Kansan's Chances

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am a junior and white male from kansas who attends public school. Just wondering if anyone had any input on what i should be doing to improve chances.</p>

<p>STATS</p>

<p>Rank: 4/468
GPA: (4.0 scale) 4.78 weighted, and 4.00 unweighted
Taken the most rigorous college prep curriculum at my school including many ap's/honors</p>

<p>SCORES</p>

<p>Sat I - i don't know yet, but i got a 212 on the psat.
ACT - 30 composite (i plan on doing better)
SAT II - i don't know yet, but taking Chemistry (700+), Math 2 (700+), and US History (???)
AP's - Macroeconomics - 4
Microeconomics - 4
Will take US history and chemistry this year and hope for 5's</p>

<ul>
<li>1=freshman year, 2= sophomore year, etc.</li>
</ul>

<p>EXTRACURRICULARS AND AWARDS</p>

<pre><code>Marching Band 1,2,3,4

Symphonic Band 1,2,3,4

-Superior Rating Regional Solo and Ensemble Festival

-Superior Rating State Solo and Ensemble Festival

Pit orchestra 3
AM Jazz Band 1

Debate 2,3,4

-Most outstanding sophomore
-Most rounds won

-Top novice team

-Most outstanding junior

-Most outstanding record

-Top advanced team

-2nd and 5th at debate competitions
-4th at debate competition

-4th at Four Speaker Regional competition

-Degree of Distinction

-Letter Award

Forensics 2,3,4
-3rd place in Public Forum at Olathe Northwest

Student Congress 2,3,4
Law and Politics Club 3,4

Georgetown Model United Nations 3,4
Science Olympiad 3,4

-2nd Place Regional Competition in Experimental Design

Mathletics/Mathematics competitions 1,3,4
Mrs. Boren’s Book Club 1

Chemistry II Demonstration Group 3

National Honor Society 3,4

Student Voice (counterpart to student council) 3,4
Soccer 1,2

-Merit award

Cross Country 3,4

-Student athlete award

-Merit award

Tennis (Junior Varsity 1 Year, Varsity 3 Years) 1,2,3,4
-3rd place at district tournament (Number 3 Doubles)

-4th place at JV League (Number 2 Doubles)

-3rd place at district tournament (Number 2 Doubles)

-2nd place at JV League (Number 1 Doubles)

-Letter award

-Numeral award

Co-ed indoor summer soccer league 1,2,3,4

Church Youth Group 1,2,3,4

</code></pre>

<p>LEADERSHIP POSITIONS</p>

<p>Executive Board for church youth group 3,4<br>
Treasurer of Debate 3<br>
Manager/Captain of a co-ed indoor soccer team 1,2,3,4
President of Science Olympiad 4
President of Debate 4
President of Student Voice 4
Vice President of NHS 4
Section Leader for Band 4</p>

<p>WORK EXPERIENCE</p>

<p>Worked as a cashier/sales rep at a candy store (300+ Hours)</p>

<p>VOLUNTEER WORK EXPERIENCE</p>

<p>Church youth group miscellaneous service projects (Salvation army, food for Ronald McDonald House, Christmas caroling to shut-ins, etc.) 1,2,3,4
70+ Hours
Mission work in Fort Collins, Colorado 1<br>
24+ Hours
Mission work in Toledo, Ohio 2
24+ Hours
Mission work in Livingston, Montana 3<br>
24+ Hours
National Honors Society (Sleep in a box, babysitting for charity,etc.) 3,4
40+ Hours
Chemistry Peer Tutoring 3,4
20+ Hours
Work at a church Vacation Bible School 1,2,3,4
45+ Hours</p>

<p>ESSAYS</p>

<p>I plan on having pretty good essays seeing as my aunt is an english professor at Northern Illinois University, and writing has always been one of my strong points.</p>

<p>RECS</p>

<p>I am in close contact with the principle of my school (he heads student voice) and i should have good recs from some of my other teachers.</p>

<p>I plan on applying to:</p>

<p>Stanford
UC Berkeley
University of Kansas
Dartmouth
Georgia Tech
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Duke
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Cornell
UCLA (if i can add it to the berkeley app)
MIT
Wash U in St. Louis
University of Delaware</p>

<p>If you have any more suggestions for an intended chemical engineering major, i would like to hear them. Thanks for reading an insanely long post, and i would appreciate any comments. </p>

<p>One more thing - would it be good to designate my chem engineering major on my app or apply undecided or something else? again, thanks.</p>

2

<p>Shouldn't you be winning something?</p>

<p>JUST KIDDING</p>

<p>You're an outstanding applicant, keep it up and you're bound to end up somewhere fabulous.</p>

3

<p>Winning something? I don't get it. Oh yeah, add carnegie mellon university to that list.</p>

4

<p>stewie, where do you go to school? As a 3-year debater (policy, right?), I've probably met you (or at least heard of you) before.</p>

5

<p>you have a lot of junk in your EC....i mean narrow that down a bit....i dont need to know you got fourth place in something, thats not impressive at all. your GPA is solid however, and i would have taken somewhat of a more rigorous course, you only mention taking 4 AP classes. i hope thats not the case...carnegie mellon sounds good and do specify ur intented major in your application. Georgia tech, madison, duke, univ. of delaware, and wash u. sound good</p>

6

<p>yea it looks good except for your ECs. you just made a laundry list full of things that don't matter in some areas.</p>

<p>i live in KS too and did debate 1, 2, 3 and forensics 1, 2, 3 4. I wasn't very involved in debate and I still had waaaay more "honors/awards." Half of your debate awards are meaningless b/c they had to come from your school. Top novice team? Most oustanding sophomore? Most rounds won? Top advanced team? Those aren't even real awards and are definitely not given out by NFL/CFL/or any tournament. Those must be awards your coach awarded you, which doesn't say much b/c that's a pool of only your school and only of your squad. Many schools have one good debate team with small squads and thus it's nothing to be "top novice team," especially since you started as a sophomore. You better be winning novice tournaments as a sophomore, and most definitely in Kansas where the competition is terrible for the most part unless you're in champ where it's still bad from what I hear. You have to go out of state now to get some real good competition. Plus, the awards that would be meaningful seem to only come from normal tournaments that would only involve your own district, and that still isn't that many considering you did it for 3 years. I dunno, in order to support your debate career, you should have some state awards. Did you go to state, regionals, qualify to nats thru NFL (not CFL, CFL is a joke)? Then for forensics:</p>

<p>Forensics 2,3,4
-3rd place in Public Forum at Olathe Northwest
Student Congress 2,3,4</p>

<p>That is barely even worth mentioning. :\ b/c congress 2-4 years means nothing if you have no medals from it. If you were good/serious at all in congress you'd have medals to back it up. 3rd place at one PFD tournament isn't much better, either, I dunno man, it seems you just joined things for your resume and put no work into it. My friends who are in PFD are placing Top 3 at every tournament this season at minimum. They did the same their junior year, too, and some went to nats. That's the kind of involvement you need to brag about being active D/F.</p>

<p>I realize I'm being a complete *******, but I just want you to not look foolish by listing all that on your resume when you apply places next year. For debate, these are the only things listed that matter:
-2nd and 5th at debate competitions
-4th at debate competition
-4th at Four Speaker Regional competition
You can add you lettered if you want, I suppose. Degree of Distinction is nothing at all. Isn't that <100 NFL points!? Those active in both debate and forensics have well over 600-700+ by the end of their senior year. I mean, my novice year I got 200+ alone :&lt;/p>

<p>Forensics, you can include what you listed above since it isn't a big laundry list. Even tho you only participated in Congress and received no awards, it's still good to list b/c it's an excellent event to be involved in. I just don't see how you aren't nommed/placed at tournies if you're as smart as your GPA+test scores show. The one medal from PFD is pretty, I dunno, lousy? hehe sounds like you only went to one tournament every event considering you have so few NFL points over the 3 years in both D/F. Your other ECs may not be as much of a laundry list. I can't really comment on those since I'm not involved in those things. I just know I'm right when it comes to D/F b/c I've been them for the past 4 years and I also live in KS. So I've probably faced much of the same competition as you!</p>

<p>but hey man, your GPA, test scores thus far, and so forth are awesome. And as we all know, it's the GPA+test scores+class rank that are put WAAAAAY more emphasis on than EC's. The thing is at Ivies and other places like MIT, Washu, etc., you need more than just the basic GPA+test scores. That's where ECs matter and the way you are presenting them now is the exact way you shouldn't present it. I dunno, go ask your college counselor, he/she should say how laundry lists are the worst things you could do. You're supposed to have a couple of ECs that you were truly involved in, and if you count D/F as being one of those, then it's not going to help you much. But then again, I'm confused. Are you a senior or junior? Junior I'd think since your posting this? If you're a junior you can still kick some ass in both D/F! You still have a little time to qualify for state in whatever forensics events you're doing as long as it's not impromptu. :-P And next year you have the entire debate season to kick butt in! Soo, there ya go. NFL/districts haven't started yet. Prep like crazy and maybe you'll end up at nationals in Philly this summer. Those are the things that show dediction to D/F. :-) You need to at least compete at NFL/districts so that you made the attempt to qual for nats!</p>

7

<p>bfjava, thanks a lot for the advice. i will definitely do some cutting down. the counseling dept at my school is horrible. as for the nfl degree, i am pretty sure that distinction is 500+ points, if not, then i listed it wrong. as for public forum, you're right, i only went to one tourney. Student congress was about 2 competitions, i'm not that serious about them. i just thought that i would add them to the resume to maybe make it look better. Btw, i did go to the regional 4 speaker (my school didn't go to 2 speaker) and we got a sucky fourth.</p>

<p>I am a junior, and i am adding what i think my resume will look like during my senior year. </p>

<p>As for the ec's list, how does this look?</p>

<p>Marching Band 1,2,3,4
Symphonic Band 1,2,3,4
-Superior Rating Regional Solo and Ensemble Festival
-Superior Rating State Solo and Ensemble Festival
Pit orchestra 3
AM Jazz Band 1
Debate 2,3,4
-2nd and 5th at debate competitions
-4th at debate competition
-4th at Four Speaker Regional competition
-Degree of Distinction
-Letter Award
Forensics 2,3,4
-3rd place in Public Forum at Olathe Northwest
Student Congress 2,3,4
Law and Politics Club 3,4
Georgetown Model United Nations 3,4
Science Olympiad 3,4
-2nd Place Regional Competition in Experimental Design
Mathletics/Mathematics competitions 1,3,4
Mrs. Boren’s Book Club 1
Chemistry II Demonstration Group 3
National Honor Society 3,4
Student Voice (counterpart to student council) 3,4
Soccer 1,2
Cross Country 3,4
-Student athlete award
Tennis (Junior Varsity 1 Year, Varsity 3 Years) 1,2,3,4
-3rd place at district tournament (Number 3 Doubles)
-4th place at JV League (Number 2 Doubles)
-3rd place at district tournament (Number 2 Doubles)
-2nd place at JV League (Number 1 Doubles)
-Letter award
-Numeral award
Co-ed indoor summer soccer league 1,2,3,4
Church Youth Group 1,2,3,4</p>

<p>As for you all who want to know where i go to school, i go to smnw and am only a second year debater. As you probably know, our debate program blows. </p>

<p>If anyone cares to match the schools as reaches, matches, safeties, that would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>Any other resume help would be spectacular as well.</p>

8

<p>don't worry about D/F. you still have districts coming up in IE and speaking events in forensics in April. then you have state after that in case you qualled in anything. and then next year you have debate...i'll be honest, your most successful years in debate/forensics are your 3rd and 4th yrs b/c 1) you're basically as old as the hardest competition age-wise and 2) you have equal experience to most teams. When you're a 2nd year half the time you'll be debating 3rd and 4th years. The really good 2nd years can beat the older/more experienced debaters but that's usually with some form of debate workshop/camp. you could attend a debate camp this summer to get an early start on the season and then kick some ass, maybe, especially in KS where debate is going downhill. i mean, next year, my coach is sending our best debaters out of state for almost every tourney b/c of the poor competition in KS.</p>

<p>your EC list looks better now too. i'll write more later. i'm going to bed hehe</p>

9

<p>Thanks again bfjava. lots of help. anyone else want to post matches, reaches, and safeties???</p>

10

<p>very interesting... someone rate por favor.</p>

11

<p>come on, i know someone wants to</p>

12

<p>In terms of your debate list - bfjava's right for the most part.
Degree of Distinction isn't that great.
In terms of qualifying for states or nfl nats or cfl nats, any of those would be good. (cfl nats is only a joke in some regions of the country. In the northeast, at least, it's pretty competitive)
It might be good to say in which competitions you got the awards. But truly, it's not necessarily about the awards perse. It;s about whether you show commitment. I still see a laundry list and no passion.</p>

<p>Get rid of the Book CLub and specify the specific math competitions (if they're in school, it's probably worht dumping).</p>

<p>I personally think you've spread yourself too thin. Since you don't have your SAT score and your ACT is kind of low, Stanford, Cornell, Dartmouth, MIT, Duke are big reaches... </p>

<p>Just out of curiosity, a lot of the colleges (Dartmouth, Duke, U of NC, U of Kansas, Cornell, u of del) are very suburban. Is there a reason you're applying to MIT (other than the name, I mean)? (MIT is in Cambridge; Boston is definitely a big city)</p>

13

<p>Do not worry about college admissions, really. It is stressful enough as it is and be comfortable to know that you have good chances at any top colleges because you have top stats. I think the most important thing to think about is what makes you stand out as an applicant. Have you done anything special, or anything out of the ordinary? EVERYONE has almost the same statistics. Make sure you get some really good letters of recommendation, and just start your applications early, and put thought into them. Do not become addicted to this board (like i did). Just make sure everything is under control and enjoy high school. I regret stressing out so much with all my college stuff, and it was not worth it. Any college that rejects you, just say, forget you guys, you missed out on an excellent student. I hope this helps, and have fun in school!</p>

14

<p>I just checked the rankings for NFL, Degree of Distinciton maxes at 500 points, which isn't as bad as I thought. </p>

<p>mjs4n6 - good point. everyone nowadays is paranoid about college admissions and I guess in the whole scheme of things it doesn't end up mattering as much as it seems.</p>

15

<p>No, Degree of Distinction is 250-500 pts. Special dist. is 500-750 I have 800 something and I'm a senior, but I also didn't do debate this season and last season my partner and I didn't complement each other in round, so not much success there. Most of my friends who haven't graduated are juniors and seniors in D/F. The juniors are really active and have around 1000+ pts each and they still have the rest of this season and all next year, heh. But then again, most of them plan to continue debate in college, I think.</p>

<p>Anyways, just keep working and you'll be fine. About CFL, I dunno, I thought it was crappy everywhere haha. I do know that it's easy as hell to qualify for it :&lt;/p>

<p>and mjs is right, whereever you end up you'll most likely adjust and be happy.</p>

16

<p>MIT is just one of those schools that i doubt that i will be accepted at, but i just want to see if i can. i highly doubt that i would end up there. As for the nfl points, i know that i am a ruby, whatever that means. thanks for the help</p>

17

<p>Actually, CFL is pretty competitive in Kansas, at least in my region. I think we had a team make it to quarterfinals at the nat'l tournament, and there were a few teams from KS that broke at NFL and not CFL, nationally.</p>

18

<p>stewie06:</p>

<p>UCLA: Slight Reach (out of state, Engineering)
UCB: Slight Reach (out of state, Engineering)</p>

19

<p>Is Kansas an underrepresented state admissions-wise?</p>

20

<p>When you apply to Berkeley, you fill out the UC application. If you want to apply to Los Angeles, all you have to do is mark an additional small, tiny little check mark on the front page of the application indicating you are also applying to Los Angeles. You may apply to as many UCs as you want, but you have to practice those check marks beforehand... they're tricky. best of luck,</p>

<p>TTG</p>