<p>[ size=4][ color=green][ b]Decision: Accepted [/color][/size]</p>
<p>[ b]Objective:**
[ *] SAT I (breakdown): 2280 (750 M, 750 CR, 780 W)
[ *] ACT (breakdown): 34 (36 E, 35 R, 32 M, 31 S, 12 essay)
[ *] SAT II: 700 US History, 790 Literature
[ *] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.7, I think. I only know my weighted GPA.
[ *] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 18/500+
[ *] AP (place score in parentheses): Human Geography (4), World History (4), Psychology (5), Lang (5), APUSH (5)
[ *] IB (place score in parentheses): n/a
[ *] Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov, Speech, AP Art History, Senior Release, AP Stats, AP Literature, Oral Interpretation (know as speech elsewhere), AP Environmental Science
[ *] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Commended, AP Scholar with Distinction, various local awards.</p>
<p>[ /list][ b]Subjective:**
[ *] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): Debate (9th grade), Soccer (9 and 10, captain), Latin Club (10), Oral Interpretation (11 and 12, mentor), Fish Camp (12, mentor), NHS (12), NArtHS (12), Book Club (12, president).
[ *] Job/Work Experience: Marketing for a law firm, babysitting, tutoring, driving my neighbors to school
[ *] Volunteer/Community service: Nonprofit local theatre, library, Christmas events, Halloween events.
[ *] Summer Activities: Volunteering, part-time work, travel, acting camp, and I was part of the Duke TIP program.
[ *] Essays: Very strong and very personal. I think that I came across as multidimensional. My CA essay was about failure and I wrote about tearing my ACL and how that injury eventually forced me to give up soccer. Clever phrasing, well-edited, and I don’t pity myself, but instead show a real force of character. I chose the name prompt for my supplement and I think that you can tell that I had a lot of fun with it. It’s very playful and has several historical and literary allusions.
[ *] Teacher Recommendation: My AP Language teacher from junior year and my chem teacher from sophomore year. I didn’t read the latter’s, but the former wrote great things, including that before me she hadn’t enjoyed discussing literature so much since graduate school.
[ *] Counselor Rec: No idea. We’re not close, but I’ve always been polite and friendly around her. But my school has forms that you can fill out and give to the counselors so that they sound more personal. I tried to be very specific while covering a wide range of things when I filled out mine.
[ *] Additional Rec: One of my best friends wrote me a peer rec that absolutely stunned me. It added more dimensions to my application and showed some of my qualities that generally wouldn’t be considered important for a college app.
[ *] Interview: Fantastic! I was tag teamed–two of them interviewing me at once–and I loved our conversation! One of the other interviewers had to come over and halt our talk as we had exceeded the allotted 60 minutes. A few days after the interview, one of the alums I talked with emailed me to convey how impressed she was with my attributes and told me to let her know if there’s anything she can do for me in the future.
[ *] Supplementary Material: None.</p>
<p>[ /list][ b]Other**
[ *]Applied for Financial Aid?: Yupp.
[ *] State (if domestic applicant): Texas
Country (if international applicant):
[ *] School Type: Public, fairly large, from a very diverse socioeconomic background. We’ve got both kids who live in trailer parks and children of millionaires at my school.
[ *] Ethnicity: White
[ *] Gender: Female
[ *] Income Bracket(mention if FA candidate): > $100,000
[ *] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I don’t think I had any. </p>
<p>[ /list][ b]Reflection**
[ *] Strengths: SAT, ACT, recs, interview, essays, my transcript.
[ *] Weaknesses: US History Subject Test, GPA, my ECs and volunteer work could have been more fleshed out.
[ *] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Probably because of my essays/the recs/the interview.
[ *] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: I only applied to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>[ /list][ b]General Comments: **
I think that one of the most important things colleges are looking for is growth. I was really lazy freshman year and almost all my grades were low As, but my grades have improved every year even as I’ve become more ambitious and taken on more rigorous course loads. So even if there are elements on your app that aren’t stellar, as long as you’re showing an upward trend things should work out okay.
Also: Have a plan. If Dartmouth deferred/rejected me, I planned to take my interviewer up on her offer of help by asking her to write me a rec letter for another college. Good luck to anyone who can use this advice!</p>
<p>To my future classmates–Just as everyone else has been saying, congrats and I can’t wait to meet you all!! I can’t wait until we start getting house assignments and roommates and everything! </p>
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