<p>Im a senior at an all boys private high school in maryland, and yale is my dream school.</p>
<p>3.95 unweighted
4.0 weighted (school does not go past a 4.0 even when weighted)
school does not class rank, but easily top 10 percent</p>
<p>SATs:710 math, 750 crit reading, 660 writing----2120
taking SAT 2s in october</p>
<p>Extra curriculars:</p>
<p>marching band
Wind Ensemble
Jazz Orchestra
Jazz Combo
Its Academic trivia team captain
latin club president
writing tutor
NHS tutor
german club
NHS
german NHS
McMullen Scholars (an honors program at my school for the strongest students)
Student ambassador
Service Hours at a nursing home
part time job
ultimate frisbee club (lol)</p>
<p>Maybe you could get your score over the 2200 mark on the SAT. </p>
<p>Also, your ECs seem a bit weak. You have a lot, but nothing sticks out. Quality always wins out over quantity.
My biggest suggestion: Don’t laundry list your ECs like you did here on the application. None of those ECs look particularly impressive or unique, and if any of them actually are, you’ve certainly covered them up by the mass of “junk” ECs surrounding them. Basically: 1) don’t list awards unless they’re regional, national or international (they’re really not going to care about school-wide honors) unless that’s all you have 2) really emphasize your strongest few ECs… on my application I only put down about 30% of my ECs, but that 30% accounted for 90% of what I devoted my time to. ECs like NHS where you MAYBE meet once a month for an hour are useless. So yeah, it sounds like your angle is going to be band (and maybe this trivia thing, assuming you were very successful at it).</p>
<p>First off, my main extra curricular is most certianly music. I play in the all-state maryland jazz band, which is an incredible honor. I do plan on emphasizing this. I’m considering sending in a video of me playing as the art supplement. Do you think this would help? Haha, your criticism is kind of disheartening, considering I belive my ECs are the strongest part of my app. </p>
<p>And no they dont have that kind of data, but Im at the top of my school, and we have sent a pretty decent amount of people to ivies. No one to yale in recent history though.</p>
<p>A focus? Im sorry, Im not quite sure what you mean.</p>
<p>In the Common app, I listed my 7 most time consuming activities (competition marching Band, jazz combo, wind ensemble, jazz orchestra, regis writing tutor, It’s Academic, Latin Club)</p>
<p>Then on the extra info section, I listed the rest of the activities i posted earlier, with a few discriptions where it seemed neccesary. </p>
<p>Is this a bad idea? How should I prsent my EC’s?</p>
<p>Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply that you ECs were definitely not good, what I meant was that just the list didn’t seem that impressive (based on the amount of information you gave us, it seemed like you had a lot of quantity but very little quality). If you applied to Yale just listing your ECs like that, I think you’d probably be rejected. My suggestion would be to scrap the BS ECs that you have in your extra info section, and use it to elaborate on your best two activities. Like… say you are an excellent musician and are in all-state orchestra, won so and so state marching band awards, etc… you should use that extra info page to really sell them on that. I promise you they don’t care at all about NHS, Student Ambassador, etc.</p>
<p>So, if I focus on my music extra curriculars and maybe one or two others, and do well on my SAT 2’s do I have any kind of shot?</p>
<p>My essays should be well written, and my recs should be personal and interesting. Any other advice would be appreciated, this has helped me a lot!</p>
<p>Well, I’d say you have a good shot assuming your music EC are very good. You haven’t given us much information. To give you more generic advice, just think of it as this: Yale is looking to buy students, and you’re looking to sell yourself. If I were Yale, I would want to buy a group of students that are all really good at one or two things, rather than a bunch of students that were all pretty good at everything… so when I put them all together I have a group that’s collectively really good at everything. So what I’m saying is, don’t just list your music activities. By the fact that you have a lot of hours listed next to the activity does not mean that they’re going to know you are really great at it… what you need to do is really SELL them on the activity. Use that extra info to show them that you are the biggest and baddest at what you do… not that you are like every other kid who joins NHS and X generic throwaway EC.</p>
<p>OK thats something I definetly think I can do.</p>
<p>I already wrote my common app essay, and I think its very good. It deals with the importance of understanding different cultures and the effects of seemingly small events on our society, and me.</p>
<p>Do you think I should change this to further reflect my music, which is quickly becoming the highlight of my app, or keep at is a part of my culture ECs (german club, german nhs, latin club, language awards etc.)?</p>
<p>I can’t really say. Do your essay on what feels right. If the culture thing is more important to you, then do that. If it’s music that you feel is more important, then do that. </p>
<p>Also, in the extra info you don’t have to make it an essay or something (in fact they may not like that). The way I did it was make it more of a resume that had the big ECs that I do along with a detailed description of what it entails (including my role, what it’s about, any big awards I’ve won, any useful experience from it, etc).</p>
You haven’t given us much information. To give you more generic advice, just think of it as this: Yale is looking to buy students, and you’re looking to sell yourself. If I were Yale, I would want to buy a group of students that are all really good at one or two things, rather than a bunch of students that were all pretty good at everything… so when I put them all together I have a group that’s collectively really good at everything.