Chance a Hopeful candidate for Brown!

Applying to College
1

<p>Hello, all! I'm brand new to CC and am really excited to be a part of it! Anyhow, I am a rising white male senior at a small high school in MA and considering applying to Brown University, among other competitive universities (Tufts, Boston College, Northeastern, WPI, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, UPenn). I intend to follow the Pre-Med route. I would greatly appreciate if you could chance me!</p>

<p>Stats:
UW GPA: 4.08 (4.0 = A, 4.33 = A+)
W GPA: 4.81
(This was middle of junior year, so it may not be accurate now)
Rank: Unknown, but more than likely 2-5/120
Enrolled in all Honors and AP courses)
AP Biology (5) - Only 2 maximum AP courses offered during Junior Year
SAT 1: 2140 - 760 Math, 740 Writing (3 wrong and 10 Essay), 640 CR I know I SUCK at Critical Reading
Planning on retaking SAT 1 in Fall: Aiming to, and probably will, have a 2200+
SAT 2: Biology M: 750 (Taking Math 2 and Spanish in Fall, aiming for 750+ on both)</p>

<p>Senior Year Course Scheduele:
AP Spanish
AP English Lit - I know I said before I suck at CR, but I am a good writer and am better with literary symbolism type stuff
Hon Physics
Hon Calc
Art-related Electives</p>

<p>Volunteering:
Local Library: Past 3 years: 100 hours
Local Hospital: 1 year: projected to have 50+ hours
Annual Volunteer for Earth Day: 15 hours
Other Miscellaneous Stuff: 15 hours</p>

<p>Awards: Nothing Outsanding, just some minor academic achievement awards every year.
UMASS Lowell Book Award (Given to students who are strong in the pure and social sciences and have distinct leadership qualities) - The award is actually a dictionary. haha</p>

<p>EC:
ok, so this is my weak point :/. I do have some, but few, EC activities but no leadership roles within them. some of the main ones though are:
Badminton Club (newly formed this year)
NHS
AFS
- BTW, I am currently seeking a non-paid internship at a local biotechnology lab in early fall</p>

<p>Teacher recommendations: Probably from my Spanish Teacher and most recent Science Teacher. Will probably be good if not great, especially from my Spanish teacher.... I think.</p>

<p>Essays: I'm a strong writer and have been told numerous times that I have a unique writing style, so I really hope that I can come up with some interesting essays! I haven't decided what topics I will address in them, but I will definitely try to spend a lot of time drafting and revising.</p>

<p>Interview: I will probably have one</p>

<p>Other: Summer classes at local CC
- A few years ago my dad gave a lecture at Brown on entrepreneurship (sp?). Don't know if this helps, just throwing it out there. hahaha
- I have yet to visit Brown, but I want to this summer. Too bad they don't track student visists!</p>

<p>thanks guys!</p>

2

<p>I would say it’s a reach because of ECs.
You still have one more year. Do something great.
SAT and grades are fantastic.</p>

3

<p>thanks! i completely agree, Brown is my #1 choice and the whole Ivy admissions process is virtually a crapshot.</p>

4

<p>Coming from New England might hurt you.</p>

<p>My son does not have great ECs either, and it worries me greatly.</p>

<p>And by the way, it is a total crapshoot. My brother’s kid, for example, got into Cornell, but got waitlisted at Syracuse and Northeastern.</p>

<p>And your CR may hurt you.</p>

<p>My friend’s kid last year got a 740 on his math SAT and went to a fancy high school in San Francisco, and didn’t get into any Ivies.</p>

<p>It is just so competitive.</p>

<p>You could get into 2 or 3 of those schools you mentioned, or zero. I would expand my horizons a bit outside of the northeast. </p>

<p>Pretend you are at a bar and all the guys are after the same 5 beautiful blondes. Yet at another table sit 5 beautiful brunettes, 99% as good, and not too many guys are chasing those girls.</p>

5

<p>Maybe try for Cornell ??? </p>

<p>A bit easier to get into, but still an Ivy.</p>

6

<p>i appreciate the honest advice floridadad. i agree with you that the Ivies are a crapshot (they are for almost anyone). nevertheless, i will still apply to these schools and hope for the best. what non-northeast schools would you recommend? i was actually looking at stanford for a while (yes, I know, another crapshot), but my parents were very disapproving of the idea of living 3000 miles away. As far as Cornell goes, it’s a great school (amazing campus, probably one of the top 5 campuses in country), I have heard negative things about it. I read somewhere online that Cornell had the most stressed out students in the country. That is why I have Penn on my list. I have some friends that went to Penn and loved it. The acceptance rate is slightly lower than that of Cornell (P: 14%, C:18%). Lastly, I don’t mean to sound rude, but you are totally overreacting. Kids from my school that have gotten into NEU had less than 2000 SAT (some even close to 1800). Some of them were not even in top 10% of class. In fact, some of them got into the honors program, too! Similar EC’S, less volunteering, white, no hooks. You don’t know this, but I have a 3 generation legacy at NEU. I am sure that would help, right? Honestly, NEU and WPI are my safeties. JHU, BC, and Tufts are my matches/high matches. The rest are reaches. I do not go to a private school. I go to a small public with average(slightly higher) SAT scores. As for your nephew, I have never seen anything like that. NEU and Syracuse are far easier to get into than Cornell is. Almost unexplainable. I have also seen your son’s stats. They are quite amazing (especially the SAT score). He will definitely go to a great school and get great f/a. Don’t worry.</p>

7

<p>Not about Brown, but I want to pitch in something about NEU: </p>

<p>Northeastern was a safety for me too… or so I thought. I was waitlisted then rejected. I’m not a perfect student and admittedly I wasn’t that enthusiastic about college while applying, but I’d figured I could get in with no problems. (I got on the BC waitlist too.)</p>

<p>One of my friends got in NEU as a Torch scholar. Another got in with AWFUL, awful grades. Both have incredible personalities, but the latter friend’s SAT score was around 1500, she took no honors/AP courses, and she held no leadership positions.</p>

<p>Maybe it was just a really competitive year? NEU received 43,000 applications for less than 3,000 spots when I applied. The odds don’t look too great, do they?</p>

<p>It probably didn’t help that I live like two miles away from the place, haha.</p>

8

<p>“EC:
ok, so this is my weak point :/”</p>

<p>I think that’s the problem at this point. You’d do great in UCs simply because they’re so number based but even then your SAT I score SHOULD be 2300+</p>

9

<p>i appreciate the recommendation dotori, but I am very skeptical of travelling 3000 miles away to live in CA. :confused: sorry. my school offers little extracurricular activities, and we actually have one of the lowest per-pupil expenditure in the state. i would like to think colleges would see this ( regardless) of whether or not it would help.</p>

10

<p>sorry, i know this is random again. can’t believe i forgot to mention this! i am currently working to have a short science article of mine become published in a high school student/kid’s science magazine. i plan to write a few more for this magazine. would this help?</p>

11

<p>not really. considering that it’s a high school magazine. Unless it was something like popular science or something where YOU were featured in (rather than what you wrote) it’s doubtful that Adcoms are going to look at the AUTHOR of the article. Articles and media attention is only attractive because they want to see who is capable of upholding the school’s name in the next generation and gain global (city-wide, state, whatever, etc) attention. You should be the one featured. </p>

<p>Being a writer in HS magazine is no more different than being an editor-in-chief of your school’s journalism class or being the managing editor of your school’s yearbook class. </p>

<p>I think the best thing you COULD do with this extracurricular though is possibly write something about it? (esp. if it’s something you’ve done for awhile) like what interests you in writing for a science publication? What do you get out of it? etc. You could add it to your resume or anything else if you have absolutely nothing else to add, but if you have state or even national science fair awards or something, that may look more attractive.</p>

12

<p>i know, I have a few personal interests I may write about. btw, this is not my high school’s magazine. nor is it any other high school’s magazine. there are many applications for students trying to write articles for this magazine, which are based off of original research in many cases. only a select few are allowed to be published. would you consider my internship or this more important? it is an unpaid internship with a biotech company.</p>

13

<p>I think you have a good shot! </p>

<p>Answer my question! </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1189733[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1189733&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

14

<p>Well if that’s what you say, I think that both are decent for Brown. I mean in the end, all adcoms do is usually react like this</p>

<p>community service hours, club officer/president/founder, yadda yadda (just kept constant, didn’t increase membership by 500% or do anything significant): “meh, nothing too special here. At least the student is involved in the community” aka. not really considered</p>

<p>high level internship/research, 1st at national competition of FBLA or some HS organization, state officer of something, local officer/president or founder who did something significant with his/her position, got on local community news/media: “This kid was active in what he/she wanted to pursue. This person’s ok” aka. you’re in the middle in terms of extracurriculars. You still don’t stand out. been there done that kind of kid.</p>

<p>Founded your own business/nonprofit that is actually extremely successful, media coverage by national broadcast/news (wall street, NY times, CNN), Won 1st place at ISEF/Intel STS/ SIMENS research competition, invented something that other pros want to invest in, published research paper/book, national president of organization: “wait, what did this kid do? Hm, that’s interesting” aka. you are in the better half but still not stand out 100%</p>

<p>Did category #3 and wrote an amazing, inspirational essay on how it matters to their life and future: good chance you’re in to the ivy (considering you have the grades and scores)</p>

<p>And this is only in the standard of Ivys most of the time. </p>

<p>Does that help?</p>

15

<p>i agree with you. this internship means a lot to me and I have been trying to get it for almost a year now. would i be sad if I don’t get into brown? ehh… i guess so. I love it. but then again if I get into other pretyy competetive but non-ivy league schools (Johns Hopkins, Tufts), I’ll be happy.</p>