Chance a Kentuckian (with witty parentheticals!)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>Student: 17 year-old white male
Location: Kentucky
Family income: <$100k per year</p>

<p>GPA: 3.83 UW, 3.91 W
Class Rank: 23/269 UW, 20/269 W</p>

<p>ACT: C - 34, E - 34, M - 34, R - 34, S - 35, Writing - 7 (o_O)</p>

<p>APs: U.S. History - 5
Taking English Lit, European History, Physics B, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C E&M, Calc BC, and English Lang this spring, the latter four being self-study. My friend and I have a bet going over who can pass more AP tests, so this number might rise by a few =P</p>

<p>Rigor of Schedule: Most challenging</p>

<p>As you can probably tell from the tiny gap in W and UW GPA and from my lone test score, my school doesn't offer much in the way of AP classes, especially not until senior year.</p>

<p>ECs/clubs/honors/stuff:
- Young Democrats of America (2 years, President/Founder) basically the highlight of my app. Along with this comes many, many hours of volunteer work and campaigning, especially with the election this year)
- Future Business Leaders of America (2 years)
- Beta Club (2 years, probable Treasurer (or some other arbitrary position with no responsibilty that no one runs for - but colleges don't know that and hey, it's an office). I've also helped organize some community service activities in my capacity as a member of the club, such as Project Pencil, which collected pencils to donate to the Homework Room at the local Girls Inc.
- Physics Un-Club (2 years, compete in tons of events. My team got 3rd in the University of Kentucky TEAMS Engineering competition last year, and this year we're doing a robot competition, Science Olympiad, Bridge-Building competition, Physics Olympics, etc. Our school historically does extremely well in these, so it's probably safe to pencil all of those in as a top-3 finish. Also, I'm probably going to get another one of those wonderful arbitary officerships)
- Alum of Governor's Scholars Program (5-week summer camp, has an almost ridiculous amount of prestige attached to it. Like, every public school in the state offers -at least- a full tuition scholarship to people who go)
- Quick Recall (1 year, starter)
- Written Composition (1 year, 2nd place in state, part of the statewide academic team organization, crazy competitive)
- Church volunteer (~200 hours, doing absolutely everything)
- Volunteer on political campaigns (not very many hours now, but this will EASILY become hundreds the closer it gets to November. You could call politics my passion)
- JV Basketball (2 years)
- Academic All-State Award (2 years)
- Outstanding/Honor Student awards in: Computer Programming, Chemistry, Adv. Chemistry, Physics, AP U.S. History (pretty minor award, but can't hurt mentioning here at least)
- By graduation, will have taken 20 hours of college credit in: Intro to Psychology, College Algebra, two chemistry courses w/ labs, Intro to Sociology, and Public Speaking. The courses are offered through a local 4-year university, -not- a community or junior college</p>

<p>Recs/Essays: I'll get at least one amazing rec from my APUSH teacher... the others will be good, but won't quite stack up to the first. And I'm pretty confident about my capabilities as a writer, it's just going to be the subject, not the execution, that I'll have problems with.</p>

<p>Other Stuff:
This is just the beginning of a very busy senior year. I'm applying for all sorts of scholarships, awards, programs, etc., so this resume will be much more robust come December. Also, I'm running for class president, which has virtually no competition. So hopefully I'll be able to fill that in...</p>

<p>WHERE I'M APPLYING:
University of Kentucky (state school, I have a full ride there and would be perfectly happy attending)
Centre College (top LAC in our state, which is -so- not saying much)
Rice University
Northwestern University
Brown University
Cornell University
[This is a -very- tentative list, and I'd love your input on some different schools I could apply to.]</p>

<p>For those of you freaking out over my lack of safeties/reaches... like I said, I've basically been settled on UK for my entire life, so I would love to go there. I'm just applying to the reaches on the off chance that I could get in. And I know that they're probably HIGH reaches, but hey, go big or don't go at all.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance! =)</p>

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<p>two questions.</p>

<p>no actually three.</p>

<p>first. is that really what you call someone from Kentucky? I would have had my money on Kentuckin. who knew!</p>

<p>two. there are democrats in kentucky? again…who?</p>

<p>last. whats up with that writing section? deff worth a retake</p>

<p>everything else looks pretty solid…i would say your waited GPA doesnt look very much different from your unwaited but if your taking your school’s most rigorous course load thats not your fault.</p>

<p>If I had to guess..</p>

<p>UK - safety
Centre College - dont know enough about it
Rice- targetish
North Western - Target/Low reach
Brown- Reach (for anyone)
Cornell- Low Reach</p>

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<p>Those parentheticals weren’t witty at all =(</p>

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<p>also, now that i think of it, you might want to really ponder how to work the whole ‘democrat in kentucky’ thing into your essay</p>

<p>could be a pretty funny/insightful/satirical really good essay</p>

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<p>Sorry for the lack of wit in the asides, good sir =( I just needed to put something better in the thread title than “chance me lololol”</p>

<p>And the “Democrat in KY” aspect would be really good to write about, especially because I could tie it in with my most significant ECs/activities.</p>

<p>But I also have another good one, which is that my dad’s a preacher in the Bible Belt and I’m extremely involved in church, yet I’ve been a closet atheist for 5 years. I just tell my friends because 1) the culture is pretty far from accepting around these parts, and 2) I might seriously risk forced emancipation if word were to reach my parents >_></p>

<p>Actually, I imagine the two would be pretty easy to combine. Focus on the “stifling” society of KY, etc. etc.</p>

<p>EDIT: I’m pretty obstinate about not taking the ACT again. Do you think that 34s in English and Reading and 2nd place in a writing competition would compensate for that?</p>

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<p>CLOSET ATHIEST! </p>

<p>HAHAH! </p>

<p>im sorry for laughing at something that clearly a pretty big deal down there, but closet atheist is just funn-yyy. </p>

<p>are your parents scarlet red republicans too?</p>

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<p>They’ve voted Democrat their entire lives, but I’m pretty sure it’s just because their parents were Dems during the Dixiecrat era and they just got used to it. They’re usually fairly conservative, especially on (surprise!) social issues.</p>

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<p>with the scores you got on english and reading i just dont know why you wouldnt have done better on writing.</p>

<p>besides the obvious, one big reason why i would say retake is that colleges are going to know how you did on it when they look at the essay you submit to them.</p>

<p>your score sort of insinuates that english is not your first language so try getting all sophisticated in your college essay and it might be a pretty (presumably false, but no less convincing) big sign that you had someone write it for you. </p>

<p>so i do think its worth a retake</p>

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<p>and just as an aside. how do these southern, socially conservative, life long democrats of yours feel about obama?</p>

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<p>Hrm, I’ll take the retake into consideration. Darn holistic scoring =(</p>

<p>And they’ll probably end up voting for him. McCain will take the state, I’m sure, but my parents do have a bit of a thing for “the little guy” (e.g. blue collar workers, single moms, etc) and I doubt pride will let them break decades of straight Democrat voting.</p>

<p>I suppose they’re closer to moderate than anything. But just about everyone in this state looks right-wing compared to me.</p>

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<p>lol, interesting convo…could make for a very good essay. i’m a closet agnostic myself :)</p>

<p>conservative democrats, ehh? =] well good for u :)</p>

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<p>I don’t think you need to retake the ACT for the essay’s sake; your credentials clearly show that you’re a great writer. Adcoms often take ACT/SAT essay scores with a grain of salt because of the holistic scoring. For example, I wrote essays that were of, IMHO, nearly identical quality for my ACTs and SATs. I got a 9 on the ACT, but only a 7 on the SAT, indicating a significant amount of subjectivity in the grading process (on the same SAT, I got a perfect score on the grammar…go figure).</p>

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<p>Thanks to everyone who’s replied so far =)</p>

<p>Anyone else have any more actual chances for the school’s I’ve posted? Tzar’s seem pretty optimistic, but I hope he’s right.</p>

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<p>One final bump, and I’ll let this thread die its deserved death.</p>

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<p>Woo Kentucky and GSP. Which campus? </p>

<p>Anyway, obviously in at UK (but really why go there?), and Centre. Brown is the only true reach. You (thusly I), enjoy a slight geographical advantage to most places. </p>

<p>And I really don’t see much traction in being a Democrat in Kentucky… unless you specifically say rural Kentucky (scratch that, just say “not Louisville nor Lexington”), but then again, most people seem to think we’re a backwards group of people, go figure.</p>

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<p>Centre 2008 baby =D</p>

<p>And I’m not Louisville or Lexington, but not rural either. I live in Bowling Green, which is pretty moderate politically. But I’m not really sure people in New England know that, so I might still be able to pull the “Dem in KY” angle.</p>

<p>And hey, every part of KY is the Bible Belt. So there’s still that conflict.</p>

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<p>Jealous. You actually got to go off campus. I was at Morehead, so its not like there was anything there to go off to anyway. Though my general studies teacher did let sneak us off to see the Dark Knight. </p>

<p>Anyway, I promise you the Highlands in Louisville isn’t part of the Bible-Belt. Closer to Portland than Lynchburg.</p>

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<p>hey man who are you? I went to Centre 2008 for GSP too lol!</p>

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<p>You’re Ashwin something, right?</p>

<p>Yeah, we never hung out or anything >_></p>