Chance me please?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vassar College
1

<p>Background:
Location:New Jersey
Ethnicity: Irish-American
Gender: Female
School Type:
Small,very competitive high school. It is a health science school with pre-chosen, ALL advanced placement classes. I have so far taken 5 classes taught out of AP books including world and us history, physics, chemistry. I have take 5 college-credit courses</p>

<p>Major: Educational Studies</p>

<p>Personal: I have a learning disability in math. Attending my school is a constant struggle because numbers do not come naturally to me. I have overcome many obstacles to be able to show my strengths and intelligence. My verbal skills, on an SAT scale are in the 750's, while math is in the 500's.
I speak three languages: English, French, Spanish.</p>

<p>Stats:
GPA: 88% out of 100%, we have QPA's, everything is unweighted. The equivalent would be 3.6 I think</p>

<p>SATs: 1900, hoping to raise a bit. Math brought me down
ACT: 30
APs: AP Lit, AP European History</p>

<p>Course load: All honors, several college courses.</p>

<p>EC's/Volunteer:</p>

<p>My jobs are : YMCA as a swim instructor to children 3-13 years old for 3 years, and the only girl of 6 technology interns at my high school. First student from the health science school to be picked.
Have played french horn for 9.5 years
Marching Band VERY COMPETITIVE (9,10,11,12) Leadership position
New Jersey Youth Symphony (9,10) VERY SELECTIVE
CJMEA Regional Orchestra for 6 years. Very competitive
Jazz lab, not that big a deal, (9,10,11,12)
French Club (multilingual) (9,10,11)
Relay For Life Team Captain</p>

<p>Essays/Recommendations:
Essays: Done. All are fantastic.
Teacher Recs: All will be great. Chose my teachers carefully.
Guidance Counselor Recs: Close for her, will get a good one.</p>

<p>Honors/Awards:
Girl Scout Gold Award
High honor roll
CJMEA regional orchestra 4 years
Played at Carnegie Hall in 2013</p>

2

<p>I’m really interested in Vassar as well, and like you, I only got an ACT score of 30. Hopefully, I can do better on the October test. Your extracurriculars seem solid; your musical accomplishments particularly stand out. That makes you a unique applicant. I mean, not everyone gets to perform at Carnegie Hall! I think your GPA might be in the lower range, but if you keep your grades up senior year, that’ll be good. Also, how were your AP scores? If you did well on those, you should send them because they’ll show that you did well on them even though your average is a bit low.</p>

3

<p>First impression is that your test scores and grades are too low. If you actually have a diagnosed learning disability in math, that would be something to mention in an essay. I imagine that if going on in Education that you will not be a math teacher? My thinking is that unless you somehow mention the disability in math and showcase that as something difficult that you have had to overcome, that you would not be accepted to Vassar. To be clear, I think your only shot is to put a focus on the math disability, hold it up as something you have overcome, and contrast that with how you have done in other areas.</p>