Just another nervous upcoming college applicant :(

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Chance me and you'll get into the college of your dreams :P</p>

<p>Hello.</p>

<p>I am a white caucasian living in New Hampshire. I attend a semi-private school. It is technically private but the town pays the tuition of the residents. Last year they sent one person to Harvard and two to Cornell. The year before two went to Harvard, one went to UPenn, and one went to Brown.</p>

<p>Statistics:</p>

<p>PSAT: 235 (National Merit I'm pretty sure.) 80 M 80 V 75 G
SAT: 2330 770 M 760 V 800 G
SAT II: 800 Math IIC 760 US History 710 Physics 700 Chemistry (I've been studying my butt off on Chemistry and Physics to retake them in the Fall; pretty sure I can easily pull off 770+ ea)
GPA: 4.1 UW 4.8 W
Class Rank: 1/762
Never received a grade below 90 with the most difficult course load available to me.</p>

<p>Course load:
Junior Year-AP Physics B, AP French 5, Honors Precalculus, AP American Literature, AP United States History, AP Micro/Macroeconomics, Health (Required class...lol)
Junior AP Scholar with Distinction!</p>

<p>Scores: 5 on US History and French, 4 On Micro and Macro Economics, and 3 on Physics (Not going to report the 3 - going to fill slots with other scores and scheduled Senior Year tests; accidentally had my AP Scores automatically sent to Harvard so the 3 will hurt me there :( )</p>

<p>Senior Year-AP Biology, Honors German 4, AP Calculus BC, AP British Literature, AP European History.</p>

<p>School Activities:</p>

<p>Amnesty International Club VP Freshman Year
Math Team Captain
Strategic Gaming Society
Honors Diploma Program
Rivier Challenge Program (University After-school Study)
School-sponsored Math Tutor
Science Club
Quiz Bowl Team</p>

<p>Honors/Awards:</p>

<p>Highest Academic Honors all 4 Years
Rochester University Xerox Award for Information Technology
Foreign Language Honor Society (French and German)
National Honor Society
Honors Diploma Program
Junior Achievement Titan Business Management State Winner Fall 2007
New Hampshire Granite State Challenge Team Quarterfinalist in 2006</p>

<p>Other Activities:</p>

<p>Self-taught Programmer (Multiple languages: C++, HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, Visual Basic, MATLAB, and LabView.)
Freelance Web Designer that runs a web development/domain consulting firm.
Volunteer at the local hospital over the past 3 years (300ish hours amassed)
Campaign manager and website architect for a father's candidacy in the NH senate
3 month volunteer in local Obama for America headquarters preceding the New Hampshire primary
Summer of 2007: Internship at MIT working with a professor in a Quantum Computing group. Nothing published but I still have the research and code I wrote to submit as a supplementary
Summer of 2008 (Currently): Internship at Harvard working in a biochemistry lab dealing with genome sequencing - Going to get one research paper definitely published as coauthor in a microfluidics magazine, maybe two, but I doubt the second idea will mature to fruitition.</p>

<p>Legacy: 1 generation at Harvard (grad school), Washington University in St. Louis (undergrad)</p>

<p>My major will have to do with biochemistry/biomedical engineering or just engineering. I may be applying as a Comp Sci major at Harvard because of my mediocre Physics AP result (Not engineering as planned).</p>

<p>Strengths: Academic Stuff, Internship/Volunteer Work
Weaknesses: SAT II's, Few Leadership Positions, Few "Humanitarian" Activities, few sports.</p>

<p>My plans for the fall:</p>

<p>Regular volunteering at least once a week at the local soup kitchen
Community Alliance for Team Safety
ThinkQuest Team
Volunteering and work on the Obama for America campaign and/or working for the campaign of one of the Democratic reps from New Hampshire
Health Occupational Services of America
Whatever the hell else I can find.</p>

<p>Schools:</p>

<p>EA: MIT, Caltech, UChicago</p>

<p>RD: Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Dartmouth, UPenn, Cornell, Brown PLME, WUSTL, Stanford, BU, Olin</p>

<p>It looks like a lot of schools but if I get into any of my EA schools I can wipe them off my slate.</p>

<p>What do you recommend for extracurriculars, and what do you think my college essays should be about? I am thinking about the death of my great grandfather from Alzheimers and how that inspired me to take an interest in technology and the field of medicine as well as an extremely strong interest in pursuing stem cell research.</p>

<p>I appreciate it.</p>

2

<p>Hi Arch3r25! I'm happy to chance you, but can you return the favor? <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/538677-please-chance-me-i-d-really-really-appreciate.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/538677-please-chance-me-i-d-really-really-appreciate.html&lt;/a>. </p>

<p>Your test scores are astounding, with a PSAT of 235 and an SAT of 2330. You'll definitely be a Semifinalist, if not a Finalist. Your SAT Subjects are used to supplement your test scores in your app, so they're not too significant. Every score that you have is a 700 or higher, so you're safe and no retakes are necessary (College Board doesn't deserve that much money from you!!! Save it for yourself) Your grade point is good, but I'm not too sure about how good it is because it's obviously not based on the 4.0 scale. You also have a challenging courseload to complement your test scores and gpa. A note about AP scores: They aren't used in the admission process. The university you apply to, even Harvard, will not deny you just because you barely passed your AP. It just means that you're not getting any college credit for that class. Your ECs are impressive, as are your other activities. Your participation in the Obama campaign will also add more to your character. Your MIT and Harvard internships won't hurt either. You do demonstrate SOME leadership, but it definitely does not stand out on your app. Sports are not important in college admissions --- that's what I learned from a Brown admissions officer. She told me that they're not rejected people just because they don't play sports -- they realize that some people just can do sports. </p>

<p>DO NOT ADD ANY MORE ECs FOR YOUR SENIOR YEAR. College admission people hate that because it'll look like you're just trying to fatten up your app. But, it's definitely doesn't hurt to try those competitions such as ThinkQuest, now that you're done with SAT and ACT studying. However, your awards and honors are definitely not the golden part of your app. </p>

<p>Overall, you're a highly impressive candidate for college. You'll definitely have a good chance of admission at the top schools. </p>

<p>Chances:
MIT: Reach
Caltech: Reach
UChicago: Your stats are way above UChicago's range, but all they care about is your essay. If you want help on the essay, I'm willing to giving you comments if you PM your essay to me.
Harvard: Slight reach w/ legacy
Columbia/YSP: Reach
WUSTL: IN
Brown: Reach --> will not chance PLME (it's an ivy so it's hard to get in)
JHU: Safety match
Tufts: IN w/ possible scholarship money
Dartmouth: Reach
UPenn: Match
Cornell: Safety match
BU: In + match for full-ride scholarship
Oberlin: Not familiar </p>

<p>My suggestion for you now is to narrow your college list, because if you have too many colleges on your list, you won't be able to spend enough time on your apps. </p>

<p>Thanks, and remember to chance me. Feel free to PM me about essays.
-ab2013</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the reply and very comprehensive evaluation. I will chance you momentarily, and I can only hope to do a job that is equal to yours.</p>

<p>I based the GPA off the calculation ((Grade out of 100) - 55)/10 which I think is the crude way of doing it. I'm not sure how it is actually calculated. In reality it is 96.1 UW and 103.3 W (B level classes are +3 weighted, A level classes are +6 weighted, and Honors/AP are +9)</p>

<p>Thanks for calling attention to leadership. I will definitely look into seeing what I can do about that.</p>

<p>And if you haven't heard of Olin you should definitely check it out: Franklin</a> W. Olin College of Engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>It was founded in 1997 and albeit new (some say) is on the same par as MIT and Caltech in selectivity. The best thing about it is that every single person accepted gets a full-ride scholarship.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the comments. You have provided a very useful reference.</p>

4

<p>Oh!!! Olin COE! Sorry, I misread that as Oberlin. Yes, I know about Olin. It's very competitive, and the applicant pool is highly self-selective. Your stats do match up with their stats, but in order to demonstrate a true apparent skill in math/physics, you should have a few national awards in math/physics ... like the AMC tests and the Physics Olympiad. </p>

<p>I will note that UChicago does not offer engineering.</p>

5

<p>Have you visited Olin? Not a long trip from NH. </p>

<p>My daughter graduated in '07 from Olin. </p>

<p>It is a highly self-selective group. . . ."fit" is very important, national awards much less so.</p>

6

<p>Hey, sorry for the delay. I assumed this thread was dead.</p>

<p>Nope, I haven't visited Olin. I've heard many great things about it though. The concept of a fresh, new school that rivals the Ivys and top tier schools is wonderful to me.</p>