Chances at competetive schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>White male from New Haven, CT. I am a native French speaker and a dual citizen of France and US.</p>

<p>Both of my parents work at yale. My father is a reasearch scientist and my mother is a senior administrative assistant.</p>

<p>Stats:</p>

<p>School: Public
Rank: 5/298
GPA: 3.8 Unweighted
SAT I: 660 V, 800 M
SAT II: Math II: 800, French w/ listening 780, Writing 690
AP: French 4, Biology 4, Music Theory 4 (I prepared for Music Theory at ECA (described later) and French with a tutor)</p>

<p>Senior Classes:</p>

<p>AP Calc, A
AP Physics, A+
AP English, B
Spanish 4, A-
ISSP Native French, A+</p>

<p>My other classes have been all honors, and AP biology.</p>

<p>Sophomore through senior year, I have attended a second high school, Educational Center for the Arts. It's an honors arts program that meets for 14 hours per week. I have been getting A- and As there.</p>

<p>Awards:</p>

<p>National Merit Scholar's Award*
AP Scholar
USAA International Foreign Language Award
National Honor Society induction
Honors all quarters
Perfect Attendance at both schools sophomore year</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:</p>

<ul>
<li>Boy Scouts, 98-present. I am an Eagle Scout. (hook?)</li>
<li>Order of the Arrow (scoutings national honor society) Brotherhood member (2nd rank of 3). I have held numerous positions and have been active on multiple Order of the Arrow clubs. (mainly 9-10)</li>
<li>Piano since elementary school</li>
<li>Youth Group 11-12</li>
<li>School Ultimate Frisbee Club (founder/president) 11-12</li>
<li>Ski Club president 12</li>
<li>Horseback riding 9-11</li>
<li>American Red Cross "lifeguard training and first aid" and "CPR for the professional rescuer"</li>
<li>Yale Divinity School Frisbee club 10-11</li>
<li>Private French grammar lessons 11-12</li>
</ul>

<p>I 200ish service hours from high school, 80 of which came from my Eagle Project.</p>

<p>*My school is retarted.. I was told I was a winner of the "National Merit Scholar's Award." I was never informed I had to do anything to become a finalist or whatever, so i did nothing.</p>

<p>I have great essays (read by many people) and I'm confident that I got great recomendations (one from a yale graduate and one from a wesleyan graduate)</p>

<p>I applied to harder schools then I probably should have but oh well. Here goes:</p>

<p>Yale
Brown
Bowdoin
Bates
Wesleyan
Tufts
Harvard
Haverford
Swarthmore
Princeton
JHU
Williams</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>-First place in 8th grade city wide science fair and won two honorary awards in states.
-I took a class at a local (not yale) university and got a B+.
-No real work experience
- For summer ive done boy scout camp every year, Yale sailing camp once, and both plane gliding and catamaran camps in France.</p>

3

<p>bump, cmon please!</p>

4

<p><em>stops from drifting to second page</em></p>

5

<p>What is National Merit Scholar's Award?? Is this the same thing as the NM Scholarship... as in, you were a semifinalist?? And, perfect attendance doesn't matter to colleges, especially since it was only during your sophomore year...</p>

<p>Anyway, your SAT scores are going to hurt you, especially for schools like Yale and Harvard. But... you might as well try.</p>

6

<p>His SAT score is great considering he's a native French..</p>

7

<p>Could someone evaluate my chances please?</p>

8

<p>Both of your parents work at Yale. Thus, you have access at home and in your community to far better advice than you could get on this board of anonymous strangers, virtually all of whom lack access to the inside info about competitive college admissions that you have.</p>

<p>I speak from experience. When I was in h.s., my mom was a secretary at a Little Ivy, and got much inside info from faculty and staff that helped me as I navigated the college admissions process.</p>

<p>When I look at your application, I don't see anything except your parents' place of employment that would make you stand out in an elite college application pool. However, your parents' connections may help you a great deal including at schools other than Yale. I have no idea how that kind of situation plays itself out.</p>

<p>If you were indeed a National Merit semi-finalist or commended, you seem very out of the loop if you didn't know what that means. That puzzles me because your environs must be crawling with info about things like that.</p>

<p>I agree that "perfect attendance' and your middle school awards shouldn't be on your activities list. Since you have dual citizenship, I assume that either one of your parents is a native-born American or you have been in the US for a long time. Your V score seems very low for a person with dual citizenship and for students applying to the high end colleges on your list. Since French is your native tongue, it seems lazy that you took the French listening SAT II. </p>

<p>Summers spent doing things like "sailing" spell "privileged upbringing" to adcoms, who tend to expect more of such applicants than they do from less privileged ones. The one student whom I have met who has a parent who is on faculty at an Ivy had stronger stats and ECs. </p>

<p>Unless you hear differently from those at home who have inside info, I suggest that you find some safeties.</p>

9

<p>mailman, the way I see your chances are as follows:</p>

<p>Long Reaches</p>

<p>Yale
Harvard
Princeton</p>

<p>Reaches (but conceivable)</p>

<p>Brown
Weslyan
Tufts
Haverford
Swarthmore
Williams</p>

<p>Still Not Guaranteed...</p>

<p>Bowdoin
Bates
JHU</p>

<p>I agree with Northstarmom - I would advise researching some safeties. Good luck!</p>

10

<p>so basically ur saying that he has no 100% chance at any of these schools....</p>

11

<p>No, I am saying that unless he has some inside info indicating that Yale or the other colleges favor Yale faculty members' kids, he needs to have some safeties because he faces the same tough odds for those schools that most applicants face.</p>

12

<p>well with ur stats there, im pretty sure u an get into JHU (ahah i said that cause i got in), i dont know about any other schools and im not gonna act like i know. but for jhu , im pretty sure u can make it in.</p>

13

<p>thats true northstar, those ivies and others are pretty unpredictable. although your stats are impressive, but there isnt really anything on there that hundreds of other applicants applying to the same school may have, and evenmore. so ...dont be too sure of urself.</p>

14

<p>I know for Yale, your chances of getting in as a faculty-dependant are 30%.</p>

15

<p>Why are you asking all of these questions on this board? Given your parents' jobs and where you live, you have to be in a position to get inside info into most of the other colleges. </p>

<p>How can you possibly think that people here would be wiser about your chances than are the people in your immediate orbit? Presumably, your parents not only know faculty at Yale, but at many of the other colleges. In addition, you are in a position to track how other Yale faculty members' kids do in college admissions.</p>

<p>Truth is that you probably have lots of fascinating info about the application process that you could be sharing with us.</p>

16

<p>Not really, and my parents don't exactly have strong ties with faculty at other schools that would help me get in.</p>

17

<p>You live in New Haven. Your parents are at Yale. If you aren't able to get major info about elite college admissions, then you simply aren't taking advantage of your network.</p>

18

<p>I'm done applying to college and I dont plan on spending a significant amount of time working to evaluate my chances. I figured I'd try this board, you know, the "What are my chances" one?</p>

19

<p>Just so you guys can know how you did</p>

<p>Accepted:</p>

<p>Yale
Wesleyan
Tufts
Haverford
Bates</p>

<p>Waitlisted:</p>

<p>Brown
Swarthmore
Bowdoin (***?)</p>

<p>Rejected:</p>

<p>Williams
Harvard
Princeton</p>

20

<p>Congrats on getting into Yale!</p>