<p>First off I’m debating applying early decision to either Brown or Duke. From what I’ve heard it doesn’t make a difference ed or rd for Brown, but I’m not sure about Duke.</p>
<p>going to be a senior, my school’s gpa scale is out of 4.3. converted and I think im 3.62 uw and 4.1 w on a 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>I took my SATs once 610 cr 740 m 680 w - 2030 I’m taking a class for the first time this summer on the verbal sections hoping to improve scores. hoping 2100-2250</p>
<p>Subject tests Math 1 740 US History 720 taking Math 2 in november</p>
<p>I’m in all honors and AP classes.</p>
<p>ECs (where I stand out)
Eagle Scout, built dog park as project raised 60k been my life for past year most likely my essay topic for colleges) interviewed by newspapers and magazines for project, held tons of leadership positions in scouting been in it since 2nd grade
President/treasurer French Club 4 years
Caddy at a golf course for 3 years
4 year varsity golf team, will be captain next year
Won county golf tournament
Competed in International Junior Golf Tournament place 17/32
FBLA member, won events in business fields vp for senior year
Active Octagon Club member
NHS member
National French Honor Society member
Helped organize walk for multiple sclerosis
Teen Advisory Committee member, helps the township
student council rep 2 years</p>
<p>I’m in a special situation. I was stuck in the middle of a custody battle throughout high school that really effected me my first two years. It involved me getting interviewed by a judge 3 times, once 2 days before my SAT. The situation has started to calm down. My counselor is writing about this in my recommendation.</p>
<p>These are the colleges im interested in
Brown getting rec from alumni
Duke uncle is professor will that help a lot? he’s writing a rec
Northwestern
Georgetown
Rutgers safety
Cornell legacy
Lehigh legacy</p>
<p>My essay should be excellent i got 11 on my SAT essay. I know my recs will be superb my math teacher promised me the best and my counselor also stated this.</p>
<p>Yes, your uncle can help, especially if he’s a professor there.</p>
<p>Also, exactly what is your relationship with the Brown alum who will write your recommendation? Don’t ask someone who barely knows you to write a recommendation for you, regardless of his/her association with the school.</p>
If you’re not sure which one to apply early to, you shouldn’t be applying early at all.</p>
<p>Bringing up the verbal scores certainly will help. However, the SAT essay score does not necessarily tell how good your college essays will be, as the graders are looking for different things and the time constraint is very different. Listing that a school is a safety school probably is a mistake, since you never know who will read these forums.</p>
<p>Your golf stands out, as well as the service (both Eagle Scouts and the organized walk), though most qualified applicants to Brown have some such activity that they’ve poured a lot of time into. I wouldn’t necessarily say that your ECs make you stand out, since so many candidates also excel in these areas.</p>
<p>I wish you luck in the college application process and hope you find somewhere you’ll be happy at, regardless of where it is.</p>
<p>The brown alum is a family friend whom I play golf with, I’ve known him for a very long time. Uroogla I have to respectfully disagree with you about my eagle scout status as not being good ecs. I have spent 10 years in scouting and my project was extremely large for an eagle project over 350 hours working on it over a period of 2 years.</p>
<p>I also say safety because I have double legacy at lehigh and my parents give money. As this is just a forum with suggestions I feel safe to put schools I believe to be safeties down.</p>
<p>I know I am a good writer outside of SAT although I may not be great in school at reading comp I always get As on essays and research papers</p>
<p>Thank you for both of your comments/suggestions I am going to visit brown northwestern georgetown and duke next month.</p>
Please don’t twist my words. I never said they were not good ECs. I merely said that they may not stand out as much as you’d think they would when compared to other candidates. Many people have things they poured themselves into as well.</p>
<p>I fundamentally believe that, short of something like curing cancer, very little will stand out relatively speaking.</p>
<p>Here’s what Brown sent in an e-mail to Alumni, a baker’s dozen of what they considered varied and strong “hooks” (ECs, for the purpose of this conversation) for the incoming class of 2013.</p>
<p>Your community service is definitely very strong, and it’s clear that you care a lot about it (and your application will clarify this more, since you’ll be giving more specific information than here). I’m not trying to belittle you or your activities, just saying that many potential applicants will have ECs that are as competitive as yours, meaning they all stand out less. Just in my high school I know a diver who was talented enough that he went to the diving Nationals competition. I know people who spend thousands of dollars and give hundreds of hours to go abroad to help out in third world countries, teaching English and building houses. I know nationally ranked fencers. That’s also just for sports and community service, too. Other applicants will have potentially equally strong ECs in other areas, including winners and top finishers in country-wide competitions. Your ECs are good, but against people like these, they aren’t as far and away exceptional as you may like.</p>
<p>If I’m not wrong, most colleges, especially top colleges don’t care much about somebody else other than the counselor and teacher writing your recommendation. I mean I highly doubt that getting a letter written from a uncle that is a professor won’t help your application, simply because not everyone has an family member that is an university professor. Plus I don’t think he’s taught you in a class. Duke doesn’t care much about any other recommendation other than your teacher and counselor (they only use it so they can see your personality but it won’t make your application at all).</p>
<p>And I don’t think having a Brown alum write a “recommendation” is going to help either, he hasn’t taught you in any class nor is he your counselor. Sure Brown won’t reject you because of these recommendations, the recommendation won’t help you get accepted. And I’m 100% positive that this is true for Duke and pretty sure this is the same at Brown. Plus you’re going to have at least 5 recommendations, Brown and Duke has priorities on which recommendations they read, they care about the important ones first (the teachers and the counselors, only then they will read the other two and those two won’t help or hurt your application)</p>
<p>okay first of all, if you are applying to Duke, having a rec letter from an uncle that is a professor is not good. it makes it look like you’re just a student who has the luxury of using family ties and connections. colleges don’t care, in fact it might make you look bad. </p>
<p>and for brown, having a rec letter from a brown alumn won’t exactly help that much unless he really knows you as a person and can give the adcoms a sense of who you are. </p>
<p>now you need to understand something about ed vs. rd. just because many schools have a higher acceptance rate ED does not mean it is easier to get in, it just means there is a higher percentage of competitive/qualified students. I remember reading an article where Christoph Guttentag, the Director of Undergrad Admissions at Duke, said how if you apply RD and do not make it, chances are you wouldn’t have made it ED either.</p>
<p>and applying ED does show demonstrated interest, but if you apply ED, then everyone you are competing with would show demonstrated interest just by applying early. also, ED means if you are accepted, you MUST go to that school. from the looks of it, you don’t even know which school you want to go to. i agree with Uroogla, you shouldn’t be applying early at all. </p>
<p>if you are just applying early to increase your chances, you are applying for the wrong reason.</p>
<p>Thank you frenchhorngirl for clarifying the specifics of ED vs. RD. </p>
<p>At getting a rec from my uncle who is a professor there, I don’t see how it could hurt. You can send supplemental information. If you have a parent who went to a college that you would like to go to does that not mean you are taking advantage of your family ties? or is there a fine line between alumni and faculty</p>
<p>There is a fine line between having a recommendation that will be useful to help evaluate how you learn and one that merely expresses your relationship with the person. You know the alum by playing golf with him, ok but you haven’t been taught by him in school. Same goes for your uncle, so you have a recommendation letter from your uncle, but his recommendation won’t even be as useful as the teacher’s. These recommendation letters won’t be formally evaluated in your application and like I said before, they won’t hurt, but they won’t help you at all. (of course I’m not saying you should not send it in)
Supplementary information and recommendation letters other than your 2 teachers’ and counselors won’t be viewed as important as the other part of your application. Only one kind of supplementary information will be viewed strongly, that is the artistic supplementary information. Anything else that doesn’t fall into that category wouldn’t be seen as very important.</p>
<p>In this case, because it is your uncle, he is not going to be viewed as a legacy or anything like that. So no your not going to get any legacy advantage from your uncle. Like I stated before, your uncle haven’t taught you in his class so his recommendation won’t be viewed formally.</p>
<p>I was wondering what the attitude of Brown students compared to other Ivy Leagues. Based on what I’ve heard (No offense) UPENN kids are really uptight and sabotage other students by ripping pages out in books. I don’t know if this is true, but I was wondering what a typical Brown student does during their day/week</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure ED Duke has a much higher acceptance rate than RD Duke, but I’m not sure what the stats are for each group of accepted students. </p>
<p>You have really nice EC’s, lots of leadership, your gpa seems a little low, but i dont know it depends on your rank
Retake your SAT, aim for ~2200+</p>
<p>If your essays are good I think there’s a good chance that and your ec’s will outshine your academics. Good luck.</p>
<p>ED acceptance rate for Duke is around 30% while RD is around 20%. However, there is a much smaller pool of applicants for ED and a higher number of qualified applicants.</p>