Dartmouth College Regular Decision

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

<p>Hi, I know already posted this in the Chances section, but I didn't get that many replies. I wanted comments specifically for each college, so I've decided to post this individually in each section. I've included new information that might give you a better idea of my background. Thanks!</p>

<p>GPA: 3.96 UW / 4.45 W (UC GPA 4.0/4.54 weighted)
SAT: 790 Verbal, 800 Math, 770 Writing (2360)
ACT: 35
SAT II's: 800 Math IIC, 800 Literature, 780 Chemistry
Class rank: My school doesn't rank, although I know I'm in at least the
top 4% (ELC status for UC's) </p>

<p>AP tests:
Calculus BC AB subscore 5/5
Chemistry 5
Biology 5
French Literature 5
French Language 5
English Language 4
US History 4</p>

<p>First Year:
Honors Pre-Calculus and Trigonometry
Honors Introduction to Chemistry
Advanced Shakespeare / African-American Literature
French Advanced Conversation
Music Theory and Composition
East Asian Studies / Modern European History
Physical Education</p>

<p>Second Year:
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP French Literature
Modern Poetry / James Joyce
US History
Microbiology
Sculpture II</p>

<p>Third Year:
AP English Language
AP US History
AP French Language
AP Biology
Advanced Physics I/II
Macroeconomics / Microeconomics</p>

<p>Fourth Year:
AP English Literature
AP European History
AP Physics
Studies on Existential and Surrealist Writers
French Modern Literature
Organic Chemistry</p>

<p>Awards:
AP Scholar with Distinction
National Merit Semi-Finalist (PSAT score: 228)
Journalism Awards</p>

<p>Activities:
-President of MUN for two years
-Math and Science Club:
Member Freshman year
Treasurer Sophomore year
Vice-President Junior year
President Senior year
-National Honor Society
Member Freshman and Sophomore year
Secretary Junior year
Vice President Senior year
-Varsity Tennis for three years (Captain for one)
-State Symphony Orchestra for four years
-Journalism for two years, co-editor for one year</p>

<p>Miscellaneous:
-Father legacy at Princeton
-Mother legacy at Columbia
-Parents both speak French fluently
-Two cousins went to University of Pennsylvania
-I sent in music tapes (I play oboe), and also composition pieces with full scores to all my colleges except the UC's.
-My guidance counselor was nice enough to write individual recommendations for each of my colleges, describing the reasons why I want to go to that specific college.
-I applied Early Action to University of Chicago and Georgetown, and I got into both.</p>

<p>Colleges:
UCSD, UCLA, UCB, UCD
Williams
Cornell
Columbia
Dartmouth
University of Pennsylvania
Johns Hopkins
Princeton</p>

2

<p>im sure you know that you have horrible chances.</p>

3

<p>Oh, and I forgot to mention that a close friend of mine who currently attends Dartmouth wrote my evaluation for me :)</p>

4

<p>In 100% at the UCs, great chances at the rest. Princeton strong shot, also depending on the power of your legacy. </p>

<p>You are getting into most schools on your list.</p>

5

<p>well, there goes my self esteem down the toilet. I'm seriously jealous of the course offerings at your school.</p>

6

<p>Hahah, yeah it's a trade off. My school offers great courses, but I have to hold my own against the kids with the 2400's, trust funds, killer EC's, 5.0 gpas, and legacy up the wazoo.</p>

7

<p>everything I have ever read says that you lose the legacy tip if you fail to apply early.....</p>

8

<p>I think that may be true for some colleges, but not for HYP. Admissions officers came to our school, and people asked them that question. They said they still count it, but only use legacy if you're equal to someone else--legacy pushes you over the admit line</p>

9

<p>yeah, there are always schools that provide courses like
Honors Pre Algebra
Honors Algebra
Honors Precalculus
Honors Biology.</p>

<p>What a great way to inflate GPA!!</p>

10

<p>hmm...okay..any other opinions?</p>

11

<p>My bigger concern is that your choices of school seem to be all over the place. While there are similarities between Dartmouth, Williams and Princeton there is a huge difference between these schools annd Columbia/Uchicago. Do you really know why is it you want to attend any of the schools on your list (outside of name recognition)</p>

<p>The environments at Dartmouth, Williams, Cornell are like night and day when compared to JHU, COlumbia, Penn, G-town, UChicago.</p>

<p>I agree with bluebayou that you lost your tip factor when you did not apply ED to Columiba/Princeton. </p>

<p>All though you are definitely a contender, one of the things not in your favor is if you are applying from Ca.a place which are not at a loss for applicants with similar stats so you will be a candidate in a big pool of applicants.</p>

<p>Were you recruited for tennis?</p>

<p>You have been in the orchestra for 4 years-good thing. Seems you are interested in pursuing this one you get into college (hope that there is a shortage of Oboe players).</p>

<p>You really have no ECs that are not related to school so as far as your ECs nothing really stands out (Many students will bring the exact same ECs to the table) so who are you outside of school?</p>

<p>Remember that most of the schools you are interested in are also concerned with building a well rounded class. At the end of the day it is going to be about can you fill the niche, the school is looking to fill?</p>

12

<p>sybbie719, your post was a little scathing (ouch). My choices for colleges may be different (obviously Williams is nothing like Johns Hopkins), but frankly that's part of the point in applying to a wide range of schools. I want the freedom to choose where I go--that's one of the reasons why I applied EA to UChicago and Georgetown, and not ED to Columbia or Princeton. You guys may be right about losing my legacy status, and I'm fine with that. It seems as if you think that my wide range of schools affects my sincerity in applying to my colleges. I don't feel I need to explain to you my reasons for applying to these colleges. It's definetly insulting that you assumed I applied based on name recognition. </p>

<p>I think my strengths are very spread out (I consider myself strong in both math/science and French and English), which also reflects my wide choice range of colleges.</p>

<p>No, I was not recruited for tennis
Yes, my EC's are very school-oriented, but I'm very dedicated to what I do, and I'm sure my passion will show in my essays.
At least in my school, I don't know any teenager who is classically trained in composition (as I said before, I sent in music tapes and some scores of my pieces--I've also had some auditions already). So I guess you can say that is "who I am outside of school."</p>

13

<p>Don't worry, tchaikovsky. You have excellent stats and EC's and I'm sure you're going to be accepted everywhere. I don't know if sybbie719 was trying to insult you, but his post did sound quite accusatory. My friend got into Dartmouth RD last year with lower stats (in California, as if that matters...), so you're fine!</p>

14

<p>I am sorry you find my post scathing (but it does not make it any less truthful).</p>

<p>I am not trying to insult you nor do I have an ax to grind because my child is already attending Dartmouth and chose it over a few schools on your list even though she has an aunt and an uncle who are both graduates of and teach at Princeton and Columbia and I am a Cornell grad (she wanted her "own" school). </p>

<p>Over the last few admissions cycles I have definitely seen the admissions process be very capricious and aribitrary as as many stellar students posted on this same dartmouth forum were shut of last year after people said that they were "in".</p>

<p>Just last term there was a student with sats similar to yours who was basically shut out of the admissions process took a gap year and is reapplying this year. Here is an excerpt from his mother's posting</p>

<p>My son, known to CC regulars as andison, was one of the top graduates in his competitive public high school graduation class, was a National Merit Finalist, had SATs of 1550, four SAT IIs with scores between 730-770, had a nationally recognized EC etc etc, and, no he didn't have a personality defect, he's a great kid. Anyway, he applied to five Ivy League schools and was rejected from all of them. He was waitlisted by three schools and ultimately these schools took few to no students from the wait list. One of the wait listed schools accepted at least six students from his HS who are all at this college now, who had lower credentials than he had (yes we know this because most of them are friends of his)</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=96791%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=96791&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Picking up the pieces what went wrong</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=47867&highlight=picking+pieces%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=47867&highlight=picking+pieces&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>From what I have also seen is most students go into the process that admissions to selective schools are numbers driven when nothing could be further from the truth. At the end of the day nothing tops the institutional mission (what the schools are trying to achieve when crafting a class)</p>

<p>I would suggest reading The Recipe For Success which, looks into how the 11 admission officers at Williams balance scores of priorities from the campus community.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall05/recipe.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall05/recipe.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I would suggest you also read the thread My dinner with an admissions Officer</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=118616&highlight=dinner+admissions%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=118616&highlight=dinner+admissions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Personally I wish you well but the truth still remains that applications are up at pretty much every school and no one can guarantee any type of certainty. The good thing is no matter how this plays out you already have 2 great schools under your belt which puts you way ahead of others in the game.</p>

15

<p>OP:</p>

<p>I know kids on the state orchestra "circuit" understand the brutal competition, and the time committment involved; thus, folks on the left coast know that it is an EC in itself - hopefully, the east coast colleges will understand as well.</p>

<p>As far as the UC's go: accepted at Davis (slam dunk); SD (somewhat easily); but the flagships are a low match for ELC apps from competitive HS, but become a safety if your essays are great. Note, however, that both campuses reject 4.0/1600's every year; (translated into 4.0/2400 for the class of '06).</p>

<p>Assuming your $10 essay works, you should get into Hopkins, as well, but suggest you visit if you have not since Bawlamer is not for everyone.</p>

<p>Others schools are in the lotto category for eveyone not a descendant of Bill Gates, IMO; it all depends on the essay and recs. But, as Sybbie notes, if a school need an oboe player next year, your odds increase significantly. Good luck.</p>

<p>lionheart: methinks the adcoms were blowing smoke....think about it from their side of the table....human nature being what it is...if a legacy candidate does not apply to a school early, then admissions will rationalize that said legacy school is not first choice of candidate. Since all the schools on OP's list want to be loved (and increase their yield), they will think long and hard about offering a position to someone who may not accept (again, since they assume it's not first choice).</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
human nature being what it is...if a legacy candidate does not apply to a school early, then admissions will rationalize that said legacy school is not first choice of candidate. Since all the schools on OP's list want to be loved (and increase their yield), they will think long and hard about offering a position to someone who may not accept (again, since they assume it's not first choice).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Good point since the question of where your parents went to school is right on one of the first pages of the application. </p>

<p>At a school like Columbia, you already know that the lack of interest is essentially the kiss of death (because they really want to be shown love). Other schools when seeing where your parents attended may assume that you are using them as a safety and will be unlikely to enroll (tufts syndrome).</p>

17

<p>sybbie719, thank you for taking the time to explain, and I understand that you wanted me to be more aware of the application situation.(what happened to that poor student is everyone's nightmare)</p>

<p>bluebayou, I was a little confused by what you mean here:
"but the flagships are a low match for ELC apps from competitive HS..."
Can you clarify?
Thanks for replying</p>

18

<p>the two state flagship Uni's, Cal and UCLA, are extremely competitive. Before comp review, well over half of the acceptees were stats-driven, and I would have said 95% chance of acceptance. But, under comp review, low income, first gen to college, attending poor performing HS, all play a big part in admissions to those two schools. In my math, a safety school has a 80-90% chance of acceptance, and a match school is 50%....so, a low match is somewhere in between. Are you likely to get in to one of them.... yes; is it a lock for either school, no.</p>

19

<p>tchaikovsky --</p>

<p>Hmm. This is a response to your post, but includes a general comment about "Chances" posts as a whole:</p>

<p>I often get the feeling that "Chances" posts are asking CC folks to be psychic. College admissions, especially to the most competitive schools, is a pretty quirky process: a few givens and suggestions, but a lot of room for "maybes." IOW, in most cases, we CAN'T give you a definitive answer.</p>

<p>But to your post: You've already applied to these schools, right? So, um, whatever answers we give you -- what difference does it make? I can't see that our cautions or reassurances will in any way change the response you get from the colleges. :)</p>

<p>If you're asking whether you wasted your application fee sending an app to any of the schools on your list, however, I'd say no. With your stats, there's always a chance.</p>

<p>But I suspect you knew that already :).</p>

<p>Congratulations on U of Chicago and Georgetown. Great to have such good schools in the bag already.</p>

20

<p>bluebayou, I think I see what you're saying...I was just a little confused about your terms "state flagship" and "comp review"</p>

<p>semamom, yeah I know what people post doesn't affect my response from the colleges. I'm new to collegeconfidential.com so I just wanted to get the "Chances" experience (even though I already turned in my apps). I don't think it hurts to just survey the general opinion from people here. Thanks for your guys' replies</p>