<p>Hi guys! UD is my number one school as of now (and will probably remain at that spot), and I was just wondering if you guys could give me any final advice before I send in my application.</p>
<p>SAT I: CR - 690, Math - 700, Writing - 730 (2120 combined)
SAT II: Italian - 630, Literature - 690, US History - 730
Honors Classes: 9th Grade - Geo w/ Trig, Bio, English, US History
10th Grade - Alg. II, Chem, American Lit, World History, Italian 4
11th Grade - Italian 5
12th Grade - Calc (labeled Honors but really a college level course), Comp I (same as Calc), Italian 6
APs: 11th Grade - US History (5 on exam), English Lang/Comp (5 on exam)
12th Grade - Art History, Psychology
-Honor roll every quarter of high school
-Finished most classes w/ A's, only 4-5 B's
GPA: 4.0
Class Rank: Doesn't rank
OOS (NJ), white female, public high school (blue ribbon school, one of the best districts in the state)</p>
<p>EC's:
-Danced for 10 years, on a competition team for 5
-On school dance team for 3 years, co-captain for 1
-Helped school newspaper get its first issue on newsprint freshman year through fundraising
-Italian Club
-Tutored in Italian; volunteered at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University
-Summer 2008: Did a 10-day summer program at Columbia University for Journalism & Media Studies
-Summer 2009: Went to Italy for 12 days with Italian teacher & classmates
-Held a summer job from April - October</p>
<p>Rec letters will be from my Italian teacher, Pre-Calc teacher, and dance teacher.
Essay will (hopefully) be good, didn't start writing them yet.
Hoping to major in European Studies and minor in Dance.</p>
<p>I feel your chances of gettting into UD are excellent. In fact, I think you would have a reasonably good chance of getting into the Honors Program, if you are interested in it. Check it out at UD’s website. Just make sure that you take 5 major courses each semester of your Sr. year in HS. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Thanks guys!! I’m not interested the Honors program, though. I definitely want to major/minor and I don’t want to have so much work that it’s overwhelming. I worked hard in high school, and I’m really looking forward to the overall social/life experiences that college has, not just academically. So I want to make sure not all of my time is devoted to the school aspect of it. I do think I want to live in one of those combined honors/non-honors dorms, because I want to be able to concentrate on schoolwork in my room and not be bothered by noise 24/7.</p>
<p>Most freshman honor program students are housed together (primarily in the Russell Hall Dorms) along with some non-honors students. Unless things have changed I do not believe non-honors students can specifically request to be housed in those dorms. Therefore I would not count on being one of the very few non-honors freshman students that end up being assigned to those dorms. The odds would be greatly against it happening.</p>
<p>I would go for honors. They have special sessions of many popular courses with much smaller class sizes and easier to get during registration. That alone makes it more than worthwhile. </p>
<p>As far as dorms, as an incoming freshman, you don’t have much of a choice, There may be 1 or 2 specialized type dorms, and they do group the honors together, but other than that, it’s random assignments supposedly based on how you answer their questionnaire.</p>
<p>I really recommend you go for the honors program. My daughter (just finished first year) had the same concerns but it was not too overwheming. There are 3 different honor type degrees you can get, the lowest level one is the “general honors award”. To earn that I believe you only need to complete 18 honors credits the first two years - twelve of those being in the first year. You will need to take freshman honors English and an honors colloqium the first year (six of the credits), then just six more credits (two classes, 1 per semester) to get your 12 credits for the first year. Then just at least 6 credits Sophmore year, so you can do just one honors class per semester the second year (my daughter is only taking one honors class this fall). She did not find the honors English to be bad and overall did not feel that the honors thing added that much more work. And in any event from your stats it looks like you would be more than capable.</p>
<p>Now to get to the advantages - as others have said, your honors sections will be small and more personalized. My D took honors microeconomics, not really a subject she wanted to take honors level, but having only 20 in her class vs. 250 actually made it easier in her opinion. And you tend to know people in your honors classes since you live with them. Next advantage - the honors dorms. Russell (which houses the honors students) has a good location and was renovated the year before last. Also, my D loved the atmosphere - really great students but still really knew how to have fun. Kids did study a lot but again also had fun. She had a fantastic freshman year and is now panicking that things will not be the same next year, since all her friends (her whole floor) is of course going to be housed in various places next year. </p>
I’m not interested the Honors program, though. I definitely want to major/minor and I don’t want to have so much work that it’s overwhelming. I worked hard in high school, and I’m really looking forward to the overall social/life experiences that college has, not just academically. So I want to make sure not all of my time is devoted to the school aspect of it. I do think I want to live in one of those combined honors/non-honors dorms, because I want to be able to concentrate on schoolwork in my room and not be bothered by noise 24/7.</p>