Finalists: Post your stats.

Paying for College Access Programs (Questbridge, Posse)
21

<p>Finalist</p>

<pre><code>Ethnicity: White/Russian/Jewish
Income: <20k for my mom, stepdad, sister and me
GPA: 4.0 my school doesn’t weight scores
Rank: My school doesn’t rank
SAT: 2080 SAT II Math: 800, SAT II US: 710, SAT II Molecular Bio- 690
ACT: 32 Composite 27 Writing (i bombed the essay because i couldn’t pick a side of the question so i kept erasing my essay :-\ fortunately, many schools don’t look at the writing section)
AP World : 4. AP Computer Science: 5, AP English Lang: 5, AP US: 3
Teacher Recs: Precalc whom i talk to and help out consistently after school, 1 AP US teacher, who happens to be an alumnus of the school i am trying for
EC- Policy Debate State, Junior Varsity Director, Quarter Finalist (2008-2009, 2009-2010), Junior Statesmen of America VicePrez, Board Games Club President, Think (its my school’s philosophy club) Founder (2008) President, Italian Honor Society, Co-Pres, Jewish Student Union, SPARK Committee member and peer leader(charity fund raising for Breast Cancer Awareness, Mental Health, St. Jude’s Hospital, Red Cross, Aids research; Raising awareness for teenage problems -dating abuse, drugs, safe sex, etc…-, helping equality through raising awareness of the LGBT, black, and latino groups of our school, and peer counseling and tutoring, essentially anything that relates to helping people we will do)

Essays- Personal and really honest, had some humour, but wasn’t a ridiculous essay, my teacher said compared to most essays he has read it was really good. However, that subjective so i dunno i guess it was good. I worked on them all summer and September, had several different english teachers comment and mark it up.
</code></pre>

<p>Personal Statement “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” - Nietzche, my bullied middle school and how it made a more caring and optimistic person in HS
Essay 1- Research on the after-life weird, bizzare and interesting
Essay 2- How i stole a candy bar and felt wrong about it, sorta had Uchicago’s Honest is the best policy, but honesty will not get your friend a free cake essay topic in mind when i wrote this.</p>

<p>Location: NYC
School: Highly competitive public</p>

<p>Course Load
Junior Year: Ap Us American Studies and AP English American studies each class is a year long, Molecular Biology, AP Italian, Ap Computer Science, Pre-Calc, </p>

<p>Senior Year: I am taking the most APs i am allowed to take, AP Macro/Micro, Ap Gov/Comp and AP BC Calc. I am taking two college level courses, systems programming and neurobiology, in addition i am going to take Medical Ethics and poetry</p>

<p>Work Experience: Newspaper Delivery (WORST JOB EVER, people don’t respect you and they expect you to be able to control the weather to make sure the newspaper is in perfect condition. ) Internship for a Harvard law graduate immigration lawyer, (did actual case research, read past cases and found evidence to support the appeal, my research really helped getting the appeal through)</p>

22

<p>I am a finalist.</p>

<p>Tennessee
4.0/4.2 gpa
Rank top ten of 135
33 ACT
No SAT
No Subjects
No AP Tests
Have taken 10 of 11 offered AP/Honors/Dual courses
Will graduate with 12 credit hours of college credit in English and History
Above average high school for area.
I do pretty much everything.
Very little volunteer work.
I work 20-25 hours/week
NMCS, NHS
White Female
Recommendations were probably good… My teachers liked me and I did well in their classes.
Income is less than 20K/year
Essays: Apparently my bio essay was depressing, said my editors, but my other ones were a little more uplifting. One was recycled from the College Prep Scholarship, about honesty.</p>

<p>I was so scared I wouldn’t become a finalist… But here I am. Phew.</p>

23

<p>Finalist!! :)</p>

<p>ACT: 34
SAT: Don’t have scores back yet…
SAT Subjects: N/A
AP: My high school has ~80 kids and doesn’t offer any AP classes.
Rank: 1/19
GPA: (unweighted out of 100): 98.76</p>

<p>Location: Midwest
School: Tiny K-12 public in a town of 300.
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Female
Income/Family Situation: -$400,000 AGI (about the same for several years). Our family’s ranch has an approximate worth of 2.5 million (land) but with 1.25 in debt and losing money constantly. Dad just started work as a HS shop teacher, mom didn’t finish college but is going back through online classes. One freshman brother. </p>

<p>ECs: FCCLA (offices on local, district, and state level), band, journalism, XC, track, statkeeper for volleyball and basketball teams, lettermen’s club (president), NHS (president), student government (senior class VP), one-act, speech, AWANA preschool teacher/volunteer
Work Experience: working on family ranch (horse chores, feeding bucket calves, doctoring sick animals, etc.)
Recommendations: I’m guessing good… my counselor is also an English teacher who has known me all of my life, and the others have taught me since 7th grade
Essays: Biographical about the crazy things Nebraskans get asked when out of state and how my upbringing has been atypical, one about my interest in time dilation, another about running for office at Girls State
Awards: NMSF, Girls State, writer for local newspaper, a lot of local ones
Community Service: AWANA preschool teacher on Wednesday nights, working concessions at games to benefit various school teams/clubs, various NHS service projects, FCCLA project with K-2nd graders about animal safety</p>

<p>Sorry to those who didn’t make finalist, and good luck to everyone!</p>

<p>My advice to anyone considering it: Just do it! I wasn’t sure how it would work out with my weird financial situation, but at the very least, you get a HUUUUGE jump start on everything (essays, getting info organized, etc.) And… submit BEFORE the day it’s due! :P</p>

24

<p>finalist!</p>

<p>seattle,wa (haven’t seen too many from the northwest yet?)
SAT-2110
ACT-31
GPA-4.44/3.94</p>

<p>i think my essays are what got me in. spent a lot of time on them.</p>

25

<p>The people that are posting their stats. If you can kindly also post the number of people in your household along w/ the income… that would be great. I think knowing how many people are sharing that income makes a HUGE difference than just knowing the income.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone! :-)</p>

26

<p>Finalist. Was really not sure I would get it at all. </p>

<p>SAT: 2160
GPA: 3.66 UW/4.1W
Rank: Unknown
*I was set to graduate early last year and took 10 courses instead of the normal 6-7. I got two C’s and received automatic fails for Gov and Econ. But I’m taking AP Gov/AP Econ this year and otherwise have a pretty flawless transcript. I explained this in the addition info section, and I know my teachers wrote about how I worked really long hours last semester and how my academic potential is far from realized.</p>

<p>Location: Cali, baby!
School: I think we have a very good school. :slight_smile: Public. In California, so basically broke.
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income: $50K, four people. My father spent last year taking care of my grandmother in the hospital. He was basically unemployed all of last year and used my mom’s savings to give himself a salary. </p>

<p>EC’s: President of Speech & Debate, Interact, started a lot of neat projects like SAT tutoring for low-income students, a poetry radio, writer & business manager in newspaper, err…
Work Experience: I do a lot of freelance graphic designing and also waitress at a restaurant. :slight_smile:
Awards: These were decent. A few honorable mentions in poetry/writing. Awards in debate…
Recommendation letters: Decent. I don’t think they were spectacular - I asked my Calc teacher who I only had for a couple weeks and my French teacher who I had for 3 years. I have basically poured my heart into Calculus and told my teacher my whole life story. Definitely only a mediocre French student. I asked my college friend, and past student to French teacher, to write her an email with some of her favorite things about me. I think I just made it very easy for my teachers to write about me, something they were willing to do because they know I am talented/kind/good at cooking.
Essays: Definitely the strongest part of my application. Out of the three, the two I liked best were very, very passionate. The other was cute and funny but I wrote it because a friend of mine who was a Quest Scholar told me I needed to be lighthearted. Honestly, I thought that essay was going to do me in.</p>

<p>Advice: Errr…I would say dedicate a lot of time to the whole application. I used nearly all their “additional explanation” boxes to describe the finer details of my high school life. I also spent ages on my short answers, even though everyone says they don’t matter. I filled out every single thing I could, and offered a new piece of information each time. </p>

<p>Oh, I thought my essays made me look pretty one dimensional. That is, all of them described different facets of literature. I think that gave them a really clear picture of who I was, and so I stood out clearly after they read my application.</p>

<p>And be yourself in your essays. Don’t try to be funny like I did. I ended up revising everything when they extended the deadline. Be yourself, but be very clear about what you learned from your experiences. If you just list the woes and horrors of your existence, I’ll be sad, you’ll be sad, and they’ll be sad. </p>

<p>Good luck to next year, good luck to the 2011 graduating class, congrats to finalist, but we’ll all do just fine, I think. I really hope this helped.</p>

27

<p>Congrats to all Finalists!</p>

<p>If you would also post if you are first generation and if not, what the education levels of your parents is it would be very helpful, thanks.</p>

28

<p><30k in four person household.
Parents attended 2 year colleges. My dad attended one in Korea and one in America. My mom attended one in Korea.</p>

29

<p>4 people in the ~40,000/yr income.</p>

30

<p>Finalist</p>

<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): N/A
[</em>] ACT: 32
[<em>] SAT II: 800 US History, 800 Math II
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.98
[<em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 12/397
[</em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): US History (5), World History (5), English Lang (5), Biology (5)
[<em>] IB (place score in parenthesis):
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: 6 AP’s, Physics, Choir
[<em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Published Poetry/Essay in Literary Magazine?
[/ul]
Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Young Dem. Club (President/Founder), Selective University Choir, NHS, Astronomy League, Boys & Girls Club, Peer Helpers (Coordinator), Newspaper, Writing
[<em>] Job/Work Experience: 20-30 hours/wk :frowning:
[</em>] Volunteer/Community service: Over 400 hours
[<em>] Summer Activities: Camp Counselor for YMCA
[</em>] Essays: Conveyed my personality and my hardships well
[<em>] Teacher Recommendation: Excellent
[</em>] Counselor Rec: Standard</p>

<p>[/ul]
Other[ul]
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): WI
[</em>] Country (if international applicant):
[<em>] School Type: Crappy Public
[</em>] Ethnicity: White
[<em>] Gender: F
[</em>] Income Bracket: 30,000
[*] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):[/ul] First generation…and luck!</p>

31

<p>Here are my stats:</p>

<p>ACT: 33
SAT: 2100
SAT Subject Tests: Physics: 760; Math 2: – hearing on the 28th;
GPA: 4.0 UW, 101.73 W on 100 pt scale
Rank: 4 out of 156
APs: Calculus AB 5, Physics B 5, Art 5, Chemistry 4, English Language 3</p>

<p>Location: Texas
School: Public; competitive engineering/math/science magnet school
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income/Family Situation: < 20k, 4 members in household, sister graduated from college, re-continuing her education</p>

<p>EC’s: National Honor Society (3 years), Art Club member (3 years) [secretary: 1 yr, president: 1 yr], UIL Science (2 years), Logic Club (2 years), Mu Alpha Theta (2 years), Volunteered at local hospital for around 30 hours, local animal shelter for around 20, and the occasional volunteering experience that my friends invite me to or NHS does. (otherwise, not so impressive)</p>

<p>Work Experience: commission based freelance artist, around 5-10 hours a week depending on homework load.</p>

<p>Awards: National Science Bowl Regional Finalist, A Honor Roll, Chemistry Bowl Local Finalist, National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist, AP Scholar with Distinction</p>

<p>Recommendations: my AP Chemistry teacher who I talk to on a daily basis, and my AP Physics B & C teacher, and my counselor</p>

<p>Essays: I was really proud of my biographical essay but the other essays, while not as strong, were pretty ok.</p>

32

<p>Hi everyone, I was also selected as a finalist for the Questbridge College Match Program. I had a question on sending official test scores: Does CB include the october test scores (scores cannot be seen until oct.28th) in my test scores if I send it to the colleges today? If my October test scores are not included in my test scores, how are the colleges supposed to see it? They requested not to use the ‘rush’ reporting service.</p>

33

<p>Scoutson is a finalist</p>

<p>SAT: 2280; SATII math2 800; Physics 790</p>

<p>GPA: UW 4.00
Rank: 1/292; blue collar public hs</p>

<p>Jr. yr: AP Eng. Lang-5; AP WH-4, AP Physics C E&M-5; AP Calc BC-5
Sr. yr: AP Chem, AP Psych, AP Lit, AP Latin </p>

<p>ECs: Orchestra (president); varsity tennis; NHS; bowling leagues, chorus
NMSF; AP Scholar w/Distinction
QB College Prep Conference</p>

<p>Household: 2 people 51K
Mid-Atlantic region
Mom has MA</p>

<p>Essays: Worked hard on them-about our unusual family/situation</p>

<p>Letters of Rec: saw one and it was great, hope the others were, too</p>

<p>Congrats and good luck to all!</p>

34

<p>Stats:</p>

<p>SAT: 1910 (Took it again in October. I think I did much better)
SAT II: Spanish: 800 French: 670 (Taking Biology, US History, and French w/Listening in Novermber)
ACT: I forgot. I think it was like 30. I took it again today.
GPA: 3.8 of 4.0
Rank: top 10%
Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): 5 in AP Spanish. 6 in an IB math SL test.
Essays: I think they were very descriptive of who I am.
Recs: 1 from my French Teacher. I have had her since freshman year. (I am in my sixth year of French). The other one was from my IB math teacher.
Supplementary Material: I completed music supplements. </p>

<p>Work:

  1. Accompanist. I am one of two accompanists at my church. My duty is to learn an average of thirteen different songs weekly on the piano and organ well enough to lead a congregation of about 800 people and follow a cantor/choir/orchestra. This is quite a challenge at times and there are Sundays when I play a total of FIVE different services.
  2. Tutor at Kumon.
    Summer Activities:</p>

<p>Rotary Exchange Program (France for 3 weeks and had a French girl living at my house for three weeks)
Accompanist at church
LOTS of volunteer work
countless hours of piano, organ, and violin work
Tennis </p>

<p>Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): I am the first one to go to college in my family
Location: Texas
High School Type:Public
Ethnicity: Hispanic. I have lived here for nine years. Before living here I lived in Colombia, Panama, and Mexico. (I am Colombian) I am also the only one that is truly fluent in both English and Spanish in my family. In addition to this, I have been taking French for six years so speak French well.
Gender: Female
Other
Extracurriculars: Founder/President of the Music Honor Society. President of Business Professionals of America. Historian of the French Club. Group Leader for my school’s Texas French Symposium Team. National Honor Society. Spanish Honor Society. Varsity Orchestra. Full Orchestra. Jazz Band. STARS secretary. Video Announcements Team. I am also auditioning for the Region and All-State orchestras in a week. </p>

<p>Awards: National Hispanic Recognition Scholar, Regional Winner of BPA Legal Office Procedures, Participated in the State Conference for BPA, Member of the 2010 winning French Symposium Team. Placed among the top six in the state for French Symposium in Poetry and sightreading.</p>

<p>Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: I do A LOT. I do quite a bit for the community and for others. I have also overcome many issues. </p>

<p>Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?: I am very happy to be a finalist. I think everyone should try their best on standardized testing, take the most rigorous courses, and help the community. </p>

<p>Income Range: > 60,000</p>

35

<p>Stats:</p>

<p>SAT: 2010 superscored(710 CR, 670 M, 630 W), awaiting Oct. scores
SAT Subject Tests: 720 Bio, 680 Math II
GPA: according to QB scale 4.0 UW, 4.6 W
Rank: 1/152
APs: AP Bio - 5, AP Lang - 5, AP Stats - 5, currently taking AP Lit, AP Physics, ans AP Calc</p>

<p>Location: CT
School: Public
Ethnicity: Asian (Chinese)
Gender: Male
Income/Family Situation: ~$45,000/year, 4-person family, 1st generation to go to college
EC’s: National Honor Society (2 years, President senior year), Junior State of America (3 years, Chapter President junior and senior years), ~100 hrs volunteering at local hospital, Chess Club (2 years), Environment Club (2 years), Spanish Honor Society (2 years)
Work Experience: none</p>

<p>Awards: Yale Book Award, Fairfield U’s Excellence in Math and Science Award, Rensselaer Medal Award, CABE Student Leadershp Award, AP Scholar, CAPT Scholar, QuestBridge Finalist(YES!!! :D)</p>

<p>Recommendations: English(English II and AP Lang) teacher who loves me and AP Stats teacher who likes pretty well</p>

<p>Essays: IMO, not bad, but not great.</p>

36

<p>Act-31
SAT II- 760 in US History and just took Bio and English so dont
know scores
AP History-5
currently enrolled in AP Eng/Spanish/Chem/Calc
Rank- 1/249
GPA. 4.28 W, 4.00 UW</p>

<p>Location-Midwest
School-public
Ethnicity-Asian-Pakistan
Gender-F
Income- 30K 4 people in household
EC’s-Spanish Club pres, Student gov secretary, freshmen class treasurer, freshmen mentoring, NHS, SADD, GSA, volunteer a lot(relay for life, docs, etc) </p>

<p>Essay-poured my heart out
Recommendations- AP History teacher and English III A teacher, both amazing people and truthful about me and my situation </p>

<p>Congrats to all the finalist:)</p>

<p>Does anybody know when yale emails the Yale ID number, cause i want to fax my stuff over?</p>

37

<p>Finalist.</p>

<p>ACT: 32
SAT: 2000
GPA: 3.90 UW / 4.4 W
Rank: none
APs: 5, 5</p>

<p>Location: Northwest
School: Private Religious School
Ethnicity: Chinese
Gender: Male
Income/Family Situation: 30k.</p>

<p>EC’s: NHS, SNHS(president), Table Tennis(president), Mock Trial (2 time state competitor, 1st place in points, co-captain), MUN, Drama club, and Track and Field
Recommendations: Really strong. I used a teacher I’ve known since freshman year and someone with whom I worked with.
Essays: Overall, really, really good, but on the verge of greatness.</p>

38

<p>ACT: 33
SAT: 2100 (retook in October, hopefully it went up a little bit more)
GPA: 3.997 UW (no weighted GPA in my school)
Rank: 3/149
APs: US Gov’t (5), USH (5), Chemistry (5), Psychology (5, self-study); taking Calc BC, Stats, English Lit, and Computer Science for sure in May, possibly Physics C.</p>

<p>Location: Midwest
School: Private Catholic All-girls School (…and I’m not Catholic, haha)
Ethnicity: White (Middle Eastern)
Gender: Female
Income/Family Situation: 45-50k, for 7 people. First generation to go to college.</p>

<p>Awards: National Merit Scholarship Competition–Commended, Placed in state for Le Grand Concours National French Test twice, Bausch and Lomb Honorary Science Award, a few other awards within my school.
EC’s: NHS President, Friends of Islam Club Event Coordinator, Student Congress (lots of educational research), volunteering at an Islamic Organization and a soup kitchen as well as around the school. And babysitting. Lots and lots of babysitting.
Essays: I guess I’m not really one to judge their quality. I spent like 3 weeks on them in total, though, so I guess they probably turned out well. I wrote one on how 9/11 affected my Muslim community, and one on Euler’s formula and how it reminds me of the overarching pattern of the universe.
Recs: I waived my right to see them, so I really don’t know…but I hope they were good, haha. One from my Honors and then AP Chemistry teacher, one from my Shakespeare and Speech teacher.</p>

39

<p>Finalist!!</p>

<p>Female
Florida
Public School
White</p>

<p>4.0 Un weighted
5.12 Weighted
ACT:33
Rank:1/346
AP: Enviro(5), World(4), Bio(5), Spanish(3), English Lang(5), Chem(3), Psych(5), US(4)
Senior Courseload: 5 APs(Eng, Human Geo, Gov, Art, and Calc), Physics Honors, Art
ECs: Mu Alpha Theta(Prez), NHS(treasurer), SNHS, Key Club, volunteer at a Wildlife Rehab. Center, Varsity swimming for 4 yrs
Summer stuff: FSU Young Scholars Program, Outward Bound twice(won scholarships to go on)
Income:~25K
Hooks: single parent
Recs: first teacher had for two AP classes(got 5s), second was math teacher and Mu Alpha Theta sponsor, conselour had as a teacher as well
Awards: Harvard U Book Award, AP Scholar w/ Distinction, a bunch through school</p>

<p>Schools ranked:

  1. Dartmouth
  2. Bowdoin
  3. Amherst
  4. Swarthmore
  5. Haverford
  6. Yale
  7. Washington and Lee
  8. Brown</p>
40

<ul>
<li>SAT I (breakdown): N/A

<ul>
<li>ACT: 33</li>
<li>SAT II: 750 Math II, 750 Chem, 750 Bio</li>
<li>Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 </li>
<li>Weighted GPA: 4.6 </li>
<li>Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 5/836</li>
<li>AP (place score in parenthesis): Chem (5), English Lang (5), Spanish Lang (5), Biology (4)</li>
<li>Senior Year Course Load: 6 AP’s, Marching Band, Concert Band, Academic Decathlon</li>
<li>Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): n/a</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>Subjective:</p>

<pre><code>* Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Marching Band (Head Drum Major), Chemistry Club (Founder/President), Guild of Mathematics (Secretary), Academic Decathlon, Concert Band, Regional Honor Band, Honor Band, Solo and Ensemble

  • Job/Work Experience: DemiDec Beta-tester for 1 summer
  • Volunteer/Community service: Over 400 hours
  • Summer Activities: Various leadership camps
  • Essays: 1. Experience as a drum major (Personality) 2. Daily care of my grandmother who has Alzheimer’s 3. My odd love of Numbers
  • Teacher Recommendation: Excellent
  • Counselor Rec: Excellent
    </code></pre>

<p>Other</p>

<pre><code>* State (if domestic applicant): AZ

  • Country (if international applicant):
  • School Type: Competitive Public
  • Ethnicity: White
  • Gender: M
  • Income Bracket: 52,000
  • Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Daily care of grandmother with Alzheimer’s, Father is unemployed with liver disease
    </code></pre>

<p>I guess that’s just proof you don’t need to be out of this world to get it! I was the first one from my school. That was exciting.</p>