Hello CC Community,
It’s been almost a year since I last used this website when I was applying to Andover (and no other schools) back in 8th grade. I’m in my freshman year now, and I’m hoping to apply to a couple of BS in my junior year. I have heard varied comments saying it’s harder/ the same as applying in freshman year.
So, more information about me. I was waitlisted and ultimately not accepted to Andover, so I’m back at it again (because my public high still leaves me unsatisfied)! I did not apply for FA back then, and I don’t intend to in my 11th year. A list of my possible schools would be: Andover, Exeter, TAMS (Texas Academy of Math and Science\ safety), Deerfield, maybe some others like Hotchkiss.
In 8th grade, I had a more breadth than depth approach where I participated in like 4-5 extracurriculars despite not being outstanding in any of them. So in 9th grade, I dropped all of them except running and math. I do competition math and made AIME this year from AMC 10 (not outstanding AMC 10 scores, just enough to be on honor roll), and I’m trying to get into JMO in my sophomore year, but that might be too late for applications. I’m also treasurer in my math club.
As for running, I am gearing for this as my wildcard aspect of my application i.e. it’s unique but risky to have something so unique because I run marathons. It’s not like I only run marathons, but in freshman year, I ran like 4-5 races that build distance and culminate in the Chevron Houston Marathon. I had some decent finishes in the preliminary races like 2nd place in my age group twice (out of like 10-11 ppl), but I was only 7th place in my age group at the marathon (I’m 14 about to turn 15). The risk factor in this extracurricular is that AO may be impressed that I ran such a long distance and has committed so much time, but he/ she may not be impressed that I don’t necessarily have “commendable achievements” with respect to marathon running such as 1st place in age group etc. I am hoping to patch this by fundraising for an association called “Young Texans Against Cancer” with my running this year. I chose this particular organization because I lost my grandfather to lung cancer, and I’m going to be running the Aramco Half Marathon in 2017 in his memory (doing the half this year because I don’t have enough time to run for full and do math competitions). I am hoping this adds more of a unique tone. One last problem with marathon running is that, AO may not know how I can contribute to their school because I don’t run cross country. It’s a significant difference between cross country running (at most 10-11 miles) and marathon running (26.2 miles), and I don’t intend to switch if I am accepted. I understand that Andover has a diverse array of athletics options, from skiing to rock climbing, and I’m hoping I can still pursue my unique athletic activity at their campus.
Besides these two highlights in extracurriculars, I am set to be valedictorian of my grade (5.0/5.0 GPA) and I got all 99 percentile scores in ISEE back in 8th grade, but I’m taking the SAT this October for my college application and for my high school applications, which I aim to get a perfect/ near perfect score on. A question about the SAT I have is, from practice tests I’ve been getting like 1570/1600 on the New SAT, but I’m not sure if I should do the essay? From my experience though, grades and standardized tests are more of a prerequisite for schools to seriously consider you rather than a wow factor on your application, so even if I do get a perfect score, I doubt that’ll be the reason why I get into any schools.
The last topic I want to talk about today is one last possible highlight in my application. I might be doing competition chemistry if I can find enough time in this dreadful summer! I have started my school’s chemistry club, and am set to be copresident with another friend of mine (not necessarily democratically elected, but nobody knows that lol), and I’m hoping to win some scholarship competitions and USNCO in this respect.
So I know I have a lot of questions sprinkled throughout this post, and thanks for taking to time to read all this CC community! I really appreciated your feedback last year, and I know you all will be super helpful again this year about basically “critiquing” my life, so thanks again!
