Carpe Diem and Chance Me!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Here goes the long post...
Background:
I live in boston with russian/jewish origins.
i attend a fairly famous public high school, couple people to each ivy every year. my grades </p>

<p>Freshman Year (no ap) = no ap offered at this grade level
English honors (no ap) A
History honors (no ap)A
ap spanish A-
honors physics A-
AP Math B+
electives A</p>

<p>Sophomore year
AP spanish B+
AP math B
Honors English (no ap) A
Honors History (no ap) A
Honors chem A-
electives A
junior year
AP spanish A
AP math B+
Bio Honors A-
English (no ap) A
AP History A
electives A
my unweighted gpa's for each year are like 3.75, 3.6 and 3.8 i think, and with electives like 3.8 3.65 3.85
my total gpa would be something like 3.8 UW</p>

<p>next years schedule
AP Gov
AP euro
BC calc
AP Spanish
Film and fiction
Note; i expect my gpa to go up since not taking science which has consistently lowered it
however i will be doing an ocean science independent study, for which i am guaranteed an A so its not like i won't have a science</p>

<p>SAT Scores: 2190 (retaking in october)
CR: 710 M: 740 W: 740 8 on essay
Math II: 760
USH: 760
World History: 770</p>

<p>EC's and stuff:
I know this is a ton of stuff, but i'll list all the possible stuff i could use on my application.
Math team
Ocean science team (will have some sort of rank)
Chess team (1st board)
Television station internship
Chernobyl Children's project volunteering
Helping seniors
Piano
put together my own computer, made website, wrote some programs, etc..
have made several films in and outside of class, going to submit in arts supplement
Currently taking a harvard ssp course, looks like going to get an A</p>

<p>Work
Job as Math School Aide
Job as soccer referee
Job helping my dads company
Awards:
not too good...
a couple national spanish exam silver medals
some places in the ocean science team competitions...
some places in chess competitions...
national honors society
koplik certificate lol
really hoping to get an award for my movie which i submitted to some film festivals</p>

<p>Reccs:
One good.
Two fantastic (they think i'm god on earth)
maybe another one from my ssp professor??</p>

<p>Intresting Facts / Hooks:
Languages: Speak russian, english, spanish and french
Travel: i travel frequently, almost every school vacation, and i have been to 24 countries. (my family emigrated from the soviet union where traveling outside the country was forbidden. Therefore, they value travel immensely.)
Film: one of the courses i took in school is film. i did quite well in it, and after completing the course, made a polished ten minute film as an independent study. this film is quite good, and i have submitted it to a couple film festivals, (awaiting results), also my film teacher is writing my a supplemental recc, and she thinks i'm the most amazing person on earth. lol -.-
Sickness: Starting with september of junior year, and still, i have suffered multitudes of medical problems. THese include severe allergies, lactose intolerance, headaches, fatigue, a peptic ulcer, GastroEsophageal reflux disease and so on...Yet i managed to not only do well in school while being sick, but i actually significantly improved my grades with a higher courseload. </p>

<p>Please Chance me for the following schools:
Harvard
Yale and Yale SCEA(grandfather was a distinguished proffesor, dad's half sister went there, help at all?)
Princeton
Brown and Brown ED
UChicago
Cornell
Dartmouth
Columbia (mom went to barnard, could that help?)
Williams
Amherst
Tufts
Brandeis
Boston University
Umass Amherst</p>

<p>If you have read this whole post, then Have a Fishy Stick! <a href="http://www.imperial-library.info/dog...fishystick.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.imperial-library.info/dog...fishystick.jpg&lt;/a>
If not, -.-, go back and read it. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance for input.</p>

2

<p>Harvard - reach
Yale and Yale SCEA(grandfather was a distinguished professor, dad’s half sister went there, help at all?) - reach but your connections might help you out
Princeton - reach
Brown and Brown ED - reach
UChicago - low reach
Cornell - low reach
Dartmouth - low reach
Columbia (mom went to barnard, could that help?) - reach… not sure if the Columbia/Barnard connection would help a lot?
Williams - low reach/high match
Amherst - low reach/high match
Tufts - match
Brandeis - low match/in
Boston University - low match/in
Umass Amherst - safety</p>

<p>You should try to raise your SAT score for the reaches, and the rest looks good. Good luck!</p>

3

<p>bumpy bump</p>

4

<p>another bump?</p>

5

<p>your credentials are pretty good; at the very least the typical profile of a student attending a top-tier college. Again, for some the schools it is difficult to say. Your chances sometimes don’t depend only on grades and ECs but on essays, the level of interest in the school, or the major you picked. But here’s an overall evaluation:</p>

<p>Harvard - high reach
Yale and Yale SCEA(grandfather was a distinguished proffesor, dad’s half sister went there, help at all?) - high reach but who knows, your grandfather may throw some influence your way
Princeton - another high reach
Brown and Brown ED - reach - high reach if your looking at the pre-med program
UChicago - reach/ high target
Cornell - reach/high target (depending on the undergraduate college you would pick)
Dartmouth - reach
Columbia (mom went to barnard, could that help?) - reach/high reach, i don’t think having a legacy at barnard would influence the decision at Columbia
Williams - high target
Amherst - high target
Tufts - target
Brandeis - target
Boston University - low target/safety
Umass Amherst - safety</p>

<p>again, its difficult to tell on these things but raise your SAT to a high 2200 or even 2300-2400 and you should be fine. And make sure you write a good admission essay, preferably one that really defines who you are, not what kind of student/volunteer/worker/etc. you are. Good luck!</p>

6

<p>i’m curious what you mean be “you will be fine” if i raise my SAT scores
are you saying that the main reason the reach colleges are reaches is because of my low SAT score?
are you saying that the rest of my application is strong enough for those schools?</p>

7

<p>I think your SATs are already in the range, take the test again but don’t worry too much about it. At those levels differences in score are mostly probabilities and colleges know that. The best thing you can do to strengthen your app is to find some recognition for the film work you’ve been doing. Keep applying to film festivals and get your name out. :)</p>