other schools did you consider?</p>
<p>I travel abroad a lot, simply put. I'm American, but when I was twelve my parents sent me to stay in Aix-en-Provence for the summer, when I didn't know any French. Since then, I've spent a good deal of time in France, and then sort of...migrated...to other European countries. I have a cousin who lives in Geneva, and inbetween trips I stay with her. For instance, I travelled a lot around central/eastern Europe this year (Hungary, Austria, Germany) and I had some downtime before my next destination, so I just took a train from Munich to Geneva and stayed with her for a bit before flying to England. I remember that train ride because you could see how the languages changed--I started off hearing high German, which morphed into Swiss German, then a group of Italian-speaking school children got on (they spoke German as well, which was the only way I could hope to speak to them. The only problem is that my German <em>sucks</em> and I only found out halfway through the conversation that I was going to Ganf, not Gen</p>
<p>Wow, what a nice message.</p>
<p>For me, my pre-Wellesley situation looked slightly different. I decided that I wanted to go to college in the US when I was in Illinois on student exchange.
For that decision, there are several reasons; in the University of Zurich, there is a prof-student ratio of about 100:1, and all of the subjects I am interested in (law, journalism, psychology) completely overfilled. My first choice as far as major concerns right now, international relations, is not even available there; I would have had to go to Geneva for that, and with the 30k scholarship I got from Wellesley, I would have ended up paying just as much. </p>
<p>I am probably one of these girls who rates boys in class as "immature". However, I am quite glad that Harvard and MIT are so nearby; at least social life without guys can get quite boring after a while. I am very curious how the testosterone-free environment will be like to live in.
However, my chief reason for applying to all-women's schools was financial aid; also my parents are by no means poor, they never set money aside for my secondary education, on account of college in Switzerland being almost free.
From the beginning, "Wellesley" was stuck in my head as a possibility (I had come across it reading Hillary Clinton's autobiography - I just love her - and that movie, Mona Lisa Smile).I applied to Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke (I got into all of these), was admitted to and offered a full merit scholarship by Wesleyan College in Georgia, wait-listed by Bryn Mawr and rejected by Princeton. I rejected Wesleyan College on account of there academic standards being far inferior to Wellesley's, and, I have to admit, for prestige reasons, too. In addition, I could not picture myself living in the South, I am quite liberal. (What about you?)
I also really think that Wellesley is the right place for me, judging by what alumnae told me, and by what kind of classes they offered, extracurriculars, sports (that is, the one sport I can do - riding), location, size...</p>
<p>So, that was my tale...</p>
<p>I am liberal, but not overwhelmingly so. For instance, on the subject of gay marriage (a very hot topic in the US, perhaps not so much in Swtizerland) I fully support gay rights, but have reservations about gay marriage, for various reasons (none of which are religious). I have been told by friends that I am liberal in spirit but conservative in policy, which hurts because I <em>hate</em> George Bush and don't want to be in any way affiliated with him. I'm always getting more excited about Wellesley because they have so many interesting incoming students! It's funny that you ride--I live on a ranch of sorts; my mother breeds Andalusians so I can look out my window and see 30 odd horses any time of the day. In a (bitter, bitter) twist of irony, I'm dangerously allergic to horses, and have been sent to the hospital on more than one occasion after having come in contact with them. I can't imagine living in the South because of the scary republicans but also, oddly enough, because it is so <em>hot</em>. I'm a California girl and should by all rights be addicted to the sun, but I actually hate hot weather. I'm very pleased to be going someplace cold for college : )</p>
<p>I'm another Class of '10, and am so excited, especially since I'm a first-generation college student. So I hope this helps!</p>
<p>My cumulative GPA just barely put me into the top 10% at my large public high school (something like a 92.7%), my ACT was 32 (I don't remember the individual scores) and my SATs were only 790 CR, 610 M and 740 W. So, not amazing, compared to a lot of people on here.</p>
<p>However, I love my extracurriculars, and even though I've devoted 800+ hours to them in the past two years (because of the IB Programme, which I'm in, we have to document them in 11th and 12th grades), I've never been scattered about it. I was captain of the school's mock trial team, captain of the school's varsity indoor track team, and captain of the school's varsity track and field team, two of those roles being filled simultaneously. Also, I had roles in our school musical and play productions, participated in the school newspaper, performed community service, competed in Odyssey of the Mind, competed in a dance company, and went to summer academic programs such as JHU CTY (not all of these at the same time, but throughout my four years of high school). This definitely worked in my favor.</p>
<p>Beyond ECs, my academics also had an upward trend, despite their poor cumulative representation. 9th grade saw 80s, 10th saw low 90s, and 11th and 12th grades saw very high 90s. The interesting connection was that in 11th and 12th grades I participated in the IB Programme, so I was taking much harder courses and excelling in them significantly more than I did in the basic courses I had taken in 9th and 10th grades.</p>
<p>So, from my acceptance I think I can say that even if your GPA isn't ridiculously high (whether through inflation or hard work or sheer insanity), what matters is that you show development throughout the years, an increase in motivation, and show that you have passion that comes before your comfort. Also, they like hard classes, naturally. I know that in my case I don't think I would have been accepted if it weren't for the IB Programme and the fact that I've excelled in it. Get recs from teachers who know and love you for the work you've done. That being said, make sure you've connected with your teachers, and make sure they KNOW you. Being brilliant is fine, being vocal is fine, but being brilliant and being vocal at the same time is the way to reach out to your current teachers. Finally, on the application, be honest about why you want to go there, don't just say what you think they want to hear. Represent yourself fairly and with confidence.</p>
<p>Hope that helped! Oh, and I did apply EE, and they said I was a possible candidate. So, I was part of the 25% of possibles that got accepted, which means my record didn't make me a shoe-in...but I still made it in, and that's what matters!</p>