<p>Senior
Caucasian male: 17
School: Private, college prep
Rank: suspected 2/370, but my school doesn't report</p>
<p>GPA (W): 4.5-4.7 depending on how you count it (only one B one semester ever, and every possible honors/AP course. there is, however, a non-honors religion course every year that throws things out of order, hence the range)
GPA (U/W): virtually 4.0 (see above)
SAT: 2240 out of 2400 (780 math, 710 Reading, 750 Writing)
SAT II: World history: 730 (i think, doesn't really matter), Math II 800, Chem 790
AP Scores:
World History: 5
European history: 3 (only took world history)
Chemistry: 5
American History: 5</p>
<p>Senior Courseload:
A religion course (read:ignore)
AP Bio
AP Lit
Honors band
AP Government
AP Physics
AP Calc</p>
<p>Extra Circular Activites
-3 years of a youth and government program, involving weekly meetings and 3 weekend-long conferences, including a full mock legistature and court
-4 years of mathletes (potentially president this year)
- COSMOS month long UC based science camp (involved living in the dorms)
-4 years of band (3 years honors) (honestly not very good however)
-3 years of Big Brothers (mentoring program for a near-by underprivilaged elementary school)
- Will probably compete in the Academic decathalon this year
-(might by N/A but...) 5 week long experience in europe this summer, followed by 2 week long hosting of a French foreign exchange student</p>
<p>So, based on the above, what would your guess be as to whether I can get into Harvey Mudd or not?</p>
<p>(P.S. if there are any spelling errors, it's because I didn't spell check. Sorry.)</p>
<p>O yes, and 3 mathletes "top of class awards," 2 Science departmental awards, and 1 Math departmental award (departmental award meaning that I was named the top student of my class each year in that subject.)</p>
<p>Above average shot at admission. I would say its a match / low reach. But make sure you are really passionate about what you do, and you aren't just doing things for the sake of college. And let that passion shine through your essays.</p>
<p>Thanks! That's quite reassuring coming from a Mudder (I browsed your other posts). And I'm definitely passionate about my sciences :) (though as to what I want to specialize in...not so definite). The extracurriculars that I do are done with college in mind but college is not the reason I do what I do. I do them because I enjoy them.</p>
<p>When I originally applied to Harvey Mudd I considered it might safety. based on what I had heard I "knew" I would get in. It was not until after I visited the place on Admitted Students weekend that I realized how close I had cut, in fact it was probably a mild reach for me. Just because you think it was your safety does not make it so; a safety is a school you will apply to in case all else fails, and since Mudd routinely rejects people of similar stats (though perhaps lesser ECs) you cannot make that claim. True your chances for admissions could have been solid, but thats what defines 'match' not safety. However 2400 SAT/19 5's on APs/USAMO captains can place Mudd on their safety list and i will not be too offended.</p>
<p>"I'm a white male with stats not much better, and Harvey Mudd was my safety."</p>
<p>I'm surprised through your mathematical endeavours that such a logical fallacy as this would slip through your fingers, Mathwiz.
Because you CLAIMED that HMC was your safety and you happen to get in doesn't mean that the OP will have a similar fate. You could have called Mudd your match and had gotten in with just the same chances. What you call is what you call it but Mudd is not a safety school for ANYONE. </p>
<p>For a student of score N:</p>
<p>Given an applicant pool of size X,an admitted pool of size Y, a mean applicant score of M, and an an applicant standard deviation of s:</p>
<p>2*[sum(1/(Y-x) from x=1 to X ] * CDF[(N-M)/s]</p>
<p>where the CDF is the cumulative distribution function for a bell curve.</p>
<p>For mudd, X=~1900 , Y=~680
CDF for OP is roughly 0.5 if in the middle of the accepted pack.</p>
<p>Thus 0.88*0.5=0.44. Roughly 44% chance for someone with "mudd-average" stats.</p>
<p>Well Harvey Mudd is a young college that has only been around for about 60 years. Perhaps your counselor was thinking HMC still had the same admissions standards 30 years ago as it did today, I really cannot say. However when I told HMC was my backup she told me:</p>
<p>"Sorry to say, but Harvey Mudd is a back up nobody, not even Austin, [a kid who had a 2400 SAT score, a 4.0 UW GPA with a weighted rank 3rd out of 400 students in a top public school]."</p>
<p>She also has many decades of experience, but being from Southern California she probably knows the local places quite well. </p>
<p>Now I hope you understand that I am not attacking your character or anything, just arguing against the general perception that Harvey Mudd is just slightly difficult to get into. Keep in mind we have like the 5th highest avg SAT score of all colleges/universities and 1st in the LAC category, all while putting forth a ridiculously URM-loving admissions standards. I wonder what the median SAT score is for our white male population; the overall is like 2200.</p>
<p>AT, try not to be so harsh on the guy. Lets face it, Harvey Mudd is just that kind of place. We are constantly fighting ignorance when feeling pride in where we go cuz it has a crap name for the layman. True, my father's billionaire boss declared me a genius after hearing that I got in and offered to throw me a party ("they wouldnt even let me within 5 miles of that campus with my SAT scores") but to everybody else they are like "sounds cool, where is that." A majority of ppl think Pepperdine is hard to get into. And then when all else fails we mention getting into Berkeley, The Ivies, or MIT and they take off their panties....wait what? You should be used to dealing with minor cases of ignorance regarding out school and our prestige, no need to bash.</p>
<p>And you mathwiz, to follow up on my previous statement, just because your counselor accurately predicted your college results does not mean she was right on why. You show good charisma in your other posts and a generally friendly tone and if you showed half of that in your essays, with your stats it would be no surprise that you got into your matchs and even some reaches. And on a final note, if you got rejected from MIT then there is no way in hell you could call Mudd a safety; thats just how it is. (unless I am thinking of someone else; ur going to Olin correct?)</p>
<p>Haha, Seiken. I was at a local state school last night partying. Girls would ask where I went and I would say "Harvey Mudd College" and they'd think it was some terrible state school and ask if it was even in my state. My friend and I agreed that I'd just say Stanford after a while since it's somewhat comparable for undergraduate studies. Once I started saying that people were like "Wow, Stanford!!!" and "Stanford kids party?? Wow!!" etc.</p>
<p>And about mathwiz, I bashed because he said ignorant statements but then just kept making even dumber posts when we tried to correct his ignorance. It would be one thing if it were in some general forum, but it's in HARVEY MUDD'S forum. If you're going to make ignorant statements about a school in the school's forum then you should expect to get flamed. Saying a school is a safety is a joke when it is tied for most selective LAC and probably harder to get into than a couple ivy schools.</p>