SAT I/II, EC questions, chances at schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>Hi, I would appreciate an honest appraisal for a white male from a good public school in NJ.</p>

<p>2270 SAT - 800V 710M 760W, took once, retaking in october. I hope to shoot for the 800 writing this time, because I wasn't happy with my essay last march, and the score reflected it. Whatever math improvement i could make would be wonderful, but i probably won't be picking up more than 20-30 points, as i'm more the humanities type.</p>

<p>My SAT IIs are a bit of a problem - 760 American History, which is fine, but 690 Math IIc, which i wasn't prepared for and almost backed out of, and 670 lit, which baffled and appalled me, as i walked out thinking i aced it, and friends I spoke with who had similar answers scored in the high 700s. There's a chance I messed up on the scantron. In any event, I'll retake them in November. Most colleges require three SAT IIs, though, and I'm not confident I'll do much better on the Math IIc, as I won't have much time (or desire, heh) for adequate preparation... so should I take Math Ic? Or both?</p>

<p>Class rank-wise, I'm 14/210. This is seriously unimpressive for the caliber of schools i plan to apply to, I realize. However, I went up 8 places since the end of freshman year and have made strides in combating my insane laziness. Additionally, my schedule is fairly rigorous and I've never taken any academic classes but honors ones and AP History, which I scored a 5 on.</p>

<p>My senior year schedule includes AP LA, AP French, AP Calc, and Honors World Civ. I will have taken every AP test my school offers besides Spanish and three sciences, which I detest.</p>

<p>ECs:</p>

<p>Editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, which was ranked #1 in the country by some bulll**** Quill and Scroll competition, I believe</p>

<p>Captain of Academic Team, which won the regional competition and placed 4th in the state for the past two years</p>

<p>NJ All-State Chorus member</p>

<p>Section leader of concert choir, men's choir, and traveling chamber singer chorus</p>

<p>Have gotten leads/large roles in past school musicals</p>

<p>Defense lawyer for mock trial team, which sucked. If i don't do it this year, should I leave it off my apps? </p>

<p>I was involved in none of the above activities freshman year. Will this hurt me? The only thing I was involved in was soccer 9th and 10th grade. Should I leave this off also, as I quit the team?</p>

<p>There are also little things like contributions to the literary magazine, secretary of international club, and a very half-hearted go at forensics. Would these dilute my ECs? How good are they, anyway?</p>

<p>I'm thinking of applying ED to Amherst. My class rank will almost certainly go up as I have reformed somewhat from hazy, druggy earlier years, so should I wait until RD? Or leave a note on the application saying "feel free to defer me if you're not sure about my grades"?</p>

<p>Full list of schools:
Amherst
Brown
Dartmouth
UPenn (Liberal Arts)
NYU
Duke (never seen it, but Durham sounds interesting. is it anything like the other schools on my list?)</p>

<p>and Georgetown. My father and aunt both went to graduate school there, while my uncle went to undergrad, and does admissions interviews in my area. Does this make me a legacy? If so, how strong of one?</p>

<p>What are my chances at these schools? Sorry for the long post, and thanks for your help in advance.</p>

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<p>bumpity.....</p>

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<p>good idea about the note--don't let them flat out reject you. don't offer to be deferred either--just have ur GC attach a note saying he/she is improving and it is understandable if an offer of admission is too much of a risk for you with this student, however he/she is so interested and studious he/she will bring up his grades to (blank) GPA this semester and we urge you to reconsder him/her at this time as he/she will be a more competitive applicant. He/She is sincerely interested and doesn't want his/her shaky beginnings to influence what hjas truly been a cinderella story. corny, maybe word it diferently but do you see what i mean?</p>

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<p>anyone else?</p>

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<p>The note sounds like a bad idea, since confidence is a good thing. I see virtually no chance of a flat-out rejection early. Can you prep a language or science SAT II, even though you don't like those subjects? Subject tests are your only real weakness.</p>

<p>I'm no expert on Duke but in everything except climate I don't think it's very different from your other schools. You should send away for their application materials, there's a really impressive 70-page viewbook they send with it.</p>

<p>My pretty ad hoc estimates (I get the feeling you're a good writer and fairly personable, so I'm taking that into account).</p>

<p>Penn
Brown
Amherst
Duke
Slight Reach (in that these schools are close to HYP in crapshootedness)</p>

<p>Georgetown
Match (maybe safety-match given legacy)</p>

<p>NYU
Safety (not super safety though)</p>

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<p>NYU a safety? please.</p>

<p>Georgetown is not a safety either in the slightest.</p>

<p>saw the stats.</p>

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<p>Amherst - Slight reach
Brown - Slight reach
Dartmouth - Slight reach
Penn - Reach
NYU - Safe match
Duke - Slight reach
Gtown - Safe match</p>

<p>Safe match = practically a safety, but it would be misinformed of me to call a great school like NYU or Gtown a true "safety".</p>

<p>And by the way, Gtown won't be considering the SAT writing score. I'm not sure of the other schools' policies, though.</p>

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<p>Georgetown is about as hard as Amherst, and you call it a safety? </p>

<p>NYU gets an incredible amount of applicants. a school with that many applicants is no safety. UCLA is safety for no one.</p>

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<p>Where is UCLA in all of this?! Random...</p>

<p>And I hope you weren't talking to me about Gtown being a safety. So I'll just ignore that.</p>

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<p>yea i was talking to you. how the f is georgetown a safety for anyone when its one of the most competitive schools in the country beisdes ivies/stanford/mit.</p>

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<p>Okay. I'm going to refer you back to the post you responded to. The one in which I said I would never call a school like NYU or Gtown a true safety.</p>

<p>(Cue pointing and laughing)</p>

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<p>wow.. um.. thanks for bickering on my behalf, i guess? anyway, could applying early to amherst hurt me? there's another complication in all of this.. my school is getting rid of class rank, and they're offering my class the option of reporting an exact rank or just top 5%, 10%, etc. now, if i pick up a couple spots this year, which is quite possible... i wind up in the top 5%, and i could theoretically have that be the only rank reported to schools i apply regular decision.. see my dilemma?</p>

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<p>well for one thing, u didnt even tell us ur GPA. ur SAT score is great and ECs arent bad. i say:
penn, brown, amherst, duke are all reaches for u (when i say reaches, i mean most likely ull get rejected)
NYU is a safe match, while georgetown is jus a match for u.</p>

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<p>ok *** is a safe match? a safe match is a safety. someone define a safe match.</p>

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<p>it's 4.2 weighted i believe, but how does that prove anything? every school is totally different GPA-wise, how could you possibly evaluate any more based on that?</p>

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<p>and as for the additional sat II, no, i can't. i'm gonna have to count on raising lit and getting a math in the 700s... i think i could do mid 700s with Ic, as i havent had a good high school education in math at all, which i imagine one would need for the IIc.. i'll just take lit and both maths though, to be safe</p>

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<p>Safe match- a match for little children to play with.</p>

<p>Ok I'm bored...I should go read my Calc stuff...bleh..</p>

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<p>Hahah. Nice.</p>

<p>blocparty - lit is supposed to be really hard. You may want to consider a different SAT II - either in place of or to supplement literature.</p>

<p>Applying early won't hurt. Being in the top 10% will not get you rejected; they would probably defer you if they don't like what they see. In that case, you can update them later and tell them you are now in the top 5%, and it'll show that you are willing to put effort into getting into Amherst - or whichever school you apply early to.</p>

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<p>young man, you are too misguided to be giving admissions advice. but whatever. let the OP think georgetown is a safety and get rejected. not my problem.</p>

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<p>my problem!</p>