psekar2 - congrats on CMU, I plan on applying there for Computer Engineering. We have very similar stats. =)
after reading this, i feel like i have literally no chance at Dartmouth or UPenn…
3.5uw gpa
2250 SAT…
No national awards
Just a heartfelt essay about my upbringing…
Lots of EC’s and volunteer work…
And i really like dartmouth…
put the passion in the essays
and use your ec’s to bring you up
accepted to: johns hopkins, yale, mit, northwestern, rice
attending: northwestern
act: 35
e/c: track, research, scioly, volunteering, etc.
Did NU offer you that much better of a financial package than Yale or MIT or JHU? Why NU?
^ Just had to comment, JHU gave me a CRAP package compared to NU - $2500 work study/$3500 subsidized federal loan. NU offered me a $7500 scholarship that covered all of my calculated need and another extra $3500 unsubsidized federal loan.
Indy89,
What is scioly ?
Accepted: Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Duke, Wharton, Dartmouth, Cal, UCLA, UCSD, UCD
Rejected: Stanford
Attending: Cal
3.7uw, 4.4w
2210 SAT
Rank: Top 10%
EC: Track, XC, Community service, etc.
Hooks: Stanford and Columbia legacy?
Location: CA
just wondering theterminator, why are you attending Cal? Is it because they gave you a better financial aid package?
My stats are sorta similar to yours…
Yale: Accepted/Attending
Harvard: Accepted
Brown: Accepted
Stanford: Waitlisted
Georgetown: Accepted
University of Chicago: Accepted
Amherst: Waitlisted
Pomona: Accepted
Wesleyan: Accepted
UC Berkeley: Accepted/Regents
UCLA: Accepted/Regents
UC San Diego: Accepted/Regents
SAT: 2270
SAT II: World History 800, Math II 800, Bio M 760
GPA: 3.98 unweighted
EC’s: Bunch of political activism
Excellent recommendations!
And my essays really complemented my activities.
Blech, I felt really bad cuz I had to reject like… 10-11 schools. I loved every one of the schools I applied to. =\
Go Bulldogs! 
Accepted: Boston University EDI CGS, UMass-Amherst
Rejected: University of Pittsburgh (in state too)
Waitlisted: Indiana University-Bloomington (I put business down)
Attending: Boston University
School Type: Top Public
Location: Pennsylvania
Race/Gender: Caucasian
Major: Marketing
Stats:
SAT: 1700s 
GPA: 3.3
Rank: Doesnt rank, but ~top 40%
AP: NONE
ECs:
Community Service
Baseball coach for mentally/physically handicapped kids (Wrote my essays on this)
Community service in Israel at the Haifa Zoo
Hebrew school teacher
That’s about it for ECs. My school doesn’t have much.
Very happy with how it turned out. I didnt work too hard in high school, but I got into the school I wanted
Even now, I guess I’m not really sure. I think its because my first choice was by far Stanford. But once I got over that, Wharton and MIT were pretty appealing, but it would’ve been hard to afford them. I thought about it closely though, because although they are in either a crap location or have a crappy campus, they are both schools that would probably be relatively easier to graduate from than Berkeley. However, Berkeley had a few parallels with Stanford which I liked. And finally, Berkeley would allow me to stay close to my girlfriend, who matters more to me than a Harvard degree. Even if we do break up, a Berkeley degree comes cheap and is nothing to laugh at.
Accepted: Duke (AB Duke Finalist), Northwestern, Davidson, UC Berkeley (Regents finalist), UCLA, Oberlin, College of William and Mary, Tufts
Rejected: Yale (deferred ea)
Waitlisted: Dartmouth
Attending: Duke
School Type: Huge, Public
Location: CA
Race/Gender: Caucasian/Female
Major: English
Stats:
SAT: 2240
GPA: 4.3 w, 4.0 uw
Rank: 3 out of 830
AP: 8 (5’s on all exams but one)
ECs:
Editor-in-chief and founder of school newspaper, band, secretary of interact club, president of CSF, correspondent for regional newspaper, city’s Youth Advisory Committee, teaching English at an orphanage in India over the summer
Duke has always been my dream school and I couldn’t be happier!
What’s in parthenses are merit scholarships I got:
Accepted: SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Geneseo, Syracuse(12k per year), Bard(20k per year), Bennington, Sarah Lawrence(15k per year), Ithaca(12k per year)
Rejected: Brown
Attending: Ithaca
School Type: Public
Location: New York
Race/Gender: Caucasian/Male
Major: Writing, probably with a creative concentration
Stats:
SATs: 1310/1600, 1900/2400 (600CR, 710M, 590 Writing)
SAT IIs: 730 Math I, 640 U.S. History
GPA: On a 100 point scale with weighting, 100.2
Rank: 15/336
APs: 3 on European History, 3 on U.S. History
ECs(it’d be a long list, so I’ll just include some of the fundamental stuff):
Science Olympiad for all 4 years of high school, co-captain both junior and senior year
Cast member of two high school musicals and one high school play(main character role)
Student Government representative for 4 years
Chorus
Mathletes for every year except this year
Writing poetry when I can
Community Service:
Over 4 years, have done 40 hours+ for a local organization that organizes local entertainment events.
Haverford (Reach) (ED) - Rejected
Middlebury (Reach) - Accepted/Matriculating
Hamilton (Reach/Match) - Accepted
Wesleyan (Reach) - Waitlisted
Colgate (Reach/Match) - Rejected
Brandeis (Reach/Match) - Waitlisted
Boston College (Match) - Accepted
University of Rochester (Match) - Accepted
NYU (Reach/Match) - Rejected
SUNY (Binghamton, Stony Brook and Geneseo) - (Safeties) - All Accepted
Academic Record:
-3.7 (Only a guess, my school does it out of 100…so mine would be 92)
-690M 660CR 650W
-Bio 700 Chem 750 US Hist. 630
-4 APs, 3 Honors By Graduation (Chemistry, US History, US Government, Calculus AB)
ECs:
-School Orchestra
-NYYS Chamber Music Program
-NYYSMA Exam (During middle school though) Level 5 - 98 Level 6 - 97
-Key Club (Through this club I’ve done lots of community service such as soup kitchens, park clean ups and walks such as AIDS walk or March of Dimes)
-Volunteer Lab Assistant (Summer job…counts as both work experience and volunteer I guess. I worked in a lab studying possible vaccines for malaria in rodent models).
-Treasurer for Badminton Club
Other Stuff:
Asian Male (Born in China, Citizen of China and Perm.Res. of US)
Both parents are researchers (Both went to college in China)
No Religion
Middle Class Income
Public School (Bronx Science, 565 Seniors, No Ranking, Very Competitive)
COlsen, I got in with those exact stats. My SATs was 20 pts lower, and I didn’t really stand out in anything except for a few concentrated activities in science.
G’luck
wow awesome job!
I looked at ur stats profile and yeah, we look really similar. Did you have a lot of EC’s? What do you think gave you the push to get you in??
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I didn’t really have many exceptional EC’s. Nothing national, and I dropped out of research later on because I couldn’t find a mentor. I didn’t anything (college-wise) over the summers.
All my ECs were concentrated, however, and I was very careful in asking who to write my recommendations and peer evaluations.
You should definitely do what I didn’t do: start writing your essay early and revise it. Show it to your English teacher and counselor and get feedback - but you probably know the drill.
Dartmouth, unlike most other schools, does not care if you are interested in the school or not, which is probably why their yield rate is relatively low. No help there =/.
I concentrated on my interest for science and math on the common app and it shows this interest through my ECs. That’s all I can remember now … the whole process was a blur.
Just remember to do the pre-app, and start early to save yourself some stress and maximize your odds.
Attending: Wesleyan University
Carleton - Rejected
Connecticut College - Accepted
Haverford - Rejected
Kenyon - Accepted
UNC-Asheville - Accepted
Northwestern - Rejected
Rhodes - Accepted
Vassar - Rejected
Wesleyan - Accepted from waitlist
Williams - Rejected
White male, North Carolina
GPA - 4.4/3.4
SAT - 2280 (720CR/760M/800W)
Rank - top 30% (highly competitive public HS)
7 APs
ECs - 5 years guitar, 3 years bass, 2 years teaching guitar, audio production, music club, ice/roller hockey, 5 years summer job (construction)
Recs - haven’t read them
Essays - spent tons and tons of time on them, got them edited by English teacher several times and once by ■■■■■■■■■.com
jared, do you think it was your rank that dragged you down?
my AP exams were super easy this year!
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