Hello I am an eight grader applying to Hotchkiss, Loomis, Westminster, Deerfield, Exeter, Choate, Andover, Exeter, and Lawrenceville.
I want to see what my chances are:
my stats:
school: elite boarding middle school
755 on math (88%)
755 on reading (98%)
800 on verbal (99%)
overall: 2310 (99%)
EC:
Cello (7 years) – state ranked
Community Service (3 years) – raised 5000 dollars for charity
Robotics (4 years) – going to states
Piano (3 years)
Squash (3 years) – on multiple teams
Model UN and Debate (4 years) – won multiple top delegate awards
Poetry (6 years) – won multiple state poetry prizes
Music Theory (3 years)
Student Gov’t (3 years) – 3 time form prefect
race:
asian immigrant
RC:
excellent (my teachers let me write them)
grades:
4.0 gpa out of 4.0
will my 88% percentile math (although the raw score is 755/800) kill me?
Is your elite boarding school in the US? If it is, you probably have a very knowledgeable counselor whose job is to give you expert advice and advocate for you. Take advantage of this wonderful resource! They will give you the best guidance!
No, percentiles for math are often more skewed than verbal and reading since it’s more competitive and a few mistakes/blanks will knock you down hard. Your overall score is great so I don’t think you have much to worry about. I think you have solid extracurriculars but I find the fact that your teachers would let you write your own recommendations more than a little concerning, especially since you mentioned that you attend an elite boarding school…
While clearly a good student I think you are extremely one dimensional and unremarkable in the sense that there are 100’s if not 1000s of students applying that are indistinguishable from you and you from them. The fact that you wrote your recs is cheating and if I was an admissions officer and even sensed it from some tone or style evident in your essays and recs, I would discard your application immediately.
While your resume is impressive, I have to second @Center 's opinion and agree that you are pretty standard. Nothing really makes you stand out. The fact that you wrote your own recs isn’t ok either and is completely going against everything that schools want to see in an applicant. If any of those schools found out that you cheated the processs, they wouldn’t care how many years you have been playing piano, they wouldn’t really consider your application. You are a pretty standard applicant with impressive but ordinary EC’s. The fact that your wrote your own recs isn’t ok.
Why is everyone here so rough on students looking for advice on their chances. I might be recalling my facts incorrectly but your path @cababe97 wasn’t a sure thing either. This is a good all around student and I would not say that he or she has any less of a chance than other students. The student currently attends a boarding school and we don’t have details on the possible established relationships this school may have with certainly secondary BSs. If you haven’t already pressed send on your applicable I would say you should go back and get authentic recommendations.
I agree about not being so hard on this applicant. Stats and extracurricular activities seem pretty good to me and assuming he or she is full pay I can’t see not getting into at least a few of those places. The biggest problem of course is being Asian which puts her into a more competitive pool and subjects her to discrimination based upon race.
Btw, the reason that the math percentile is relatively low is that the SSAT (and also SAT) sections are really way too easy to allow for meaningful differentiation among the very many talented math students out there, many of whom perhaps ironically for the applicant are Asian. This lack of differentiation has been a long-standing problem for top students in both verbal and math at least since 1995 when the SAT was “recentered” and suddenly everyone who had previously scored in the 1470+ range more or less became 1600 scorers. The 2005 and 2015 format changes have had a similar though much less dramatic compressive effect at the top.
Anyway, best of luck to the applicant. I for one find your accomplishments impressive.
I agree about the recommendations. You don’t want to let an otherwise good application be jeopardized by any impropriety. Your teachers are supposed to write them, and not show them to you. That’s how the boarding schools can “trust” the recommendations.
None of us really knows of course, but given the huge array of teachers out there and the range of “investment” different schools make in getting their students into boarding schools, I can’t believe recommendations count for much in the admissions process. Maybe at the extremes. Perhaps.
I do agree that self-written recommendations could be a red flag. Leave that for much later when you are working and you ask your boss for a professional school recommendation. You will invariably be told, “Fine, just so long as you write it.”
Now that I am looking back at this thread and my previous comment, I agree that I shouldn’t have been so hard on the OP. However, I stand by my point that I don’t think writing your own reccomendations is the right thing to do. This student obviously has a ver impressive resume and if they can get authentic reccomendations, they should fare just fine in the admissions process.
@MAandMEmom what do you mean by “I might be recalling my facts incorrectly but your path wasn’t a sure thing either”? I’m not quite understanding what you’re trying to say. Thanks!
Many potential students come here for affirmation of their hopes and dreams and I bet you were that student too a couple of years ago. You should keep that in mind now that you’re “on the other side.”
I doubt the teachers are really submitting the posters’ work as their own. I bet they asked him to draft a recommendation to see what he would write in order to get a sense of his self-awareness about his standing in the class and whether there were particular achievements of which he was especially proud. That’s a pretty smart approach, actually.
This is an impressive candidate with wonderful achievements. People are being overly harsh.
I still think the poster should rely on the advice of the school’s counselor instead of paying attention to the peanut gallery here (myself included!)
oh i see my misleading comment. by “my teachers let me write them” i meant that they asked me for a list of ideas that i wanted included. i mean @center i get what you mean by ‘one-dimensional’ but that’s just because i didn’t say anything about my unique attributes.
