I am dedicated, and want to know if College would agree or not?

Applying to College
1

<p>I am a incoming Sophomore in High school, I go to private jewish school with dual curriculum of subjects in religion and secular studies.
Contrary to public opinion my school 'Yeshivah of Flatbush" leaves much to desire, and despite my hectic schedule from 7:05 AM to 5:30 PM, plus the homework and studying, I have devised a plan below, with my extra academic stimulations,</p>

<p>Most people tell me this plan is not right for a high school student, but I want to do my best and get an academic career. I enjoy the stuff I list below and am only doing them because I enjoy them, and will go to whatever colleges that FIT ME. I am looking at in no particular order<br>
Brown, MIT, Cal-TECH, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, UoFC, UCBerkeley, NYU and for safe I have "Queen Honors Macaulay program"
I would describe myself of high intelligence, in many areas primarily mathematics, and politics, but I am very well rounded, and enjoy reading, writing, history and now adding Chemsitry and Physics to my passions. At same time you won't faint out of shock when you meet me. I have 100% total nerve deafness (can hear with Cochlear Implant now) which is pretty amazing considering I have won 6 awards in debate and model congress which are all public speaking related. See below my plans and attack/criticize/praise/encourage me, after all you've read through this much just for my sake, so pat yourself on the back, </p>

<p>AP</p>

<p>US History (I won't need much studying, and it fits my political activism)
US Government and Politics
Comparitive Government and Politics</p>

<p>Statistics (related to economics, very simple for me)
Physics B
Macro-economics,
Micro-economics
Computer Science A
Chemistry
Calculus BC (This is major boost, being a sophomore only)</p>

<p>SAT 2's</p>

<p>Chemistry (see below same question)
Physics (Should i do these even though I'm doing pa's?)
Math 2
US History</p>

<p>Regents
Physics (Should/have to take it?)
Chemistry (my school requires me, no choice there)</p>

<p>Contests,</p>

<p>AMC 10/12
USMAT (more for fun and to get mathematica software free)
AIME
Olympiad (Just taking test alone means you're sole remaining survivor for every 799 other people)(and I am taking W.O.O.T. course which is 7 month online intensive course).</p>

<p>Physic QuizBowl</p>

<p>F=ma exam</p>

<p>Seimens-WestingHouse Competition (just to get feel and do better in Junior and Senior Year)</p>

<p>ExtraCurricular</p>

<p>Boy Scouts (Extremely active in it, from staff, to troop leadership to foreign exchange to Colombia and much much more)</p>

<p>Debate (won 5 awards in it last year, will do Varsity this year and will be assistant coach for JV debate,)</p>

<p>Mock trial (Hosted in District Attorney's Office)</p>

<p>Model Congress (Won distinguished best speaker in addition to being only freshman there last year)</p>

<p>Model UN (hope for similar results as Model Congress)</p>

<p>Math Team (well, going to be easy for me compared to what I'm studying)</p>

<p>Personal Quests,</p>

<p>Learn Python, Objective C (in my long term quest to develop mac and iPhone applications), and solve more variations of rubies cube that I know.</p>

<p>I have many other hobbies such as video editing, journalism (write for school newspaper too), international traveling and high adventure activities.</p>

<p>So how does this plan sound? I am doing this all in sophomore year in addition to maintaining high grades and doing all this to help me further in my Junior/senior goals of research in physics/math/chem. I have professors in all areas helping me right now and available.</p>

<p>None of the things here I do are 'tool' subjects, I do them because I have sincere passion, I aspire to become a congressman someday or Professor in Theoretical Math, </p>

<p>I understand rejection from these top ivy leaguers is not end of world, and not a reflection on my ability, and I just want to aim high, and really hope I can get there. Please comment and advise as you please, :D :D :D</p>

2

<p>I just have one thing to say: just keep following your passion and you will get into your dream school.</p>

3

<p>First off is tone. If you write your college essays like you wrote this, your chances will plummet. No offense, but you sound like a dbag. I come from a jewish family, too. So I totally understand the coddling. But you’re nothing special. At my school most kids take BC Calc sophomore or junior year, get 4s and 5s, then take college courses in multivariable, modeling, linear algebra, etc.
Your rigor is very impressive, but you can’t depend on it.</p>

<p>Also, about US History, you will need studying, it’s often considered the hardest AP exam. You need to know obscure politicians, writers, dates, names, etc.
Take it safe and study. A 2 or 3 will look…questionable.</p>

<p>Oh and AP Stats and AP Econ are not related. And dont assume that being jewish will help you with econ, lol.
Anyways, Stats is totally different. Econ is theoretical, stats is practical. In econ you wont be running p-value confidence tests or two-sample unpooled t-tests with unequal variance.</p>

<p>Model UN is a lot more challenging than Model Congress and Debate. Ive done all of them. Your quality of debate and politicking will need to increase. To compare, one of my friends got best speaker in Model Congress in 2 of his 5 conferences. In 6 MUN conferences his highest honor has been verbal commendation. And debate is a joke in certain tournaments. State champion? Qualified for nationals last year?</p>

<p>Also you need to realize that you will either not get sleep or suffer from burnout.</p>

4

<p>your assessment of my tone is was blunt, and I appreciate that, since you never met me, thus this would be a similar impression that my colleges will get. </p>

<p>Thanks for AP Info, for everything else, we shall see! Hopefully you’re wrong, but no point in speculating until I actually get the results,</p>

5

<p>Shushugah stop posting these seriously and work on your plan instead.
What do you want us to say? </p>

<p>“shushugah is soooo awesome and will definitely get into MIT!! :)”</p>

<p>You posted this what 1 month ago?</p>

<p>Fish for compliments somewhere else.</p>

6

<p>AP exams are harder than some college-level classes. If you want to ace US history with no studying…u better be a computer. Literally.
Are you saying that you will remember all of the legislation, parties, coalitions, etc.? </p>

<p>I cant imagine how you plan on balancing all of this stuff, but just be careful. I know someone who did something like what you did and went to sleep consistently at 3-4 AM. </p>

<p>He committed suicide after 5 months.
Take care of yourself.</p>

7

<p>Shushugah, you’re on track to accomplish great things. But lighten up a bit, do these things for the sheer joy of learning, and laugh a little while you’re doing it. The Ivies will be more likely to let you in if you come across as being yourself rather than being a packaged product designed to impress. Add some charitable projects along the way if you can – tutoring, if nothing else. It may teach you something about yourself AND make you a more well-rounded individual.</p>

8

<p>HYPSM have hundreds of applicants like you. If you get all A’s and a good SAT score, you will be admitted to them. But your post simply says “rigorous classes” and not much else.</p>

9

<p>

</p>

<p>^This. On top of the fact that you posted the very same thread multiple times in other discussions.</p>

<p>Good luck following through. You sound like a very ambitious person with hard-pressed planning. Whether or not you are really that much of a jack*ss in real life is hard to tell from your post. In any case, good luck accomplishing all of that. </p>

<p>/thread</p>

10

<p>I really like the people that criticize my plans, instead of telling me that I am awesome or unfortunately just bashing me, and I haven’t posted this multiple times, if you actually read my other posts which i am not asking you to, you’ll see this plan is actually a revision purely based of the constructive criticism fellow ccer’s gave.</p>

<p>I am doing you guys a favor by not posting every minuscules detail of my life. Who of you here cares and will factor into your judgement if I got 98 in Math, a 95 in Biology last year, and will take into account the dual curriculum as well as my school’s relative difficulty to all other 1080 NYC High schools. While you’re at it, why don’t you take into account the average home value, and the general GDP which affects everyone in the long and short run. </p>

<p>I’m not angry, but sometime people to need to chill a little, and if I really disgust you, why don’t you either not comment or just explain what you don’t like rather than putting words in my mouth. </p>

<p>I am really appreciative of the guys who spend their time and effort to give me good advice, I too try to return the favor to some other member’s in the CC forum, mainly commenting on summer programs, boy scouts, religion, and the various math contests like USAMTS, Putnam, Olympiad etc…</p>

<p>please just don’t be haters, I never met you, probably never will, and don’t want you to waste your time venting your emotional issues with me, and please try to get the point I am making, I am in no way trying to be cross or sarcastic, since many of you if not most provided great feedback, </p>

<p>:)</p>

11

<p>The AP US history exam isn’t as hard as some people say, at least i didn’t think so. I studied diligently, after being home schooled, and got a 5. Just study.</p>

12

<p>Hellow fellow CCer’s, just an update on how plans have changed for the better and worse, </p>

<p>AP’s: Dropping Psychology, Art History and CS (I prefer C programming, so maybe next year) as i see that this is simply resume padding and unnecessary, </p>

<p>School wouldn’t register for any of these contests, Physic QuizBowl
F=ma exam
WestingHouse Competition</p>

<p>and I personally dropped USAMTS, i admit it was too ambitious for me, </p>

<p>I am not in Model UN, College Bowl, or MSG Varsity,
Forget about MySQL and C++ as well, </p>

<p>and SAT 2’s and Regents aren’t that important, will take whatever I feel proficient in, but it’s not a big priority, mainly I wish to take 2-3 SAT’s by the time I graduate, hence I have plenty of time to split it up, </p>

<p>On the positive side, I just registered for Olympiad Geometry in addition to WOOT (World Online Olympiad Training), since W.O.O.T. has very little Geometry, hence I took care of that,</p>

<p>Signed up for NYU Math Circle Course and Pushkin Academy (both are olympiad centered math) </p>

<p>I am also going to be home schooled this semester, so am considering taking some courses on CTY some other online courses

[quote]
any suggestions? [/quote[ and tutoring from Physics Professors I know. Any questions or “See I knew it!!” comments are all welcome, Thank you guys for giving me hope and support, your comments really had deep impact both consciously and subconsciously. Thank you, :)</p>

13

<p>Do some research and narrow your elite school list to schools you actually want to go to. Right now you’ve just listed schools with good reputations. You probably know nothing about them.</p>

<p>You’ve picked 9 very selective schools then some random safety. This is not the way to go about applications. You should add a few schools to your list that are matches, and schools that are low reaches. This will give you a better chance to get to the best school possible with your stats.</p>

14

<p>I actually scraped the list for now, because too many variables exist and anything can change and new opportunities will arise, I was very naive few months ago…still am probably, but let’s just say less, xD</p>

15

<p>OP: focus more on your extracurriculars and less on your grades. Why’d you stop congress if you won awards in it? If you’re now being homeschooled (Why? And for a semester–what’s that mean? You’re going back to school next year?) how are you gonna maintain club membership? If you don’t do that, you should devote yourself to something outside of your formal studies about which you’re TRULY passionate.</p>

<p>

What’s that supposed to mean?</p>

16

<p>To be blunt: </p>

<p>You’re not interesting at all… Though, of course, I don’t know you personally, all I see is a laundry list here. </p>

<p>The question to pursue and ultimately answer - What are you passionate about? </p>

<p>Sounds like BS but really if you can’t demonstrate this through your application, doing blah blah blah extracurriculars and AP^infinity won’t get you anywhere.</p>

<p>Take the advice or leave it.</p>

17

<p>Hey layoff the OP, high schools a time for students to learn about themselves. Who they are, who they want to be, what they really like? He’s just lost; and yes at one point or another we are all lost.<br>
@OP, you are SUPER ambitious and confident. Initially you were way over your head. I’m glad you’ve lightened your workload a bit. I read an article a month ago that some college kids suffer from “burnout” because of all they’ve put themselves through to get to these top schools. Your a human NOT a machine; your body will break before your will does. And for the record please go out and accomplish some of this stuff before you post all of this, because your setting yourself up for a major let down. Fyi, you don’t have to do all that stuff to get into HYPMS or watever.</p>

18

<p>

^lol, please take the advice OP.</p>

19

<p>I am being Home schooled because, I am not being challenged in my school, and want the extra time to focus on Math, Chemistry, Physics and Programming specifically. I come from a Yeshivah where I have 7 extra religious studies, in addition to the regular Math, History, English, Spanish and Chemistry. I now have more freedom to do things.</p>

<p>I am a little sad that I won’t be able to do debate any more, but I will still be able to do Model Congress and Mock trial. The choice wasn’t easy but I hope it was the right one. I am going to be home schooled this semester, and depending on whether I am accepted to Andover Boarding school or not, I may or may not be home schooled another 1-2 years (college is another option instead of senior year). </p>

<p>IF I am not accepted to Andover next year (about 93% chance statistically) then I found out about a City wide Mock trial and debate team, and will continue those passions, also going to apply to Page Senate/Representative program(s). </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I think it was a joke, because jew’s have a reputation for finances, evident by the jewish bankers, lawyers and consultants out there.</p>

<p>Now about AP’s… I am such a hypocrite at times, and hate how sudden my plans change, guess it’s all part of the hormones and being a high schooler (ya, real lame excuses). I agree AP Infinity is just plain stupid and most certainly resembles resume padding. For now I am going to focus more on the actual academic courses, so i will take AP Chem, Physics and Calculus, although Chemistry would be a waste since it’s anything but rigorous and there are very few concepts as opposed to basic memorizations of notations. I am studying Physics and Chemistry in person with two different Professor’s and soon hopefully will take more advanced courses in both areas as well as possibly research? </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I posted this forum to tell me if I had a good schedule or not, not an actual college transcript that I’d be sending college, as I’m missing grades and my life stories here obviously. I don’t want to bore people with my life story of growing up deaf, and my personal setbacks which I later on achieved, first being slow to speak; later on becoming a public speaker at various functions for various clubs and occasions whether Model Congress, Eagle Court of Honor or even Private organizations. Swimming was another major achievement, because for me the waters are a very lonely place. I don’t hear any of the laughter, splashes of the waves, and it forces me to cripple myself. I almost drowned once when I was a small boy, so the waters was always something foreign for me. When i joined scouting I needed requirements done for this, and so had no choice but to face it again. My uncle taught me for 2 years, after which he died of a blood clot. Later that year I did a 50 mile canoeing trek, and swam my first mile. It wasn’t the actual physical accomplishments here, but the circumstances and sentimental meaning behind them that make them such heightened experiences. </p>

<p>I enjoy traveling a lot, and regularly travel to Europe, (am typing this from the Netherlands as we speak) whether it’s Holland, Germany, Belgium, France, Czech Republic or elsewhere. I also traveled by myself to Colombia on a scout exchange, the previous summer a scout troop of Colombians came to us, so I decided it was my turn to return the favor. It was such an eye opener, and made me question the general media, because the Colombia we read about in the NYTimes and WSJ was not the same Colombia that I visited. I was really impressed at the fiscal modesty of these people, and despite living of an average of $5,000 a year, most of these people were content with their simple but wholesome lifestyles.</p>

20

<p>Hello Folks, this is my new account, I’ve changed quite a bit, and I look with amusement at these previous threads I made with the shushugah account. </p>

<p>A quick update, about what I am doing now, I am enrolled in EPGY Stanford Online HS. I am taking 7 courses, I am taking WOOT (World Online Olympiad Training, from AoPS) a 2nd time, in addition to Olympiad Geometry, and mathematical tapas, which really widened my horizon on set theory and topology. </p>

<p>Despite considering math to be my forte, in retrospect, I realize, I didn’t and I STILL don’t know ANYTHING about mathematics. I was fooled into following the typical math sequence that colleges offer, you know, calculus, Linear Algebra, MVC and then Differential Equation, however I personally found set theory, analysis and dabbles of topology much more abstract and tasty for my personal interest. </p>

<p>I’ce taken many more math courses, read more books, and even wrote several lectures, thanks to a fellow CCer Shrig94 (who was the first person to comment on my original thread…) <a href=“http://onlinemathcircle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/17-induction.pdf[/url]”>http://onlinemathcircle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/17-induction.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I was naive in my fetish for AP’s and contest awards, in fact I’ll be upfront about it…I suck at contests, and did pretty bad in ARML on NYC Math team, and also did mediocre on the AMC…not even making AIME. However, that didn’t deter me, I prefer Olympiad problems, and while I don’t have any official contests to back it up, my lectures and time spent online reflect that interest. </p>

<p>I am intimately involved with scouting still, and am very active on international level. I frequently host Colombian scouts who’ve I’ve met on 3 separate occasions, and now I am making plans for scout conclave in Ghana. </p>

<p>Since I am no longer in my hebrew day school, I am not allowed to participate in the Debate League, ironically I am allowed to serve as an assistant coach, and so I look forward to coaching my team, and improving on areas where we could improve in (such as spotting logical fallacies, and how to call of true but irrelevant premises). </p>

<p>I don’t think I’m much smarter, except perhaps a little in math, but I certainly am a lot more aware of how dumb I am. I will always be available to parents, or students, looking for advice on what NOT to do, EPGY, or Math in general, or anything else you think I may have a voice on. </p>

<p>There are more personal aspects to my life, but I’ve forfeited enough, and you can find my name and all about me on the web, based on the math link I sent you, hopefully you’ll read some of it too, :/</p>