Chance me for HYP + women's colleges

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi all!</p>

<p>I'm a junior from Arizona and really want to major in classics (Latin and Greek). I also go to a pretty unusual high school which is good for lit and languages, but not a lot else. That is, there are no APs, you can't take accelerated math/science (or accelerated anything else), and there's no choice in classes--think of it as being like St. John's College, MD. To give you some idea of the weirdness at work, they teach all of us 14th-century counterpoint in tenth grade, but we never take any history from after 1900. </p>

<p>I'm not super worried about committees not being okay with the curriculum, because it's still relatively standard college prep. What I'm more concerned about is my stats, because they make me look like a robotic study machine. You'll see what I mean.</p>

<p>Sorry that was so long. Here it comes:</p>

<p>Residence: Arizona
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: don't specify (really hard to explain)
School: small charter school, see above; not "competitive" per se (honor code bans talking about grades/scores)</p>

<p>Numbers: over 75% everywhere listed
GPA: 4.0 uw, w I have no idea
Rank: 1/55
SAT: 2400
SAT II: Bio E 800, Lit 800, taking math II and Latin</p>

<p>I want to take a gap year to do City Year, so I'm taking some AP exams too so that I can graduate college with my HS class:
Vergil, Latin Lit, English Lit, English Language, US Government, Macro, Micro, Physics B</p>

<p>Activities:
Speech and debate (cocaptain, 4 years)
Varsity cross-country (will be senior captain, 3 years)
Varsity track (3 years)
Junior Classical League (president, other positions, 4 years)
Science Bowl, first team (4 years)
Violin lessons (8 years- school has no orchestra, I just take lessons)
Peer tutoring (4 years)
Write and direct Nativity play at church (3 years)
Volunteer for homeless housing project at church (3 years)
Translated and directed Greek tragedy for school's drama club (this year)</p>

<p>Awards:</p>

<p>Academic: PSAT 236, will be National Merit candidate; paper on review for Concord Review (publishes high school history papers, accepts 8% of submissions); National History Day awards</p>

<p>Speech and debate: state finalist, Academic All-American, highest national recognition (quintuple ruby), qualified to Extemp. Tournament of Champions</p>

<p>Athletics: all-region in both, all-state in 3200m in track (for small schools), local road races (might run in college)</p>

<p>JCL: state certamen champion, oratory champion, exams, several essay contests</p>

<p>Summer:</p>

<p>Went to JHU-CTY before 9th and 10th grades
Studied abroad in Austria last year (genuine study, not vacation)
Probably working full time this summer (yay retail)</p>

<p>Anyway, the schools:</p>

<p>Yale (first choice)
Harvard
Barnard
Chicago
Swarthmore
Bryn Mawr
Princeton
Wellesley
Smith
Holy Cross
Maybe Williams</p>

2

<p>I normally wouldn’t post here. But, someone with as perfect stats as you do would probably get into most colleges (though HYPS would be significantly harder). If these are the colleges you’re interested in, get into contact with the coaches of your top choices so that you will get recruited for athletics, too. You have a much better shot, than you already have, once you’re recruited.</p>

<p>My question: Is there anything you’re not good at?</p>

3

<p>Haha, I am bad at something–zero awards in music, ever. I do it to relax. </p>

<p>I only wish I could run in Division I. I run mid 20s for the 3-mile, which would be good only for a DIII school, at the best. Some of the NAIA/DIII schools have recuited me, but unfortunately Yale is not going to follow suit. :frowning: It’s too cold in New Haven anyway to run outside.</p>

4

<p>Still, you’re an outstanding student. And you could possibly improve. Get into contact with the coaches anyways. Your academics may off-set the fact that you’re not exactly ‘recruiting’ material and turn you into a very tempting applicant for most schools. Even if you’re some kind of alternate or something, it still could be recruiting…</p>

<p>See, I have the opposite problem. I’m mediocre at many things and I know I’ll never get better at most of them.</p>

5

<p>Your tests are great and legitimize your semi-unique school situation. But yeah nobody can really match those stats. The fact that you’re from AZ can only help. Things look really good for you right now.</p>

6

<p>Wowsers!</p>

<p>Incredible profile. You are a very, very strong candidate for Yale; I would be completely dumbfounded if you didn’t get in.</p>

7

<p>I appreciate the comments–thanks to all.</p>

<p>About my stats: I recognize that they stand out even at “elite” colleges, but I do fear that they have the potential to hurt me at many of the LACs on that list. If you separated my stats from my ECs, it would seem as though they belong to two different people–my ECs are mainly creative and not super “academic” (my main event in speech is more or less stand-up comedy), while my stats make me look like a study-bot.</p>

<p>To put it a different way, is my numerical profile going to put an extra onus on me to prove I actually have a personality? That is, when the time for essays rolls around, is it safe for me to write them about “academic” things, or do I need to focus on activities to the exclusion of talking about research, etc?</p>

8

<p>you have an incredible profile. i think you can expect a lot of acceptance letters in march/april. :slight_smile: its hard to find humanities-oriented students as strong as you are!</p>

9

<p>Random note: A lot of elite schools no longer accept AP credits… and hate early graduation.</p>

<p>I think you have a good shot at all those schools.</p>

10

<p>The classics department at Holy Cross is widely regarded as one of the finest undergraduate programs in the country. The 10-member full-time faculty (which includes two archaeologists) is one of the largest at a liberal arts college and supports an unusually broad range of courses. They also offer full merit scholarships for classics majors called the Bean scholarship.</p>