Help! Stressing over where to apply/EA!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello everyone- As a senior working on apps, I'm hoping to get some advice/words of consolation about my college decisions...</p>

<p>I spent the summer doing the usual college tours/info sessions and, though I didn't stray at all from the Northeast (I have no problem, and may actually prefer leaving this region to go to school, but we haven't been able to tour other areas due to cost/time limitations).
Anyway, out of the relatively few schools I visited, the three I was most enamored with were Tufts, Cornell, and McGill. However, from the looks of things, and based on info. from the Naviance service our school provides, my chances of any of these schools are not very good.</p>

<p>To elaborate, I have a 3.440/4.2? UW GPA.
My test scores, however, are better with a 33 ACT comp. (all 35's and 36's except math), a 5 on the AP Bio. (<em>this is what I plan to study</em>, along with computer science possibly) and a 4 on the APUSH. I was also commended for the PSAT, whatever that means.</p>

<p>Here's my current courseload, as it's pretty consistent with what I've been taking throughout my high school career:</p>

<p>-Adv. Physics
-Adv. Algebra III/Trig
-AP Euro
-IB Psych
-AP Envi Sci
-AP English 4</p>

<p>In the past, I've taken Honors/AP level courses in all core subjects barring Math, not to mention 3 years of Advanced Spanish (up to Spanish 4).</p>

<p>My extracurricular list is short, but the activities I've taken part in I was committed to, and spent a majority of my free time in:</p>

<p>-Mock Trial Junior/Senior Yr (~10 hours a week! Our team is 4-time county champions [in a row], so all that success must come from somewhere...)
-International Club Frosh/Soph
-Robotics Senior Yr (VEX Competition team)
-ACS Relay for Life involvement</p>

<p>-Volunteer work @ my temple (I'm Jewish; so please don't recommend strongly religiously-affiliated schools; I would love diversity, but having a community of fellow Jews is nice)</p>

<p>So basically, I'm going crazy over whether I'll get into any of the aforementioned schools, or any top-tier research/liberal arts institution at all. I should mention my desire to get into a prestigious school has nothing to do at all with name recognition on the diploma, rather a genuine interest in being surrounded by the smartest/most qualified/most interesting people in any field I study. I'd really appreciate some information on my odds of acceptance at the above three, as well as any recommendations anyone can provide.</p>

<p>Thank you so much!</p>

2

<p>Another question as well – I took the ACT twice;</p>

<p>The first time (April 09) I got a 35 English, 25 Math, 36 Reading, and 35 Science.</p>

<p>The second time (June 09) I got a 33 English, 28 Math, 35 Reading and 36 Science.</p>

<p>Should I send one or both to any/all schools I apply to? If only one, which?</p>

3

<p>Conell is ED, not EA. Of the ten students accepted from our HS, you would be on the low end in some respects, although it’s hard to know how a school looks at an applicant who is very strong in one area and substantially less strong in another. As you may already know,
the pre-med/bio group is very competitive there.</p>

<p>Tufts is also ED, not EA, and McGill has no early round! Looks like you need to do more research into your schools.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the reply:</p>

<p>I am aware that both Cornell and Tufts only offer ED, but as I am not thrilled with the prospect of early decision (especially if I get into McGill, which will make any choice really tough!), I chose to mention EA in the post title.</p>

<p>If an ED-only school which I loved was <em>borderline</em> as far as my chances are concerned, I would seriously consider ED’ing.</p>

<p>As I said before, any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated.</p>

5

<p>OK, your intentions are much clearer after your third post. An ED application does give you a boost in acceptance rates, which may make the difference for you. What kind of difference it makes is hotly debated here, but I happen to think that a talented student with unequal scores would get more consideration in the early round, where applications are one-tenth of the RD deluge. However, it doesn’t seem like you are locked onto one favorite school, and that would mean that an ED acceptance would close a lot of doors for you. You do have a difficult problem. </p>

<p>If McGill is your first choice, then ED is not for you. I would recommend, though, that you apply EA (not ED!) to one or two high safety or match schools for several reasons: to give yourself a reality check on what schools are matches for you, to have some security through the RD application process, and to practice writing applications (your first or second aren’t usually the best.) Good luck!</p>

6

<p>Thanks SO MUCH again for the good words of advice! Just two more questions…</p>

<p>1)Can you or anyone else recommend any other schools that would be good target/low reach schools I should take a look at?</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>2)As I have already completed my McGill app and submitted it; is it wise to send one or both ACT’s and which one(s)?</p>

7

<p>I’m much more comfortable recommending midwest schools, so I’ll suggest University of Wisconsin-Madison: great social scene, great academics, significant Jewish population (lots of kids from Northern Illinois), nice campus setting. It has rolling admissions and would be a match for you. For RD, I’d suggest Syracuse, Carleton and Oberlin.</p>

<p>Send the second ACT score; it avoids that 25 in Math and has a golden “36” which is an unlimited score, isn’t it? I mean, you could have scored perfectly on a much harder test… :)</p>