<p>Stats:
SAT (retaking): M:670 CR:600 W:610
GPA (overall): 5.47 on a 5 point scale
GPA (unweighted): 4.9 on a 5 point scale
ACT: 25 (not even bothering with this test)
Rank: 25 out of 604, placing me in the top 4.1% of my class</p>
<p>EC’s:
Speech Team Captain
German Club
Math Team</p>
<p>Awards:
Nation Honors Society
Math, English, German National Honors Society
VFW Scholarship winner in my local VFW Auxillery
Presented speech on Memorial Day to my town</p>
<p>Really nice recs:
German teacher
Member of my state’s senate
Math teacher</p>
<p>Somebody on here will inevitably say “who knows? you might get accepted, at least try!” but in this case, with an 1880 it doesn’t seem as if you even have a chance. I would shoot for a school with lower accepted stats or maybe an SAT-optional school.</p>
<p>And that “shoot for the moon” quote isn’t applicable here.</p>
<p>They affect his chances, which I believe is really more of what the OP was asking. I’m sure the OP wants to know if his application will be tossed at the outset or if he would be more secure in applying.</p>
<p>Of course I think <em>anyone who wants to go to Brown should apply</em>. But no one here really has the ability to say “yes, it’s worth a shot” or “no, you don’t look like you’ll make it through” without more information.</p>
<p>Male vs. female correlates with field of study. Men studying dance are hard to come by, as are females studying physics. Universities, even Brown, are interested in diversity. So does location. Female physicists from Alaska are probably pretty rare. Same line of thinking.</p>
<p>Also, the state senator recommendation sounds interesting. So does delivering a speech to the town. Indicates a small town. Pretty rare at Brown; most kids are urban or suburban. How does one get to know a state senator? A powerful family (a hook)… or, having done interesting deeds (also a hook).</p>
<p>So… don’t assume that a list of EC’s and grades is enough. Maybe I’m reading into it, and that’s about as much as the OP has to offer. Maybe I’m on the right track, and the OP has more to offer than the standard list that everyone else churns out.</p>
<p>Yes, this could have a modest impact. But admissions officers recognize that students are likely to change their majors, so putting much stock into the selection is unwise.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that I made that assumption; instead, I offered a reasonable assessment based on what was provided. We have to trust those requesting chancings (or in this case, an indication of whether it is worth it to apply) to provide any information of significant relevance.</p>
<p>Look, just because many CCers have been members since they were freshmen (in your case) or 8th graders (in my case) and have amassed a lot a sophistication about the admissions process, doesn’t mean every poster knows how much information to provide.</p>
<p>It’s pretty common to ask follow-up questions on chances threads as well.</p>
<p>You don’t know how adcoms rate geographical and interest information, but we do know that they rate them and it only makes sense for us to ask so that we can try to be as informative as possible.</p>
<p>When I get the sense that the creater of a chance thread is mostly ignorant about the process, I definitely ask lots of follow-up questions. I didn’t get that sense here, and this isn’t even a chance thread. Nonetheless, asking for background about the senator recommendation seems perfectly appropriate to me. But asking whether the OP had any of the typical hooks (and then explaining that concept more if the OP was unfamiliar with the term) would have been a more relevant question, had this been a chance thread. </p>
<p>Please don’t construe my intent as hostile; my main goal was to not falsely lead the OP into thinking that applying was not worthwhile, which was his or her question.</p>