<p>Hey I am An upper-middle Class White Male Sophomore(class '08). I attend one of the best Private Schools in Miami, Florida. I am withing top 10-15%(actual # unknown, my school doesnt do that)</p>
<p>My Grades are as follows:
9th Grade:
Ancient History - B
Honors Biology - B
Ceramic Art I - A
English(Lit Genres) - B
Honors Geometry - A
Language Arts Seminar - A
PE/Health - A
Spanish Level III - B
Unweighted GPA - 3.5
Weighted GPA - 3.625
P.PSAT - 1150</p>
<p>10th Grade:
World Lit - B
AlgII/Trig/H - B
Honors Chemistry - B
Mod World Hist - B
Spanish Level IV - B+
Intro To Philosophy - B+
Ceramic Art II - A+
World Religions - B+
Web Design - B+
Unweighted GPA - 3.33
Weighted GPA - 3.44
PSAT - 1300 (Not includin writing)</p>
<p>11th Grade Core Schedule:
AP Biology
Honors Physics
Honors Pre-Calculus
Honors History
Honors English
Spanish Level V
+AP Stats+(maybe if i have the time)</p>
<p>SAT II's and anticipated Score(11th Grade Year):
SAT II Biology - <700
AP Psychology- 4 or 5
AP Biology- 5</p>
<p>EC(My weakest qualities):
Shadow Influential Cardiac Surgeon Over Summer(would watch procedures,etc)
Shadow Influential Plastic Surgeon Over Summer
Camp Counselor at Aquatics Camp - 2 summers
Camp Counselor at General Camp - 1 winter
Lacrosse JV (9th and 10th)
Lacrosse V (11th and 12th)
Swimming V(11th and 12th)
Debate Team (11th and 12th)
Volunteer at Hospital 4 Months(8hrs a week)
Anchor Club (11th and 12th)
Key Club (11th and 12th)
National Honor Society (11th and 12th)
7th grade Duke T.I.P SAT Student for Math - Scored 1050</p>
<p>Anticipated SAT - <1450 or <2100 w/ writing (UM as well as others dont look at writing i believe)</p>
<p>I will have excellent essays and rec's and possible alumni/donator connections to the schools i apply to.</p>
<p>I would like to know the best school I have a chance at.
I am most likely going to end up at University of Miami but would like my other options. Thanks a lot to everyone that help.</p>
<p>I am hoping to get into the accelerated Med. Program as i aspire to be a Plastic Surgeon. If not i am unsure of what i will put as my major, but something that has to do with pre-med. If i can i would double major in business and my medical major.</p>
<p>Duke doesn't have an accelerated Med program.</p>
<p>well, regardless, what are my chances at the school. i am aware that they do not...</p>
<p>Do you anticipate your junior and senior year grades being more A's than B's? Or taking more AP's? Out of everyone that I personally know who got into Duke, they were all A students (a few B's here and there, but they were all in AP classes) and the majority of their classes junior and senior year were AP's. You definitely need to try bringing up your GPA tremendously for the next two years (especially since you attend a top private school, which might mean a whole lot more competition than most applicants).
Your EC's look spectacular! But for almost any college, and especially the top 50 colleges, grades come before EC's. So don't sacrifice your grades at the expense of adding more EC's to your resume. Good luck!</p>
<p>Duke will expect you to take the hardest classes and excel in them (get As for the most part).</p>
<p>with junior GPA of 4.3 and 4's or 5's on my ap's will i have a shot?</p>
<p>i got two C's in high school and a good number of B's and still made it in. My GPA UW was about a 3.7</p>
<p>Straight A's are not a mandate</p>
<p>Correct. My unweighted GPA entering Duke was around a 3.5-3.6 and I still got in.</p>
<p>what were your ec's and class levels like? Thanks</p>
<p>Class levels? I wasn't getting grades that went towards my GPA in classes like "Ceramics" and "PE/Health", only in academic classes. If you cut out stuff like that, your freshman GPA (unweighted) is 3.33 and your sophmore GPA is 3.12. I'd say that that's more representative of how admissions will look at it - I'm not aware of many schools that actually incorporate stuff like PE into your GPA. That said, looking over what you've posted, you're in the shallow end of the pool as far as meeting the generic minimums that Duke tends to look for.</p>
<p>I took every non-language AP my school offered for a total of 10, and did two independent studies in cellular automata/self organizing systems and signals processing/wavelet compression. I spent one summer as a materials intern developing testing methods for Avery Dennison with their polymers lab, then spent two summers working as an imaging programmer for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission at JPL/NASA. And I still had a 3.99 weighted when I graduated.</p>
<p>Your chances aren't great at Duke unless you prove that you have the capability to excel at Duke AND have a true passion and drive for something. The capability part comes with higher GPA and test scores, and the passion tends to come out in extra curriculars, essays, and recommendations. Find what you have a real drive for. Pursue something big - but until you have the fundamentals in your grades and test scores, it won't make the difference between meeting the minimum Duke expects and actually getting in.</p>
<p>Personally, I took 7 AP's at a very competitive prep school, ended high school with a 4.92, and got a 2270 on the SAT. Other students from my school attending Duke had similiar stats, and some with similar GPA's/test scores were rejected or waitlisted. Honestly, your grades and anticipated test scores are probably significantly lower than the average successful applicant's. Work on your grades and take the most challenging classes you can.</p>
<p>ok thanks everyone</p>
<p>Yea, just a note to all you prospective applicants: I worked in the admissions offices all year and did alot of tour guiding, etc. The thing about Duke admissions is while you may have great grades, so does everyone else. Also, having middle range grades (3.5 out of 4.0ish) doesn't keep you out. As one of the admissions officers told me, the grades are more like a hoop you have to jump through, kind of a threshold that doesn't gurantee your entrance. They (honestly) regularly reject people with perfect SAT's and 4.0's who took at on of AP's because they are boring. The thing that gets you in is having something fascinating you did or being passionate and really getting involved with something, even if it's as mundane as a canned food drive or somesuch. Don't be the clubber who is a member of every club at school. Be the kid who did one thing but excelled at it and transformed it.</p>