<p>Please share your opinions on how I could improve my chances of being accepted at Princeton University and Georgetown University. Am I well on my way to or even already at the point where I may be accepted? I will be raising my SAT Math and Writing scores and am studying to improve over the summer.</p>
<p>Personal:
Sex- Male
Age- 17
Race/ Ethnicity- Black/ African- American (actually, my mom is Trinidadian and my dad is partly Chinese)
Class- Rising senior</p>
<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 2010 CR 780, M 570, W 660 one sitting
SAT II: Will be taking US History, Lit, and Spanish.
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 5%
AP : AP Art History (3), will take AP Stat, Macro& Micro Econ, and Lit. (my school only offers six AP's)
National Awards: Member of the National Honors Society and the International Thespian (not Lesbian) Society.</p>
<p>Subjective:
Extra-curriculars : Theatre for 4 years- I LOVE theatre. I started doing minor roles and props in freshman year and ended up in lead roles by sophomore year. I co-directed an entirely student-run play and stage-managed a play as well. I have NEVER seen a show at my school- I've been in all of them!
I am the Vice President of student gov't (running for President next year)- we're literally creating a Constitution since this is the first serious student gov't at my school.
Playing Piano for 3 years, performed in every music concert in those 3 years. I have a huge passion for piano as well!
Playing tennis for 3 years- Undefeated (as in I played 1 doubles match and won).
Managing editor, contributor, and future Editor-in-chief of The Voice, my school's literary magazine. We went completely digital as of last year- congrats 2011 Voice!
NOTE: I am the only student in my school who decided to take Spanish for all four years, thus my teacher created the first Spanish 5 class in my school's history. Is that interesting information? Anyone? Anyone.......?</p>
<p>Volunteer/Community service: Volunteered at my local library for 3 years- supervising children's reading and art programs, organization of books, etc.
Organized Japan Relief Garage sale at school- invited locals and family members to support- raised several thousand dollars.</p>
<p>That 4.0 with a 3 as an AP score and a somewhat low SAT for top schools (and for someone of your GPA) raises suspicions of grade inflation. But you’re a URM, so if you can get above a 2100 then you have a great shot at any school your heart desires.</p>
<p>Thanks! I am pretty confident that i can raise my SAT score to at least 2200. Math has never been a strong point for me, but if I can get it to a 700 (fingers crossed) the improvement will look really good, right? And the 3 AP is actually being explained with a letter from my Head of School stating that we were inadequately prepared for the AP exam. Our teacher did not cover a large portion of the work we needed to go over and wasted weeks of our class time building pyramids out of rocks. He actually left the school the week leading to the test and did not help us review at all. We were doomed from the start. Do you think this may be a reasonable explanation? AP tests are no joke after all and if not prepared for adequately will result in failure. Thoughts?</p>
<p>wow at the fact that your head of school will actually go to those lengths to explain one AP score. AP’s somewhat reflect how college will be (even though AP’s are a complete joke compared to an intro Princeton class), so doing well on AP’s show that you are on some level qualified and ready for a rigorous education. Your ec’s are pretty solid, and I feel that if you can raise your SAT score to at least 2100, with 750+ SAT II’s, and demonstrate your passion through your essays, you have a pretty good chance.</p>
<p>Ivy League schools aren’t a piece of cake… Well, not of a sheet cake, maybe of a very small cake. But your chances are looking pretty good, especially with that nasty little 3 being taken care of. I sympathize with you, my AP Euro teacher lectured us from her college notes, and it seems like we just learned the wrong batch of material, as interesting as it was. So I got a 3 also, because what we were taught wasn’t the material that appeared on the test, so I sympathize with you on that one. But yes, your chances seem pretty good, just work on that SAT, and try to show some leadership in innovative ways too(:</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the 3 too much. AP scores are more important for receiving college credit than to get you into college; they’re self-reported after all. Having your principal/Head of School explain why you did poorly on the exam should clarify any doubts the adcoms would have anyways.</p>
<p>BTW, what do you plan to tick as your race on the common application? Unfortunately, this matters a lot.</p>
<p>I’ll be putting Black/African-American.</p>
<p>hi, I’m a current sophomore at a small school. I want to know if I have a chance into making it into Princeton. My life would be complete. Since i am a sophomore i really can’t say i did a lot, but here it is.oh, before i forget, we dont do class rank in my school. how does it affect me???
Freshman year:
GPA- 3.8
College prep Geometry 82
College prep physical science 88
Wellness and careers 96
Gym 9 s
Music 9- 99
western cultures 96
German 1 96
chinese1- online class 81
French 2 98
Band 100
college prep English 89
My grades are the numbers next to the courses.
EC:
Volunteen- pulcera project
Newspaper-writer
Concert band
Marching band- 2nd place group 3 open
Pit orchestra-we won 2 awards for being an excellent orchestra during “into the woods”
Holiday cheer
jazz band
take lessons from:
alto sax
tenor sax
erhu
monochord
drum set
piano
violin
Duty honor country club- a club for veterans at school
karate- 3rd degree black belt, extreme martial arts, weapons, sparring, forms and board breaking class and self defense.
got invited to play the erhu and monochord at: georgetown boarding school, chinatown,cecil college.
I was also in the leadership class of 2015.</p>
<p>Sophomore year
Driver’s ed - 86
Science seminar- currently being taken
Gym 10- not taken yet
Honors English - 89
French 3 - 98
band - 100
20th century - 83
college prep Biology - 86
Algebra 3( advanced algebra) 70
Honors Physics - 73
German 2 -online class
GPA 3.1( i know it’s alittle low, but with hard work i will bring it up)
EC:
Marching band- 2nd place
Concert band - got all 1st parts- unusual for sophomores unless they are good(yay)
Pit orchestra- how to suceed in bussines without really trying
Holiday cheer
Jazz band
CPFJ band - a jazz band in my community
Newspaper- writer
class leadership of 2015
Take lessons:
Erhu
monochord
violin
drum set
alto sax
tenor sax
piano
trumpet
got invited to play at swarthmore college
i competed in a princeton competition for chinese music. I got secondplace in both solo and duet. there must of been like at least 30 kids and that’s alow estimate.</p>
<p>i know that this year wasn’t the best year, but i still have time to make up for my mistake. Band can be so time consuming, it’s not even funny. But I love it. And if you had to ask me for how long i would do all the band activities, i would say all year round. I love music so much that sometimes i takeit over the limit by joining too many music clubs. I wanna double major in music and linguistics. I’m passionate about music,it is so hard toput into words what i feel when i pick upany of m instruments, especially the sax. Prineton is known for its jazzprogramand chinese program ( music wise i mean) I play 2 chinese instruments and im involved in jazz. besides im doing the american music abroad trip this summer. I know princeton is not very big on music, but can i still get in??? B the way, Does it help u in any way if u r a minority or your dad a purple heart veteran. I don’t know someone told me that if your dad was a veteran u had a chance. I don’t think so…do you??? I’m sorry, i didn’t mean to make this very long. And thank you in advance for reading all of this, i know it can get boring. Again thank you:):):)</p>