Chance for Dartmouth ED/SUGGESst schools for me?

Student Lounge African-American Students
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<p>Stats:</p>

<p>• SAT/ACT: 720 CR, 660 Math, 650 Writing
• SAT IIs: 740 Math 1, 650 physics ( I had to take it for some engineering programs)
• AP Scores: AP World History (5) AP Statistics (5) AP English Language (4)
• Senior Year: AP Physics B (school doesn’t offer C) AP Calc BC, AP Gov, AP Spanish, English 12…
• GPA (UW): 3.95
• GPA (W): 4.3
• Rank: n/a top 10% though We don’t have smaller than top 10% as far as rankings go
• Leadership Positions: President of Spanish Honor Society (vice president junior year), Officer for Math Honor Society
• Awards/Honors: Top Physics Student, Top Stat Student, AP Scholar, Girls State Delegate, Scholar-Athlete( 1 person per sport), Ventures Scholar, MVP(for 2 years in both indoor and outdoor track), coaches award, State-qualifier, all-region, all-district, but I’m not getting recruited so I think the fact that I do a sport is kind of moot…
• Work Experience: Tutor a teacher in statistics. She is going for her masters in biosciences or something.
Summer programs: Girls State, summer track, cross country training</p>

<p>Subjective: THIS IS MY PROBLEM.
• Essays: eh, I liked them. I didn’t show it to too many people. Parts probably clichéd (talking about immigrant parents) but oh well.
• Teacher Recs: Probably general praise, no specific antidotes to be honest, I’m not expecting anything amazing from them
• Counselor Rec: Alright, just a rehash of my ec’s but she has like 600 students. The only people who get to know the counselor are the people who get in trouble. (damn public schools) She didn’t even spell my name CORRECTLY! She also messed up the name of some of my awards and extracurriculars.
• Hooks (if any): umm. Don’t know. Female URM, who wants to be an engineer? But my interviewer said the college does not consider race or major so I guess it’s not really a hook….</p>

<p>• INTERVIEW(Dartmouth): Eh… he asked me a lot of political questions that I didn’t know. It lasted for an hour and half . He asked me what research I did outside of school….. Is that a requirement for Dartmouth/other schools if you want to be an engineer? I haven’t done any. He also asked me what I have done to change my school…and that question didn’t go well either. OTH said he was “rooting” for me and “would write a good report” and would "celebrate" if i got in but honestly, I think he was just trying to be funny. I felt like he was being sarcastic, laughed at (not with) one of my responses to his question, sort of belittled my intelligence, made weird facial expressions while I talked…. Overall, it was a negative experience. I should have been more prepared, interviewing and charming people definitely isn’t one of my fortes. </p>

<p>• Location/Person:
• State or Country: United States
• State: Georgia
• School Type: Public
• Ethnicity: African-American
• Gender: Female
• Income: <40,000 (not many people know of my financial situation so this doesn’t matter)</p>

<p>Other Statements:
I went on a trip to Dartmouth that was paid for by the college (but apparently doesn’t mean anything.)</p>

<p>Question: Am I just being overly insecure because decisions are coming closer? Are any of you guys feeling like this? Like I don’t even know… Should I just calm down? </p>

<p>Any college suggestions?
I’m sort of new to this whole CC game. The posts on here are definitely not helping my confidence</p>

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<p>I don’t know that much about Dartmouth. Have you tried the “How do I stack up?” section of the College Board site? It will let you compare your stats to the 25%-75% range at Dartmouth. ED certainly gives you a boost, and you seem very well-rounded. Where else are you applying?</p>

<p>My D, although not applying to Dartmouth, has the same “hooks”, so believe me I am rooting for you!</p>

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<p>Your interviewer might have been right about not considering major (although I would think that given that not many people pick Dartmouth who lean engineering, it would not hurt to be seen leaning in that direction). They do not discriminate based on race is the correct statement but they do have affirmative action for URMs and as an African American you are a URM. You said you were an athlete as well-did you check into or apply as having talent so you could get possibly hooked as recruited athlete–that is a big hook if you can get it.</p>

<p>Just having gone through the stats your SATs are a little low but your CR is good and if you had to have one be over 720 that is the one that they will be most looking at, although here saying engineering might seem counterintuitive as you would expect an ivy applicant going engineering to have math scores closer to 700, But that said, you come from a very big school, its not clear if you are economically advantaged or not but 500 graduate public school is big. GPA is good, rank will make a difference if they do any ranking it probably will make things a bit harder. I think you have a reasonable chance and a lot will depend on the recs. essays and ECs and how good you are in sports will help if its a talent that is significant even if you are not recruited it can not hurt.</p>

<p>Wish you good luck. I think you have a decent chance…i cannot put a percent on it as I think the tipping factors could be your ECs, you have very good APs which is good to offset concerns about SAT1 and 2 scores…you might want to check the college board web site to see if you are in near the 95%ile for African American females or 97% etc. I think being near the 96 or 97%ile is probably an indicator as to how they curve for a specific URM but again, this is not from an admissions person. Good luck, hope you get in.</p>

<p>P.S. I think your interviewer sounds a bit unusual asking poiitical questions if they are partisan is a definite no. Also outside research while great if you had it is something that is not IMHO important discussion on an interview-if you had it great but its not like you put it on your resume. I think maybe you are feeling intimidated as the interviewer did not try to put you at ease. Everybody is different and the interview is the least important part of the process–its really only to know you are personable, seem bright etc. I do not think he would say he would write a good report or say he was rooting for you in a condescending way but then again, its not that important overall. I would think if you thought he would rate you a 0 its a concern, or a 9 it would help if only they still were on the fence after all the other info. Not likely…</p>

<p>WLM</p>

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<p>“you might want to check the college board web site to see if you are in near the 95%ile for African American females or 97% etc. I think being near the 96 or 97%ile is probably an indicator as to how they curve for a specific URM”</p>

<p>waitlist, what information on the College Board website are you referring to?</p>

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<p>If you go to the part where it indicates “for professionals” there are collated stats for the 2009 SATs that are general in one study and there are demographic break downs by URM category, it even breaks out african american, and latinos into Mexican, Puerto Rican, Latin American etc. I found it very helpful. I was able to figure out that for example that about 1000 latinos (male and female) scored above a 2250 combined on the SAT putting that score near the 98-99 percentile.</p>

<p>Here is the URL:<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2009.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2009.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Just a quick look shows that xdancingatdiscos SAT scores are in the 98%ile range. I was just adding this into the equation as I do not know what the minimum SAT bar is but its not 2030 (I think that is the score they posted total)…for the scores she mentioned the CR of 720 is the 99 percentils-would seem good. The math and writing are 98 percentile so still pretty good. They have them for the Subject test but since the kids taking subject tests tend to be applying to tier 1s the percentiles are only for the total test takers and getting above the 50 percentile or 75 might be good enough for those–this is just another thing to help you figure out what your competition is.</p>

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<p>Thanks. Quite useful.</p>