Ho yeah, I wanna be a Hoya.

Colleges and Universities A-Z Georgetown University
1

<p>Hokay, Hoyas... Georgetown has been my number one BFF school for over two years now. How could you not love the school, with the SFS, the great location, and those erotically frightening spires atop Healy Hall? I, like everyone else, want to study International Political Economy at the SFS. I've heard that it's frighteningly competitive, but you might as well tell a hopeful Oregonian how he'll fare!</p>

<p>Get ready, here they come...</p>

<p>Race/Gender: White Guy
Location: Portland, OR (geographical diversity, anyone?)
HS: Top public in OR (that's not saying much)
Income: Live with divorced mom; less than $40,000 per annum
GPA: 4.0 UW/4.7ish W
Class Rank: Valedictorian, biaaatch</p>

<p>SAT: 2180; 780 CR, 660 M, 740 W (retaking, shooting for 2200+)
ACT: 30 (retaking, shooting for 33+)</p>

<p>AP's and College-in-Highschool courses:
AP English Lang
AP US History
AP Biology
AP Calculus AB
AP Economics
AP Constitutional Gov
AP Art History
AP Euro History
-took the AP French Exam last year while I wasn't taking French; got a 4
-Only AP's I didn't take were Chem, Physics, Calc BC and Art Studio
Portland State University English
Portland State University French</p>

<p>EC's (kinda limited):</p>

<p>Classical Piano: 12 Years, Guild Superior Rating 9, 10 (and 6 years before that)
Newspaper: Copy Editor (11), Page Editor (11) 10, 11
We The People Constitution Team: 12 (Our school has won 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in the nationals since 1999 or something)
Church Youth Group: lots of volunteering and fundraising
Habitat for Humanity: probably 120 hours so far; youth group goes on mission trips for a week once school gets out and we work on a job site somewhere; Certificate of Appreciation, Work Crew leader</p>

<p>Awards:
National Latin Exam- Summa Cum Laude (11)
Superior Honors Distinction (9, 10, 11, 12; from school)
Excellence in Chemistry (10; from school)
Valedictorian (9, 10, 11, 12)</p>

<p>Work Experience:
I'm a Teacher at a local preschool: I work like 10 hour weeks during the school year, but I've been doing 40 hour weeks this summer. I've worked since January, 2007 and plan on working up until I leave for college. Interesting note- I teach them foreign languages (French, German, Russian, Chinese).
Boss loves me, wants to write me a rec.</p>

<p>My teacher recs should be great; one from my soph. English teacher who holds a PhD in linguistics from Oxford (and has been trying to recruit me, so to speak), and another from my French teacher, who practically wets herself over my love of French.</p>

<p>Essay: I think I'm going to write about how when I teach my preschoolers some words in foreign languages, it opens their eyes to a world outside what they experience everyday, and how my own love of foreign languages has influenced me to aspire to do foreign service in a global world. (I know it all sounds kind of overdone and cliche, but it's something about which I'm truly passionate and it matches my intended major.)
Not sure about what to write about for the required SFS supplement (topic: choose an international conflict and elaborate on it, etc.)</p>

<p>Other schools to which I'm applying (just in case you wanted to know):
Yale (big reach, but hey.. everyone wants a slice of ivy pie....)
Columbia (again, big reach)
Middlebury
Tufts
Carleton
Macalester
Vassar
Dickinson
American U (safety)
UBC (safety)
McGill (safety)
Tulane (safety)</p>

2

<p>I think you're in. You have everything you need (and your test scores are just fine). The heavy foreign language emphasis will help. I don't know if Georgetown requires Junior grade teachers and up (teachers from 11th-12th grade) or not. I know the Common App schools do. So look into that. Otherwise, everything looks good.</p>

3

<p>You know, I'm really annoyed about that whole junior-year-teachers-only clause. Are you sure that it's MANDATORY that the recommenders be only from junior and senior year, or only recommended? Last year I had all new teachers and I don't know if I generated the sort of connection with them that I have with my other teachers. I'm taking French this year, so my French teacher is still a go, I guess. Maybe my AP English teacher...</p>

<p>I just realized (i.e. my counselor mentioned) that my high school is known pretty well among top schools because a) Oregon is a severely under-represented state and b) we are considered to be a very "poor" and "underpriveleged" urban public school and have almost 40% African American students while c) still maintining very high test scores, remains highly competitive, etc.</p>

<p>Our last several Valedictorians went to Yale, Georgetown, Princeton, Brown, and Carleton, in no particular order.</p>

4

<p>It's generally advised to go with Junior grade and up since the most challenging (and the closest to college) schoolwork you are doing is in those grades. The idea is that the teacher who will know you best when it comes to academics is the one that had you later in your HS career.</p>

<p>At the end of the day though, Georgetown is looking for the person that can best shed light on your abilities and skills and personality. Therefore, I don't think it will hurt at Georgetown (which only requires one recommendation - so you're fine with the French teacher) and adding the other isn't going to be a problem. The problem is at other universities that require two. I would follow the guidelines, but your application is yours to submit. Think carefully and feel free to call the universities you're applying to about this topic.</p>

5

<p>haha you're so funny "white guy" =)
yeah like everyone else I think you'll be fine you have a really good gpa and your score are definitely on par with georgetown.
good luck!
thanks for commenting on my other post</p>