<p>Just a few quick notes:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You won’t know how well you’ve “taught” yourself calculus without being assessed.</p></li>
<li><p>Ivies are a reach for you without taking the most difficult curriculum, which, in this case, would incorporated calculus.</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>Of course. I’ll most likely be taking the exam.</p>
<p>LOL Penn State LOL</p>
<p>What struck me most in reading your post is your essay subjects. Blah, blah, Blah indeed. Unless you have an exciting twist or are a remarkable story teller, writing about your parent’s divorce and your experience in marching band are not generally the kind of essays that make top college admissions officers jump up and down and want to let you in.</p>
<p>You know your chaces at the ivies are weak. At this point just make sure you have backups you really want to attend. If your apps haven’t all gone out, revisit the essays. Everyone rejected at a T20 school ED/EA with in range stats should do this.</p>
<p>Have you read my essays? No. Most people that have read them told me they were awesome. I’m sorry I haven’t been evacuated out of a warzone, had a parent with cancer, or discovered the cure for AIDS. I wrote about what’s important to me. Also, there are no back ups I really want to attend. That’s why they’re back ups. My first goal at whatever university I go to is transferring. And I know what your next comment’s going to be: Transferring to an Ivy is impossible. I don’t really care.</p>
<p>op, I don’t think waverly was commenting on the boring nature of your topics. after all, let’s be honest, if we all needed stories like the ones you gave examples of to get into college, schools like Penn and Harvard would be empty.
I think the concern here was that you seem unimpressed with your essays (“yada yada”) rather than fully confident in them, which could hurt your application.</p>
<p>Oh, no. I’m confident in my essays. I typed “yada yada” because I didn’t feel like explaining them. You can’t base an essay’s effectiveness off of its topic. It’s about how well it’s written, which is something I cannot show to you all in a mere summary.</p>
<p>You’re asking for opinions, yet snap at anyone who you disagree with.</p>
<p>Tone it down, bud.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say I’m snapping. I’d say I’m clarifying…</p>
<p>Since you already know you’re reaching for the two ivies and will probably get into PennState, I’m not going to give you that kind of evaluation. Just some feedback:
-Good luck on the rest of your supplements => put your heart into it, and try not to come off as too arrogant or assuming.
-I think it’s good that you’re trying for the ivies even after you got into a university, but if that attitude comes off in your essays it’s going to be slightly “eeks”.
-Your attempt to self-study Calculus might not be as easy as you thought (as some others have mentioned); honestly, the brightest kids in math don’t even need to study that much for the SAT II and get a 800 no problem. Taking the exam after six months is more than enough to score highly if math does come very easy to you. Maybe you can self-study but I would take a humbler attitude towards the AP because it is honestly not as easy as one might presume.</p>