<p>Hello all,
This is my first post at CC, which truly seems to a wonderful place to go for info all all things related to tertiary education. I consider myself a fairly relaxed person in most aspects, yet worrying about college has developed in to something of a neurosis. I feel that having a rational look at my current chances for acceptance at a few schools might help ease this stress a bit.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I'm currently just a freshman, so I have a fairly good amount of time to make adjustments in my academics and extracurriculars.</p>
<p>That being said, I'm very interested in Columbia, Yale, Penn, Wesleyan, and Amherst. Although my finals are next week, I can project my unweighted GPA as of my first semester of H.S. falling between 3.6 and 3.75. I understand that this is fairly low as an unweighted GPA in relativity to the averages at these schools. However, I'm attending one of the most rigorous public schools in America and am currently enrolled in 5 AP-level courses. Thus, my weighted GPA will fall between 4.93 and 5.08. I have not yet taken the SAT or ACT, but most students who have received these sort of grades in the particular classes I take have scored in the range of 33-36. My school only gives decile ranks, and I am certainly in the first decile. If I had to estimate my precise class rank, I would place myself within somewhere between 40 and 60 of 1050.</p>
<p>In terms of extracurriculars, I'm the co-news editor of my school's freshman newspaper, and I also shoot photos for the paper and report. For what it's worth, my photos are at flickr.com/photos/wmmk. I wondered if anyone who's been at an Ivy League newspaper could give me an opinion on whether these photos are of a good enough quality to be an asset to an application to a school known for its newspaper (like Yale, Penn, or Columbia). Additionally, I am the principal (first-chair) bassist of my school's orchestra and am active member of our global activism club and our local chapter of Young Democrats of America. I've done a bit of campaign work for local candidates. I'm also working to start an interfaith dialogue group for open-minded high school students interested in theology and the philosophy of morals.</p>
<p>Finally, while I don't believe that legacies are the most noble way to be accepted into elite schools, I acknowledge their prevalence understand that they might help if an admissions committee is looking at two essentially equally qualified students. Regardless of the ethical debate, my dad went to Amherst undergrad and has helped them greatly (in areas other than monetary support). He also went to Yale for his master's and has received a Pulitzer Prize, which is awarded by Columbia. My mom also attended very good schools, but not ones which I am particularly interested in. I'm not sure if this helps, but my uncle went to Columbia for both undergrad and grad school, as well as serving on their Board of Visitors a few years ago.</p>
<p>So, with all of that in mind, I'm wondering what my chances are of being accepted at the schools I mentioned and what I might be able to do to improve those chances, especially whether taking honors (as opposed to AP-track) courses to have a higher unweighted GPA would help or hurt me.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!
-wmmk</p>