Chance a Vermonter!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

<p>So I'm considering Vanderbilt...</p>

<p>Sophomore at a small school in rural VT,</p>

<p>90 gpa in 9th grade, 1 B in math and a B in art</p>

<p>92.59 gpa thus far (end of 1st semester) </p>

<p>School only offered 3 AP classes and plan to take 2/3 of them (taking a slower algebra, so I can't take AP calc in time for graduation)</p>

<p>Taking all the honors classes offered except algebra 2 honors
Intended major: Animal Science, or Neuroscience/Cognitive/Psychology</p>

<p>Volunteer work: (shows determination and focus) </p>

<p>Global impact apprenticeship: co captain freshman year. Worked with several schools overseas to improve water quality, wildlife and other things, all while documenting and presenting a video to broadcast with te other schools participating. This got lots of press, was in the news paper just about every month in my town, and when I search my name, half the results are from the GIA program</p>

<p>Ambassadors and SADD group member. </p>

<p>Ran XC fresh year an sophomore. </p>

<p>Shadowed/assisted a horse vet over the summer: ~30 hrs</p>

<p>Worked on a dairy farm feeding calves twice a week : ~ 20 hrs</p>

<p>Green Mt Horse Association jumping crew, vet assistant/scribe and other various jobs: ~15 hrs </p>

<p>Shadowing/ assisting various vets every Saturday morning 9-12: 15 hrs </p>

<p>Strong essay writing skills. </p>

<p>Aunt is a Skidmore and Harvard alum, (an editor) so I have someone very credible to edit my essays.</p>

<p>Attended a Cornell Sports School running camp for a week ( not sure if that helps) and had a blast. Very familiar with campus, hours of research etc</p>

<p>Attending Adventures in Veterinary Medicine this summer, which they "look upon fondly" from what I've heard.</p>

<p>Mom is a special Ed teacher, don't have a dad. Also, I'm adopted from Moldova and have dual citizenship.</p>

<p>I plan to continue all of my extracurricular activities except for GIA (that was a one time opportunity) </p>

<p>Can you also chance me for cornell (early decision), tufts, colby and boston college EA?I realise liberal arts colleges will not offer an animal science major, but neuroscience/psychology is very interesting, comes naturually to me and ties in very well to vet med w/ animal behavior.</p>

<p>Any feedback will be greatly appreciated, thank</p>

2

<p>Your grades are decent especially for honors classes, but colleges want to see ap calc, is there any way you could take it? And it’s hard to chance without standardized testing but your ecs are strong! Good luck and don’t stress too much about it now!</p>

<p>And just so you know bc is restricted early action so you can’t apply ea there if you’re applying Ed somewhere else!</p>

3

<p>Thanks! But EA is not binding, so it wouldn’t matter if I’m applying ED somewhere else</p>

4

<p>I like your extra-curriculars and “real” jobs. You need to take your classes seriously re grades, so make sure to stay focused. You also have advantages over my sons…whose entire testing history went to admissions offices. You can take tests more often and select which scores go out.</p>

<p>Testing matters so spend the money to take tests at least twice. My eldest gained 200 points when he was close to his 18th birthday. He just started to care a lot about his scores at the last minute and started practice testing and waking up. </p>

<p>It is true that most students at a school like Vandy finished AP Calc or its equivalents in their local schools but I think you should focus on actually mastering your math each year so make sure to study it well. Not everyone is ready for accelerated math early. Our local district’s gifted track pushes everyone to be done with Geometry in 8th grade which I did in 10th grade. Not all minds are ready at that middle school age. </p>

<p>But don’t let anyone get you off track on math. Insist on progressing and make studying a priority…seek out help and make sure you get every month’s lessons. </p>

<p>There are ways to get AP Calc in your local community college in late summer for instance. </p>

<p>Even the SAT Subject Test Level 2 which most serious students going into sciences or engineering take doesn’t get deeply into AP Calc. </p>

<p>Be proactive. Buy the SAT Subject Test book Level 2 and recognize that most students at highly selective schools mastered the math on that test. Talk to someone on your math faculty about how to get you to that point by the end of your junior year in high school. A good score on that is a high score (most people make high scores) because the group of kids taking it are self selected “going to study sciences in college or applying to highly selective colleges in general”. They take the test because they expect it to be an asset on their applications. Our sons used it in place of AP Calc scores.</p>

<p>We didn’t have good AP Calc instruction in our district. So our kids focused on doing well on this test.</p>

<p>You can also take the ACT which is broken into subjects and buy the ACT red book and start learning that math in that section. </p>

<p>If you are interested in Vet Sciences fields, you will want to do all in your own power to land in college on equal or near equal footing with your classmates. So you have to take control and master material. Don’t be one of those young men who gets washed out just because he came underprepared. You can do it.</p>

5

<p>Thank you! That was really helpful and I appreciate the long response! I will take your advice to heart and I am going study or math over the summer with a tutor, seein as next year I double up on geometry honors and algebra 2 academic</p>

6

<p>I definitely agree with the person above! They have some great advice. And I applied early to bc and it’s rea not just ea, which prevents you from applying to any binding early programs (aka ed) but you can still apply ea to as many schools as you would like!</p>