<p>Seeing that applications are due in about a week, most schools have probably already nominated their two students. Who's applying and from where? How are your essays, courses, ecs, etc. Also, those who attended GSS in previous years, feel free to post your experiences, advice for applicants, and anything relevant. Let's get this thread rolling guys.</p>
<p>On a side note, it really sucks that there are only two GSs this year, with only 90 students accepted into each one. And its a major turnoff that this program lasts only 3 weeks.</p>
<p>@Tenors: Each school in NJ picks what it presumes to be the top two science students. At most schools, they evaluate your test scores, course rigor, rank, extracurriculars, etc. @WhiteBoy: Congratulations on getting the nomination. I’m not sure exactly what the competitive counties are but I’ve heard that its harder to get into from North Jersey. Not sure if that’s true though.</p>
<p>Just FYI, not every school in NJ can nominate two people for each governor’s school. My grade is rather small so we can actually only nominate one, and really big schools can nominate three. That being said, the guidance department STILL hasn’t picked our nominee. I’m hoping it’s me, but… I’ll find out tomorrow. I would be so sad if they didn’t pick me! For my discovery essay, I wrote about Wohler’s synthesis of urea and the importance of organic chemistry.</p>
<p>What county are all of you guys from? I’m from Sussex.</p>
<p>We don’t fail… I know for me, my guidance counselor never even told me who they nominated, so I’m not really going to get excited about this without even a nomination. And we can talk about stuff relating to the program until April.</p>
<p>@Whiteboy: please don’t post unless you have something relevant to say…</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m from Middlesex. I don’t really know how they go about selecting candidates (as in do they do it based on geographic/economic representation…like college apps or if they just pick the top 90 kids in the state). And yes, I think that if your class size is around 500 or greater you are allowed 3 nominations and if your class size is small enough only 1 nomination is sent. How heavily do they emphasize ecs? Also, I think my discoveries essays was really, really poorly written so would a good autobiographical sketch balance that out?</p>
<p>I think they like to have one kid from each county, at least, but past that I have no idea. It’s probably more the top 90 kids that fit the criteria they’re looking for. </p>
<p>I think ECs are one of the most important factors, if not the most. A good autobiographical sketch would probably balance it out, but I’m sure there are a lot of kids who had two great essays.</p>
<p>So, the applications were due Friday, and due to field trips/snow days/delayed openings/my guidance office’s stupidity they STILL haven’t revealed the nominees! Apparently they’ll tell us tomorrow on the announcements. Awesome. Why they couldn’t just tell me when I asked, I have no idea. I really want to know if I was nominated! I want to go to governor’s school so badly, haha.</p>
<p>haha we were told late (but not that late) about our school’s nominations too. i think the whole budget situation messed up the normal timing. how important would you guys say njgss is? i mean its only 3 weeks long so would it be considered a college app “hook”?</p>
<p>So they finally told me that I was the nominee from my school! :] I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a hook, but it’s definitely a plus, especially if you’re thinking of applying to Princeton (plurality of NJGSS attendees end up there).</p>
<p>@xcelr8t, yeah, it’s true! It was on the Facebook group for the '09 NJGSSers; I believe ~14 of them ended up at Princeton, from a group of ~90. Almost as many at Harvard and a couple more to Yale, so approximately a third of the people attend HYP, let alone the other fantastic schools the rest go to. It’s impressive!</p>
<p>I believe SineTheta from the beginning of the thread is also from Bergen County. I’m close-ish to Bergen, about 45 minutes, but not quite there.</p>
<p>Well it is true that the approx 1/3 of governors school students end up at hyp. however, keep in mind that these kids are also the brightest minds in new jersey, so it may not say much. the pool is already talented to begin with. </p>
<p>Did anyone get a confirmation email yet? I just received one the other day. I guess the wait is on eh, results don’t come out until…April 1st?</p>
<p>Well, obviously it’s not the program that gets the kids into the top schools, but it says a lot about the caliber of governor’s school.</p>
<p>…Did you really get a confirmation email already? Now I’m freaking out, haha, I haven’t gotten anything and I was scared before that it wasn’t postmarked in time due to the snow days and my guidance counselor’s ineptness. I thought they weren’t sending those out until late February. What did your email say?</p>
<p>I think it’s the 5th of April? But some time during the first week.</p>
<p>yeah, i got a confirmation email, it was sparse though. along the lines of “we have received your application, congratulations on being nominated, results will be out sometime april yada yada yada.” </p>
<p>on a side note, i heard that you select a project during governors school. are these projects science-fair worthy? can you send the abstracts and what not to colleges?</p>
<p>Yeah, I got the email a couple days ago. I was so relieved haha.</p>
<p>I don’t think they’re science fair-worthy, since I believe those are usually solo projects. But I think you can send the abstracts for college stuff.</p>
<p>I haven’t received a confirmation email yet! D: But I applied to Engineering so hopefully they’re just being a bit slower than Sciences…? I’m stalking this thread because there isn’t an engineering thread, and I don’t really feel like making one</p>
<p>Yeah, they run the two programs pretty separately, so don’t worry. The thing on my application said that we would get confirmation emails by “late February” so mine came pretty early. (Well, that late February thing was for Sciences. But yeah.) There was a general governor’s school thread wayyyy back but it kind of died, haha.</p>