<p>I think your love of languages is a big plus, and you should make the most of it. Perhaps mention it in one of your essays, even if it is not the main topic. </p>
<p>What I suggest you do is to identify one (or two) safety that you can truly love. these would be schools that would not blink at your GPA and scores. They do exist! Then build your list from that. If you have a couple of true safeties, you can take more risks with the rest of your list, i.e. hope that the adcoms will look beyond that GPA and see your strengths. But as long as you do not have a safety (and I repeat, it’s only a safety if you would be happy attending it), it’s difficult to suggest more schools.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot, guys! That was actually a pretty big concern for me, believe it or not. Also, since only two years of Greek are offered at my school (first year is standard, second is AP), should I mention that in my essay or ask for that to be put into the councelor rec? Basically, it was twice as rigorous (one year more or less equates to two normal ones), because there weren’t enough students interested to warrant varrying “levels” per se, and the Latin teacher is the same as the Greek one (he’s the only person that can teach both classes).</p>
<p>Also, in regard to the essay; I was thinking that I would give a short synopsis of my freshman/sophomore year issues and then meld that into my newly found invigoration for learning, especially in the linguistics area. I think it would be fairly easy to integrate my foreign language aptitude into that. Thoughts?</p>
<p>P.S. I’m working on the safties! TBH, I’d rather attend a safety LAC than a university. At least at an LAC I can get a more personal experience.</p>
<p>Thank you guys again for all the amazing advice.</p>
<p>The essay topic sounds fine, as long as the positive outshines the negative.</p>
<p>When I took Ancient Greek, lo many years ago, there were only 5 of us by second year (also taught by the Latin teacher) and we had great fun discussing Greek drama, philosophy, mythology as well as doing translations.</p>
<p>Of course, I don’t want to make the essay gloomy. =] Like I said, it would be a <em>short</em> synopsis. =P</p>
<p>Anyway, we never really discussed much philosophy. We did deal with a lot of myths, though. Not so much drama either. Can’t say I really enjoyed that aspect, though. I had the same problem with Latin. I understand that you have to have a grasp on the culture to fathom the language, but it seemed like my teacher was too focused on the culture as opposed to the language. I guess that wasn’t his fault though, as pretty much everything he taught us was on the NLE. It’s just that I don’t get what purpose memorizing the gates of Pompeii has or burning the images of the forum into your retinas serves. But that’s just me, lol.</p>
<p>If you have a good relationship with your Latin/Greek teacher, he will be a good choice of recommender. You could then also ask him to address the rigor of the class…</p>
<p>That’s too bad, Penn Lover. We discussed Plato, Socrates, civil disobedience, the idea of fate, the Trojan War, and many other topics. That was why Ancient Greek was more fun than Latin. But I did not have to content with NLE (this was a French lycee). Anyway, nngmm has a very good suggestion.</p>
<p>there are some very good LACs where being a male will work to your advantage (Grinnell, Skidmore, Vassar, and probably some others). They are not safeties, but are worth looking into, even if the location is not very attractive to you.</p>
<p>Well I’m glad you enjoyed your class so much, marite. I don’t mean to insinuate that I didn’t like mine – because, trust me, I loved it – but I just don’t go for all the culture content. Enough to understand the context of the language is fine, but if I wanted a deep discussion of Rome or Greece then I would have taken Classical Civilizations. I’d much rather be writing, learning new words, or working to memorize that ridiculous amount of inflection, lol.</p>
<p>nngmm: That is a very good idea. Unfortunately, I had my two teacher recs panned out for the head of the Social Studies Dept. and the Language Arts Dept. Would there be a place I could submit a third rec?</p>
<p>EDIT: I’ll definitely look into those colleges. However, I believe Grinnell is an extremely liberal campus? Can anyone confirm? I’m liberal, but not anywhere close to the “far left”, and I some of the stuff they aspouse completely turns me off. I don’t think I could live on campus with that for an extended period of time.</p>
<p>Envision your folder on the table in the admissions meeting. Your area rep starts with “This is Pennguy, he has strong scores, some blips in the grades that he covers… any questions?”<br>
vs.
“This is Pennguy, he has strong scores, some blips in the grades, wants to study languages, not only did Latin but studies Greek!, how cool is that?? We have a letter here from Dr Z in the humanities dept saying that Pennguy has talked to him about his ancient language research field and ways to meld it into modern electonic communications.” (OK, I made that up for example)
Anything you do to make you unique will help at this point.</p>
<p>Many schools will read all the recommendations you will send, so it will be fine to have 3, but I am sure that you can tell one of the other teachers you’ve asked that you decided to ask someone else, since he is more familiar with your work, and knows you better. I doubt that they will be offended.
When choosing the teacher to write your rec, the most important is that this teacher knows you well, and LOVES you. This is especially true in your case, when there is a less-then-stellar track record to overcome. The best recommendations are very personal, and include specific examples and anecdotes, and talk about you as a person. It is not important if the teacher is the head of the department. It is important that he/she has something special to say about you.</p>
<p><em>A</em> supplementation, as in just one?</p>
<p>You guys make good points with the teacher rec. My Latin/Greek teacher loves me, and I could get a very strong rec from him. TBH, I simply hadn’t thought of that, because I assumed the Department Head would be more… I don’t know… affluent?</p>
<p>Dragonmom: You also gave me an idea! My mother, as I stated earlier, works for the school district and frequently coordinates with the Department Chairs over the entire district. I’ve spoken with the “World Languages” (foreign somehow has negative connotations nowadays…) Chair a fair bit and like him a lot. I’m pretty confident I could get a rec from him if I asked. I’m assuming that would be beneficial? Might as well exhaust all options, lol.</p>
<p>My S sent four recommendations: one humanities teacher, one math/science, one director at a math program he attended and one from his research mentor.</p>
<p>There’s a saying in the admissions busienss: thick folder, thick kid.</p>
<p>Another rule with recs: get them from people who know you well, not from VIPs/folks with impressive titles.</p>
<p>Well, like I said, I’ve talked to him a lot. We have very much in common, and, while I obviously didn’t see him on a regular basis, I am confident that he would be able to write a very good rec.</p>
<p>Penn Lover: I concur with those who say that you should get recs from people who know you well and can write about you in a very personal way. A letter that says little more than “PennLover is an excellent student is not going to do the trick”, no matter how exalted the recommender may be. This is why recs by members of Congress, CEOs, etc… and far less persuasive than letters by a teacher who has known the student for a whole year, can give some very specific examples of why the student is so stellar, etc…
As well, each letter should carry its weight. You don’t need many. You need detailed, knowledgeable and enthusiastic ones.</p>
<p>My son also had four recommendations. Latin teacher, Physics teacher, boss at the computer firm he worked for freelance for two years, and a med. school professor that he did a computer project for. We saw the prof’s letter, he was very specific about the project, where it was published and how impressed he was with how fast my son did a project that his grad students didn’t know how to do.</p>
<p>I’d be careful about referring to Greek II as “AP” on your applications, since it is not listed by College Board as an AP exam. I don’t know why your school listed it as an AP course. My son also took Ancient Greek (as well as Latin) and there was never any mention of AP status for the Greek classes.</p>
I don’t mean to insinuate that I didn’t like mine – because, trust me, I loved it – but I just don’t go for all the culture content. Enough to understand the context of the language is fine, but if I wanted a deep discussion of Rome or Greece then I would have taken Classical Civilizations. I’d much rather be writing, learning new words, or working to memorize that ridiculous amount of inflection, lol.</p>