<p>So I really want to go to Princeton. I also applied to yale, cornell, Williams, Wash U, Pamona, nyu, penn, and some others. I live in New York.
White, female
Stats:
Hook: both parents and sister went to princeton, however they do not donate much money at all.
More importantly, how much will the above help me? Ptown doesn't have ED anymore, where it would have helped a lot, however I suspect they won't punish legacies for this.
GP: 4.71W (not sure about UW, but this is on a 5.0 scale)
Rank: top 10%, our school doesn't tell us anything past that.
SAT I: M: 770 CR: 680 W: 770 (2230)
SAT II: US History: 730 Lit: 710 Chem: 650 (not great II's I know)
Senior courses//Grades first semester (on the midyear report):
AP Calc AB // A-/B+
AP Music Theory // A
AP Stat // A
AP English Lit // A
AP Spanish // A
AP Gov // A
Orchestra Honors // A
Note: senior grades not incorporated into GPA</p>
<p>Junior year: all honors, with AP English Language and AP us history.
Question: I've taken basically all the AP courses offered at my school, except the 4 science APs. However, my schedule didn't allow me to take AP Bio (and I mentioned this on my application). Also, we must take physics honors, chem honors and biology honors before taking an AP in them (and I took all three of these).
My school does have an IB program though which I chose not to do for a few reasons. The kids in them aren't great and I wouldn't have been able to take orchestra. Will this hurt me?
Oh and:
5's on apush and ap eng. language exams.</p>
<p>EC's:
Basically a music kid. I've gone to districts, regionals and all-state for flute three years in a row (the most possible). My teacher is in the NY philharmonic and I performed with a local university for one of their concerts. I do pit orchestra too. Basically if any opportunity for playing arises, and I'm there.
I'm president of the orchestra at my school as well.
I'm VP of Model UN Club and have gone to three in the past 2 years.
I've been on JV lacrosse for 4 years.
I'm active member in Student government, literary magazine and language club.
My essays, recs and stuff were all good etc etc etc</p>
<p>Anyway, I suspect without legacy I wouldn't have a great chance at getting in to Princeton, but with it, what do you think? Besides putting down where my family went to college on the commonapp, I didn't mention it anywhere else in the application.</p>
<p>Yeah I'd probably agree, although I don't know about the whole IB thing... I hope they don't count that against you =/ but double legacy should help, even if they don't donate a lot of money...
any other ideas?</p>
<p>does the double legacy really help that much? I would think that it would be a reach...SAT II's aren't that great (SAT I's are okay), not many advanced sciences, pretty good EC's... overall... I'd say about a 20% chance</p>
<p>I'm not inclined to say that Princeton is a "match" for you. Legacies are much more significant if there's money involved, and because it sounds like there isn't, I'm not sure your connections will make much of a difference. </p>
<p>Not to foster sibling vs. sibling competition, but how good were your sister's stats? If your stats are comparable to hers, I would say you've still got a decent shot because presumably you have the same connections that she had.</p>
<p>My sister had almost straight A's and had slightly higher SATs.
She was captain of some community service organization, captain of soccer team as well as debate team. But what i think distinguishes me from her is that i have out-of-school recognized things like the music competitions, which is an EC i focus most of my time on.
Also, she went to a private school, unlike me.</p>
<p>Obviously I'm not that qualified to answer this question, but here's random bits of fact and opinion that you may take with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Just to warn you, I have read stories of Princeton legacies getting rejected. I don't know if the money will make a difference of not, but you can hope that it won't.</p>
<p>Your scores and activities seem fine. Perhaps you're not the strongest applicant without the legacy, but from what I can see your transcript shows rigor, and your scores are within the common score range from the most recent freshman data set I could find.</p>
<p>Theoretically colleges would know that IB doesn't necessarily provide the best atmosphere for each student to pursue their academic potential. They shouldn't count you out just because of that, especially if you mention that you did it because of your commitment to orchestra.</p>
<p>In my opinion, you have a shot, just like everyone else. Beyond that it's the mysterious Ivy League admit process...</p>
<p>I agree with Domnu, about 20%. You're a solid applicant with a pretty good all-around profile. As a musician myself I know that your musical accomplishments are pretty incredible, and sometimes that's all you need if you find a school trying to build up their music program. Your test scores aren't incredible, but overall you're an above-average, solid, if unspectacular applicant.</p>
<p>thanks guys.
there is one little catch though... i forgot to mention the music reason for not taking IB on my application, and someone who IS in IB is applying too. She doesn't have double legacy, but her dad went there and he donates lots of money. Do you think this would affect my chances, or would they not care if we are from the same school...? I don't know a lot about her. I know her grades are decent and that she doesn't have any spectacular extra-curricular that would make her amazing...
But thanks for the responses so far!</p>
<p>Whether you're a double legacy or single legacy doesn't matter. If one of your parents went there, it counts the same as if both parents went there. What DOES matter is if they gave a big chunk of change, which it sounds like that other girl's father did. It's hard to predict, but I'd say you're right on the cusp.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure a double legacy > single legacy.
My parents were at some party where the dean of admissions from Columbia was, and he said double is better. By how much, I don't know.</p>