Chance me for Exeter, Andover, L'ville, Hotchkiss, Choate

Prep School Admissions Prep School Chances
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Hello, I am a female applying to Exeter, Lville, Hotchkiss and a few other schools, including schools with higher acceptance rates.

  • I am from the mountain west, domestic, public HS
  • I’m applying for repeat 11th grade
  • GPA: 4.2/4.0
  • I’m a sophomore at the moment, but I will be a junior next year and I will be doing the IB diploma
  • I don’t have test scores yet, but I’m taking the PSAT this fall and hopefully I get a good score.

Extracurriculars:

  • I do research at Columbia Zuckerman Neuroscience Institute under the supervision professor. I am mentored by two PhD students and we do a lot of cool projects and experiments online. I also published some of those findings and other interesting articles in a youth neuroscience journal.
  • I am on the Youth Advisory Council of the congressman representing my district, where we meet every few weeks with him and discuss important issues that our communities face.
  • I am actively involved with the digital chapter of Greta Thunberg’s organization Fridays For Future (FFF) and I have a few roles within the digital chapter.
  • I do community service, and have recently received the congressional gold medal.
  • I did state level climate change lobbying, where I met with many state senators and representatives and talked to them about what bills they could support that would help battle climate change. I will definitely continue doing this wherever I go.
  • I am also very involved with my school. I am in the National Honors Society, student government, mock trial and high school democrats. I also started my own club at my school.
  • I played the piano for a long time, so I’ll probably submit a video of me playing.
  • I am on the JV cross country team at my school as well.

Overall, what do you think my chances are? The main problem I am facing is that I already repeated a grade before (10th grade) because I lived abroad, but I don’t want to apply for 12th grade since those spots are mainly reserved for recruited athletes. Would this affect my application? I am totally fine with repeating 11th, but I’m not sure how the schools would look at it.

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Your extracurriculars are amazing, and is clear you have a passion for them. I’m not too fluent with those schools as I did not get in, but many are STEM focused schools like Exeter. I believe you liking neurobiology will be interesting and a catch to them. Many schools do not care if you are applying repeat or not, and treat repeat applications the same as applicants for that grade. However, I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but 11th grade spots at top schools are virtually unheard of, and just like 12th grade, most are reserved for recruited athletes. I say you have a decent chance at the schools with higher acceptance rates.

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I would apply to NMH. They take many new 11th graders, many of them repeats. @Yuhh222 was on point.

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4

You have very interesting EC but as others have mentioned, there are very few spots. I’d urge you to choose a school that you know will have spots. Applying takes a lot of work.

Can I ask how you were awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, which is the highest honor bestowed on any America. Less than 200 were awarded since the Revolutionary War. Did you mean something else?

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5

Pretty sure she meant the President’s Volunteer Service Award Program. You need to complete over 100 hours of community service work to be eligible for the gold medal for teens 11-15 years old.

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6

You sound like a strong candidate. My DD was just accepted as a repeat Jr, so it is not unheard of. The few she applied to seemed to accept between 20-25 Juniors each year. She was not a recruited athlete, and needed FA. But do your research and find a good fit.

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Likely. But there is also the Congressional Award, at various levels, including Gold Medal. But these are all different things with different meanings so I’d think it was important to use the correct wording.

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Yes, I apologize for the confusion. There is a congressional award for community service and I received the gold medal for it this year.

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Congratulations. That medal involves a lot of hard work, personal growth, and service to you community.

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