My Chance at Cornell

Colleges & Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>Hey everyone. I am a junior in high school from Illinois looking at some pretty selective schools for college. On a college trip this year I visited Cornell over my spring break (the school was in session) and had a great experience. I really liked the size of the school, though that was something that worried my parents. I thought that the architecture and layout of the campus was unbelievable. Maybe the biggest factor for me was meeting with their cross country/track coach and really loving him. He was just awesome and talked about developing talent and such, and he really reminded me of my current coaches who I cannot speak high enough about. I was hoping some Cornell students/graduates could rate my chances based off their own experiences and just any knowledge they have. You may notice that I posted these in a few other boards and that is because I have narrowed my top choices to 4 schools: Georgetown, Dartmouth, Stanford, and Cornell. Obviously I have safety school that I believe I can definitely get into, but these four are my top choices and I think I would be happy at any of them</p>

<p>My College Application</p>

<p>Male, White, from Suburb in Illinois
Go to a very large public school (2700 students) ranked as one of the top 5 public schools in the state year after year. </p>

<p>My GPA weighted is 5.93, not sure what it is unweighted, but I am ranked 5/691
I have yet to take the SAT, but my PSAT was 224, so I will be a National Merit semi finalist (and hopefully a finalist as well). </p>

<p>I recently took an in school ACT (state mandatory) and got a 34. My reading and english subscores were 35, and math and science were both 33. I am signed up to retake it in June and hope to raise my math and science scores (which I consider to be my strongest subjects).</p>

<p>I took the SAT II in chemistry, math II, and US history and received scores of 730,770,740</p>

<p>My Course Load The Past Four Years</p>

<p>8th grade- (taken at high school for credit)
Geometry Honors</p>

<p>9th
Algebra II Trigonometry Honors
English I Honors
World History Honors
Biology Honors
German I Honors</p>

<p>10th
Accounting honors
German II honors
Pre-Calculus Honors
English II Honors
Chemistry Honors</p>

<p>11th
Physics Honors
AP Calculus BC
AP US History
AP Language and Composition
German III Honors
Latin I Honors</p>

<p>12th ( scheduled)
AP Chemistry
German IV Honors (independent study AP test)
Latin II Honors
AP Literature and Composition
AP Statistics
AP Microeconomics (semester course)
AP Government and Politics (semester course)</p>

<p>Thus far I have received A's in all of the courses I have enrolled in with the exception of first semester calculus which I earned a B.</p>

<p>Athletics:</p>

<p>2 Years Varsity Swim Team. 5 x conference champion, and set 2 conference records.
1 Year Baseball- played for the freshman team
2 Year Varsity Cross Country- Scholar Athlete and Conference All Academic. Time of 16:40 for 3 miles (first season)
3 Year Varsity Track and Field- times of 4:47 for mile, 2:07 for 800 meters. Been injured almost all of my running career including this track season. I will hopefully be able to really dominate my cross country time this fall, as I know I am good enough to compete for all DIII and a good amount of DI schools. I spoke to the coaches who understood I had been injured and was making the transition from swimming to running. Because I am an "undeveloped talent" as they call me, I have much higher recruiting stock than someone who had been running say, 3 years would. I have been running for about a total of 1.25 years. (3 years track and 2 years cross country was including the upcoming 2 seasons that I will compete in).</p>

<p>In addition, our captains for cross country will be named this summer and there is a pretty good chance I will be chosen as one.</p>

<p>Also I compete for the Mideast Team Elite, a national elite triathlon team, one of the strongest teams in the nation. </p>

<p>Extra Stuff</p>

<p>2x AATG finalist. This is the German National competition. Scored 92,95 respectively on my last two national exams.
1x Latin National competition "gold medalist" 95%
1x Latin State finalist. 165/180 qualifier to state meet with superior honors.</p>

<p>Won American Legion Boy's State Scholarship for the summer of 2009. Will represent my school at Eastern Illinois University as one of two representatives.</p>

<p>Volunteer Work/Work:
4 year Peer Juror for the Downers Grove Peer Jury. Named a Senior Juror.
3 year Youth flag football coach for the community house.
Also worked as the scorekeeper and field setter for the community house.
5 year Umpire for the little league. One of the Senior Umpires.
Working downtown this summer at a lawfirm, and worked maintenance (gardening etc.) the last three years at an expensive country club (not one my family could even dream of joining lol.)
I also worked for a year as a short order chef at a restaurant in town.</p>

<p>Other Hobbies/Activities.
I have been in habitat for humanity all 4 years of high school, though il be honest, I do not do much for the club and would probably just as well leave it off my resume.</p>

<p>Sports writing. Write sports articles online for different sites. Have published over 100 articles with over 200,000 views. Full time writer on a few sites (<a href="http://www.thesportingtruth.com,www.sportsguysblog.com"&gt;www.thesportingtruth.com,www.sportsguysblog.com&lt;/a>, Fantasy Football Maniaxs: Your daily guide to victory!) but publish my work on numerous other sites. A few of my articles have appeared on "big name sites" such as sporting news, CBS Sports, USA Today, and Fox Sports, which is pretty cool.</p>

<p>My essays should be very strong. I prize my writing and have done very well in the writing sides of all my english classes, as both my parents have Phds in English Literature and really started me off on the right path when I was in elementary school. If anyone wants to critique this topic that would be appreciated, but basically what my essay (the one I am writing now) is about is becoming a runner. More specifically, however, it is about how different my track coach was from any of the other coaches I had had previously in other sports, and how his ability to be fair and make everyone on the team, not just the fastest guys feel included, has shaped me as an individual. This is actually a 100% true essay, but if it sounds cliche or corny in any way please let me know. My letters of recs should also be strong, one is from my German teacher who I have had for 3+ years and will have next year, and the other is from my english teacher who really likes having me in class (or at least she gives off that impression).</p>

<p>Thank You Very Much! I look forward to reading your responses.</p>

2

<p>You best be ■■■■■■■■ cause I can tell you be lying.
You posted your stats on different threads and they don’t match.</p>

3

<p>You are correct good sir but not ■■■■■■■■. I predicted my SAT II subject scores so I could get more realistic predictions. My real ones that I just received friday (i c/p this and didnt change it) were 730 chem, 720 us history, 800 math II. Thank you for pointing that out, could you chance me please</p>

4

<p>You look like a great and well-rounded student as well as possible recruit.</p>

<p>One thing lacking though: What college and major are you applying to?</p>

<p>This can make or break you, and as it stands right now, it doesn’t seem like you have passion in anything other than running/sports (unless you were thinking of being a German major, lol)</p>

5

<p>5.93 weighted GPA?</p>

<p>Are they handing out gpa points like hotcakes now?</p>

6

<p>everyone always asks on this so il explain. were on a 5.0 scale. in regular classes an A-5, B-4, C-3, D-2. In honors/AP classes A-6, B-5, C-4, D-2. so my GPA weighted is 5.93/6.0</p>

7

<p>I wasn’t really wonder on how it was possible, I was mostly reflecting on the impression that more and more schools are “increasing” the 4.0 scale just so students would sound more impressive when they proclaim “I have 5.0+ GPA!!”. Tsk tsk.</p>

8

<p>What do like about Cornell academically? School? Major? You will need to write an essay on your match to the school. I believe it is one of the important factors in admission at Cornell. Research your major and your school and write a compelling essay about your match to that school.
Otherwise - fantastic resume!</p>

9

<p>wont they just put his gpa on a 4 point scale so that he would be around 3.95? at least thats what I thought they did for schools who use strange systems</p>

10

<p>I will be applying (most likely) to the arts and sciences, though hotel management sounds pretty appealing to me as well and I will have to consider that. Thanks everyone, can anyone else rate my chances please!</p>

11

<p>5.93 GPA?</p>

<p>Is this true. If I were a Cornell admin officer, I might reject you…thinking that your GPA was made up…</p>

12

<p>Our gpa is on a 6.0 scale. i think we might be the only school that has it, and everyone always is shocked by it. on a 4.0 scale this would probably be somewhere around 3.9 I would think, though I am not sure… Ive taken all AP/Honors and gotten one B thus far.</p>

13

<p>I know one other school in my area that uses a 6.0 scale. A friend of mine has a 3.63 which happens to be our school’s average on a 5.0 scale -_- I get a VERY strong impression your school basically hands out As in such bs classes as “honors accounting, Algebra II Trigonometry honors, and AP Government and Politics.” If anything, accounting shouldn’t even be a leveled course. Alg2 should take a year and if you’re not doing trig in precalc, what else is there to do besides 2 months of analytic geometry and craploads of Algebra II review? Also, government and politics is an easy 5 without taking any related history or political science courses, the essay question this year was “how does the President affect the agenda?” If you can’t answer that without an AP class, not even God can help you. Otherwise, you’re probably fine for at least Cornell or Vassar.</p>