Chances for Georgetown, UChicago (EA)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Since my first ill-fated day on CC, i've been too embarassed to post a chances thread...hopefully this one will be less traumatizing?</p>

<p>Grade: rising senior
Sex: Female
Location: Iowa
Ethnicity: Biracial (Asian/White--not a very helpful combo)
School: Good for the state, but not super-competitive (still on NCLB). Sends 3-4 grads to HYPSM each year, a few others to northwestern, washu, etc. 450 in class.</p>

<p>Rank: School does not rank
GPA: 4.0 (School doesn't weight, either)
PSAT: 228
SAT: 780 CR, 740 Math, 760 Writing (first try, will retake) 2280 composite
SAT IIs: 680 Spanish (ouch), 750 Bio, 780 Lit
ACT: 35 (first try, won't retake)</p>

<p>APs:
European History--5, sophomore
Calc BC--5, junior
Spanish--5, junior
US Gov't--5, junior
Biology--5, junior
Senior year will take Physics, Chem, Spanish Lit (self study), English, Macro/Micro, and US history.</p>

<p>Other classes:
Chemistry @ community college (prolly not even worth mentioning)
Intro to Int'l Relations @ University of Iowa (A)
Will take "Writing in Spanish" and "Spanish Literature" @ UI</p>

<p>ECs:
Board of Directors at city youth center (only youth rep, center is a multi-million dollar organization)
Chair, city youth advisory commission (elected position, youngest member, secured thousands of dollars in grant funding)
Community youth leadership program grad
Certified as Youth Facilitator (long training program)
Founded an Asian student association @ school
Teen advisory board at library (200 volunteer hours, but did not begin documenting until last year--have been volunteering since 8th grade)
Varsity cross-country (3 years so far)
Piano lessons/piano composition (11 years)
City council campaigning (2-3 hrs per week, canvassing, etc)
School newspaper (design editor and doubletruck editor--lots of out-of-school work during publication week)
The usual...NHS, student senate, prom committee</p>

<p>Work:
Waitress at local retirement home
Intern, Congressman's office, five days a week (plan to continue during school year--may thus have to drop AP physics)
Communications Intern, area Chamber of Commerce, five days a week (will not continue during school year)</p>

<p>Awards/Scholarships:
National Winner, Letters about Literature essay contest (library of congress/target scholarship)
State Winner, United States Institute of Peace essay contest (and scholarship)
Wellesley book award (does this even help?)
Freeman Scholar, Asian and Pacific studies institute at gifted/talented center
McCue Scholar, Arabic institute at gifted/talented center
Rod Vahl scholar, Ball State journalism workshops (ixnay on this one, maybe?)
Selected for city youth salute program...for GPA or whatever
Selected for Herbert Hoover uncommon student award, declined due to scheduling conflict
Other things...state piano, honor roll</p>

<p>I plan on continuing spanish for fluency, but i'm very interested in chinese and arabic. my mother is chinese, so i've heard the language before...might make it easier to learn?</p>

<p>Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!</p>

2

<p>Keep everything in that you feel you devote time to. Is NHS any commitment, or is it just a reflection of the obvious (that you're a good student).</p>

<p>Keep the mention of the CC course and the Rod Vahl Scholar. Those are legitimate.</p>

<p>And also, take a deep breath. You're a bright student, and you will continue to be a bright student, whether or not you get into your top choice schools.</p>

<p>You're strong candidates for both Georgetown and Chicago, though take a look at this year's uncommon essays for Chicago-- it's not an easy school to apply to, and they might want to see a resume like yours backed up with personality and creativity through your essays.</p>

3

<p>what year did you win the peace essay thing?</p>

4

<p>thanks for the advice, unalove. i've read over some sample uchicago essays, and i'll admit that they are very tough. however, i enjoy writing and i'm hoping that i can manage to write some good essays. there are some personality quirks of mine that don't really show through my stats. i have a feeling that the uncommon app would be an appropriate way to communicate those.</p>

<p>and i won the peace essay this year. i did not win the national awards...but in case you want to double-check on the award, i think there's a list of state winners on the u.s. institute of peace website.</p>

<p>thank you for all your comments. are there any specific shortcomings with my stats that you think I could revise?</p>

5

<p>sorry to do this, but...
bumppp</p>

6

<p>read this:</p>

<p><a href="http://phoenix.uchicago.edu/testprep/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://phoenix.uchicago.edu/testprep/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>and then this:</p>

<p><a href="http://phoenix.uchicago.edu/ted/classof2007.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://phoenix.uchicago.edu/ted/classof2007.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>and maybe this, It's long and a bit dense at times, but it's worth starting , at least, and has enormous payoff:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ditext.com/abbott/abbott_aims.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ditext.com/abbott/abbott_aims.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>OOOooo...thanks, unalove!</p>

8

<p>I think that you will be in at Chicago and Georgetown. You don't really need to retake the SAT.</p>