Harvard Chances

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>IM 100% Honest</p>

<p>Composite ACT-33-----(35eng, 34mat, 33reading,28sci) --- I did get a 32sci on my first try if they superscore. </p>

<p>Class Rank- 1/431
Unweighted-3.97
Weighted-4.34
I have been part of a magnet school since 6th/7th grade for math/science and I have been way accelerated as a result. At the end of junior year I had 58 credits and you need like 48ish to graduate. Ive taken AP everything and gotten A's in all of them but two semesters of two classes. </p>

<p>Heres my issue- my AP exams suck- I spent too much time playing golf thinking I would get recruited- but it didn't work out.</p>

<p>AP Scores
Freshmen year- Physics(3), Comp Sci-2
Sophomore Year- Calc AB(3)/BC(2)---(BOTH IN ONE CLASS... AND WE HAD A SUB THE WHOLE YEAR WHO DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING!!)
- Chemistry(2), Stats(4), Human Geo(4)
Junior year- Language/Comp(4), US History(3), Comparative Gov(4), US GOV(4), Additionally<br>
I took two college courses(concurrent enrollment)- Discreet Mathematics and Introdution to Engineering. </p>

<p>This year I am taking
Senior year- AP Language/Lit, AP Enviro, AP Micro/Macro Economics, Vector Calculus(through the local university) and Spanish 3(not AP)</p>

<p>EXTRACURRICULARS
Research internship with Professor at university- optical character recognition stuff -convert code etc. etc. --- 120 hours ( 11th, during school year only)</p>

<p>Homeless Shelter- 60 total hours so far(11th,12th)</p>

<p>First tee youth golf instructor/mentor-50 hours(11th summer)</p>

<p>Volunteer youth instructor with my coach - 200 hours(9,10,11,12)</p>

<p>Student run volunteer organization(501c-3)- I wont give its name, but Im on the Board of Directors and I manage other volunteers in planning and executing service projects. We planned and carried out a 5 day camp for obese kids, and numerous other city improvement projects (11th, 12th) ---- 200 hours</p>

<p>President of Gold Club- (Interact with old people at Assisted Living Home- probably around 50 hours(11th, 12th) </p>

<p>Varsity Golf-#1/2 player on the team since I was a freshmen- 20 hours/week + numerous out of state tournaments in the summer. (9th,10th,11th,12th)</p>

<p>Im really confident in my application, excluding my AP scores. I really hope they don't weigh me down. I easily could've done better, but I didn't know I wanted to go to elite schools until 11th grade and whether ap scores even mattered, which it seems they do. My letters are all really good as well.</p>

<p>Also, I have had to travel every month, twice a month, to visit one of my parents who lives in a different state since I was 9(they're divorced). I'm having my counselor talk about this in her letter.</p>

<p>PLEASE CHANCE ME. I am applying to Engineering. My top schools are Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, and Duke. I have some easier ones too just in case. I just want to see where I stand. </p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>The first thing that strikes me is not just that your AP scores aren’t great, but that they don’t make any sense given your strong grades/class rank. If you told me that the school was for disadvantaged students and underresourced, I could explain this by saying that you did the best you could under the circumstances, the school wasn’t really prepping its students for top colleges, and you could be a “diamond in the rough.” But you’ve told me the school is a magnet school, and that it has a varsity golf team, so (unless my stereotypes are off base), you’re probably from a upper middle class background and a good school. A top student from a magnet school would ordinarily be in the running, but something doesn’t make sense here.</p>

3

<p>The A’s in those AP classes will come into question with low ap scores</p>

4

<p>Well, this shows the wisdom of not accelerating too much. This doesn’t reflect well on your school. But people from badly-reflected-on schools get admitted.</p>

<p>You got the 2s in your freshman and sophomore years - to me those are throwaway. You probably had no business taking the exams at that point anyway. All your post-sophomore scores are fine.</p>

<p>And look at this:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/16164782-post42.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/16164782-post42.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You seem like a nice kid. I mean, reading your post I get the strong impression that a nice kid was writing it. That’s a huge asset, especially when your Harvard app will be sitting in a pile with some insufferable d-bags. You know, like the ones all over CC.</p>

<p>My main concern would be ECs. You’ve got golf. You do some worthy community service in 2 or 3 different arenas. You did some research, although possibly not in the field you want to major in. It’s good. I’m not sure the ECs I got admitted with were any better. But they might lack the focus and drive of some of the very strongest applicants, at least the way you’ve presented them here. So…maybe work on tightening that up a little. You’ll want golf, the 501c3 and traveling between states to stand out from the rest.</p>

<p>I’d say you have a fairly decent chance at Harvard. Good luck.</p>

5

<p>I really appreciate the advice! I just hope they don’t hold the AP’s against me. Thank you for that link, I checked it out and it seemed to be in my favor.</p>

<p>To follow up on your advice, what do you recommend I do to “tighten up” my extracurriculars? </p>

<p>I wasn’t particularly detailed above, nor can I be on the common application. I definitely agree with what you are saying about focus, but I have just done things that I have gradually found out about. Up until 11th grade, I really had no clue what I wanted to do with my life as far as a career or school goes. Once I figured everything out, I just started overloading everything(it was about 11th grade)!
My idea for my club came from the 501c-3. We planned a 3 week project where we students basically went to an assisted living home and interacted with and got to know the patients-similar to what I am doing in the club.</p>

<p>I forgot to mention that I did a couple of piano performances and competitions in 9th and 10th grade(certificate of merit and sonatina festival- in which I received the highest ratings by the judges in both years). I haven’t played in any performances since then, but I have continued playing. That totals about 3 hours/week for 9th and 10th grade.</p>

<p>Would it be beneficial to submit an art supplement( I don’t have any music/art classes on my transcript)?</p>

<p>By no means am I amazing. If you’ve heard Fur Elise, I am slightly above that level of playing ability. </p>

<p>Additionally, I will retake my ACT to see if I can get a 34-35 just so its a little more solid testing wise. Thank you again for your assessment.</p>

6

<p>The golf team is at my regular high school. The magnet school is an addition to my high school where I select certain courses that I want to take and drive down there during the middle of the school day to take. Last year I skipped lunch to take Discreet Mathematics there.</p>

7

<p>^^ I’m sure you got it right but, just in case, you should double check your apps to make sure you are spelling “discrete” math right. Both in the post above and your original post you spelled it discreet.</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>Sometimes less is more. You might want to experiment with different ways of listing the ECs. Omitting or consolidating some of the just-okay items (the youth golf instructorships, the lower-commitment volunteering gigs) might help the more impressive ones (like the 501c3) stand out more. Example:</p>

<p>Activities:

  • Bowling (2nd place county championships)
  • Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
  • Karate for Fitness (yellow belt)
  • French Club (11th)
  • Manga Club (9th, part of 10th)
  • Nobel Prize in Chemistry</p>

<p>^ Karate for Fitness and the Manga Club are not helping this applicant. If anything they’re hurting him because they might cause an inattentive admissions officer to miss the important stuff.</p>

<p>These are some fun essays to help think about extracurriculars. Not everyone will agree with the advice given, but you might find them helpful in forming your own way of presenting your ECs:</p>

<p>[Case</a> Study: How Could We Save This Ridiculously Overloaded Grind? - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](<a href=“http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/09/12/case-study-how-could-we-save-this-ridiculously-overloaded-grind/]Case”>Case Study: How Could We Save This Ridiculously Overloaded Grind? - Cal Newport)</p>

<p>[Debunking</a> the Laundry List Fallacy: Why Doing Less is More Impressive - Study Hacks - Cal Newport](<a href=“http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/03/14/debunking-the-laundry-list-fallacy-why-doing-less-is-more-impressive/]Debunking”>Debunking the Laundry List Fallacy: Why Doing Less is More Impressive - Cal Newport)</p>

9

<p>I believe you are correct, so thank you for that! I will definitely double check to make sure I got that right.</p>