Do I have any chance at Rice or is that just absurd? How about BU?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>My guidance counselor seems to think that I have pretty good chances at Rice, but I have trouble believing him for the following reasons.</p>

<p>-3.5 GPA (I have D's in Math more often than not. Other classes tend to be B's and sometimes C's with the occasional A's.)</p>

<p>-No extracurriculars whatsoever.</p>

<p>-PSAT 214 (73's in the two English. 68 in Math.)</p>

<p>-I took March SATs and sort-of expecting low 700s across the board.. although 600s are far from out of the question.</p>

<p>-I honestly believe that I can get an 800 on the Math IIC subject test (despite my low math grades.. it's a challenging class, long story).. I've been doing practice tests, and they're a cinch.</p>

<p>-I don't expect to have terribly good recommendations. My math teacher has a very negative opinion of me. My other teachers would probably agree that I tend to be rude, lazy, presumptuous and prone to finding every way possible to do the least amount of work.</p>

<p>-And that's about it. I do absolutely nothing except the minimal work I put into my homework, I've really never made myself of any use to anyone, and so on.</p>

<p>My greatest academic achievement (sad, huh?) is:
-perfect score on MCAS (Sophmore year)</p>

<p>I expect that BU [early decision] will be the best gamble (with emphasis on <strong>gamble</strong>) for me.</p>

<p>What do you guys think, is Rice way out there, will BU be very challenging to get into?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>........................<em>bump</em></p>

3

<p><em>bump 2</em>
I'd be content with a single 1-sentence answer..</p>

4

<p>uhh...i think you have a chance (but you shouldn't really trust my answer because i don't really know what rice is looking for)</p>

5

<p>Thanks for trying to help.</p>

<p>UCLA and USC are the other schools that I group with Rice (would love to go to but probably can't)</p>

6

<p>unless u have a really good excuse, more than 1 D on a transcript probly will keep u out of both rice and bu as well as more than 1 C. i guess that 3.5 is weighted?</p>

7

<p>yea no offense but u really dont have that great of a chance. if you long to go to particular schools, y don't u try and do more than the minimum work? just my OP.</p>

8

<p>Rice: reach
UCLA: reach
USC: reach</p>

<p>They're possible, but not likely (probably because of GPA/recs).</p>

9

<p>Thanks for all the help!</p>

<p>My current college list looks like this.. what would you say is my best bet?</p>

<pre><code>* Boston U
* Northeastern U
* Penn State U Park
* Providence C
* Rutgers NB/Pscataway
* Stonehill C
* U Mass Amherst
</code></pre>

10

<p>And another question:</p>

<p>If I, say, joined:</p>

<p>*Spring Track
*Ping Pong Club
*Chess Club</p>

<p>*possibly weekly TV shoot sessions</p>

<p>right now, would that do any good whatsoever?</p>

11

<p><em>ever-annoying bump</em></p>

12

<p>rugters...its easy. you have a chance at northeastern as well.</p>

13

<p>what kind of high school do you go to?</p>

14

<p>Careful, Infernal -- Northeastern's getting more selective each year, it seems. Plenty of the "honors kids" group at my HS didn't quite make it in last year. Waitlisted, even.</p>

<p>Clollin -- funny you should ask about BU. I'm sitting in an astronomy lecture there as we speak. I work in the student records office, so I see students' college applications and have a pretty good idea of what BU looks for. The greatest trends I see:</p>

<p>SATs around 600 for each section, sometimes below, sometimes above.
Grades on the hs transcript are mostly a's and b's with a few spatterings of c's and the occasional d -- depends on what kind of class it's in, whether it's earlier rather than later.
Extracurriculars are usually standard. Joining those clubs WILL help your chances -- I was a late bloomer as far as extracurrics go, starting mine mostly in junior year.
Letters of recommendation -- the best question to ask your teachers is, "would you be comfortable writing a recommendation for me?" most teachers will not write a recommendation if it's going to be a poor one. Just choose wisely is all -- your teachers know you better than you think, and may be able to testify to your intellectual abilities, if not your personality.
Essay -- essays are standard, mostly outlining a "specific life experience".</p>

<p>BU accepted more than half of its applicants this year -- a little lower than when I was accepted, but if you're 600+ SAT with A's / B's mostly, you've got a shot. I'd call it a match.</p>

<p>Not sure about Rice, though -- I'd call that a reach.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>

15

<ul>
<li>Boston U-High Match: See rainmanoutofsnow's post</li>
<li>Northeastern U: High Match: Northeastern, as rainmanoutofsnow said [nice to see a BUer giving some praise to Northeastern :P] is becoming very selective [the acceptance rate of next year's class will be less than 40% and it's SAT around 1300], it is not an easy school to get into</li>
<li>Penn State U Park- Safe match/Safety: You're in at University Park with little problem</li>
<li>Providence C-Safety: The only way they would reject you is if they wanted to increase their yields.</li>
<li>Rutgers NB/Pscataway: Safety: Same as PCh</li>
<li>Stonehill C-Safety w/cas</li>
<li>U Mass Amherst-Safety: With the Adam's Scholarship [free tuition]</li>
</ul>

16

<p>Wow, that's a marked contrast between the early posts that said:</p>

<p>"unless u have a really good excuse, more than 1 D on a transcript probly will keep u out of...bu as well as more than 1 C."</p>

<p>About Math, I've been struggling for 3 years in our Math class run by a relatively well-known teacher. I originally made our famous Math Team that had a 20-year streak of 1st-places at the national competitions but ended up getting cut before ever competing due to very lousy performance in class and in practice.</p>

<p>I've joined Spring track, but whether I'll be able to keep up with it (having never done an organized sport in my life, except Tae Kwon Do throughout elementary and middle school--silly me, quitting just as high school starts, when it actually matters..) is still up in the air.</p>

<p>I'll try to join our Ping Pong Club, which may not be the most impressive EC, but is better than nothing I suppose..</p>

<p>I've semi-consistently written articles for our school paper (which is printed once every several months, so this is really a minuscule time investment.. although maybe I should avoid saying such things as college admissions officers see these forums =P?)</p>

<p>Additionally: chess. My grandfather runs a chess club at the local library, and I attempted to help out with running it somewhat in the past. Unfortunately, I found myself losing faith in the cause and also unable to offer anything except managerial help because my actual chess skills are mediocre.
A friend of mine at school wanted to start a chess club (which is interestingly enough an idea i had back in freshman year, but i had these ideas all the time and never successfully implemented them, so people, including myself, had stopped taking them seriously) and offered me "Vice President" position =P. Apparently he succeeded in getting a single chess tournament to be supervised by our history teacher. I didn't attend, and to my knowledge, nothing more permanent came of it.</p>

<p>rainmanoutofsnow and NJNP40, thanks for the help!
I wonder, the majors I'm considering are Economics and Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering.. possibly Anthropology. Do you have any knowledge of how BU and UMASS Amherst's programs in these fields compare?</p>

17

<p>I'm an English major, so I wouldn't know too well -- I do know (from processing all the #@%#@ major declaration forms) that Economics is a huge major at BU -- good job placement after graduation, I hear (don't take me reliably on that). Engineering -- I guess they're fine? I'm in the College of Arts and Sciences, we don't run into those craaaazy Engineering kids too much.</p>

<p>As far as the few extracurrics you have, put them ALL down. List your publications in the school newspaper. List your partnership with the chess team, however brief.</p>

<p>Also, what about work experience? If you worked a bunch, BU will take that into consideration also, I feel pretty sure.</p>

<p>NJN, I've got a lot of love for the Northeastern kids -- believe me, I'm jealous of the grass you guys have on your campus. Plus, it's those rogue clods at BC that I'm concerned with :P</p>

18

<p>Unfortunately, no job experience.</p>

<p>I'm unsure.. is it standard among all high schools to require students to do 20 hours of community service a year? or will the fact that my high school makes us do that offer an advantage?</p>

<p>I might have been able to scrounge together a rather mediocre "portfolio" of primitive 3D animation stuff I did back in freshman year and in middle school, but, unfortunately, my hard drive crashed at the beginning of sophomore year, erasing all that forever, and I was losing all interest in that field right about then, so I never did anything with it again.</p>

<p>Heh.. could I go and photograph some random things, touch the photographs up in photoshop, and call it a "photography portfolio?"
I've known quite a few people who did this seriously, but I simply do not have any studied skills at photography taking, although I've always been fond of the medium..</p>

<p>EDIT:
Also, I don't believe I've mentioned that I currently play piano, after initially playing it at a young age, quitting, and taking it up again just a year ago (and I'm far worse now than I was as a seven-year-old. -_-". rule-of-thumb: quitting=bad).</p>

<p>Here's another question: when it comes to recommendations, should I ask my Java/C++ teacher for one? It's a somewhat low-intensity elective, so I don't know how much weight it carries, especially since I don't plan to go into Comp. Sci, but I think that he might actually give me a pretty good one, as that's surprisingly enough been one of the few classes where I go out of my way to do <strong>more</strong> work than I have to.</p>

19

<p>As long as it's an academic subject, go for it. I suggest furnishing an additional recommendation from a more "general studies" sort of teacher (English, Language, Science, Math), but if it's a good rec, it'd probably pass.</p>

<p>Definitely put down the community service. Put down specific instances. Write about it. You did it -- whether or not it's a grad requirement doesn't say anything about if you got anything out of it. If you did, then that's awesome -- you did something good and felt good about it. That's what admissions likes to see.</p>

<p>No job experience might hurt you.</p>

<p>Put down photos, piano too -- even if they are personal pursuits independent of your academic goals, they count for something. Admissions wants to know how you spend your time, and they're going to pick the student who makes music and art over the one who does nothing.</p>

20

<p>Update:</p>

<p>-SAT scores are in:</p>

<p>Critical Reading: 800
Math: 700
Writing Skills: 800</p>

<p>So, out of 1600, that gives me 1500..</p>

<p>My SAT tutor seems to agree that I'm in a real bind because of the fact that I've never made myself of any use to anyone and don't actually <em>do</em> anything.. don't have a story to tell, that is.</p>