chances at franklin and marshall?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am a prospective international student from india.
i want to to major in astrophysics, and i require full need based financial aid..like every other indian. i shortlisted the colleges that offer need based financial aid to international students out of the 34 which had astrophysics.they are:
Barnard C, Colgate U, Connecticut C, Franklin/Marshall C, Lehigh U, Villanova U
Columbia U, Swarthmore, Wellesley C, Ohio Wesleyan U, Princeton U
i am applying to villanova for early action and and franklin and marshall for early decision. because the rest want a sat subject test score which i will only have in decmber for RD. Also my october 14th sat1 was postponed to 28th october in my country. but in my mock test i have been getting math:750-800, verbal: 610-690, writing: 650. ranging from 2000 to 2100. for safety sake lets keep the sat score 2020.What are my chances? in F&M? full aid that is.and also what bout the others?</p>

<p>Academics:
•Within the top 5 ranks throughout high school. and top 5% in senior year.
•93 percentile in National Science Olympiad, National Rank was within 150 and state and city rank 7 and 2 respectively
•AAT (National Aptitude test on Math and English by IIM A alumni) percentile of 95.
•Intra School Science Quiz Winner.
•Thomas Paul Science Quiz (High School): Inter-district science quiz with over 25 participating schools - Winner</p>

<p>Astronomy/Astrophysics:
•President of the School Astronomy Club. Where we have regular overnights in our school throughout he year (barring monsoons), where we teach/discuss astronomy to the members of the club, observe the heavens using telescopes and cover astronomical events.
•International Astronomy Olympiad: passed the written round and was selected amongst the top 100 students for the camp in Mumbai organized by TIFR(tata institue for fundamental research) & Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and funded by the Indian space research organisation (isro)for the final selection of the 6 students who were to represent India.
•Principal’s Award: Special Award given to a student who has done much work in a particular field. Awarded for Astronomy in the year 2005 for my work and service to the club for four years from Grade 7-10.
•Frank Anthony Memorial Award (shield) for astronomy awarded in 2006.
•Have worked with both 10 inch reflector and a 6inch refractor, and can set it up, and handle the telescopes with ease. Can get the andromeda galaxy, Orion nebula etc. on the telescope. Have superficial knowledge of the constellations.
•Have given over 30 talks on the classical physics, relativity(not involving math), quasars, unification of physics etc. using PowerPoint presentations.(I still have those notes and ppts).
•I organized an event which covered the Venus transit 2004 in my city(the only one)
•Quanta 2007: An International Computer/Astronomy/Math Festival organized by city Montessori School, Lucknow. Selected in the 7 member team for the 7 events, and will be participating in the international Astronomy quiz on Nov 19th with participation of over 20 countries…like Finland, china etc. and also in model making.
•And here is the big one, I am going for a once in a lifetime trip to NCRA (National Centre for Radio Astrophysics), Pune on the 15th of October. This has the largest radio telescope in the world the 80 metre GMRT (giant metre wave telescope). And I will be touring the place with head research scientist Yashwant Gupta, who was all over the newspapers last year for his groundbreaking discoveries of 3 pulsars in the supernova remnant (I forgot the name), and hopefully I will get my hands on the telescope itself, but that’s the long shot, right now I shall be happy in just assisting him in anyway possible.</p>

<p>Computers/IT
•National Cyber Olympiad 2004: have a percentile of 90 something, Ill have to check. :P
The city and state ranks were also decent…topped city and state was top 3. but national sucked… was 250 or something.
•The 8th International Quality Circle Convention (2006): the festival had over 200 international tams and 150 national teams. With more than 110 participating countries…like bosnia, south korea etc. I represented my school in a team of 14 students. I participated in case study & presentation and short play. We won the case study presentation.
•COFAS (2005): Computer/IT fest for schools from all over the sub continent. Won the computer quiz, and were declared overall champions of the meet.
•Computer Club President
•Got the “principals award” for C.Sc in 10th std, and will be getting it this year in march for plus two as well.
•Abacus 2004: A state level computer/IT fest with 25 schools participating, won the IT quiz.
•Abacus 2005: won web designing. Using only html.
•Loyola School Webmaster and site design.(although now transferred to some outside group because I did not have the time to keep updating, but I am trying to get it back with my own design.)
•JEET 2005 powered by intel: interschool event, won web designing. Logo designing in Photoshop.
• I Am well versed with flash, and make flash intros for all my school events etc.
•Have made short movie on Loyola school (my scool) celebrating its diamond jubilee, entirely in flash and 3ds max etc.
•Can design websites and have made a couple using HTML, php, JavaScript
•Know advanced languages like c, c++, java.
•Impulse 2006 inter school science/computer quiz: winner
•Computer Club teaching sessions for juniors throughout the year.
•Just got the results of NCO 2006. I stood 3rd in the city and 7th in the state. National rank was not that great. 285.
•Handled the computer related tasks for “the ideal husband” – a grand play celebrating 60 years of Loyola school’s existence.
•Won the intra-school presentation making competition on soil erosion in area.
•Won the best documentary on “child labor in my city”</p>

<p>Leadership/Organization
•President of the astronomy and computer clubs.
•Secretary of Loyola Jyoti( Jamshedpur’s youth of tomorrows India).
•Was a Nominee for the president of the school.
•Vice-President of student council.
•Organized the following events.
•TechTronics: A special 3 day computer fest, celebrating our diamond jubilee, with 30+ outstation schools from Calcutta, Bombay, delhi etc. With 16 events.
•CosmoQuiz: An Interschool Astronomy Quiz for high school.
•Abacus 2006 – State Level IT/Computer fest. With 9 events, Web Designing, Logo Designing, Quiz, Problem Solving (c++), Cartoon Making, Computer Debate, Gaming, Jingle
•Rhapsody 2006– And district level interschool fest with more than 30 schools, and 26 events. From face painting, musical performance to short comical skits.
•Thomas Paul Science Quiz (2006)
•Was the senior organizer of the marathon celebrating our 60 years and also, ‘Farewell’ to seniors and the “fresher” welcome party.
•One of the 5 Nominees for the annual “young leader” award of our school.
•Student volunteer for horlicks activity 2006.
•Was the quizmaster for a interschool junior school science quiz.</p>

<p>Music
•Play the bass guitar.
• I am the bassist/vocalist of heavy metal band “dark ritual” comprising entirely of loyoleans and x - loyoleans. We are mostly a cover band but we have a couple of original compositions, in the process of getting a record deal with demonstealer records, for our first EP/demo tape..(if we don’t…we will produce it ourselves). Our song performance was aired on Mexican radio “Ultrasonica”, we were mentioned in the metalzine “MetalKlown”, and also a mention in the june edition of “rock street journal”. We had and article printed in the “the telegraph” about our band.
•Have played several live gigs, including fests like “IIT battle of the bands”, NIT Jamshedpur’s “utkarsh”, Lemod, Rhapsody, Resurgence as guests appearances.
•Played in 2 two self organized concerts.
•Were informally invited for resurrection june 2006’ – an extreme metal concert featuring the best metal bands of India in Bombay.( but we declined, cuz we wernt obviously as good as they thought we were…and plus we did not have a lot of original songs.)
•Was in charge of the music/background score for the play “an ideal husband”
•Also a part of my official school band as bassist/vocalist.
•Waves 2004 – winner of an interschool song composition-performance competition. Lyrical theme “be a little more human” song featured on a compilation record of waves 2004.
•Waves 2005 – represented my school, but lost apparently because the song composed was too heavy/extreme for the judges liking.
•Waves 2006 – still hasn’t happened…will be in 2006, we will lose again because we have become even more extreme now. :p
•We always play in the school events like teachers days, children’s day etc.</p>

<p>Sports
•I am in the school soccer team, play central midfield
•Joga Football Tournament 2005: was part of the squad which win the inter-school event.
•Joga Football Tournament 2006: was part of the squad which went upto the semi-finals
•Have represented my school in state level tournaments,
•Was part of the B-division cricket team when I was in the 8th std.
•Have won track and field events like javelin and long jump in the annual school sports day.</p>

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<p>....continued</p>

<p>Volunteer Work/Social Service/Community service
•Working with a government funded organization “science for society”, as junior member.
As part of the SFS group, I covered events like Venus transit in 2004, 2 lunar eclipses, meteor showers like the leonids, to underprivileged kids in nearby villages, using equipment provided by the government like telescopes etc. Also try to make them understand “why” basically lot of elementary stuff to young kids concerning astro.
•Permanent Member of the Indian Red cross society. Have donated blood and helped in a couple of projects, only superficially though.
•Work for Ram Krishna Mission – help in distributing free ration, cooking oil to villagers. Teach small tribal kids of std. 1,2,3 of the free school twice a week, elementary math hindi and English.<br>
•Read Aloud story books for the blind and challenged in “the school of hope” on a fairly regular basis.
•Performed with my band in “musical extravaganza” 2006, along with 3 others. A fundraiser concert for “Lupita Church” in our city.
•Performed in and organized “Kaizen” in 2005 with other bands of the city, raising. Rs. 6360
•Performed in “hope floats”(2004), was volunteer in another event (2003), both fundraisers which were donated to the “cancer patients fund” run by the sisters of XLRI.
•Senior Member of Interact Club: have participated in various activities like the annual paper drive, visits to “Cheshire home” – for the challenged and retarded, special Olympics – sports meet for the handicapped/challenged.</p>

<p>Random Stuff:
•Reporter for the school paper “the Loyolean”. Interview people and write articles.
•Acted in the opera “ the lion king”
•Also acted in a original short play for the international quality circle.</p>

<p>First off, Thanks for reading through this crap, I am really grateful!
Second, Don’t judge me on the atrocious spelling errors, lack of parallelism in tenses, incorrect grammar and usage of words, since I have typed this out in the middle of the night in a matter of 1 hour.
Notes & Questions:
1.What are the things that are redundant?
Help me eliminate things which have no use, or might hamper my application. For example my very last note, can that be of any use, or is it worthless?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>What to do with the “will be”s?
You can see a lot of things that will happen in the future, of course those which are mentioned are things which I am absolutely sure about. Applying early is a disadvantage in terms of awards, as they are always awarded at the end of the year. Going for the international astronomy quiz is a big deal and I cannot not mention it. Suggestions?</p></li>
<li><p>Honor Code?
I have heard that students are asked to follow an honor code, in which they are given the freedom to say anything they want in the application and the office of admissions will unconditionally give the applicant credit. Thus allowing them not to send certificates of everything they mention. This is crucial for me as I do not certificates for a lot events or activities (either lost or never got), a lot of them are such that I could not even demand one, as it would be very awkward, say something like a musical event. However, I have a lot of evidence in the form of newspaper cuttings, certificates, video captured, photographs which can prove a lot of the things mentioned are genuine. So I do write only those things which I can substantially prove, with certificates and other evidence, or should I write everything …and only provide them with what I can prove and let the rest be as it is? I am scared they might get a feeling the rest are false, which are a good amount. Or should not give them any certificates…and evidence and le them judge for themselves?</p></li>
<li><p>Do they check?
Do the colleges; contact the principal of the school to enquire about the students?
If they do, then is it superficial checking? Or is it detailed? For example: Do they ask the principal, has shashi kiran got this award? Or has he reperesented your school at this event? He might not be able to answer all those questions, since he hands out quite a large number of awards. In case he doesn’t confirm, will I be in trouble?</p></li>
<li><p>“Metal” Band, Good or bad?
The truth is that my band is not heavy metal, its death metal, but I thought since metal music is the most “picked on” genre of music, stereotyped as violent, wicked and for the mentally unstable/deranged, I chose to water it down. However, the videos, the compositions are clearly show that we are quite extreme (no we weren’t doing anything vulgar or objectionable, just that this music is cacophony and violent for many). I have the option of not sending them our videos and compositions, just to be sure that they don’t think I am one those crazy guys, who will randomly shoot or assault people because I am into this kind of music, which papers so often, wrongly, claim. This will obviously truncate a lot of material which I could have used, leaving me with just two soft rock compositions which we made like 3 years ago when we were rock. With the potential of this application falling into the hands of a fundamentalist Christian, I might find myself rejected for the stupidest of reasons.
I might also be getting worried pointlessly and that it might not be an issue at all. What do you say? Here is the link to the video.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoeA1xzQWHQ%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoeA1xzQWHQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li>
</ol>

<p>Also I am missing my second terminal exams due to my SAT exam which is right then, will it affect my admission? I will be getting an absent on each paper.</p>

<p>Is there any particular area that i need to work on my application?</p>

<p>Lots of questions...waiting for the answers.:)</p>

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<p>how long did it take you to write all that?</p>

4

<p>1 hr cuz i could not remember eveything. :p</p>

5

<p>in your list of achievements, think about an overarching theme that will fit with each of colleges that you list. i am not sure, if i am to be overwhelmed when i see it, impressed, suspicious, or annoyed with its laundry-list-like style considering your age. but f&m, ohio wesleyan, maybe reed, denison and hamilton will be good fits for your interest in aid as an international student and the field of study.</p>

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<p>Way too much; there's no way to know what's importatant to you. Being a member of an activity won't stand out; include only leadership positions. Drop reference to the metal band; playing three chords does not show your talent. Academic schools are interested mainly in your academics. Schools admit students who best match the schools' needs; which need do you fulfill for each school?</p>

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<p>Thanks for the reply... i sure wasnt going to mention hafl of the things written. Since i dont know how to make the best application, i thought it would be easier with your guidance. So oaky, ill cut out the metal band part bit. I have a few rock compositions, and i have a video of me me playing a killer bass solo (not just three chords :p).</p>

<p>And i think they should take me for the astrophysics program, because i feel i have showed that i already know a lot about the subject ..where most "bright students" of my peer group have good grades good sat scores and thats about it. they have no passiob for thier work, maybe its a narcassistic statement, but i feel i am very commited and focused and my international events are proof of that. i have been fortunate enough to actually handele the biggest radio telescope in the world, plus work with a leading research scientist. Computers will be a very important part of research now, and i am quite skilled at that aswell ...so think these two things should work in my favour.
Or maybe i have got everything wrong and i wont get in anywhere:(. I have gut feeling i will be rejected.</p>

<p>Thanks guys ...anyone else??</p>