Chance me at Cornell, Columbia, Penn, NYU

Transfer Students
1

<p>White, Russian - moved to NYC from Moscow, Russia at the age of 10.</p>

<p>HS GPA - weakest point of application. 88/100, roughly 3.4 Very rigorous course load, 6 AP classes, hardest classes in the school. Downward trend - terrible senior year (took on WAY too much) with 1 F first term in Discrete Mathematics (most difficult class in the school, 2 out of our 3 MIT acceptances came from that class. The third was the valedictorian)</p>

<p>ACT: 31 (31 math, 30 english, 32 science, 31 writing - 10 Essay)</p>

<p>HS EC's - great.
2 full scholarships to prestigious music festivals on VIOLA (hence the name <----).
Spent 3 summers at prestigious music festivals (not allowed to get a full scholarship for the second time in the second camp, enrolled on highest available merit bases financial aid). Collaborated independently with filmmakers on writing music to their movies.
Three Carnegie Hall performances, including once with the New York Pops, a major professional orchestra.
Numerous orchestral, solo, and chamber engagements, including principal player of HS orchestra and the first violist to perform a concerto with the HS orchestra in the school history (the viola is very often looked down upon in comparison to the violin.)
Composed music for HS concerts.
Fencing team captain, coached the newly-established girl's fencing team as well
100+ hours of volunteering at Carnegie Hall.</p>

<h2>Applied for Cornell CAS, Penn CAS as a freshman, rejected at both. Penn has always been my dream school and the essay was very Penn-specific, but my GPA didn't cut it. I applied to Cornell for the name alone, and the essay was very generic.</h2>

<p>Currently attending: Binghamon U, a 'public Ivy'
Proposed major - undeclared - probably double: Economics/ Music Composition.
College GPA: 3.789 with 21 credits</p>

<p>Macroecon: B+
British Lit. A
Calc. I: A
Geology: A-
Viola lessons: A
Piano lessons: A
Composition (music) lessons: A-</p>

<p>Next term courseload - very tough, probably 21-24 credits, but I def. think I can handle it. Part-time job.</p>

<p>EC's: composed music for the university TV station. Collaborated with a senior cinema student on her senior thesis project, writing a music soundtrack to her film. Took college orchestra (2nd chair!), chamber music, and repertory classes for no credit, so essentially ECs.</p>

<p>Recs: good. One from my Calc I teacher, one from a Brit Lit. TA (should be fantastic, she really liked me), one from my conductor summing up my work in the music department.</p>

<p>I'm an hour and a half away from Cornell, so I visited twice it and loved it. My best friend goes there. I got to know the school much better and am now planning to apply for ILR. planning on writing a creative essay about why Cornell is a great fit and how ILR opens up so many possibilities for both Law School and Business School.</p>

<p>Penn is still my dream school and I'm planning on visiting again and writing as sincere an essay as I can.</p>

<p>Supplements: a video I scored (written music to), music compositions I've completed, and recordings of my playing the viola.</p>

<p>Hit me.</p>

2

<p>i really don't see business major in your application, that could be concerning especially with an F in math...it seems as if music is your passion...you have a nice list of ec's, but you don't have any ec's that are relevant to business or law...i feel like ive discussed this with you already</p>

<p>are you a freshman? if so, your hs record will be of more importance than your one semester at college...your recent hs performance will certainly be of significance...nyu you'll have a shot at (cas right?) although by no means are you guaranteed to get in...the rest seem a bit out of reach especially with your downward trend in hs...if you put in another year and maintain your gpa you should have a much better shot at cornell....if you want to be a competitive applicant to penn and columbia your probably going to want to improve your gpa a tad and make your application look more like a business majors'</p>

<p>gl</p>

3

<p>Yeah, dufflebag, I've posted my stats already but got few replies. The thing is, I've spoken to adcoms at both Penn and Columbia since, and I'm applying to those schools as a Music major, so hopefully my music supplements, which I have all the confidence in, will help me stand out. My reasoning is that there is much more of a chance that an Ivy needs to strengthen its music department that, say, it's economics department. Moreover, my interest - film scoring - is fairly rare amongst students, so I hope that'll help me out. I'm only applying to Cornell with a different major (ILR) and possibly NYU for Economics.</p>

<p>Should I be so lucky as to get accepted, I'll go on to double major music and econ or something of the sort.</p>

4

<p>that may help you get in, but you have to ask yourself if you can handle it...if you applied as an econ major to columbia or upenn both schools would probably say no....i guess only you know the answer, but try to be as honest as you can with yourself because you dont want to get into a messy situation</p>

5

<p>I definitely think I can take it. I have plenty of friends in Ivies - my best friend is in ILR - and in my opinion the one thing that truly distinguished an Ivy League student from just any intelligent hardworking individual is a presence of an intellectual spark, or a curiosity that pushes somebody to contribute to a class conversation, to share a story, to want to learn about something completely new just for the sake of enriching the mind. Most admission officers agree that just as far as academics go, the majority of Ivy applicants are well qualified to tackle the workload. So, in short, yes, I think I would tackle every available opportunity should I be lucky enough to stand out and be accepted.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for your help. By the way, where did you transfer from and to? Just curious, you're one of the few memorable people on this forum. What's your story?</p>

6

<p>if you really think you can tackle it then go for it...just be aware that its going to be a very rigorous enviornment</p>

<p>i xfer'd from oberlin to nyu and am thinking about applying to columbia (i guess i have to figure that out pretty quickly huh?), ill probably make a chance me thread one of these days</p>

7

<p>Sure. BTW, to cheer you up, Columbia takes 6%, not 2%. The website states 100 acceptances out of 1300 apps (7.69%), but they told me 6% at the information session.</p>

<p>Let me know if you're gonna apply. I might see you at the transfer info session.</p>

8

<p>oh foril? well my chances are not as bad as they once were</p>