Peer Evaluation

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hello all, longtime reader of the boards here. I'm currently finishing up my junior year and starting to look at colleges and would appreciate any help you could offer in terms of what you think are realistice goals. My (very) general list right now is something like what follows, more or less in order from most to least wanted.</p>

<p>Princeton
Stanford
Duke (multiple alumni relatives, grandparents (deceased) on one side and an uncle, as well as several family friends)
University of Chicago
Vanderbilt
UVA
Georgetown
Northwestern
Wake Forest
Washington University in St. Louis
George Washington
Rice
UT Austin Plan II (Liberal Arts Honors)</p>

<p>I've got a lot of interests and I'm not really sure what I'd like to study yet, but right now a double major in Economics and Political Science seems like a promising possibility. If you have any suggestions for colleges that would be good for this combination, feel free to let me know.</p>

<p>I bring the following to the table:</p>

<p>GPA: Depends on how you want to look at it. My school grades on a percentage scale, adding 10 points to honors and AP classes for those who receive an 80 or above. On this scale, I will have roughly a 102.6 after this semester (weighted, obviously). Unweighted should be around 93.5.</p>

<p>Our school doesn't really use a 4-point scale, but I was told that to convert to a 4-point scale I should divide my percentage grade by 100 and multiply by 4. This gives me a 3.74 unweighted and a 4.1 weighted. however, because the maximum grade is a 4.4 on this scale, I don't really feel it's completely comparable. If you consider it like most other schools do (A=4, 5 weighted, B = 3, 4 weighted, etc...) I'd have more like a 3.8 unwieghted, 4.7 weighted (considering 90+ as an A, 80-89 a B, etc....).</p>

<p>Lots of numbers, annoying, sorry for the complexity.</p>

<p>Rank: proably 9-7 out of 322</p>

<p>Courseload has been the most rigorous possible, honors classes (Pre-AP or GT) throughout Freshman and Sophmore years including GT World History, after which I took the AP test and received a 5. I've been taking both French and Spanish since middle school, though senior year I'll be taking only Spanish.</p>

<p>Junior classes:
US History AP
Physics Pre-AP
Precal Pre-AP
Spanish IV AP
French IV AP
English III AP
Statistics AP</p>

<p>Senior classes:
Government/Economics AP
English IV AP
Spanish V AP
Art History AP
Chemistry AP
Physics AP
Calculus BC AP</p>

<p>Grades have shown an upward trend, from generally low A's Freshman year to mid A's sophmore year and first semester of junior year to mid/high A's senior year.</p>

<p>If a complete course list with grades would help, I can post that.</p>

<p>SAT: 800 Verbal/720 Math/710 Writing (Retaking, I think that if I study some math the night before I have a decent shot of a 1600 on the sections that count most.)
SAT IIs: Not taken, probably in June: US History, Math II, and perhaps literature. I'm not cocky enough to offer predictions, but I think I can do well.
AP:
World History - 5
US History - 5 (predicted)
European History - 5 (predicted, self study)
Statistics - 5 (predicted)
English Language - 5 (predicted)
Spanish Language - I'd be happy with a 3, honestly. (predicted)</p>

<p>Yes, I do realize I said I wasn't cocky enough to predict my SATIIs and then predicted 5 APs - I feel that after being in the class for a year and knowing my strengths and weaknesses, I'm capable of getting what I listed.</p>

<p>Extra Curricular Activities:</p>

<p>Main thing is USTA tennis, something like 10 hours a week on average since freshman year, though I only played for the school freshman year (on JV). I won a mens 2.5 tournament, doesn't mean much at all but I suppose it's nice. I may write an essay about a particular match that I remember well.</p>

<p>I've got 40ish hours of general community service, I've found a few continuous projects I'm involved with now (once a month type deals).</p>

<p>I've participated in French and Spanish clubs since freshman year and taken the National Spanish/French Competitions most years (I think I skipped one year each because of conflicts). This isn't hugely relevant though because I didn't place.</p>

<p>National French and Spanish Honor Societies, as well as National Honor Society and Mu Alpha Theta.</p>

<p>Leadership Positions:
Vice-President of the french club this year, will try for NHS Secretary and something in the other honor societies as well.</p>

<p>So, if there's any advice you could give me on something I may try to improve or any opinions on which of those colleges you feel are reasonable, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for your time!</p>

2

<p>check these programs out</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ppe/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ppe/&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.denison.edu/departments/ppe/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.denison.edu/departments/ppe/&lt;/a>
<a href="http://programs.academic.claremontmckenna.edu/ppe/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://programs.academic.claremontmckenna.edu/ppe/&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/courses/ppec.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/courses/ppec.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>Thanks a lot, I'd never heard of that program until now. I'll definately look into it some more.</p>

<p>Anyone have any opinion on my chances on the listed schools?</p>

4

<p>Okay, so personally, this is how I see it all, you will appear to some colleges to be stretching yourself to thin by taking an "overwhelming" course load and thus some colleges will be fearful of taking you with an assumption that after two years of extreme courses you will be burned out. Nonetheless, other colleges on your list will appreciate this gusto. Also, good job on the community service, but when applying to forget to show that you truly have a commitment and enjoy your service. However, your EC's demonstrate that these AP courses take up so much of your courseload that you have no time to branch out into a wide variety of clubs, which sometimes can hurt you since it appears that three of the six clubs you listed (at least from what I got, SHS, NHS, FHS), you were only in because of strong performance in Spanish, French, or in general, thus you were not the spark for joining these clubs, and thus you're going to have to play more on your language clubs and tennis since it is these three clubs which you obviously demonstrate a pure likeness for.
Okay, now for the numbers, don't worry about your GPA in general because the school in particular will account for your school's system specifically and will only compare you to your competition, namely your classmates. Also, you're comfortably in the top 5%, so your golden with that. Finally, your SAT's are very comfortable scores, but if you feel the need to retake, go for it (unless this will be your fourth one at which i recommend you do not take because colleges will perceive this as you wasting your time on tests). Also, I have found SAT II's to be considerably important in my college results as well as my friends, so do not overlook these scores in the slightest, although I must say I'm sort of puzzled that your third SAT II choice is not french or spanish since you have demonstrated a likeness for it, but if you'd rather go for literature I'm not holding you back.
So with all that said, I feel this:
ACCEPTED:
Vanderbilt
Rice
Stanford (if you live in California this is especially likely)
Duke (your connections should seal the deal)
Wake Forest
UT - Austin
Northwestern (though you could be waitlisted)
Geroge Washington</p>

<p>WAITLISTED:
WU in St. Louis
U of Chicago (too technical and self-selective)
Georgetown (not enough EC's)</p>

<p>REJECTED:
UVA (could have a chance if you live Virginia)
Princeton (hmmmmm, that's just how they are can't predict anything
from them)</p>

<p>Okay many of these can change based on geographical location and ethnicity, cause many schools will not accept you just because of your distance. Also, living in California, Virginia, New Jersey, or some obscure state with a population less than 3 million could help you. Finally, your ethnicity can always help, so good luck w/ everything.
And btw, regardless of everything said I would blindly recommend Georgetown to you, I feel no school is more effective and more renowned for teaching both poli sci and econ, so if you looking for both strong and rigorous academics Georgetown is the place to be. So once again good luck, I know the pressure you're feeling, senior year is just about done for me, so just think of it as one more year.</p>

5

<p>Do you think I need to add some safety schools to the list in place of some of the reaches? Also, do you think it would be worth it to apply ED to Princeton, or should I use it on another school that I have a more realistic shot at?</p>

<p>Thanks all!</p>

6

<p>What an incredibly random group of schools. I say in at all besides UVA (OOS?), Princeton, and Stanford.</p>

7

<p>Yeah, it's pretty random - they're the ones I know about and that I feel I would be happy at. If you've got any suggestions of schools I'm overlooking, they'd be much appreciated.</p>

<p>And yes, out of state. I'm a white male from Texas.</p>