I know its early but chances? I dont want to get my hopes up.

Colleges & Universities A-Z Princeton University
1

<p>Prospective Major:
Computer Science</p>

<p>Colleges:
Reach:
Princeton University (I know it’s a reach, but look at my hook’s)
NYU (The reach is really a question of the aid I can get)
Match:
George Washington University
Boston College
Wesleyan University
Carnegie Mellon
Fordham University
Safety:
SUNY Binghamton/Buffalo
University of Rochester (safety because I already have $6,000 scholarship there)
Rensaeleer Polytechnic Institute (safety because I already have $15,000 scholarship there)</p>

<p>High school type: Public
Weighted Grade: Freshman: 98, Sophomore: 99, Junior 100
Class rank: School does not rank, but I figure I am within the top 10%
SAT I: 1300 (640 Math, 660 Verbal)
SAT IIs: Biology 700, Chemistry 670, US 730
Math IIC: 690<br>
Senior-year courses:
Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus BC w/ Lab
AP English Lit and Composition w/ Lab
AP Government and Politics
Honors Physics w/ Lab
Honors French 5
Physical Education
Senior Seminar
Previous APs and college courses:
AP Chemistry (3)
AP Computer Science (5)
AP US History (4)
AP Biology (4)
Precalculus
Cisco Academy</p>

<p>Hook:
3rd Most Philosophical Student in America
(I was a finalist in the National Philosophy Challenge. I submitted an essay on the question, “Which is more powerful, fear or hope?” I argued for fear and out of 7800 other applicants, my essay was chosen with three others. I was flown to Washington DC, to debate at the National Press Club. I was also interviewed by National Press Radio. I was named the third most philosophical student in America. If you’d like to see my essay or hear my interview, google national philosophy slam.)</p>

<p>“Saved” the French Curriculum
(As the Superintendent would say, there would be no French curriculum without me. They were going to phase out the French class gradually. Just stop offering it and not replacing it with another language. I went to the local Board of Ed. and gave this big impassioned speech and it acted a rally cry for the rest of the people. He said the board really considered my testimony the swaying factor. This will be included in my recommendation from him.)</p>

<p>Classical Play Society (Founder, I approached the English director this year about a club that performs select scenes from plays in the English curriculum to help give the students a better understanding. The club acts separately from the drama club which I am also a part of)</p>

<p>Speech and Debate Class (Founder, I approached my English teacher with the idea in ninth grade and worked with her in forming the curriculum and gathering the support. There is now a Speech and Debate Class.)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Drama Club Officer (3 years)
(The position is kind of like the drama club team captain. The officers do everything from picking the show to making the cast party, while dealing with all internal affairs)
Boys Select Chorus President (2 years)
Boy Scouts of America (8 years)
(Webmaster, Den Chief, Quartermaster, Assistant Patrol Leader, Patrol Leader, Troop Guide, Assistant Senior Patrol leader)
Computer Programming Squad (2 years)
(Team Captain for one year, we’ve taken 4th and 6th place in a regional Competition)
National Honor Society (2 years)
Tri M music Society (The Honor Society of Music) (2 years)
Philosophy Club (3 years)
Students Putting an End to Cancer organization (2 years)</p>

<p>Work Experience:
Technical Assistant to a Holistic Chiropractor
(I built his network, fixed his computer every time he broke it [which he did many times], filed, and kept maintenance on his systems)</p>

<p>Volunteer work: Cabaret Night Host (Event to raise money for VH1 Save the Music that I have been an integral part of my whole high school career)
Tutoring roughly once a week
Computer Science/ Cisco Academy Teacher’s Aid
(I sat in on my teacher’s Introduction to Computer Programming class and helped the students along, I also attended extra help to allow my teacher to balance his classes and help everyone.)
Boy Scouts of America service projects
(Too many to list, but I’ve done everything from built farms to raise money.)
Senior Citizen Prom
Relay For Life
Cablevision Power to Learn Commercial
(you may of seen me on TV if you live in the Tri-State area, I am within the first 10 seconds of the commercial pointing at a computer screen with my Superintendent)</p>

<p>Summer Programs:
French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts (3 years)</p>

<p>Honors:
Gold Honor Roll all four years (GPA of 88 or above)
Boy Scouts of America Order of the Arrow
Xerox Award For Technological Advancement
Rensaeleer Award For Advancement in Math and Science
Presidential Award (having a GPA of 90 or above all of high school)
National Youth Leadership Conference
Congressional Leadership Conference</p>

<p>I’m a really good writer and pretty personable in terms of the essay and an interview.</p>

2

<p>I'm retaking my SAT's cause I know they need to be higher. I took them and got on the plane to Washington DC for the philosophy discussion so my mind was else where.</p>

3

<p>You make me feel so meek.</p>

<p>Anyway, it's probably never a good idea to get your hopes up when it comes to a university as selective as Princeton. If you don't get your hopes up, it will make the surprise all the more pleasant when you get accepted.</p>

4

<p>Dude.
This is gonna make me sound like an absolute loser, but I'll say it.
I went to that website and read the four essays.
I'll just say, all four of them sucked pretty bad.
I presume there must have been a fairly small word limit, but the only part that was of any value was the first section of the runner-up guy.
All of them were filled with assertions without any deep analysis.</p>

<p>Now, onto your question.
If you believe, as you argued in your essay, that fear is a stronger emotion than hope, then your hope of getting into Princeton should be trumped by your fear of rejection from Princeton, which is statistically the far more likely case.
That seemed like the level of your analysis in the essay, i.e. shallow.
But yours weren't any worse than the others', I'll give you that.</p>

<p>Also, by the way, it should be "You may HAVE seen me", not "You may OF seen me".
Now onto the actual 'CV' of yours.
SATs are just too low.
That simple, dude.
They're just far too low, and you don't have a hook to overcome it.
Hell, your AP scores are too low too.
I'd be very surprised indeed if you had any considerable chance of getting accepted into Princeton.
So yeah, I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.</p>

<p>That sounded pretty harsh, but I was just in the mood for that.
Sorry dude.</p>

5

<p>CMU comp sci is really hard to get into.</p>

<p>Especially since you HAVE a personality and outside interests, I think that either one of these disqualifies one from majoring in CS.</p>

<p>What about finding another major, and then getting really good at c++(or java?) by a combination of classes, course projects and working on your own at it? If you can demonstrate ability in a language, then 95% of the jobs in that area are avaialable with or without a CS degree.</p>

<p>I.e., if I have a chemical engineering code to maintain, I would rather have a chem e major with good skills in the language then a cs major with good skills in the language.</p>

<p>As an aside, 90% of programmer time is spent on maintenance.</p>

<p>At any rate, if you have a differerent prospective major it might change the colleges that you feel you have a fit for.</p>

6

<p>erickangnz, I completely agree with you when you say that your post was harsh. I think some constructive criticism could be useful to Radams for the future. (and I really should have gone to read the essays before, but...)</p>

<p>The most important problem with many of these philosophical essays is that they aren't philosophical essays. erickangnz, you are right that this one is good in the first section:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.philosophyslam.org/stafstrom.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.philosophyslam.org/stafstrom.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It seems to me that the author did a fair job of defining exactly how "fear" and "hope" are to be used. Unfortunately, he didn't actually do anything with his definitions. In the second section, he clearly used the colloquial definitions of the words - with all the connotations and extra baggage which accompany those definitions.</p>

<p>What the author should have done was not use the words "fear" and "hope," at least while he was building his arguments (that is, before he started writing the paper). Instead, he could have used the symbols alpha and beta, or A and B, whatever. Anything which wouldn't make him think of the words, which can always be plugged in at the last minute anyway. This would have made it much easier for him to disregard his "feelings of dread towards the current state of the world."</p>

<p>He may have been able to turn "Hope and fear are the human reactions to this great uncertainty" into a thesis for an entire essay (given the definitions of "fear" and "hope" in section 1, of course). I'm still debating with myself whether this would be possible; however, there really is no other statement in the second section which could be useful in this way.</p>

<p>Radams, this next essay is yours, I think:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.philosophyslam.org/adams_06.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.philosophyslam.org/adams_06.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You define fear with "Fear is the feeling of perceived risk." Then you state the thesis with "In the overprotective struggle for existence, fear is the driving force of mankind." Why? "We fear death, we do not hope to live." Actually, I fear pain a LOT, but I don't fear death, and it'll be pretty hard for you to convince me that my fear of pain is a "driving force" for me.</p>

<p>In fact, I believe that after death, I will feel just as I felt before birth: no senses, no sight, no sound, no nothing! So, what is there to fear, if I was unborn for billions of years without anything dramatic happening?</p>

<p>Now the statement I just made is fine, but it isn't very useful and doesn't belong in a philosophical paper. It only refers to my own personal beliefs. Perhaps one way I could go with this is to prove that anything <em>I</em> "believe" (under a rigorous definition of "believe") corresponds in some way with "truth;" then, I'd need to prove that the first sentence in the statement above actually could be classified as a "belief" under this definition of "believe." (You don't need to tell me I'm egotistical.)</p>

<p>Another way I could go with that statement is to drop belief entirely and prove, with some sort of evidence and some degree of certainty, that after death is no different than before birth.</p>

<p>Neither of these routes are practical (I'm sleepy so don't blame me), but at least they could result in a pretty good paper. The point is, this is the kind of rigor that you need to have.</p>

<p>OK, this post is long enough please don't tell me the number of grammatical errors believe me the'yre all intentional goodbye.</p>

<p>P.S. Nothing wrong with applying to Princeton, but don't get your hopes up.</p>

7

<p>Perplexitudinous.</p>

<p>Good on you mate.
That's right.</p>

<p>For example, Adams' definition of fear as 'perceived risk' is not entirely reflective of the word.
Perplexitudinous might not fear death, and that's an incredible achievement, but many people do.
Now, there is no 'perceived risk' that we are going to die; we will.
That's a certainty.
One may argue that we don't know what happens after death, and that's the root cause of the fear.
But watch some films by Hitchcock, for example.
Often, he builds up fear by giving us a sense of horror that is inevitable.
So when something is inevitable and sure to happen, it's no longer a perceived risk.
It is true that in many cases, uncertainty causes fear.
When we are lacking in certainty, we lose our power to react to the situation, so feeling powerless, we could feel fearful.
However, it's too simplistic in my opinion to define fear as perceived risk.
This matter of definition is hugely important in philosophical discussions.
Indeed, we could attribute much of philosophical progress with realisation of precise definitions.
And it did disapoint me that the runner up was the only person who even attempted to define the words fear and hope. (But then his second part completely missed the point and the two parts were almost completely unrelated.)</p>

<p>With regards to the OP's application.
If you are still adament in applying, definitely get your SAT scores up; pretty much all sections should be around 750 or higher to get you any decent chance.
Despite what you might believe, your ECs aren't much better than the average applicant to Princeton, so improve on that.
Increase your volunteering hours.
Try to get better AP scores next year.
Try to get in like top 3% or whatever in your school.
And lose a bit of that "I think I'm awesome" attitude showing through in your description of ECs.</p>

<p>Again, maybe harsh, but being honest here.
Just not in the mood to be polite today.</p>

8

<p>Is getting third in a national essay contest really considered a hook?</p>

9

<p>In response to all your crushing blows to my ego, Thank you. That is pretty much the reason I posted. I know I'm not awesome, I honestly don't think I'm awesome. If you can take a break from discussing philosophy, critique my othere college choices. Tell me what you think. </p>

<p>Second, the essays could only be 500 words. Stafstrom actually went over that, but whatever. Also, the bigger part of the contest was the discussion. And for all of you who keep going off on philsoophical tangents, the question was "Which is more powerful, fear or hope?" Not are they on equal footing, or how do they exist in the world. The point of the essay was to make a persuasive arguement really. </p>

<p>Anywho, the reason I put down computer science was I just really enjoy programming. I program in java and could do it for days on end. But, I like your idea about changing my major and just using programming when I need it. Thank you for all those who stayed on topic and tried to help, any further help would be greatly appreciated. </p>

<p>P.S. I knew about my previous spelling mistake, but give me a break, it was late.</p>