I know you guys hate these...chance me?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Barnard College
1

<p>First off, I’m really concerned about my SAT score, which I’m pretty sure is going to make or break my chances for admission. I’d love to study Persian and Middle Eastern studies, and since I go to school in Virginia, I can’t find very many schools offering that as a major, besides UVA. Anyways, here are my stats:</p>

<p>-Straight A’s throughout all of high school, except for a B one quarter in my Algebra 2/Trigonometry class during junior year. I also had a B+ in my sophomore chemistry class.
-Junior year, I took 5 AP classes. These include…
+AP Environmental Science (3) I know, its a low score
+AP US History (4)
+AP Human Geography (4)
+AP Language and Composition (5)
+AP Russian prototype (3)
+I also took Algebra 2/Trigonometry and Arabic
In Senior year, I will be taking
+AP Biology
+AP Lit
+AP Comparative Government
+AP European History
+I will also be taking Pre calculus and Philosophy
-My SAT score wasn’t great - I got an 1860 and am not sure if I will be able to retake it. However, my GPA was a 4.2.</p>

<p>With regards to extracurricular, I was
+President of Russian Club
+President of Slavic Honor Society
+I’m a Sunday School Teacher
+Gold medal in the national Russian essay contest, nationally
+Gold medal internationally in the Russian Essay Contest, awarded by the Pushkin Institute in Moscow
+Silver medal in Olympiada of Spoken Russian in sophomore year
+Gold medal in Olympiada of Spoken Russian in junior year, judged best nonnative speaker in state
+Recipient of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth scholarship to study Persian in Tajikistan. It’s a state department scholarship</p>

<p>I know this is quite a laundry list, but I’m afraid my SAT scores are going to ruin my chances. All feedback will be greatly appreciated, and once again, thank you!</p>

2

<p>Well, I hate answering these, but I think your profile is very similar to my daughter’s (only yours is better academically) – my daughter was admitted to Barnard in 2006 and graduated in 2010. The Russian may do it for you-- Barnard has an excellent but under-enrolled Slavic Languages department (operated jointly with Columbia), and your abilities and accomplishments may be an attractive tip factor. My d submitted ACT rather than SAT, but her SAT’s were only 1200 in CR & Math – she had a strong writing score which brought her up to the mid 1900’s. </p>

<p>You can get a sense of Barnard enrollment figures from the data book here:
<a href=“https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline/2012_data_book.pdf[/url]”>https://barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline/2012_data_book.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Obviously it will be nice if you can improve the scores – but if you can’t, I’d suggest that you move forward and build your app in a way that focuses on your strengths and strong interest in language study. </p>

<p>If you do want to continue study of Russian as well as Persian, I think that you will find that Barnard (along with Columbia) is a very conducive environment for your studies.</p>