Chance me: Rising senior applying ED

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
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Hey guys! Super excited/nervous to start applying for colleges this fall! Vanderbilt is my top choice (I plan to apply early decision) and it would be absolutely phenomenal to get in. I am a white female from Illinois.

GPA weighted: 5.5 (my school uses a 5-point scale, it’s weird)
GPA unweighted: 4.95 (again on 5-point scale)
I’ve taken all honors when I can and gotten all A’s, except 2 B’s in math, one freshman year Geometry and one sophomore year Algebra II.

Class Rank: top 5% out of about 650
I go to a suburban public school where the majority of students are slackers, so top 5% here isn’t that much of an accomplishment.

ACT Composite: 33 (no writing)
ACT Math: 27
ACT English: 35
ACT Reading: 36
ACT Science: 34

Clubs/EC’s: NHS, National English Honor Society vice president, News Editor for my high school newspaper, Future Educators Association, head of a tutoring program at local middle school, peer writing tutor, summer intern with local newspaper, camp counselor during the summer, going to start/lead an Interact Club chapter next year (high school volunteering organization related to Rotary Club)

Awards: National Spanish Exam Bronze Medal, Rotary Youth Leadership Award, Human Relations Award (school-wide award), First Place at a speech competition for Future Educators Association including multiple schools

AP’s:
-Sophomore year, AP Euro (5)
-Junior year, AP Lang&Comp (5), AP U.S. History (5)
-Senior year, AP Stats, AP Biology, AP Lit and AP Government (second semester)

Weak Spots: My ACT math score is super low (27), I have 2 B’s on my record and I was forced to take standard physics my junior year (my school didn’t offer honors physics)
Hooks/Cool stuff: Summer after my freshman year, I bought a plane ticket with babysitting $ and traveled on my own to Brazil. Maybe that shows independence? Idk. I’ve bought a DNA kit to deepen my understanding of genetics for bio class, so I’ll definitely get an excellent rec letter from that teacher.

Rec Letters/Essays: One of my letters will be from aforementioned biology teacher, but I’ve never really clicked and had a close relationship with another teacher yet. I’m thinking my second letter will be from my AP Literature teacher next year. Hopefully we can get off on the right foot soon enough for him to write me a letter! A bit worried about my counselor, since she has to handle so many students at once in my big school. As far as essays go, I have quite a lot of ideas. I’ll probably write about my Brazil experience.

I want to major in Secondary Education, so that would be through Peabody College. I’m thinking education isn’t as popular of a major at selective schools like Vandy, so maybe that would give me an edge…?

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You seem extremely well qualified numerically (save for ACT math, which could hurt you I fear) and your ECs, though not uncommon or unusual, are relatively high level in terms of the awards you’ve received, so I’d say well done there. Your assumption that being a Peabody major will give you an edge is mistaken. Peabody probably does have a higher acceptance rate overall than the college of arts and sciences I would imagine, but it’s the best program for students in education majors in the nation, and houses Vanderbilt’s most popular major (Human and Organizational Development) which makes it far from easy to get into. I think your scores and your future educator leaders speech award will stand you in good stead if you accentuate them properly, but no one’s a shoo-in at Vandy, not even ED.

What did you do in Brazil? Saving up your own babysitting money to travel is a worthwhile thing to do (but certainly won’t get you into an elite school) but doing so for a vacation is, in the eyes of an admissions officer, pretty meaningless. Did you do a service trip or you just visited? I think that’s a rather cliche essay topic too, for what it’s worth. Will that really make you stand out in a pile of thousands of qualified applicants and reveal more to the committee than your application already does? Your trip to Brazil? I rather doubt it, but then again I’ve read good cliche essays and bad ‘unique’ ones, so whatever topic you decide on, just do it right.

3

Thank you so much for the insight. Very helpful!

Do you really think I should try to raise my ACT math score? Math obviously isn’t a subject I’m majoring in or getting certified to teach, so I didn’t think it would matter as much.

And yes, to answer your question, the trip to Brazil was (unfortunately) for a vacation. I went there to visit my best friend who had moved away some years prior, and who I had promised I would see again.

So, most likely I will go back to the drawing board for my essay. I have some other ideas, if you (or anyone else) wouldn’t mind looking at them:

-I can talk about the genetics test I had done to deepen my understanding in biology class, but that will be covered in one of my rec letters.

-I could discuss how my grandma, who dropped out of university because she got pregnant out of wedlock, has ironically become one of my greatest academic role models, how she piqued my interest in genealogy, and then how I likewise got her interested in genetics.

-I could take a more whimsical approach and talk about the time I made a working gumball machine out of cardboard in my middle school gifted program, and how that experience inspired me to want to become a gifted education teacher.

-Or I can write about how I come back to visit said gifted program every year, and how this year I was shadowing a teacher who had to leave in an emergency and I basically taught her class for her.

Let me know what you think!

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No, if its clear you are not majoring in math/engineering then you don’t need to improve it. Personally I like the Grandmother essay as the central theme with the others mixed in as appropriate.

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I agree with the above. The grandma essay sounds wonderful - revealing, potentially inspiring, ties in the genetics, and a love of learning. Great topic. Just make sure the tone is warm and authentic and that it’s in your voice - remember, you’re not trying to impress them, you’re trying to show them your most honest self through writing and let that in itself impress them as they get to know you better. Hope that makes sense.

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Thanks for the help both of you!! I will plan to work on bringing out uniqueness in my writing… I often struggle with cliches :stuck_out_tongue: