chances

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>i was curious to find out my chances of being accepted to cornell and yale. i am applying ed to cornell but i would just like to know if i have a shot at yale. several people have said i have a shot at yale but i didn't really think so. i'll leave it up to all of you :)
i am white female and live in ny (i would be applying to the college of agricultural and life sciences for cornell in which i would get a discount as a ny resident)</p>

<p>GPA: my school does not have a 4.0 scale...it is based out of 100 points
about a 97 or 98 (so a 4.0 at other schools)
9th grade it was about a 98..10th grade it was about a 98.5, 11th grade it fell a little due to ap history (my grades in all my classes range from about 96 to a 100 and i got about a 92 in ap history and it brought my gpa down and went to about a 96.8)
class rank: 1 out of about 92 or so
school rank: (my school is so small that they give you a school ranking out of grades 6-12) 10th grade i was 1 out of close to 500...11th grade i was in the top ten (not sure what exact number since i wasn't there for the awards assembly that day but according to friends i was like 6th)
Principal's List 9-12
if all goes well i should be valedictorian this year </p>

<p>Courses:
i've taken the hardest courses that my school has to offer. i go to a small catholic school so i don't have a lot of choices. i take all honors courses and have taken 4 ap courses so far. by the end of senior year i will have taken a total of 6 ap courses (that is all my school offers...with the exception of ap physics that was just added this year but i wanted to take anatomy instead)</p>

<p>as far as AP courses go, i haven't done phenomenally well with the ap test grades (i haven't gotten 4's or 5's..but neither has anyone in my class that i know of so i don't feel so badly about that...we really aren't prepared as much as we should be for the ap test) and i was wondering if the college even requires you to give your test grades. if someone could write back and tell me that would be very much appreciated. (i know it's on the application to list them but i didn't know if the scores were required)</p>

<p>since i am a nys resident we have the statewide regents tests and i've gotten above a 90 on all of them therefore allowing me to graduate with regents honors</p>

<p>SATs: not very high but decent i guess
verbal 630, math 690, (total: 1320)
essay section 720 (total w/ essay: 2040)
i do not plan on retaking them before i apply to cornell ED since i plan on taking 3 SAT subject tests in october (a math, a science, and writing).</p>

<p>extracurriculars:
Varsity Cross Country 9-12 (co-captain 11, 12)
Varsity Track 9-12
JV Basketball 9,10 and i plan on doing it this year
National Honor Society 10-12
Student Ambassador 9-12
ACTION Leadership Workshop 11
volunteer at a local hospital 11, 12 (not sure how many hours :-/ )
volunteer for a cat adoption agency in petsmart (not many hours since i have just joined recently) 12
volunteered for DARE haunted house 9
i have also done scattered volunteering for my school (such as helping out at open houses as an ambassador, selling tickets for different events, and participating in the fashion show)
Yearbook committee 9, 11
certified open water scuba diver </p>

<p>other stuff:
i attended the cornell summer college this year and got an A in the course
i got the harvard book award (don't know how special that is, i've heard different opinions), the RPI math and science award, and the kodak young leaders award from university of rochester</p>

<p>recommendations should be excellent and i'm hoping to write a kick-ass essay</p>

<p>please let me what you think my chances would be. thanks</p>

2

<p>Your SATs need to be at least 700+ on each section for you to be competitive</p>

3

<p>I disagree, i think you will be competitive at cornell, you may not get in, but you WILL be competitive.</p>

4

<p>if you don't retake the SAT, you have a really slim chance at Yale, especially since not much stands out about you in the way of ec's.</p>

5

<p>Um... 75% at Cornell
5% yale</p>

6

<p>i plan on taking the SAT's again probably in november if i'm not accepted ed to cornell so yea i'm hoping to get them up as much as i can. as far as ec's go...what makes you say that they aren't strong? just curious. i think i've been consistent as far as my ec's go and i feel like i have a good amount of them. i know it's too late now to add any new ec's but what would you say would be the perfect list of ec's for an ivy league? thanks for your input :)</p>

7

<p>Don't get me wrong, your ec's aren't bad, they're just not exceptional for an ivy league pool. You are the captain of a sport, which is excellent, but i see no other leadership. Really solid ec's would be the captain of a sport or two, the president of one or two clubs and maybe a club founder, and maybe something outside of school that you've shown a lot of dedication to. Some of your ec's are a bit sporadic (yearbook club 9,11, and skipping a year with jv basketball). When i refer to ec's that "stand out," i mean stuff like "i acted on broadway" or "i won a national math competition." Now is that going to happen often? No. But there are people who apply to ivies who have stuff like that, stuff that the rest of us mortals don't. ;) So your ec's are okay, and don't let me discourage you because you definitely have some good stuff on there! but i would just try to get the test scores up.</p>

8

<p>thanks again for your input. i appreciate it and understand what you're saying. i wish my school had more to offer (we don't have any clubs to be president of lol). looking back on it i wish i had tried out for basketball last year. i had stupid reasons for not joining the team. i'm glad you brought up basketball though because i TOTALLY forgot that i was captain of jv basketball in 10th grade so because of your post i remembered that. lol. i am definitely going to try to bring my SAT scores up but unfortunately i won't be able to before i apply ed (i need to take the subject tests before i take the SAT I) so if i'm not accepted ed i'll hopefully bring them up enough for the regular admission and if not, i have some other schools in mind such as RPI. also, i've had some impressive things from years back so i don't know if i should list those or not (winning a statewide poster contest in 6th grade and winning a local spelling bee..once again it's not winning a national competition though)..also most of my sports and ec's go back to 7th grade but i did not list that. i don't know if that helps or not lol. thanks again for replying</p>

9

<p>captain of the jv bball team is definitely good! Don't worry, even with those SAT's you've still got a good shot at Cornell because your class rank is excellent. Good luck!</p>

10

<p>Class rank is good, but it doesn't look like the quality of the school is good. Good school + good rank = good, bad school + good rank = nothing.</p>

11

<p>really? uh oh. :( i mean my school isn't THAT bad lol...it's a small private school though. i don't know if that's considered good or bad. so far we've had 3 people apply to cornell and get accepted from my school (one each year for the last 3 years...i don't know know anything about the years before that) so i'm definitely taking that into consideration. about my sat scores..i know they're not really that good for any ivy league so if i apply to cornell e.d. and get deferred would i be able to take the sat's again and resend my scores and hopefully improve my chances? anyone who could answer this i'd appreciate it.</p>

12

<p>yes, i'm fairly certain you could do this.</p>