New Member Looking for Chances

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am brand new to the site, and a junior. This seems like a great community, and I was hoping that some of you could chance me. </p>

<p>Colleges (ranked by preference):
Vanderbilt (will do ED)
NYU
U of I-Champaign
Colgate
Purdue
U Chicago</p>

<p>White Male, from Northern Illinois
3rd Generation in College
Family makes about $170,000 (dad is a firefighter, mom works for VA)
One sibling in college, one not</p>

<p>I plan to dual major in PolySci and History, to go to Law School.
I'm currently a Junior, so I'll make reasonable estimates for senior year. </p>

<p>GPA UW: 3.93 (will be higher when the semester ends)
GPA W: 4.5 (will be higher when the semester ends)
Class Rank: 5 of 332
Counting senior year, 12 AP classes:</p>

<p>Sophomore Year: AP Euro (5), AP Microecon (4) and AP Macroecon (4)
Junior Year: APUSH, AP Psych, AP Bio, AP Lang and Comp.
Senior Year: AP Physics B, AP Human Geo, AP French, AP Lit and Comp., AP Gov, and AP Calc AB</p>

<p>All A's in AP classes</p>

<p>ACT:
Composite: 33
English: 34
Math: 31
Reading: 34
Science: 32</p>

<p>Since I did the PSAE ACT, I don't have writing, but will in June. Because of AP Lang, I'm awesome at argumentative essays, so no problems there. I'm also trying for a 34 in June.</p>

<p>Leadership:
2 Year Debate Team Captain (as captain, I run most things)
4 Year Academic Team Captain (2 years JV, 2 years Varsity)
Fox Valley Leadership Conference (only like 20 kids from the school go)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
4 Years Debate
4 Years Academic Team
National Honor Society (inducted like last week, as my school only starts recruiting junior year)
Being on Principal's Advisory Council next year is probable</p>

<p>Awards:
At least 7 awards from debate (including multiple from state tournaments), will be more senior year
3 MVP awards for Academic Team (from a tournament), plus one top scorer award at a tournament (top scorer out of all participants)
Led Debate Team (as captain)to 4th in state this year
Led Academic Team (as captain) to 1st in Conference Last Year (JV)
AP Scholar
AP Scholar with Distinction (as of next year)</p>

<p>Community Service:
25 or so hours to this point
Probable 60 more over the summer</p>

<p>Recommendations:
One from my debate coach for a personal/ leadership rec.
One from my Junior Year Pre Calc teacher (a class I struggled a bit in, but brought to an A)
One from my Junior Year AP Lang. Teacher or Sophomore Year AP Euro. teacher</p>

<p>All three will be excellent recs</p>

<p>Essays:
I'm a strong writer because of AP Lang. I'm starting this summer, so I'll make sure they are fantastic. For a scholarship (don't know the results of yet), I wrote that I'd have a conversation with Voltaire, and I wrote about the influence debate has had upon me. I will probably write similar things to this. </p>

<p>As you can probably tell, I am very dedicated to debate. It has also profoundly impacted me, and will be the subject of any essays/interviews. I am an excellent public speaker, but I doubt that this means much. </p>

<p>If you do end up chancing me, thanks so much.</p>

2

<p>I think the biggest weakness in your “application” is ECs. Although you’re incredibly invested in debate (so am I), that one EC might not be enough. Also, you don’t have a lot of community service, so I would look into increasing that more than just 60 hours over the summer. Although you have some awards, they’re not very special (no offense), besides the State 4th, because they’re more regional-based. The high income bracket may also hurt your chances.
I don’t know much about your colleges (sorry), but I’d say UChicago is a reach (but reachable). Perhaps if you used your debate passion in other ways (i.e. helping out at a debate team in middle school, doing fundraisers and other things for debate), that could add to your application.</p>

3

<p>Okay. Thanks for the honest opinion. U of C was probably where I least wanted to go to. I just put it, because it is sort of the norm of a lot of people in my school to apply there. Vanderbilt was definitely the highest. I know you said you don’t know much about it, but would ED increase my chances? I assumed that the “quality over quantity” rule did apply with EC’s. I was planning on joining at least one other club, but wouldn’t that just be viewed as padding?</p>

4

<p>Joining another club this late into your high school career definitely would be seen as padding. That’s why I recommended maybe taking your debate interest a step further. </p>

<p>As for Vanderbilt ED, I just did some simple research and from what I see, you’re in their average range (their mid50% for ACT is 32-34). However, ED should give you an edge because you’re proving that you really do want to make a commitment to the school by applying for a binding decision. </p>

<p>A website that might help is parchment.com <– you enter your statistics and stuff and it’ll generate electronically the likelihood of you getting into any college. </p>

<p>And just a side question - will you be going to debate nationals in Alabama this summer? (:</p>

5

<p>No. When I started out at the debate team, we really only did the regional circuit (ICDA). Since my freshman year, we’ve about doubled in size. As part of my captainship, I’ve been working on expanding us to other tournaments, etc. Would that look good, if in a potential essay about debate? But no, my team has been too small to do stuff like that. It could change next year, though.</p>

6

<p>Oh wow, yeah that is really significant and I think it can turn into a really good essay that showcases your leadership skills. (: I totally get how difficult that is - our team also doubled in size this year (while our budget got cut in half). Good luck on increasing the amount of tournaments your team goes to!</p>

<p>I was just curious since I’ll be going to nationals, and was looking forward to meeting new people.</p>

7

<p>Good luck at nationals! My team does Congress, which seems to be one of the less popular forms of debate. </p>

<p>Thanks for the help. My school has a parchment-esque program called Naviance which seems like the same thing. Except it says I have a 100% chance at getting into Princeton and U of C, so that cannot be accurate.</p>

8

<p>Congress? Everybody in our district considers it as a joke, but it actually gets really serious on the national level. I do Policy debate, which is supposedly the most prestigious (not really). </p>

<p>I have a Naviance account as well, but found Parchment much more useful. (I only have a 17% chance into Princeton, unfortunately.) I like Parchment (even though signing up takes FOREVER) because it literally takes everything into consideration.</p>

9

<p>You could get into all of those schools, except for UChicago and maybe Vanderbilt</p>

10

<p>So U Chicago is a no, and Vanderbilt is a tossup, that would be aided by ED?</p>

11

<p>I’m bumping this.</p>

12

<p>Bump bump!</p>

13

<p>Vanderbilt (will do ED): Low reach
NYU: Match
U of I-Champaign: dont know
Colgate: Match
Purdue: Match
U Chicago: Reach</p>

<p>Hello fellow debater, lol:) however ive never done congress before</p>

14

<p>your in at ED vandy</p>

15

<p>Low match to match for Purdue and UIUC. Match to high match for NYU, High match to low reach for U Chicago.
It is good that you showed a passion in one EC activity (debate). You may want to enrich your EC a little bit. For instance, build upon your community service. Out of that 25 hours, what did you do? Can you pick one or two things there and go much deeper in (i.e. spend more hours there). The admission office want to see your passion in something, so don’t just accumulate the hours in random things. They will also notice what is going on if there are more random things come out on your EC during the last year. It is better to be diversify during the freshman and sophomore years, and then focus on a few things in junior and senior with greater dedications.</p>

16

<p>Thanks for the advice! I was planning on doing 60 plus hours of community service over the summer, specifically to fulfill requirements for NHS. Would you consider that random? Most of it is local things, to help the community. I was also planning to volunteer on my own time at a local animal shelter. What I have done was volunteering at my old elementary school.</p>

17

<p>The questions is what kind of community service that 60 hours will be. If you are going to volunteer in a library for 60 hours, or you will do 5 hours serving food to homeless people, 5 hours in a nursing home, 5 hours in… You see what I mean. It is a matter of showing your passion rather than fulfilling a requirement of something. Volunteering at a local animal shelter sounds great.</p>

18

<p>Okay, thanks again. I’ll make sure I won’t simply be doing community service for the sake of requirements. Also, what do you think my odds at Vanderbilt are?</p>

19

<p>Vanderbilt (will do ED): reach
NYU: match
U of I-Champaign: match
Colgate: reach
Purdue: match
U Chicago: high reach</p>

<p>just my opinions.</p>

20

<p>Vanderbilt (will do ED)- Low reach, because Vanderbilt is one of those colleges that’s almost impossible to predict your chance… I feel that you will have a good chance of getting into that school, IF you display huge interest in that school by visiting them, calling the administration office, etc. Good Luck!
NYU-Match
U of I-Champaign-Match
Colgate-50/50
Purdue-50/50
U Chicago-???</p>