<p>Common App: I talked about how I love physics because it provides me with challenges, and how I feel content when challenged.</p>
<p>Supplement: Quotation, discussed cross country and the culture of helping one another. </p>
<p>One more week! </p>
<p>Hey just a thought that could perhaps lead to some discussion in the thread - do you guys think Princeton cares more about your academics (gpa, test scores, etc) or what sets you apart through essays/ecs/lotrs? I always kind of thought of academics as qualifiers - in that once you pass a certain threshold they don’t really matter nearly as much as the rest of your application.</p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>
<p>@princetonpls I’ve also thought of Princeton (and most top tier schools for that matter) similarly. I guess there’s no way of knowing whether in the nitty gritty portion of narrowing down the pool they’d actually take someone over another person based solely on hard stats, but I feel like that doesn’t make much sense?</p>
<p>@IVYleagueIntel welcome to CC! I too wanted to write something about reconciling science and religion. In the end I didn’t go with it because I never did reconcile them 
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<p>Wow, you guys have such great topics! So interesting 
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<p>I wrote my Common App about my bioinformatics internship over the summer at Stanford, and how “designing” such software requires some same skills as some of my other extracurriculars. Kind of broad, but that was the main idea.
My supplement was the typical quote essay, and I quoted a line from this postmodernist play that I read in ELAP that I absolutely adored! And then I tied that into my fascination with science.
And lastly, for my engineering supplement I talked about big data and information deluge. EC essay was about newspaper, and summer essays reiterated what I did during my past two internships. All were pretty standard. </p>
<p>I’m relying heavily on my essays to slide me in, but aaaaaah I’m 99% sure I’m getting deferred. The 1% is just some crazy hopeful tidbit. </p>
<p>@mcfrankshc thanks for your warm welcome! Honestly, I didn’t reconcile them either - that was the conclusion of my essay. I wrote that to expect myself to solve this age old probem would be a bit ridiculous, after all, I am only 17! However, I do take comfort in the knowledge that they can be reconcile and that they can work together, and I hope to further explore this topic throughout college and the rest if my life. </p>
<p>I don’t blame you for not writing about it though - this was really the hardest essay I have eever written! Your essays sounded great! Just out of curiousity, (you totally do not have to answer this if you feel uncomfortable) of what faith are you?</p>
<p>I heard there’s a pretty cool jewish club at princeton. Something my tour guide mentioned! I personally have no faith (though I’m not the one you asked lol) but I think it would be really cool to participate in all these different clubs to expand my world view!</p>
<p>@PrincetonPls <a href=“http://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds2013.pdf”>http://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds2013.pdf</a> according to this, rank, GPA, course rigor, test scores, essays, and recs are all given very high consideration in the app process, as well as personal qualities and talent.</p>
<p>@PrincetonPls yes, they have a huge Center for Jewish Life at Princeton, which I visited in September and fell in love with! If we both get in, I would be happy to show you around (look at me, planning for something that probably won’t happen haha). But regardless, you should definitely check out the hillel at any college you go to - Judaism is a fascinating religion (in my humble, totally biased opinion). </p>
<p>@hopefulperson Very interesting - I’ve never seen that before! Looks like academics take priority in their eyes. Not sure how I feel about that… Then again, the rubric is filled very subjectively and we know for a fact that people with worse academics but great ec/rec/essays can get in. </p>
<p>Looks like in the end it’s a crapshoot (who knew, right?) so I guess we’ll find out on the 15th.</p>
<p>Eight more days :(( :(( I have a bunch of tests this week and then 2 finals the day results come out, this won’t be pretty</p>
<p>@IVYLeagueIntel I would be happy to take you up on that - and psh, what are you talking about? Of course we’ll get in! ;)</p>
<p>Common app: How I went with my dad to a job interview at 7/11 and how he faced age and race discrimination. </p>
<p>Activity essay: On a mentoring program I started</p>
<p>Supplement: Woodrow Wilson quote. I wrote about how meeting Hilary Clinton and participating in a national service fellowship made me realize that individuals can make a difference. </p>
<p>@IVYleagueIntel I’m Christian, but I’ve had considerable exposure to most major faiths. My high school is incredibly diverse - I think we have some 70% visible minorities, with students from Chinese, Iranian, Jewish, Persian, Jordanian, Korean, Indian etc background. </p>
<p>I know Christians have a reputation for being intolerant, but that’s not always true. During a summer entrepreneurship program I attended, my roommate was a Saudi Arabian Muslim. He had an app on his iPhone to tell him which direction is Mecca (he wakes up in the middle of the night and prays facing Mecca). We got along just fine, and we’re still friends to this date </p>
<p>On my essays, I honestly don’t know if they have enough “depth”. I write my essays in a more “witty” style, and their messages are often quite simple and straightforward. For my woodworking one, I just talked about why I liked woodworking, the woodworking process, and how a piece of wood is to me what a canvas is to a painter. I hope woodworking is unique enough that adcoms will remember it. </p>
<p>Wow they use the sat/act essays when considering your app? Uh oh…</p>
<p>@HPClee lol my SAT essay was so crappy. I got perfect on all the questions and still scored 720. Guess it was my bad day.</p>
<p>@mcfrankshc I heard writing doesn’t matter as much as the other sections though so it might not affect things much</p>
<p>@HPClee Don’t worry! Colleges only use the SAT essay score to verify that your personal essays were truly written by you! If there are any severe discrepancies, like if you received a 4 on the essay but wrote brilliant and compelling personal essays, that raises a red flag. They might think that you hired someone else to write your college essays for you. I’d say that a score of 8+ on the essay is totally fine, and that there’s nothing to panic about!</p>
<p>I only thought the ACT had 2 pages for the essay so I wrote 2 pages. And then I turned the page… TT.TT
Oh and btw, do they count recruited athletes in the number of early acceptances? I thought that since they don’t fill out applications and they get notified at different times they wouldn’t count.</p>
<p>@HPClee Yup, recruited athletes are included in the number of early acceptances, which makes the early acceptance rate inflated. They actually do fill out applications and write essays and get teacher recs, even though their acceptance is guaranteed. </p>