I don't have much of a chance, right?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
1

<p>I just got my SAT score back today, very depressing, but here it goes:</p>

<p>BACKGROUND:
Male, live in NY, born in South Asia, moved to U.S. when almost three yrs old, English was my third language, household income is around 85,000 so about 55,000 net, I have two older siblings, both of whom went to college. Father is a pharmacist. Mother is a housekeeper.</p>

<p>STATS:
GPA: 103 weighted, 95 unweighted (weighting system: honors = +10, AP = +12)
Class Rank: 6/300
SAT Reasoning Test: M: 710 Cr: 670 W: 670 Total: 2050/2400 and 1380/1600
AP: Last year I took 3 APs, and got two 4s and one 3. This year I am taking 5 AP classes (6 if you count economics as macro and micro as separate since tests are separate) + engineering research class + phys ed + a graduation requirement class.
SAT II: Phys: 800 MathIIC: 800 Literature: 700
Essays: Good, meaning not super because I am not an extremely creative writer and I rarely use SAT words, but good in the sense that I feel I successfully expressed my personality
Letters of Recommendation: One of them was really good, and the other two were average good.</p>

<p>AWARDS/EXTRACURRICULARS/WORK EXPERIENCE:
--AP Scholar
--Varsity Tennis Team: 3yrs (I made counties once)
--Varsity Excellence Award (received twice)
--Two-time scholar athlete
--Distinguished High Honor Roll student
--Mathletes: 4yrs (county champion last year, captain this year)
--Science Olympiads: 2yrs, ever since it was offered (I entered all the physics and chemistry competitions)
--SWEEP (an environmental club): 2yrs
--Key Club: 20 hrs community service
--School Radio: 2yrs (journalist)
--Have been working hard at a convenient store 30hrs/week for 3yrs. I have been sales manager for 1.5 years. This is big for me since it took up a lot of my time on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (no dates, but I have a dream…)
--Even though I am an atheist, I have been helping every year, for five years, to help set up the food and dining preparations during the four weekend community feasts in the month of Ramadan. My counselor told me this is community service. So it took at least 3hrs/day<em>2days</em>4weekends<em>4yrs(high school yrs)=96 hours.
--I volunteered to tutor two students, on math and chemistry during junior year, after school every day, 1 hr each session, for 32 weeks. So 1</em>5<em>32 = 160 hours.
--I gave tennis lessons to a couple of persons at my tennis club during sophomore year, once a week, three hours a week, for six months. So 3</em>4*6= 72 hours. Afterwards, she became my girlfriend, which indeed was the ultimate payoff!</p>

<p>RESEARCH EXPERIENCE:
--I have completed original research on two projects, one involving chemistry at a state university, the other involving a bit of physics, environmental science, and biology—mixed—at a prominent national lab. I will be sending my abstracts for both research projects. Neither project was published, but I am entering the second one into ISEF. All this research stuff is perhaps my biggest “hook.”</p>

<p>MISCALLENOUS:
--I have been privately tutored for Arabic twice a week, for about 2 years now.
--I speak four languages fluently: Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, English; I know there are some conflicts about whether Urdu and/or Punjabi are languages or dialects, it’s acknowledged.
--I have taken part in civil protests against the war in Iraq as well as against the Patriot Act for twice a month, for two years.
--I trained at an international tennis academy in Texas for 1 month. (But please note, I do NOT wish to play college tennis)
--I regularly play tennis at a local club
--I love to play chess with my friends; I tried to create an official club, but my school’s board failed to pass it in time to make it official this year.
--My favorite album is War by U2
--As subtly mentioned above, I am taking an engineering research class. This year is the first year ever that my school is offering it, and it is very unique. I doubt many other schools have it, so this may catch a second glimpse.</p>

<p>PERSONAL QUALITIES:
--Mathematically and scientifically inclined
--Extremely politically active (I’m somewhere between liberal and libertarian)
--Very outgoing, I love my closest friends with all my heart, and I like most everyone else (except for the cocky jocks, for they are so annoying).
--Theologically open-minded
--I like to get personal with small groups of people, rather than lead a huge pack, as evident in my tutoring and tennis-lessons providing.</p>

<p>ACADEMIC INTERESTS:
--Economics
--Philosophy
--Mathematics
--Physics</p>

<p>Well, I gave it my all; looking back at my past four years, I feel happy, and satisfied—that’s what matters the most.</p>

2

<p>admittedly, your SATs are probably your weakest point, but your gpa etc. is fine. extracurriculars could be a bit more spruced up.
but that's not why I'm writing this, anyone could tell you that.
from one bleeding heart liberal to another, I must say this: keep it to yourself a bit more (or keep it to yale, they're much more liberal. tell bard all about it)
but.
princeton's known to be more conservative, and it's never a good idea to imply super leftist/rightest ideology in an application; it's easy to offend the reader or make you come off as idealistic and naive
that said, I do believe your convictions are true--let's march on something sometime! :)</p>

3

<p>Nice to see a fellow U2 fan! Agree with the above posted though. Don't talk about where you stand politically, you never know who is reading your essay/app.</p>

4

<p>Is there any chance you could take the SATs again in December? Also, did you simply mess up when you took the SATs, or have you been consistently achieving that kind of score? </p>

<p>Because you did well on the Math2C SAT II, I doubt your SAT I Math score would be held against you. The CR/W section may be a different story, because there's only a 30-point difference from your Lit score. Perhaps you could really work on your essays to show that you can in fact write (unless you really can't, ha). </p>

<p>I think your ECs will look really good to Princeton, particularly because they emphasizes undergraduate research so much. Your ECs show initiative and intellectual curiosity and in my opinion you have a pretty good chance.</p>

5

<p>To kmkate and Jeef690: Thanks for the very valuable advice. I actually had wasn't aware of Princeton's political stance, I just assumed that every Ivy except Dartmouth was leftist. But now I definitely won't mention the protests.</p>

<p>To echang08: When I usually took the practice SATs in CB's Blue Book, I usually had slightly higher Writing scores, like the range the book would always give me was 700-800, assuming I got 10s on the essays, which I knew I did pretty well on. And when I took two tests in a Kaplan book, I got 720 and a 740. So I really don't know what to make of the 670, perhaps it is pretty accurate given the additional factor of the nerves on test day. My CR score on the other hand is really accurate. And with math, I don't know what happened, perhaps the curve was just bad, since I heard like 4 wrong on the October test gave some people a 690. But I also thought that the Math IIC was a lot easier than the SAT I Math section, because I found that the Math IIC had questions that were a lot similar to the questions I had seen in class in 10th grade. I thought that I did a lot better on the Nov test than I thought I did during the registration deadline for the Dec test, so I never registered to retake. So, my scores are final.</p>

<p>I'm worried being South Asian hurts me, since people say they generally score extremely high, and so I am going to be compared to the rest of the South Asians. Plus, I'm from New York, which people tell me is another disadvantage, since New York is so competitive. And then I'm from the middle class, another disadvantage people say, because I'm not poor enough nor rich enough to deserve any special attention. </p>

<p>I appreciate all of your help; more opinions still welcomed though!</p>

6

<p>woah woah woahhhhhh.....yes Princeton might be more conservative than other schools, but we're definitely not "conservative" on the whole by any means. </p>

<p>mention on your app what is important to you. the adcoms probably LOVE to see political activism, especially since we honestly arent the most politically active campus.</p>

7

<p>^Oh boy! Now I'm confused! On the one side, I can say that the reader might be a liberal, and be pleased with what I did. On another side, I can say that the reader may not be liberal, but would be mature enough to commend me on being active in a somewhat nonconformist manner (especially since statistically, protests have been declining since the baby-boomer age.) But then on the other side of the spectrum, I can say that the person reading my essay could be a non-liberal who is irrationally emotional when making his decision. What the heck do I do?</p>

8

<p>Hmm, I find the first poster's comments a bit troubling. A university, one of the top in the nation, wouldn't be able to cope with dissent views? If that's true, then we should question what makes it a top university. </p>

<p>To look naiive would be bad, but to disagree and be of a different political persuasion is not... and I do not think that being revolutionary and leftist = naiive... </p>

<p>So it seems its all about how you present it all, if you ask me.</p>

9

<p>Wow.</p>

<p>sat123, ignore the first two posters - they obviously don't know what they're talking about. Trust me, ANY adcom will look favorably on an applicant that has taken time out of an already busy schedule to demonstrate about something important to him/her. The application is built for you to showcase everything that is important to you - no matter what it is. (As long as it isn't illegal lol!) And trust me, the current administration is not happy with the university's current Republican, white reputation - huge efforts have been made to show the world that Princeton is not a bastion of conservativism. And to whoever said that Princeton "is conservative:" Princeton may have a slightly more conservative bent than some schools, but there is a difference between "being conservative" and having a slightly more conservative student body than, say, Brown. Every Ivy League school (even Dartmouth) has a liberal bent. It's just that at Princeton, it's not as strong of a liberal bent.</p>

10

<p>I suppose I'll put it down, for if you refer to my post #7, probability-wise I have a 2/3 chance of having a good turnout, generally speaking. Of course there are other factors, such as the maturity level of the admissions officers, and the political alignment. But I have read that the political alignment of the staff is comfortably to the left; for instance, one of the higher ranked officers in admissions is extremely liberal, and she is also lesbian. I read this in the Daily Princetonian.</p>

<p>Okay, so now that this issue is somewhat resolved, can more people give me their opinions on my acceptance. I know it is impossible to give a definite answer, but please, just give me your opinions. Thank you.</p>

11

<p>I live around the corner from princeton, kmkate is correct don't talk about your stance... what would be your resoning. If the answer is I am active, great, do a food drive for the poor instead. Unless you know the admission's committees view why would you open that up. Only bring up the involvement through essays and support why you feel this way.
Other problem that I see, you were born in South Asia, the foreign languages are family oriented (spoke 3 by age 3), admitted 4 now and 1 is a dialect issue. You never said 5 ---i.e. h.s. spanish/german/latin</p>

12

<p>BTW I re-read my post, where you were born isn't the problem, the fact that you are saying I speak 4 languages, which are from your heritage area and not fluent on a 5th (sp/ger/lat/french) is the problem.
Sorry if the other post came across wrong.</p>

13

<p>^I understand what you're saying. I've studied spanish for three years, french for two, but I don't remember any french at all, and I only remember the basic spanish stuff. </p>

<p>But then you overlooked the arabic stuff. Arabic is not what you said "family oriented," and I am being personally tutored. The true reason I am being personally tutored is because my family considers it a sacred language, but since I personally am an atheist, I personally tell myself the reason I continue on with learning the language is because I feel it is wise to do so for business purposes, since Arabic nations such as Dubai are starting to excel in the global economy. I can read arabic with understanding, which is a tough challenge in and of itself, and now I am learning to fluently speak it.</p>

<p>So I understand I am not fluent at Arabic, but whatever I'm doing with Arabic outside of school is still noteworthy, and hopefully will compensate for the problem you suggested. </p>

<p>But do you agree? And what do you think my chances are as a whole? And I know you can't give me an exact answer, but just give me a probability in your own opinion.</p>