<p>Before reading this, please know that I am sorry but I have little to no clue about the college admissions process, and, as of such, any "chance back" I gave would be of very small value. As of such, I will not attempt to "chance back" unless requested.</p>
<p>** Planned Major: ** Physics, minor in mathematics or philosophy.</p>
<p>** Other: ** I am a white-european male, living in Michigan. parents divorced. Mother remarried. Combined annual income: $40,000.</p>
<p>** Schools applied to (in order of which I'm hoping for):** Caltech, MIT, Yale, Stanford.</p>
<p>** Tests, GPA, and why I applied **
My school is a small public school in a rural area of Michigan. I received the highest score on the ACT in my school with a 32 (34 math, 31 reading, 31 english, 33 science)(the average score for my school, I believe, was a 20). I received tons of letters and emails from different colleges, saying that they hoped I would apply. I assume that these were sent en masse, but I was still ecstatic when I recieved a letter from MIT. Thinking that I had a chance at the "higher" colleges, I researched each and took the SAT II subject tests, being told by my guidance counselore that they were "just like the ACT" (ha!), and ended up receiving a 670 in physics and 750 in mathematics. (physics low due to not knowing electicity...at all... not covered in my one-semester physics class)(Kinda wish I knew I could have skipped questions). (I took all three tests only once due to financial issues).
My GPA is really low, a 3.7 (doesn't weight) - Physical education really messed me up in my freshmen year... the main three things covered were pilates, yoga, and jumprope... I couldn't bend in the ways required for the first two, and I still have scars from jumprope (literally, I have a long white stripe along the side of my arm from where the jumprope wrapped around me and split my skin). It didn't help that tried to give some constructive criticism to the gym teacher (hes used to be the football coach), and he took it the wrong way. I am still in the top 10%.</p>
<p>** Course Rigor **
My school does not offer IB, AP, nor honors classes, and you can only dual enroll if you are a senior, and then only at the nearest community college. I talked to my guidance councilor and was able to convince her to allow me to have an independent-study period for AP chemistry (not physics because they only offer 1 semester of physics at my school, versus one year-long and one semester-long chemistry class). I also managed to convince her to allow me to dual-enroll through an internet class to a farther away community college, since they had a math class not offered at my school. (my school only offers up to calculus I, and neither college had a class that I had not taken in highschool other than trigonometry.) I also dualenrolled in the nearer college to take a philosophy and applied physics class (only available physics class, and I needed something to supplement only having 1 semester of physics at my school).</p>
<p>Im not sure if these are all ** extracurriculars **, but I thought these were important and listed on my applications in some form or another...
[ul]
[<em>] I tried to find a place to do research work and failed to do so. Instead, I wrote a paper on my own about cosmology (more specifically, about time), and had it reviewed by teachers at my school. It is not in a proper format, and so I did not submit it, but talked about it in essays. (An interesting point, atleast to me it is, is that I had to translate a paper written in russian to english in order to find a reference).
[</em>] My school only teaches Spanish, and I wanted to learn a foreign language (I had no interest in spanish), so I taught myself Latin with a Latin dictionary, "Harry potter and the philosophers stone" (As an answer key), and "Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis" (As a textbook).(a brief side point, for others who read latin, the translation of the hobbit ("Hobbitus Ille") is amazing, and readily available due to the movies!)
[<em>] I am part of my schools clubs, but they don't do much...Key Club, National Honors Society, Science Club (also does Science Olympiad), all of which I participate whenever they do something, mostly community service - I love doing some of the activities, like cleaning up the edge of the forest (its right next to our school)...Our botany teacher comes along and points out different types of plants as we pick up all the trash.
[</em>] I also take part of school spirit activities, like our annual hall decorating competition (I do the math to make sure we have the furthest space between every balloon/ribbon/etc.) and the Float building for homecoming (same thing making most use of the space provided, and constructing some of the more elaborate objects, for example, the leaning tower of Pisa out of pizza boxes!).
[<em>] I didn't know if this counted, but its something I'm proud of... I've been a blood donor ever since I could donate. (Saving 3 lives every 8 weeks!)
[</em>] I am the math/science oriented answer-er on my schools quizbowl team. (we do it mostly for fun though, never won any of the meets because we split our "good members" between our teams to make sure every team does decently rather than one team wins and the others do horribly).
[<em>] I first found out about the AMC/AIME/USAMO earlier this year (my senior year). Immediately interested, I worked with my calculus teacher and my principal to create a math club for my school to participate. I formed a fundraiser, and talked to each member of the club myself. (theres no structure for authority in it, but they all consider me a leader since I was the founder).
[</em>] My largest activity is instrumental music. I try to practice an 3 hours every day (28 hours per week). I am a member of my schools concert, pep, and marching bands. I am section leader of the lowbrass section. I participate every year in solo & ensemble with the other trombones (last year was a septet, this year its going to be an octet). I've played tenor trombone for 6 years, picked up alto trombone this past year, and am planning on learning ocarina before college starts, and if possible (with all of my schedules), I will learn violin in college.(mentioning this because I mentioned on apps).</p>
<p>** Common essay topics amongst the applications: ** short about founding the math club, long essay about writing the "research" paper, "personality" essay about how my favorite thing to do while practicing trombone is to play along with the vocals of my Disney CD collection.
[/ul]
** Honors: **
[ul]
[<em>] multiple "1's" in state and district solo & ensembles, and "1's" in district and state band festivals.
[</em>] The East shore Wind Symphony accepted a number of highschool students from local schools for a christmas concert they performed. Had to compete at school for getting in. (They called it an honors band).
[li] My school started to award one award per division (math/science/english/social studies/ band/choir/art) in my sophomore year. I recieved the math award in my sophomore year, and both science and band in my junior year. (They nearly took away one of my awards in my junior year because they were supposed to only award one award per student per year... it was kind of funny to me because both divisions didn't want to be the one to take it away and they ended up letting me keep both.)[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>Lastly, my evaluation ** letters ** ...my teachers wanted me to read them after they had submitted them, (both teachers I'm friends with).
[ul]
[<em>] My math teacher's was well written, about three topics: How I read through the sections of the textbook we didn't cover in class. How I taught myself abstract algebra by borrowing one of his old textbooks. About my cosmology paper (he was one of the reviewers).
[</em>] My english teacher's was the best written letter I have ever read. (probably biased, since it was about me, but I thanked him atleast a hundred times before I left after reading it.) It was about me in general as a person, about my love for learning. I don't think I could mention any single part of the letter, since it was so fluent and flowed from one thought to another so well.
[/ul]</p>
<p>I am sorry this is so long, but when I applied to these colleges I thought I had a strong chance, and then reading through the forums I feel like I have no chance whatsoever. I just want to know if I've pushed the limits of my area enough to have a miniscule chance, or if my low GPA/medium test scores will drag me down, and being stuck in limbo between thinking its hopeless and thinking that I have a chance is a really confusing and worrysome place to be. Thank you for reading.</p>
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