I've REALLY wanted to go here...do i stand a chance?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
1

<p>Hello, I am currently a junior (white male) at the most competitive private high school in the midwest. It has a great reputation with many of the top universities across the country. For example we are getting kids with 3.2's and 1300's on SAT's into Washu and USC(La). </p>

<p>There is no class rank system at my school b/c it is so competitive, but I would def. be in the top 30%</p>

<p>GPA Unweighted=3.58
SAT-Math:730 Verbal:700 Writing:700
I have not taken the ACT, and don't plan on it.</p>

<p>I will have taken for AP's by the time I graduate, but I have not taken any AP exams yet so I am unsure of my scores. The AP's are in Economic, Biology, AB calculus, and Statistics.</p>

<p>EC:
Sports-2 years of Varsity Football (I'm not very good)
3 Years of Varsity Wrestling and CAPTAIN of a team of 30. (State Qualifier)</p>

<p>I have been in the Boy Scouts of America for 8 Years and I am an Eagle Scout with many high additional Honors.
I direct and complete service projects once a month with my troop, and I have directed projects with over 200 man hours involved. For Example: I made wallet sized I.D. cards for poor city families and their children. These were equipped with fingerprints and proper photo I.D. and information on the cards. This project was highly recognized and a GREAT success that I will expand on to the colleges. I am of course still a very active member and leader of the troop.</p>

<p>Boy Scouts is the one EC I have totally dedicated my High School life to, so my school clubs are weak with only being an active participant in Cultures Within. </p>

<p>I will have excellent recommendations from my teachers, for I am a hard worker that has a great relationship with all teachers inside and outside of the classroom. And My essays will be great...but this is all incomplete so I can't bank on it just yet.</p>

<p>I am currently undecided, but I am interested in business.</p>

<p>Thanks for all suggestions and advice!</p>

2

<p>how bout you go out and enjoy life and come back and worry about all this in the fall...</p>

3

<p>umm phrases like "My essays will be great" and "I will have excellent recommendations from my teachers"...aren't they a little presumptuous? you're not proving anything to anybody here...</p>

<p>I agree with go48 though. Don't worry about it. From the loads of compliments you have heaped upon yourself you seem like you'd have a great chance. So ENJOY what you're doing.</p>

4

<p>Of course you stand a chance but there is never anything of a guarantee of entrance to any highly competetive school. Northwestern, like others of its caliber, is looking for students who will contribute to its academic milieu and receive simlar benefits. In particular they, like most, desire students who when thay graduate will have potential of becoming a leader in whatever field they enter.</p>

<p>How they determine this is different at every university and thus there is a certain degree of 'crap shoot' but there are certain trends. As they say, past performance is an indicator of future performance. They obviously want students who will graduate, so grades are important. They want a future leader, so being extremely good at something, anything, is highly desirable. While being well rounded is good (and you sound well rounded), the prototypical 'renaissance man' is generally not as good a candidate as the one who is much better than their peers in one field of interest. Those are the ones they feel have a high chance of becoming a future leader. A common analogy (for the desirable student) is an orange with a bump on one side. Test scores are important as a general intelligence test that can compare one student to another across the broad spectrum of schools in the United States. Recommendations are important to see if you are the type that will contribute (do you engage others) to Northwestern's environment, a certain ethos of learning. A book worm who doesn't speak up (one that is absorbing knowledge but not giving anything back) is not usually a good thing. The essay is important in, again, can you communicate and thus contribute to others your thoughts, and who are you really. Generally speaking, you learn mostly from your peers (your parents, friends, other students). So the caliber of Northwestern is only as good as their students. President Conant of Harvard once said, if he were going to start a university, he would build dorms to house the students, a library for them to study in, and only if he had any money left over, teachers.</p>

<p>Most of this you probably already knew. So what are your chances? You can determine your ball park chances from Northwestern's admissions stats. Your SATs would give you about a 37% chance, No class rank would be around 29% (however, someone in the second decile would have 14%).</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/freshman/facts/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ugadm.northwestern.edu/freshman/facts/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>But, again, there are no certainties. Statistically, valedictorians have only a 54% chance, perfect ACTs 65%, above 1500 SATs 49%. It's one of the problem with these threads where applicants have great stats and people advise them that they shouldn't have a problem getting in. College admissions is a tricky thing. So I agree with the above posters. You are most likely to excel if you enjoy and are genuinely interested in what you are doing.</p>

5

<p>Your high school college office should be able to provide profiles of students from your school who were recently admitted to different schools, including NU.</p>

<p>But I don't understand why your teachers would give you "execellent" recommendations - you don't list any ECs, so just what did you do? No clubs, music, student government, no school-related community service? Maybe you can get a recommendation from someone notable at the boy scouts?</p>

<p>And to the person who said wait until fall: It's not too late to do a reasonable self-directed research project this summer.</p>

6

<p>if you know you want to go there, apply early decision. find the statistical advantages for yourself</p>