<p>I'm a junior looking to apply to Vandy in the fall. I'm from an extremely competitive Catholic high school.</p>
<p>My cousin graduated a few years back and since I visited, I've had an interest ever since.</p>
<p>Let me know what you think.</p>
<p>STATS: </p>
<p>GPA: 3.97W/3.65UW (7-point grading scale, will be converted to a 10-point grading scale, so I expect my UW GPA to look more like a 3.8 or 3.9)
(Instead of 93-100% being an A, an A will be 90-100%. This will increase my GPA significantly)</p>
<p>RANK: 22/153 </p>
<p>ACT: 30, will be taking it again (35 English 31 Reading 28 Math 26 Science)</p>
<p>SAT: May 7th</p>
<p>EXTRA CIRCULARS:</p>
<p>3 years as Class President
Student Body President (most likely) next year
Peer Minister (chosen and trained)
4 (2 varsity) years of football (F/JV captain, hopefully captain next year) - 2010 state champion
4 (3 varsity) years of lacrosse (hopefully captain next year)
2 years of basketball (F captain)
Worked at a restaurant, health club, country club
Plenty community service
2 time essay competition finalist (G.R. Ford 'Courage', Economics Club)
7 years of piano (awards, competition)
Award-winning journalist (3 years school newspaper) - Editor-in-chief next year
Founding Young Investors Club
1 year of choir
Inventor, Member of Pre-Engineering
Skipped the 7th Grade
Disabled father</p>
<p>20 honors/AP courses to this point. Currently in AP English, AP Biology.</p>
<p>Next year: AP Psychology, AP Economics, AP Government, AP English</p>
<p>Any shot? (Provided I write some bad-ass essays and get some great recommendations, of course. Haha)</p>
<p>Good statss, really. The GPA is a little low.</p>
<p>What is your one specialty? Nowadays colleges are moving away from kids who just have a broad base of interests to more specified things.</p>
<p>STATS UPDATED THROUGH JUNIOR YEAR. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>GPA: 4.041 Weighted*
** * * * * *3.65 Unweighted</p>
<p>CLASS RANK: 18/153 (Top 11.7% - Competitive private high school)*</p>
<p>ACT: 31 Composite (35 English, 33 Reading, 28 Math, 28 Science)</p>
<p>AP CLASSES:
AP Biology
AP Literature and Composition
AP Language (Next year)
AP Psychology (Next year)
AP Macroeconomics (Next Year)
*
24 Honors/AP Courses through Junior year</p>
<p>EXTRA CIRRICULARS:
-3 Years as Elected Class President
-Editor-in-Chief of award-winning school newspaper (3 years staff writer, editor senior year)
- Michigan Interscholastic Press Association Award for Informative/Investigative piece*
-Elected Peer Minister
-4 Years of Football (3 years as captain)
** * <em>- Division 4 State Champion. *</em>
** * <em>- Elected member of team Unity Council senior year
-4 years of Lacrosse (3 years on varsity)
-2 years of Basketball (2 years as captain)
-2-time Bronze award winner - National Spanish Exam
-Winner - Gerald R. Ford Museum Essay Contest
-Winner - Grand Rapids Economic Club Essay Contest
- Trigonometry summer course at Grand Rapids Community College
-Skipped the Seventh Grade
-3-time Superior rating - National Piano Exam
-Volunteer - No Barriers USA Foundation
*</em> * <em>- Guide for Deaf/Blind father
-Founder/CEO of SPAT Performance Footwear</em>
** * *- Developed performance football cleat, worked with * * *manufacturers/designers to eliminate wasteful athletic tape and prevent ankle injuries ([Spat</a> Performance Footwear - Cleats, Shoes, Footwear](<a href=“http://www.spatwear.com%5DSpat”>http://www.spatwear.com))
-Member of RenegadeCEOs - Incubator for a select group of teen entrepreneurs
-Inaugural University of Cincinnati DAAP Summer Design Experience Participant
-Writer for Teen Economics Blog</p>
<p>LEGACY:
Michigan State University (mother)
University of Southern California (father and brother)
Miami University (Ohio) (brother)</p>
<p>You need to get your test scores up if you want to stand a good chance at Vandy with that GPA. Take the SAT and see how well you do on that (remember, Vanderbilt pays attention to only your critical reading and math scores, so work hard on those!).</p>
<p>your test scores will be a barrier at Vandy in all honesty. you can look up last year’s stats at most colleges by typing in Common Data Set into the search window. Be tough and brutally honest with yourself. Some kids got into Vandy with a 31, but a quarter of the class had near perfect test scores and most of them had SATIIs and AP scores to further prove their mastery of a course. Vandy has 25 thousand applicants. People are waitlisted with 35s now every season.</p>
<p>Have you considered targeting top liberal arts colleges? Many that are not in the top fifteen have a shortage of strong male applicants and you are a strong male applicant! Also you have earned strong grades while serving your school very faithfully on tough sports teams. Do you have any interest in college football at the Division 2 or 3 level? Just playing to your strengths. Adcoms recognize that a varsity travel sports like football and lacrosse take up a lot of time.</p>
<p>Final advice, make up your mind to do all ten practice tests on the ACT in the Red book. Do half of them open book (read the answers carefully) and do the other half timed with only the brief break allowed in real time testing. Retake your ACT. One of my sons gained 200 points on the SAT by simply preparing the summer before his senior year. You may be underprepared. If you don’t put testing as a priority you may also miss out on honors admissions to other colleges you like a lot. You are so close! Don’t quit testing. </p>
<p>Last bit of advice. If you really do write well and often for a school paper, submit a sample or a reference from your faculty advisor. The Hustler could be a much better paper and they always need new writers. They also have one merit scholarship for sports journalism if that interests you at all. Always demonstrate what you will do on campus to make Vanderbilt life more vibrant. They have to replace hundreds of kids annually on all extracurricular fronts. </p>
<p>Your GPA will be in your favor with that sports load. It shows discipline. Good luck!</p>
<p>Well Will, I’d like to say that you won’t make it in. But unfortunately you probably will. Honestly you could probably go to most Ivy league schools with those grades. I’m actually kinda ticked. But I don’t know if Vanderbilt will reevaluate grades. Do they? By the way, this is Matt.</p>
<p>I’d say you’re probably borderline for ED if you don’t send your class rank and increase your test scores. Last year an admission counselor told me that they just don’t admit people outside the top 10% of their high school classes so DO NOT send class rank if you want to have a chance</p>
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<p>How do you know? Are you an adcom? I doubt you have knowledge of a large enough sample set to make that assumption.</p>