Usual dealio - chances please!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
1

<p>Ethnicity: Indian (Asian)
Gender: Female
Location: Northern Virginia
Decision: Regular</p>

<p>Academic Stats:
SAT I:
First sitting: 690 Reading, 800 Math, 800 Writing (=2290)
Second sitting: 760 Reading, 730 Math, 790 Writing (=2280)
Superscore: 760 Reading, 800 Math, 800 Writing (=2360)
SAT II: 760 French w/o listening, 750 Chem
GPA : 4.26 weighted, not sure what it is UW
Class Rank: My high school doesn't rank, but it is the top-ranked public high school in the country, if that helps</p>

<p>AP Courseload:
Junior year: AP Calc BC, APUSH, AP French Lang, AP Chem
Senior year: AP Stats, AP Gov, AP English Lit/Comp, AP Bio</p>

<p>AP Scores:
BC Calc - 5
APUSH - 5
French Lang - 3 (grargh I know)
Chem - 5</p>

<p>Awards/Honors:
National Merit Semifinalist
Academic Letter of Honor, 3 years (pretty generic)
National Honor Society
French Honor Society
AP Scholar with Honor</p>

<p>EC's (won't go into detail):
Research internship at a hospital laboratory summer before 12th grade (8 weeks)
Literary magazine - 4 years, leadership positions in 11th and 12th grade
Public policy internship at a non-profit organization (6 weeks)
Volunteer at the local hospital
Tutor students at nearby elementary school & underclassmen
Classical Indian dance
Piano (on hiatus since end of 11th grade, but plan to pick it up again)</p>

<p>*The hours for all of the volunteer stuff is listed on the EC part of the common app</p>

<p>Writing:
Extracurricular activity explanation: I made it anecdotal while conveying the details (it's about the research internship)
Common App Essay: Likely a really strong point in my application - I spent forever on this.
"Why Duke?" Essay: I made it specific and definitely made sure I talked about myself in there. I hope it's good.
Submitted the optional research essay.
Teacher recs: One of them I'm sure will be awesome, the other one I think should be good, though I'm not as close to the second teacher as I am to the first
Counselor rec: I keep in touch with my counselor a lot, so I guess it should be good? I don't know.</p>

<p>See, overall I think this looks pretty good, but the issue is that my school is extremely competitive. I'm sure there are plenty of people with higher GPAs than mine (I've heard people complain about 4.3s), and people have some ridiculous extracurriculars while still maintaining their grades. So please take a look at this if you can - I'd really appreciate it!</p>

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<p>Haha I’m going to guess you go to TJ? It’s good that your school doesn’t rank because of the competitiveness you mentioned. No competitive school should rank.</p>

<p>I think your app looks strong all around (on a side note, we have the same SAT superscore!). I think you’ve got a great shot.</p>

3

<p>Yeah, TJ it is. :slight_smile: I’m glad we don’t rank either - I don’t think it would make sense to rank, honestly, since people take such a variety of classes and you could never find two students with the exact same level of difficulty in their schedule.</p>

<p>Thanks for the comments! That’s cool that we have the same superscore. Good luck!</p>

4

<p>Ah TJ, you guy are beast. Hated bumping into your peeps during ARML and Chem/Bio/Physics/Math Olympiad. </p>

<p>Your numbers look good, though I don’t know what to make of your GPA. How many B’s per semester does that break down to? My first impression though is that you’ll be fine, especially given your high school pedigree. Getting into Duke is no cakewalk though; my classmate who also had a perfect SAT score got rejected.</p>

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<p>I remember when TJ totally beasted at Duke Math Meet.</p>