can i get in?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Haverford College
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<p>Ok so I'm currently a junior at High School. I have traveled the world for most of my life. I have lived in Tunisia, Indonesia, and Italy prior to living here in New York. I speak 4 languages fluently(English, French, Italian, and Arabic) and took courses in 3 others (latin, Indonesian, and Spanish). </p>

<p>My stats are not too good GPA: 3.7, SAT: 1930 (i took it in May and did alot worse than i expected. Assume I got over a 2000 because I'm re-taking it and i know i could do alot better.), AP French (5), AP US History (expecting a 4). Most of my other classes are honors. My GPA is not too good because I didn't do too good when i first moved here but this year i have a 95 average). </p>

<p>I did alot of community work, most with my school (such as seasonal volunteer for the elderly shoveling snow and raking leaves depending on the season), helped build a playground in an elementary school, among others. I volunteer every wednesday to help out with autistic kids and am planing to volunteer a month with some UN or SOS program abroad. </p>

<p>Last summer I interned at the a major newspaper for a month and received an outstanding recommendation from them.</p>

<p>Awards i have received include the Rutgers Book award, 7th place in the National french contest in 2005 and 4th place in 2006, Bronze in the Annapolis Music Festival in 2005. I received a couple of MUN awards. I also got nominated to represent my school at the Youth Leadership conference thing, and am a member of the NAtional Society of High school scholars.</p>

<p>School Activities: french club, yearbook (maybe editor in chief next year), debate club, student council (president this year), newspaper (writer and photo editor), and the young democrats club.</p>

<p>So out of everything i've told you, do you think i could get into an IVy league school of even a top school? I plan to be an ambassador or a reporter for CNN when i grow up so my top choices are Georgetown University, Northwestern, Washington University in St. Louis, Boston College, Dartmouth, and Swarthmore. </p>

<p>Please let me know what you think and if u have any advice or colleges matching my situation and goals.</p>

<p>Thank you :]</p>

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<p>it seems like you're a good match for georgetown and haverford (particularly haverford for your heavy involvement in community service), but for both schools you should really REALLY try and bring your SAT score up. considering your background and interest in language/travel, you might find BC a bit boring, but again, if you can bring your SAT score up, you shouldn't have a problem getting in. schools like dartmouth and swarthmore might snub you for your stats since they are both very much desired, but again, i don't know whether you would be happy in homogeneous communities such as dartmouth or boston college. don't know much about northwestern or wash. univ-- are you applying as a potential french major? languages are not haverford's strongest department-- you would most likely also be taking french classes at bryn mawr and swarthmore.</p>

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<p>2 points...</p>

<p>a) You don't need to go to a particular college to be in journalism but I'd be hard pressed to think of another LAC that has HC's credentials with this... alumni include John Carroll, recent chief editor of LA TImes, Norman Pearlstein, current Editor in chief of Time, Loren Ghiglione, recent dean of Northwestern's School of Journalism... which is one of the best/ if not the best journalism school in the US, Juan Williams, senior correspondent of NPR and Fox News, ect... </p>

<p>b) As a HC student, you can major with some of the best language departments offered to undergrads. BMC's languages are fantastic and the bi-co consortium arrangement makes the bi-college like "right and left hands". As BMC's languages are stronger than swarthmore's and it's closer, there's really no reason to go outside the bi-co in this regard. For example, you can get MA in french and russian as an undergrad. HC students do quite well with the resources at BMC...</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=293012%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=293012&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Redbull298-</p>

<p>By homgeneous communities, you mean? Not diversity of race, nor % of international students, nor region from which the student body pulls, nor economic background, certainly.</p>

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<p>ohmadre,</p>

<p>certainly not, ohmadre, was i referring to any such specific quantitative measurements. rather i was merely referring to my own more generalized perceptions of the types of students that attend from my daytime and overnight visitations and observations of the schools. it is my own honest opinion with which, may i add, many have agreed, an opinion that i offered to share with frappuccino so as to provide a less polished answer to his or her original question. take it or leave it; i don't really care whether or not you agree.</p>

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<p>Hey ReDbUll, did not mean to offend.</p>

<p>You were trying to help OP with your perceptions of which schools on his/her list might best suit. OP has a good list of choices and Haverford should possibly be right at the top of the list. I just wanted to point out that there is a misperception of homogeneity of student body in certain of OP's choices and make sure that did not get mis-understood as fact.</p>

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<p>I didn’t read Redbull’s post to mean that although I can see how it can be. Unfortunately, Dartmouth still has the reputation for being the school that it once was and, understandably, current students are sensitive to that.</p>

<p>Like I’ve written many times before, however, the education that you get during your college years is a combination of what you learn in the classroom (obviously), your extracurricular on-campus activities (clearly) and also, less recognized, the activities and experiences you have off campus too. In particular, it is what is available to students off campus that teaches such important skills/characteristics as maturity through life experience, common sense outside of the ivory tower, having the ability to relate/communicate with people who are not privileged by an elite $40,000 education (um, that would be 99% of Americans), ect. In many fields of study, from clinical medicine to policy to journalism, such ability is important and is recognized during job interviews.</p>

<p>A college is flavored by its surroundings. Given that HC is where it is (close to a diverse city in the NE corridor) and Dartmouth is where it is (an area where the surrounding community isn't diverse), important opportunities afforded to students off-campus are much different between the two. Such factors may be important to some, insignificant to others. </p>

<p>For example, in a policy class, we went to city hall to discuss urban planning and current projects with city officials; I tutored English in Chinatown; friends and I volunteered @ the local prison, food shelter, and HIV clinic; 1-2 times a year, students would drive down to DC for a rally or conference, students annually drive down to GA to protest the School of the Americas, ect…There are things you learn through such informal activities that can’t be reproduced through formal discussion in a classroom. In particular, I believe the richness of such life experiences would be attractive to someone interested in journalism.</p>