<p>i'm a little embarrassed to ask about my chances at getting into smith. but, after reading some other threads, i think i trust everyone's judgement!</p>
<p>i'm applying to smith as a freshman.. probably going into french studies, but i'm also considering german, russian and philosophy</p>
<p>SAT 2130 (750 CR / 610 M / 770 W)
690 Literature, 720 French Listening, 750 French Reading, 640 Bio (low, but..)
Ranked 21/395, public school, urban
AP US history score of 4
currently taking AP English Lit, AP French and AP Modern European History
decent amount of extracurriculars, volunteer work, not so sure about my essay though</p>
<p>Mardou fox, I didn't want to leave you hanging here . . . </p>
<p>You're certainly in the academic range of the type of student Smith admits. "Chances" is a tough concept, mainly because everyone who applies has a chance and because only admission letters will prove how good that chance really was.</p>
<p>Well, like MWFN said, you're definitely in the range. Your SAT scores and AP classes seem similar to my own, actually. You have an even chance IMO, so good luck!</p>
<p>I see nothing overwhelming but more importantly I see nothing that gives me pause. I think you have grounds for cautious but reasonable optimism.</p>
<p>It's important to remember that asking strangers on a CC board for "chances" is pretty random. Very strong candidates are obvious. Candidates with causes for concern are equally obvious, though in neither case should third-party opinion be regarded as gospel. But for the vast majority in the middle, it's "How can we tell how the ad com will weight this file?"</p>
<p>Many times I could not begin to offer a fair opinion until I'd seen a fair representation of who else was applying. Fwiw.</p>
<p>TD always gives good advice, and he is right on with this one! Take our opinions with a grain of salt (although, sometimes the obvious is the obvious.) It all comes down to the application pool, and where you fall relative to it. Good luck.</p>
<p>her sats appear way above average for smith except for math, which is right in the middle, i don't think her prognosis is quite so "guarded" as some make it seem.
good luck, and i'm sure you have quite a decent chance.</p>
<p>PF, it's a paradox that if you have average stats, you have a below average chance of getting in, given how there are far more applicants with the average stats. And there are twin corollaries observed by those who follow admissions: there are always some shots that look good that don't get in and some that look dubious that make it. Reading five years of admissions results on CC has taught me caution.</p>
<p>The math score is in the middle? I would have thought it would be on the low end. Her CR and writing scores are quite strong.</p>
<p>But really, SATs matter little; they are just the first bar an applicant must clear. Admissions officers know that the SATs are not great predictors (Pres. Christ has said so publicly), and so ad. officers tend to look more closely at grades, course load, ECs, and essays. I think the "guarded" part of TD's post comes from our inability to see the poster's entire application and to know how it will be viewed by the adcom.</p>
<p>A quality female candidate always has a good shot at Smith because the college can admit so many of them -- unlike at co-eds, where a much larger percentage of the quality women must be rejected. That said, there were only two seniors in my d's hs accepted to Smith last year - and (I think) four rejected. These girls were all taking AP classes, with scores comparable to the OP (with higher math scores) and with varied ECs. Note: these rejected four were all accepted to MHC and Bryn Mawr, among others, so it wasn't that their credentials or essays were lacking. </p>
<p>Why did Smith pick my d and the other girl over the others? Who knows? That's the guarded part.</p>
<p>MWFN illustrates a valid point: to make an informed opinion about "chances," you not only need to have some feel for who has gotten in but who hasn't. </p>
<p>MWFN, that's some pipeline your D's high school is. D's hs has about one applicant per year though maybe that's good for a West Coast school...I have no idea where you are.</p>
<p>I live in PA, and my d attended a small private hs after we moved away from our public hs in NJ. </p>
<p>Last year the school did indeed have an unusual "pipeline": almost all of the top students were girls, and most of them did not get into their top choices. One-third of all the girls ended up at single gender colleges. Fortunately, the guidance counselor had seen the writing on the wall about how competitive admissions would be, especially for girls, and urged them all to consider all-women schools in addition to the Ivies and MIT. I don't think the all-women's colleges had EVER seen so many applications from this high school -- and they may never again.</p>
<p>that does seem unusual, but congratulations to your daughter! to my knowledge, i'm the only smith applicant at my school (surprising, since i'm in-state). we had a couple applicants to wellesley, one to barnard, a good number to simmons. maybe it will help me that i'm not competing against other students from my school.</p>
<p>MWFN, I was trolling for seniors in the other thread because I have a hypothesis: My D adores Smith, too, which you can pretty well tell if you accept my descriptions. But even the first two years, she was aware of the "Smith bubble," though it dampened her enthusiasm not the least. </p>
<p>But I suspect that after a semester in D.C. and a semester in Budapest, she may come back and start feeling a little pressed by the bubble and impatient with the parochialism that comes of being insulated from "the real world." Not a bad thing, necessarily, a good prelude to being expelled into the work world and/or grad school.</p>
<p>I do think she's going to be proudly a "Smithie for Life."</p>
<p>Oh, another thing MWFN, comparing notes: D applied to two of the Ivies, plus Stanford, and is now so happy that she didn't get in. Or at least that she's attending Smith instead of any of them. </p>
<p>For her, Yale would have been the hardest to turn down.</p>