<p>I’ve lost interest in everything. I just want Princeton. NOW.</p>
<p>@Ambitious19: Thanks for the reassurance. I read your stats you had posted earlier in the thread. You have very unique ECs and excellent scores. While they say they don’t care about the major you choose, it is a fact that if you pick an unusual major and have activities supporting it, it will make you an unique candidate and increases your chances of admission. I hope all of us get in…</p>
<p>Princeton is 100% need blind. Admissions do not know or worry about whether you can pay out of pocket. Their endowment is something like $2M/student, they could afford to let every single student attend for free and still come out ahead at the end of the year just on investment growth.</p>
<p>You cannot look at admission rates for a population and apply it directly to yourself, because your application is not that population. Similarly, you cannot look at admission rates for several schools and determine your chance of admission to at least one of them, because the applications are not independent events (they are very closely related - they are all describing the same applicant). For example, someone winning a national science competition will have close to 100% chance of admission everywhere; someone with below average grades and test scores and no special ECs will have close to 0% chance of admission at any top (Ivy+) school.</p>
<p>If your hard numbers AND your Other Stuff (ECs, recommendations, essays, etc.) are on par with other admitted students from past years, then you probably have a reasonable chance of admission. (If you know that much about admitted students, you may be a stalker.)</p>
<p>Imagine that you are on the Admission Committee reading your application, and presuming you are at least minimally competitively academically qualified for Princeton (for example, 3.8+ UW, 2150+), ask yourself: Would this student improve our school if she comes here? What does she bring to our community that we don’t already have in abundance? What sets you apart, grabs attention? Because at that level, everybody else already has the standard good grades and test scores and varsity letter and leadership position in a club or two.</p>
<p>What do you guys think “standout” extra-curriculars are? Business owner? Student Government President? Research? I feel like they are all very subjective and hard to get a feel for if you don’t know the involved person on a more intimate level… but I guess that is what letters of rec are for </p>
<p>Hey guys! I’m new to this thread, but I also applied scea to Princeton and I’m nervously awaiting the results. </p>
<p>Personally, I feel like I’m a qualified candidate, but I’m not exceptional. I feel like I’m pretty “normal” and Princeton only has enough space for the outstanding. I just hope that I shine through somehow:/</p>
<p>@Starbucksluvr Same here. I feel that I am competitive, I have a chance, but I’m nowhere near “extraordinary”. </p>
<p>Hey everyone! Should I be worried if I didnt receive any emails about financial aid? Does that mean they already threw out my app? I sent everything in on time though … What do you think? </p>
<p>If you sent in everything on time, they don’t have a reason to send you an email – definitely not a cause for worry.</p>
<p>@PrincetonPls
Princeton like it when you are the best at one thing on a national level (I obtained this information from a private college counselor), such as an editor-in-chief who’s also a published writer or an Intel Science winner, or something of that nature. </p>
<p>This Princeton adcom said it’s better to have only 4 or 5 ECs.</p>
<p>Ambitious, You are a genius!</p>
<p>Anxiety is at an all time high. I haven’t been able to do any productive work, I turned in a perfunctory history term paper, and I had an anxiety dream about ending up at my local community college last night. The 15th cannot come soon enough</p>
<p>Wait so filling up all 10 EC spots is bad? I have sort of unrelated EC’s but I feel like I did too much in them to not put them down</p>
<p>@ilovethecity @HPClee I second that point. I have 4/5 extracurriculars that really show my passion (no national level but that’s because I never really got the opportunity - nobody from my school does), but I also put down 5 others that are still significant time commitments that I have leadership positions on (president of clubs etc). </p>
<p>Is it bad if I don’t really have any activity related to my major? I just did things I wanted to try out in HS.</p>
<p>Do you think that getting a letter from a state senator congratulating me on a research program I am part of is significant? Should I include that in future apps?</p>
<p>yeah i never went national level in anything for a variety of reasons but I still spent a lot of time on my main EC and went way above and beyond anything anyone from my school’s done in that EC, hopefully they compare me to past/present kids from my school…went ahead and filled up the other slots (spent a few on various iterations of that EC) with other significant time commitments/high-achievement but unrelated ECs</p>
<p>Santaman1: Haha I am NOT a genius…my grade in Calc right now can attest to that! Honestly, my intelligence is mediocre at best. I guess I’m just very opportunistic (a lot of people have told me that I would fit in at Penn…) and ambitious! </p>
<p>HPClee: I wouldn’t worry too much about extracurriculars lining up with your prospective major! I’m sure most admitted students simply pursued the things they loved in high school, regardless of whether or not it was related to what they wanted to study. For example, my friend got into Yale early last year even though she put down “undecided” for her major! Colleges understand that we’re teenagers and we may not have decided what we want to pursue for the rest of our lives.</p>
<p>Ahhh love all the stats compiled on this thread. </p>
<p>@Ambitious19 </p>
<p>What is your grade out of a 100? I got a 90 as a quarter average for AP Spanish, and I am scared if this will affect my admission in the RD round…what do you guys think?</p>
<p>Hi guys asian male reporting in. I’ve been lurking for a long time haha…would you guys mind giving my stats a quick look? been debating posting for a while, and trying not to let my hopes get up. </p>
<p>2320, 36, 790 ush, 800: math2/physics/chem/bio m, eight 5’s in bc calc/physics b+c:mech/stats/bio/chem/ush/compsci a (physics, calc, and cs were self-studied)</p>
<p>extracurriculars are pretty broad, from writing and music to engineering and academic trivia (some leadership, but basically same activities for all of high school). Volunteering is in very similar stuff. Had some summer research in computer modeling one summer, and coded a game another summer.</p>
<p>awards: an esoteric national engineering test, nmsf, aime, tiny bit of science olympiad </p>
<p>Thank you :)</p>