<p>i'm sure I won't get a whole lot out of this but hey i'll give it a try. btw if joseph sees this, this is alex from ap lit with rotramel.</p>
<p>i'll start with the acedemics:
by the time I graduate I'll have taken 11-12 ap exams (debating whether or not to do the ap world history independent study). more than half are this year and are mostly social studies/english, both of which i like. overall i'm seeing:
ap human geo - 3 (dont judge, it was my freshman year lol)
ap euro - 4
ap lang - 4
ap us - 4
ap bio - 2 (he didnt teach for the exam, only two people passed, and they normally get five's easy)
ap lit - 5
ap stats - 4, maybe 5 if i start to get better at it (scored a B on my first unit exam, so not starting off too bad in that, especially for not doing much of the homework this unit -ashamed face-)
ap micro - 5
ap macro - 5
ap us gov - 5
ap psych - 5
ap world history (if i take it) - 4 or 5, we'll have to see how difficult the material is. i'm feeling a five but we'll see.</p>
<p>three years of spanish (would have been four but some scheduling flubs made that impossible) and i have a talent for it so i'm definitely pursuing a fluency in college. also hoping to learn mandarin chinese, arabic, or both by the time all of my education is complete. i like culture and history so learning the languages helps a lot (also means i have a shot at more study abroad).</p>
<p>BUT i fail in the gpa department. i think maybe a 3.4 when i apply (one trimester before i do) and a 3.5 when i graduate. not very good i know, but i'm hoping good grades this year (not even an uncertainty, out of six classes the worst im getting is 4 A's and 2 B's) with the heavy courseload might help out a bit. the weighted is like .3-.4 higher because of all the ap classes.</p>
<p>i am retaking the ACT (original score of 29) and actually studying this time so hoping to not get screwed on the lame essay and get a 31+. taking sat subject tests in math 2 (my weak point in some ways so this will hopefully show them im not mathematically incompetent) and literature (picked up the ap study guide for it because i'll be reading it in the spring anyway and this should be cake). im expecting somewhere in the low 700s for math and high 700s for lit.</p>
<p>my school also has a thing called CRLE (or "curlie") where students have to complete a career related learning experience. there is a more in-depth option called an extended application where you use a specific format and satisfy some very high demands and when the project is completed present it in front of a board for evaluation. the program is fairly new and very few people have done CRLE's because it is only mandatory for lower classes (not including mine), so my EA would be welcomed by the board if completed correctly. mine is an audition packet for middle schoolers interested in coming out for my high school's drumline (i'll get into that activity later) and will include instructional dvd's, my own personal compositions, and a compilation of "good times" clips (so we don't scare them off haha), all of which will be reviewed by multiple mentors in musical technique, movement, and fitness, as well as the program director at my school. so i guess this counts towards academic achievements. it will be done after my application goes in, but i think if im waitlisted, i can show them that and they'll be more inclined to let me in.</p>
<p>---end of academics---</p>
<p>so for extracurricular activities:</p>
<p>-we have marching band. four years. three years of drumline. one year of drumline captain.
-concert-style band. three years (excluding my senior year because of scheduling issues, but I am studying independently and am considered one of the bestpercussionists at the school in some aspects and by far the best in others).
-solo/ensemble festival. three years (excluding my junior year because i had an audition the day of my performance). placed third in districts sophomore year for rudimental snare. i plan to place at state, maybe win it ;) this year. hopefully i'll get similar scores for orchestral snare, and i'll probably place weel at districts for timpani and marimba. on top of that i'm organizing and leading a bass drum ensemble (i'll post a link if you'd like) that will win districts.
---overall music is my main passion and i plan to continue some kind of study in college
-amnesty international. last year and this year. vice president this year, just a member last year. i really believe in this group's ideals and its power to succeed over human rights violations. last year we had about half the school agree to write letters to one of our congressmen about raising the international issues we were working on in congress and he wrote back over the summer saying a bill concerning that issue was being passed and thanking us for our concern for and involvement in world issues. that's enough for me to be a very optomistic person. there's always someone out there who wants you and the rest of the world to be ok. that's a good thing and i will always promote that.
-students honoring veterans. president and founder. only this year, but it's doing pretty well and has major staff support. started it in the spirit of living history day (our school hosts 30ish veterans and lets us go from class to class listening to them and spending time with them because they really enjoy it and the students learn from it) and it's working out pretty well. our staff advisor says he's going to make it a nation wide thing as far as public schools go (i guess he has connections? idk haha). if you want to join the network send me a msg and i'll add you to the mailing list. anyway the point of it is that regardless of political moral views, these men and women volunteer to fight and keep the bombs and bullets out of our backyard and they need to be respected and appreciated for their service and sacrifice. it is not political. it's about appreciating people who stood in front of a bullet for you without knowing your name. i'm pretty passionate about this so i hope it is shown somewhere in my application. btw i'm mostly liberal so if anyone wants to hate, just know that my only conservative streak is being pro-life for anything but extreme cases.
---i know that most schools will have amnesty and i would like to continue my membership with that. shv is probably less common so i would start it up wherever i go if it hasn't already been founded.</p>
<p>---end of extracurriculars---</p>
<p>for the columbia essay i'm thinking at the moment i would choose the "events that shaped your life" option. here's a skeleton of the information i want to include:</p>
<p>-first term junior year i was on a drumline with people who entertained themselves with making me feel bad and speaking badly to my friends enough that one of my best friends and i got into a very very ugly confrontation and a few people, including myself, were threatened by the staff with dismissal if we didn't clean it up. after this i left the academic scene of aloha high school band to figure my stuff out.
-during this break i became a much more introspective person and tried to figure out what was really important to me and what i needed to do to attain what was important to me. i decided the first thing, the basic need i did not have, was a certain level of respect from my peers that would allow me to succeed in all aspects of my high school experience. i determined why i didn't have it, and decided to gain this respect by being personally successful and not giving into all of the frustrations i had with the hateful and negative people who had brought me down so hard. i had to be successful in my studies (getting the grades up), my passions (primarily music), and my health (im on the hefty side but it's slowly disappearing and with 0 period conditioning all year it should be great by the time i graduate).
-i always knew the importance of being studious but i don't believe i ever really understood it until recently. with a shot at the local drum corps (cascades, i made the line but didn't tour for various reasons) and just observing successful people around me i finally came to understand how hard you have to work to really achieve your goals and how difficult it is to endure through fatigue and frustration in the hopes of eventually succeeding.
-with music, i tried out and was placed on the cascades 2009 snare line. i did not tour for various personal reasons, but i learned a lot about musicianship and discipline and what it meant to practice correctly. without any confidence i can say i am at a level of musicianship that private lessons are not worth the money year-round and are only a concern of mine when i get down to the very gritty details of technique, because the rest of the time i know how to practice intelligently and i understand all the technique on a level that allows me to improve without somebody standing there telling me what i did wrong. this may sound very overconfident, but i feel it is true and anyone i know as a musician would agree.
-with my health i had to really act on my knowledge. my dad's side of the family is genetically screwed when it comes to heart disease and since 2000-2001 i had been a husky kid. it was difficult, but it was just another extension if pushing through the difficulty to attain something i wanted badly. im currently much thinner than i was when this journey began and i'm trying to get cut by the time graduation rolls around. i'm enjoying my improvement in health and really want to continue that in the future regardless of what i'm doing. i've also decided that because of the genetically certain heart attack i and my descendants will have, one day i will be encouraging my family to live healthy and not fall into the sedentary lifestyle that is so appealing for more and more Americans.
-so now i feel as if i have gained that level of respect i wanted by being more successful in my personal endeavors. i'm still improving, and my plans for the future are to excel in those three areas until that system is no longer the correct path for me. with my studies i know i'm doing very well this trimester, despite a challenging courseload. for my passions, i've improved as a musician and i'm using my knowledge to assist a program that has given me so many opportunities while i continue my studies and respresent it at state for snare, and with my health i've exponentially improved my fitness and habits and it isn't stopping anytime soon.</p>
<p>so anyway i feel like this sort of describes how "events have changed [my] life" but i'm not sure. keep in mind this is a rough cut.</p>
<p>---end of essays---</p>
<p>additional info:</p>
<p>my rec letters are going to be boss. one is from a teacher who is well known for writing very very good letters, and another is coming from either a teacher who is really digging me on my recent improvement and "life shaping" or my band teacher who thinks very highly of who i've become and what i'm doing to give back to his program.</p>
<p>the interviews will go very well, so no worries there.</p>
<p>the essays are going to be reviewed by a bunch of my peers and multiple teachers and college advisors, so they should work out pretty well. i've done some research on the school as well and what their students are usually like, so i've tried to focus on aspects they may like. this essay may not work for columbia, though, so we'll see. it seems like a better fit for my northwestern application, but i'll see if i can spin it like something they would value at columbia.</p>
<p>---end of additional info---</p>
<p>so let me know what you think. does weakish gpa + alright scores + strong curriculum + strong extracurriculars (in my opinion anyway) = a good shot at columbia?</p>