Advice

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

<p>Hiya, so from what I've figured out here, chancing is basically useless and the admissions people are unpredictable. So that said, I was wondering if anyone has advice on what I need to work on before applying to Dartmouth ED.</p>

<p>SAT I: 2050 (I'm retaking in Oct)
SAT II: 760 LIT, 740 BIO
GPA: 3.9/4.0
RANK: 2/~400
AP: US History 4 (this is the only ap available junior year)
Senior Courses: AP Bio, AP English, AP Spanish, APES, AP Calc, Hon Physics
Extra Curriculars (I'm only putting the ones I feel show commitment):
Starting a vegetable garden for the food pantry at school
Girl Scouts (9 yrs), Silver Award completed, Gold Award current
Starting a Chinese immersion club
NHS Officer
Prom Committee
Executive Board (our school's answer to Pres, VP, etc)</p>

<p>WORK Experience: Beach Concessions, Daycare supervisor</p>

<p>LOTS AND LOTS o' community service</p>

<p>I'm Asian :P, upper middle class in RI. Public school is sort of competitive? But not really. The only Ivy I've seen seniors go is Brown.</p>

<p>A big thankkkkkk youuuuuuuu!!1!</p>

2

<p>You are Chinese. Most Ivy Leagues almost require that Chinese and Asians get AT LEAST above a 2200 on their SAT for any chance. So that definitely must go up…</p>

<p>For chances, I’d wait for DartmouthForever or another Dartmouth student on CC to answer…</p>

3

<p>Oh, come on. There is no Asian SAT cutoff.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, your SATs are low for an unhooked student at D. So you are already doing the right thing. The other thing is to concentrate on writing a really good essay.</p>

4

<p>Pranam0 does have a point. Ivies aren’t only saturated with Asians, they’re saturated with Asians who have gotten 2400 on the SAT. And that’s the point he was making.</p>

<p>I would suggest focusing on anything besides your academics somethinggeneric, because as you’re well aware, high-academic achieving Asians are extremely common, especially in the New England area. I think talking about starting a vegetable garden would be a good thing to talk about, sustainable living, etc, although by now that’s almost becoming cliche. Girl Scouts would also be good to talk about I think, maybe combine it with some sort of feminism, which again, is somewhat cliche, but it’s still better than talking about being an NHS officer.</p>

5

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<p>Nonsense. No school is saturated with people who scored 2400. There are only about two or three hundred of them per year in the entire country:</p>

<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat_percentile_ranks_2008_composite_cr_m_w.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;

<p>Even if all three hundred of them went to Dartmouth it wouldn’t be “saturated.” Neither is Dartmouth saturated with Asians. Asians make up about 15% of the Dartmouth student body, which is solid representation but is nowhere close to a truly Asian-heavy school such as UC Irvine.</p>

<p>My suggestion for the OP would be to take the ACT. Some people do relatively better on that than on the SAT. Get a 33 or 34 and you will be in decent shape for Dartmouth.</p>

6

<p>You realize that I was just making a generalization, just as Pranam0 was. Also, Asian Americans make up only 5% of the total US population, so, 15% at Dartmouth is much more than just a solid representation.</p>

<p>And as Wikipedia states, “As of 2008, Asian Americans had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the country, and the second highest median personal income.”</p>

<p>Again, it supports what has been said: high achieving Asians are common, and somethinggeneric needs to make herself stand out from that crowd.</p>

7

<p>Well, I think that having done something concrete like creating a vegetable garden that provides fresh vegetables for a food pantry–assuming that that involves actually getting her hands dirty doing unglamorous work, and regularly–is actually quite unusual. More common would be “I started a club and we put up posters about sustainable living” or “I started a club and we raised $1500 for Haiti.” The kind of project that involves a bunch of teens lecturing people about the existence of poverty or something that makes adult eyes roll. No, really??? We never knew!</p>

8

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<p>Yeah, and scoring an SAT 2400 would be an excellent way to do that, since very few people, Asian or otherwise, manage to achieve that.</p>

9

<p>A 2400 is impressive, but it is an academic achievement. Furthermore, it is debatable to what amount adcoms care about standardized scores outside of meeting general requirements of a college, and may just indicate to them that the student could afford to be coached and retook the test multiple times, rather than any actual intellectual ability. Like I have been saying, she needs to focus on casting herself in a light outside of the stereotyped high achieving Asian, and a 2400 does not do that.</p>

10

<p>Thanks for the advice guys!</p>

<p>I personally know a lot of asians that are superhuman, so I totally understand where you’re coming from (though my school has…only me haha). </p>

<p>But I’ll definitely try to raise my SAT score. Obviously a 2400 wouldn’t HURT me.</p>

<p>@consolation: My friend and I dug up/fertilized/watered every bit of that dirt ourselves</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

11

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<p>Right, and high academic achievement is going to help you get into a high-end academic institution a whole lot more than padding your app with feigned interest in some social cause or founding some BS club. Every applicant needs to showcase their own best strengths and genuine interests.</p>

12

<p>At this point the only thing you can do is raise your SAT score (and/or take the ACT), and write wonderful essays.</p>

13

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<p>No one ever suggested that she found ‘some BS club’ or feign interest in anything. I merely suggested she focus on something outside of academics when applying.</p>

14

<p>^^In college admissions academic excellence is the cake and ECs and other interests are the frosting. As with real cakes, the frosting is nice and adds something, but if the cake itself is mediocre all the frosting in the world won’t help.</p>

15

<p>Raise your SAT score, and then focus on your common app essay. You need to make sure that your individuality/personality show through in your essay so that it is memorable to whoever reads it.</p>