chance me: deerfield, taft, st pauls, hotchkiss, choate, st georges, lawrenceville, and kent. I am a 10th grader applying to repeat 10th grade. I play club and varsity lax at my school as well as varsity bball. I had As and B+ last year. still taking my ssat but on my practice 93% for reading, 88% for verbal and 30% for math but I am working on getting it up. I do a lot of community service and am committed to athletics. I am also not applying for any aid.
TBH, that 30% for math is a big issue while the lack of aid is a plus. A SPS type school will be tough with those current scores but you have time to turn it around. Develop a few highlights of what the community service is about as well as how you have demonstrated leadership in your current school. Practice, practice, practice your math. Top schools accept about 20% of well qualified applicants. Removing the Math result (assume that will improve) your resume still needs more pop. Check out other Chance Me threads for examples that may also apply to you. Wish you the best of luck in the process.
Some schools will see your strengths and feel they can support you in math. Others will not feel they can do that. I am not so familiar with all of them in this group to know for sure, but that math score will be a headwind at several. I suspect L’ville will be a no-go. I agree that not needing FA will be helpful in your case. You might want to expand your list.
I am expanding my extracurriculars and volunteering at a teaching hospital and working with children who have developmental disabilities. I want to be a peditrician when i’m older and I was hoping these activitves could tie into my application and some of my essays. would this help show the admissions committees who I am and some of my academic and social interests?
@gardenstategal @PrepDad2018 I am expanding my extracurriculars and volunteering at a teaching hospital and working with children who have developmental disabilities. I want to be a pediatrician when I’m older and I was hoping these activities could tie into my application and some of my essays. would this help show the admissions committees who I am and some of my academic and social interests?
^That’s great. Don’t take things on for schools, do them because you want to.
Honestly, I don’t think that taking on more outside of school will be what makes the difference.
I would say it’s important to explore a few more schools where they might be prepared to overlook your math score. Most on your list will not.
@gardenstategal The volunteering is from genuine interest. I’m looking at a few more schools like Portsmouth abbey, Blair, and Peddie. If you have any other suggestions let me know!
Also my math score is going to improve hopefully, I am planning on taking the November, December, and a flex ssat (if needed). Hopefully my math will be 80th percentile (thats the goal!)
If you have an earnest interest in working with children with disabilities, you might want to consider St. Andrew’s School in Delaware, which is only an hour or so away from Philadelphia. Once a week, St. Andrew’s opens its swimming pool to youth with various disabilities and St. Andrew’s students work with the kids as volunteers.
Other schools to consider adding to your list: Governor’s, Millbrook, Tabor… Check them out.
If you are going to look at Blair and Peddie, George is not far and has extensive service learning opportunities. A different vibe from most of the others on your list, so maybe not what you are looking for, but a terrific place for someone with an interest in social justice and helping others.
How critical is Volunteering? Are they expecting major hours and a huge commitment or something that shows intent. e.g. is volunteering 4 hours a month enough to be sufficient or irrelevant?
To be fair, I think most schools understand that kids can only do what their parents are willing to drive for. They also understand that many volunteer opportunities are age restricted.
So if you have an opportunity to do a few hours a month, go for it. But there’s no need to re-craft your life to give your application more curb appeal.
Volunteering - even some (and often through church or scouts) demonstrates a number of things that schools care about. A willingness to serve, an opportunity to learn through serving, the maturity to show up and do what’s asked, responsibility, the ability to work with others. And if a kid has a positive experience and indicates an interest in doing more, it’s more than an abstract thought. Focus on those things. (,Most volunteer gigs are as, if not more, valuable to the volunteer as to the person being served.)
Thanks for the response. Sounds good but I have been told it is a critical thing and know more than a few folks who are doing it to tick the box. Which is kind of sad but true
To be very honest, I would worry a lot more about the 30% in math than cramming extra ECs into your schedule. I know several kids who scored super high north of 95% verbal but below 50% math and they were very disappointed come March 10. Some of them were strong legacy candidates and were told those math scores just made the school feel they wouldn’t thrive at said school.
How strong of a lax player are you? That is a highly recruited sport. Have you been sending highlights to coaches and talking to them about supporting your application? This avenue is likely to be more successful for you then cramming in new ECs.
So, what stood out to me were lax, bball, community service and athletics. TAFT!!! Lacrosse and basketball are two of our biggest sports, and it isn’t out of the question for you to get recruited since your grades are pretty admirable. Also, community service is literally our motto. We do all sorts of community service: working with little kids, shoveling snow, helping out senior citizens, you name it! Taft values a great work ethic, and already being involved in community service will boost your application a sufficient amount. The only thing I would say is just get your math score up a little bit. It doesn’t have to be as brilliant as your other scores but at least a 70% will get you pretty far. Good luck!
@IntTraveller our experience was that schools want to see kids with an understanding that giving back to the community is important BUT schools 100% understand that kids have a lot of commitments and are not expecting 10 hours of community service a week. My kids volunteered for two organizations on a once a month basis for two years. One kid wrote about it in an essay because the volunteer experience deeply affected her.
My more sporty kid did what you might consider a “bare minimum” because he travelled literally every weekend for sports - no school even blinked at this. What he did he truly loved and I think that comes through when you talk to him.
For the record, neither of mine had any time to do a lick of community service their first year in BS because they were so busy not failing a bunch of classes.