<p>honestly, it looks like a padded and “forced” resume’. you need quite a bit of editing. i would advise you form a frame of mind where you do not reference yourself in terms of a “prestigious” high school, for starters. the school already has your parent’s money, so there is no need to further pretend that there is such a thing as a prestigious high school.</p>
<p>i look at this, and i wonder - who exactly is this kid ??</p>
<p>i would suggest you attempt to get across who you are, and what you are passionate about. forget about your perfect resume’, and attempt to relate what is that makes you special, passionate, and unique. </p>
<p>it might be your SAT’s will simply do the job for you. in terms of other schools, this sort of over-immaculate resume’ might indeed work at an ivy - as others have said you never know, but probably not at a school like MIT, or say U chicago - where they really want to see who you are, not how well you keep track of looking like somebody you are supposed to be. ND looks hard at the numbers, so you are looking alright - but i would still edit like mad, and loosen up a bit on the essays in an effort to give a less sterile and over-worked picture of the young dynamic person you probably are.</p>
<p>first of all, people usually don’t mention high schools as prestigious on their actual application - this is a college confidential resume and yes it needs to be shortened an edited, but the fact that you criticize the use of the word prestigious is a little weird. It helps us judge where he is coming from and I know my school included a brochure about our requirements, etc, about how we were a prestigious school — also colleges usually start to develop relationships with schools, usually the ones deemed prestigious, so while he probably wouldn’t include it on his resume to a college it is important to mention it here. </p>
<p>but yes a shortened resume is important, but like I said, even I put up a longer resume on CC then I applied with, but I would say that if your resume is longer than a page for college, it needs to be shortened.</p>
<p>hawkswim: I may have been pointing out the obvious, but the fact remains that many very intelligent people are extremely sloppy even when they’re writing things that matter, like college papers and business letters, and send e-mails that make your jaw drop. Everyone thinks that he/she has the perfect application, but not everyone does. I simply wanted to stress that typographical details can be far more important than a barrage of details about one’s extracurricular activities; the former can be far more revealing than the latter.</p>
<p>hawkswim - i agree the OP’s use of the term tells where he coming from. i think that is part of the resume’s problem in terms of mindset. obviously the OP will not list his school as such, but the mindset is still there, leaving the overall presentation and voice of this kid as over-sterile and overworked.</p>
<p>it’s time to leave HS behind. nobody on this board, or anywhere else has heard of whatever this pretigious HS might be - so guess what ?? it’s not. neither is yours - marketing brochure aside. the school did it’s job, perhaps overdid it. </p>
<p>the admissions dept is interested in who the OP is - what he or she can bring to the university. this resume and presentation is weak in that dept, IMHO. there is an overdependance on creating a list of things that sound like the sort of things that are “supposed to be”. my notation of the identification of the school is meant as a way to assist the OP in looking past all the obviously " supposed to be " aspects of his nice school behind, and let ND know who and what he or she has become, and is.</p>
<p>^^ right but what i am saying is that a major piece of the application is how the applicant performed in high school. Therefore knowing whether the school typically gets all 5’s on AP exams or typically gets all 2-3s on APs is important. If the OP is talking about his school is prestigious in that is very challenging and produces top tier academic students every year that is critical. ND knows about my high school and we always get several kids accepted b/c of the relationship that we have built and ND trusts my high school’s recommendations and knows that a good gpa at my high school is truly a good gpa and not some elevated gpa that is due to the fact that every class is a joke class, even the so called APs that are more like accelerated classes elsewhere. </p>
<p>the essay and the ecs tell the school what you have to offer, but the academic section is critical as well and the fact that the OP is from a prestigious school tells a lot about his academic qualifications — it doesn’t matter if you have everything to offer the school, if you don’t have academic qualifications you won’t get accepted.</p>
<p>h-swim you have been internalizing your school’s marketing pitch a bit too much. </p>
<p>while it is true that a few schools do have sweetheart relationships with ND, it ends after a couple admission nods their way to maintain a mutually beneficial business relationship. the reliance for academic strength of an applicant you attribute to a school is mostly provided by the standardized testing system - indeed that is precisely why that system exists. it is also true that every perceived strength you associate with a blingy high school can be countered quite effectively in the admissions process by a gifted and/or talented student from a dinky nothing/nowhere school - happens every day. sorry, but that is the way it is.</p>
<p>^ believe what you want to believe, but unless your an ND admissions counselor, I still won’t take what you say to be fact … and yes the standarized testing system is there but it is only one portion of the entire package – many schools like ND want to see what you do in the classroom on a daily basis. while they are looking at SATs and ACT scores, they care about the strength of your classes and how you performed in them and that is where you high school comes into affect. </p>
<p>like i said, unless your an ND admissions counselor, you can believe what you want to believe and I will stand by what I believe, after all it has done me just fine</p>
<p>i am also aware that outstanding students from easier schools get accepted, but i know someone who was like 20/240 in his class, and had other middle of the road stats and got accepted to ND with a competitive, prestigious schools — works both ways.</p>
<p>as i say, you have internalized a lot of marketing into matters that are not marketing related. speaking of weird word-choices - your internalized viewpoint is even reflected in your descriptive terminiogy of other “less prestigious” schools from your own as " easy". </p>
<p>it is a very big world out there. admission candidates come from a wide variety of sources with an international school such as ND - extremely wide. thus, ND needs to take a much less parochial view of candidates and their backgrounds than you are espousing. your perspective on this topic is reflective, perhaps, of your small amount of local exposure. but, it is not at all how the world works - despite what you may have been told concerning the marketing strategy of your high school.</p>
<p>I am going to leave it at this (and this is what i meant all along but probably did not choose the best words):</p>
<p>If you are number 1 in your class with a 4.0 GPA it doesn’t matter which high school you came from - you are doing something right. However, if you are at a school and maybe you are in the top 15-20% instead of the top 5% and say your GPA is 3.7 instead of that 4.0 you can still get accepted IF your go to a high school that is extremely competitive and turns out students that go to top tier schools every year. Therefore, when someone posts stats from their high school with their class rank and GPA it is important to know whether they go a competitive school or not. Because if you go to a school that sends a solid amount of students to MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, then you don’t need to be in the top 5% of your school and have a 3.9 GPA because there is more competition than at a school where you are number one in your class, but the people behind you are not going to the same caliber of colleges as previously mentioned. </p>
<p>That is all I meant by my above statements and I put this discussion to rest because it seems like we have and will get no where.</p>
<p>hmmmmm. you sound like a recuiter for a high-dollar high school. this stuff is ingrained so deep into you, i agree we are not gonna get anywhere. </p>
<p>not only does your high school not matter anywhere near as much as you have been told, there are plenty of negatives associated with what you do believe to be something that matters that you are not aware of. you will never find an actual admissions person who will parrot the sort of rhetoric you are doing from what your high school has told you. in addition, it appears you are wholly unaware of all the negative connotations that come with a background of a school such as yours. </p>
<p>for example - forget ( if you can ) about class rank, and even GPA . imagine 2 applicants with near equal test numbers, EC/community work, and essays and letters of support. one is from a blingy high school, and the other from some noplace school or home-schooled. which is the better applicant ?? it can easily be argued the one from the lessor resource-filled background !! that applicant could well be seen to have more drive and initiative, since he/she had to actually go out and FIND the things to prepare themselves, instead of having it handed to them. </p>
<p>or, you mention grade inflation . . . has it occured to you that hi-dollar schools can often have far worse grade inflation due to the price they charge ?? quite common. </p>
<p>this stuff goes on and on in the real world. and, it is why what high school you went to is probably the last thing any admissions person would consider as relevant. they simply have MUCH better things to look at, and indeed that is how they go about it. you will find this out - as soon as you walk out the door of that school it will no longer matter to anybody in the world that you went there. for goodness sake it is HIGH SCHOOL !! actually, your dogmatic insistance that it is meaningful ( and so good ) is kinda . . . . . . i dunno - surprising and ironic in the sense that it seems to have provided you with such a narrow and parochial view on the matter. </p>
<p>i think you need to get outta there, and expand your vision. ND would be a great place for that. good luck. </p>
<p>I attend the same “prestigious high school” as the OP, and I think that the meaning he is attempting to convey is “competitive,” which I would say is an accurate description. After sitting through an admissions presentation at ND and having lunch with an admissions counselor, I learned that ND does, in fact, profile your high school using the counselor recommendation form. The applicant’s guidance counselor fills out the form, answering questions about how many AP classes the school offers, how the GPA is weighted, etc. To some degree, yes, the high school does matter, as not all high schools offer the same advanced courses. Is the high school the difference between acceptance or deferment? No, of course not. </p>
<p>The OP is most assuredly in the top 10% of our class of approximately 530, and his resume reflects his commitment to both our school and his parish.</p>
<p>There definitely are feeder schools, but you certainly don’t have to go to one of them. My children went to an inferior small-town public high school, and the three who applied to ND got in.</p>
<p>sigh . . . . . . in my immediate family one person does admission interviews for princeton, and another is a highly sought after gifted/talented coordinator of 30 years who has helped innumerable young people thru this process. </p>
<p>the “screening” of your high school is not to see how good it is or how competitive it is, for weighting in the admissions process. it is primarily to see whether or not you availed yourself fully of what was offered. from a practical standpoint to the applicant, a blingy high school in this regard it is more a pitfall, than a help. </p>
<p>look, there is an archetype of an over-priviliged and over-handled applicant out there. like all archetypes, it is based in reality. it is not a help in the admissions process, and certainly the sort of impression you want to leave on an admission application. IM-educated-O, the OP does sorta leave that impression. he or she would be wise to edit it outta there. altho as i said previously, for the purposes of ND it may not be necessary, as his.her SAT’s can possibly get the job regardless.</p>
<p>I didn’t start this thread for a debate. Go start your own if that’s what your looking for. I wanted some honest answers to see my chances at a few school not to be nitpicked at. No matter what you think you know you don’t know me and never will through a resume on a website. My resumes expanded to show the things i would talk about in an essay about my passions, youth group and football. If you consider that forced or sterile than so be it but don’t judge me or my life because I happen to be well rounded. I dint want an answer to this defending yourself because I’m sick of this whole thing. I have guidance to tell me what youve been trying to and I trust them more than a nameless face. So thanks for trying but all I really wanted was your opinion on if I’d get in or defered or be rejected and all of the stuff I’ve posted is for reference. I typed it on an iPod. So thanks for putting me through a bunch if pointless garbage for you to get a point across to someone that isn’t me. You did great.</p>
<p>there is a great deal of difference between critique of an individual, and critique of that individual’s resume ( particulary one that has been posted on a website seeking input ). i stated quite clearly to you in my first post that my belief is that you are, in reality, a dynamic young person. </p>
<p>i have also posted several times that you have a pretty good shot at an ND admission on your SAT’s alone. i think that you probably already knew that. </p>
<p>the bulk of my discussion with the other felows had little to do with you. it was a divergence, common in internet threads - but, seeing as how it related to original topic so well, one i engaged in. it happens. </p>
<p>you posted some info, asked for opinions, and you got a few. not all were glowing . . . . not of you - but of your presentation. presentation counts in the arena you are entering, young fella. similarly, get ready for a new level of critique once you leave HS. there is no need to personalize it in any way. it is meant as a help, to try to get you to present yourself and you passions, thoughts, and individuality in the best possible way. while mine, at least, is based in years in experience on the subject ( you initiated ) it cost you nothing, so by all means take it or leave it.</p>
<p>Thank you for that reply. It is true and I’m glad I could learn the importance of those things. Though I was not thrilled about the entire debate, your input is appreciated and I do realize that not everything will come as easily and I’ll have to accept that.</p>
<p>Hate to add anything out of the box here but do you really think that a 1440 on the SAT is really that assuring of a score for ND. That equates to a 32 on the ACT. I was under the impression that you needed at least a 33 on the ACT or equivalent to feel good about your score. I thought a 32 put you in a mix of a lot of others in the pool…not a standout…any input there?</p>
<p>32 is 25th percentile, if I’m not mistaken. My nephew, who’s father went to ND, got waitlisted with a 32, great grades, and the legacy connection. 32 is definitely not a shoe-in.</p>
<p>I’m not looking for a shoo in, and it’s not just based on test scores. My scores are good, not excellent so I’m hoping extras and essays will put me over the top</p>