My chances

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

<p>Basic info:
Gender: male
Race: African American
State: North Carolina
Grade: rising senior
Rank: 61/532 top 15% (11.5%)
Intended major: accounting or psychology</p>

<p>ACT composite score: 24 ( I realize this is low but this was my first attempt and I'm planning on taking it again in September) </p>

<p>Academics
UW GPA: 3.56
W GPA: 4.43</p>

<p>List of all honors and AP/IB classes:
Freshman year: honors English, honors geometry, honors civics and economics, and honors biology
Sophomore year: AP environmental, honors algebra II, honors chemistry, honors english, and honors world history
Junior year: honors precalculus, honors Spanish 3, IB English 3, IB psychology, IB history of the Americas, IB biology, and IB theory of knowledge
Senior year: IB SL Math, IB Spanish SL, IB english 4, IB psychology HL, IB 20th century topics, IB biology HL, IB theory of knowledge, and IB Geography</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Spanish club (10-12)
Spanish honors society (12)
National honors society (11-12)
Mock Trial (10-12)
MSEN Pre-College (9-12) may have leadership position this year
Brothers of Distinction (9-12) president (12)
Coalition for the homeless (11-12)
Habitat for humanity club (12) co-founder/president
Mens Cross country team (9-10)
JV mens Lacrosse (9-10)
Varsity lacrosse (11)</p>

<p>Community service: will have had 125 hours done by the end of senior year.</p>

<p>Awards:
Excellence in Spanish I
Academic achievement for cumulative gpa of 3.8 and above (9-12)
Recommended to participate in the National Young Leaders Conference (9 & 11)
Excellence in Spanish III
Honor roll, distinguished honors (4.25 gpa and above) (9-12)
Highest gpa out of pre-college students for my grade and class </p>

<p>Thanks for your time and consideration.</p>

2

<p>.………bump</p>

3

<p>shut the **** up</p>

4

<p>With your ACT and rank there’s no chance sorry.</p>

5

<p>Vanderbilt is a very politically correct school. If you can get your ACT score to at least 30, you have a good shot since you’re black.</p>

6

<p>thanks. i was pretty sure that that would be the make-or-break factor.</p>

7

<p>but with regard to the rank, as you can see from my senior schedule i will have all IB classes and i am confident that i will be able to make half As and Bs, making reaching under 50 highly realistic.</p>

8

<p>You should be proud of being so close to being in the top 10% of your class. Most unrecruited kids at a school like Vandy (excepting a few sports, diversity, music talents recruited for some slots etc) are in the top 5% of their high school class with top test scores.<br>
You also have a month to work hard on the ten real ACTs in the Red Book. Do a couple open book one section at a time, spending a lot of time on the answers to find where you go wrong. Your ACT score does matter. Then force yourself to get a good meal and a good nights sleep and to take the last six or seven exams on a timed basis, with only a bathroom snack break. And study study your errors. You can improve that score!</p>

<p>One recommendation I have for you is to consider whether or not you are willing to attend a liberal arts college that is hurting for minority students and where your grades and class standing (and the good references your teachers will give you will help) will be weighted. Wake Forest is a college that will accept applicants who opt not to turn in the standardized test scores. Ditto Bowdoin in Maine. We are talking excellent liberal arts colleges. Minority students who have high test scores have many many options and will often turn down the liberal arts colleges because they might prefer a bigger pond with more minority student presence or in a location with more urban life. There is a list of colleges that don’t require standardized test scores…that doesn’t mean that they don’t like to see them and that the majority of their students don’t submit them. That means that places like Wake Forest think they can recognize a student who has the work ethic to succeed in their classrooms even if the test scores are not commensurate with their GPAs. And they generally know what they are doing (take a look at the high graduation rates at these colleges and realize they don’t admit students who can’t do the work.) </p>

<p>Are you the kind of person who learns very well in the classroom but doesn’t test as well in a group of kids who are all excellent at standardized exams? If so, do not attend a college where classroom instruction is not their top asset. </p>

<p>If you have only taken the ACT once, you are behind. So step it up. Take the ACT in September and again in October or December. A lot is riding on that so just make sure you put out the best score you can manage at age 18. You are MORE than your test score at age 18. Four years at a college with exceptional instruction can make you a fierce test taker by the time you are thinking of your next move or your next graduate degree. You seem to like school, so do not let anyone on College Confidential psych you out. Just pay attention to getting to a college with superior class instruction. And in this country we are talking about a lot of colleges. There are plenty of colleges below the top ten (and Vandy is a top ten college of its type) that have faculty members that are brilliant and a great community of scholars. </p>

<p>It is true that you would need to get closer to 30 probably to get a serious look at Vandy but there are always exceptions if your essays, references and other factors are good. Nevertheless, make sure to attach to colleges highly likely to take you and make sure you have a good understanding of what your family will have to pay a private college. There are so many other great schools out there is my point. </p>

<p>Interview Interview, do alum interviews, and get to know graduates of your college list.<br>
Punch in Common Data Set in the search window of your college list names and get realistic about admission odds. Read their blogs and read the March April CC stats that students who are rejected, waitlist and admitted posted last year. Broaden your list and get a feeling for what kind of community will bring out your best game for the next four years.</p>

9

<p>Faline2, thank you very much for you encouraging words I have already started preparing for September. And in response to schools like wake forest that don’t require test scores, I was actually just there this past weekend for an accounting camp and I they have an outstanding grad school but I do not really want to go to the same school for ungrad and grad school that why I’m looking at other competitive schools like Vandy. But thank you very much for you advice.</p>

10

<p>great…you have figured out that accounting is one of the things Wake does well (it does a lot of other things very well, too)…don’t sweat your grad school location yet…way too soon for that especially with the issues with Wake’s price tag
Undergraduates at Wake have an outstanding outcome on certification exams that exceeds the outcomes of many undergrad programs and allows them to get recruited as undergrad. It is a tough track at Wake but they can sit for credential exams as seniors…</p>

<p>Noticed that Vandy has put together a one year graduate school option in accounting related masters…it looks interesting. A lot cheaper than a two year path…that is if you can get accepted. Duke also put forward a one year business program for graduates when the recession hit out of recognition that their undergrad program was not a real business prep experience. The pricetag for this year is very high, but it is a track that can make a difference in the job competition.
This begs the question of if there is a different path to nirvanna…sometimes the networking is actually broader out of a flagship state college…example… the University of South Carolina has a very strong international business track…UVA has a famous business track that only some of their students can get in second year…Virginia Tech up my way has very strong networking for graduates.</p>

<p>Lately I can’t help but notice that my Duke grad son in Atlanta is working side by side with Georgia Tech grads (he says they are uber prepared for the workplace re skills) and ditto undergrad Georgia business grads who have had many courses that are practical and ready to hit the ground running in the work place. He has some catching up to do in applied business content in comparison.</p>

<p>Schools like Vandy and Duke do not have business tracks per se. You can get into business related concentrations or certificates (not majors) in both schools and take economics and accounting courses etc but as of now not a real business undergrad program. Emory has a stronger undergrad business program atmosphere. </p>

<p>Not knocking the selective schools that do not offer business tracks but in today’s economy, getting a masters degree can be very expensive if you can’t find a “real world” job for a handful of years immediately upon undergrad graduation, and working first is really an asset for graduate school applications later. So my advice is still to spread your applications around to reach and safety schools and to be very shrewd. Sometimes the bigger challenge is the second stage when you are 23 when grad school track choices are more clear and you must take out loans for tuition in a recession economy. Last year’s class at Vanderbilt had a top quartile of 35/36 on the ACT. Huge shift up in test scores in the last five years.<br>
good luck shaking things out!</p>