Vanderbilt RD

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

<p>SAT : 2200
ACT : 34
SAT II : Biology 760, Math Level 2 720
Unweighted GPA : 3.6, Weighted :4.4
AP Test: US History (5 )NSL (3 ) Environmental ( 3) Calculus AB ( 5)Word History (5 ) Lang (5 ) Bio( 5) macro ( 4)</p>

<p>Major Awards : Scioly Medals , National Achievement/National Merit, AP scholar w/ distinction, Bio Olympiad semifinalist</p>

<p>Extracurricular :
-Science Olympiad Secretary
-Math Team President
-Mock Trial Captain
-Science Bowl Captain
-National Honor Society
- Director of another one but its too specific</p>

<h2>Volunteer: EMT for Local Rescue Squad ( 12 hours a week ) TAKES UP ALOT OF TIME</h2>

<p>Varsity Track and Field
Majoring : Computer Science
Currently taking AP Computer Science at school</p>

<p>African American Female
And I Attend a top 100 school</p>

<p>No rankings</p>

2

<p>No one ? I really like vandy and I need advice</p>

3

<p>You’re resume is very promising. Your objectives are good and you are an URM. Did you take ACT with writing? It’s a very good score, slightly better than your SAT on a relative basis. What are your SAT sections? Where are you from? It’s possible your geography can help a little. If you are applying RD, you can really help yourself by having a strong 1st semester senior year. Consider identifying Vanderbilt as your National Merit school of choice. Don’t know if Vandy is your top RD school, but, if it is, consider showing strong interest and likelihood of matriculation if accepted by visiting as often as possible and getting to know your regional counselor. Best of luck. I really think you have an above average chance, and there is time for you to do some things to make your chances even better.</p>

4

<p>Vandy is my top choice for RD . I’m applying to Cornell ED and notre dame ea in the Fall</p>

5

<p>With the SAT and ACT, you already fall into Vanderbilt’s typical range. Your a GPA, however, is low. However, being an underrepresented minority is going to help you a ton. Given the fact that you may well have gotten in without URM status, you have a very good chance at acceptance.</p>

6

<p>congrats on your good work on your subject exams SATIIs and in APs…I think these strengthen your GPA and show you can do rote learning and you are focused. I don’t think I would retake that 720 SAT Level 2…I would ride that out as good enough.
guard your privacy on this board and make sure your screen name signifies nothing and do not reveal too much about your ID. Prepare for what is always a confusing season in life as you make up your final list. As a recruited high performing minority, you will have many admits.
However depending on your family circumstances regarding their FAFSA and CSSProfile and Cost of Attendance, to keep yourself from going crazy as a senior, have that uber crucial talk with them. Do they need for you to win merit money (if so that is very difficult to predict, random and rare) to do expensive private schools like Vanderbilt or its peers? Vandy has no loans in their aid packages which is amazing but there are other colleges that are also this generous. There are a very few colleges with even more generous baselines for family income.<br>
We don’t know what your goals are. I would spend time on my essays and my story. I don’t mean a hard luck story. I mean a quick portrait of how you might make use of Vanderbilt for four years and what kind of energy you would bring to campus, and what you bring to campus from home. Same issues for your other apps. Gotta give it soul and something readable and knowable.<br>
Vanderbilt’s entire class has your stats but each person has a little something unique going on.<br>
Keep your eyes on your senior year fall grades and do not over commit so you can think clearly enough to write essays and to get references for colleges that may or may not even resemble each other.
If you have a knack for description of how you might use Vandy or Other College with Merit programs…like Vandy’s Chancellor’s scholars and CV scholars…and you want free tuition, than your mind must be clear for creative thinking.
Vandy doesn’t want all English majors, seeks students with science talent and has hospitals on ground. Got nothing against Cornell at all (brrrr) but if you are going medical routes, Vandy is a pretty great place to be in better weather.<br>
get off testing, keep your senior grades up, focus on being a good communicator and best of luck</p>

7

<p>Question to Faline:</p>

<p>What exactly do you mean by “guard your privacy”? Do you mean like not revealing school or anything, or other details, such as state, etc.?</p>

8

<p>Yep. I recommend not going past naming your state or making descriptions of the kind of school positives and negatives you are dealing with…ie big caseloads in guidance so you need to do most of the thinking and planning yourself…or private school with good guidance counseling available, school with successful AP or IB program, school with few AP courses available, school with many placements in top 20 schools, school with fewer college ready grads. State has great flagships, state has good honors programs…etc…but don’t write so much that someone in your own homeroom recognizes you. You can share your list with friends or not…my boys did share their final app lists with friends and teachers.
There are many reasons to delete a screen name that identifies you and to start over. Ditto screen names like BlueDevil96 or FutureIvy related to schools themselves.</p>

<p>Admission to the top colleges in America are entirely unpredictable therefore you must throw in your hat to Reaches, Matches and Flagship public colleges.
When you want to chat…and you will want to chat here in your senior year, no one on the Dartmouth boards wants to comment on your essay if you are BlueDevilDreamer. There are some great die hard alums on many boards who are proud to represent and to speak for their colleges. They know you are looking around for your best admission financially and emotionally/academically.<br>
In April, you are more free to post for opinions between College A and College B after you are admitted. But in the application preseason, discretion and uber respect for everyone’s home college is the way to go and that is easier when your screen name is private.<br>
People on these boards are mostly students and parents but young adults are also traveling adcoms who might be reading here. Privacy matters. They can read your back posts.
When you are 17 and 18, it is perfectly normal to have changing crushes and ideas about your best favorite college. But most students end up with an outcome in April that is a surprise or unexpected. So stay flexible. neither of our sons attended their crush college…one rejected from Dartmouth, another couldn’t afford the little Ivy where he was admitted.
Most people no matter how qualified won’t be in Ivy colleges come May.</p>

<p>It is kind of like dating 8 guys in different high schools and still trying to stay sincere, fair and honest. Very awkward. The only way it works is to live with the ambivalence as well as you can and to never be caught badmouthing anyone.</p>

<p>You may strike up a long conversation or private message with an alum or parent in a certain college but you may end up taking the financial aid offered at another.</p>

<p>regarding posting stats, not really a problem as long as no one knows what city you are from. you should be able to see if you are in the top quartile of admit stats yourself by looking at each website and creating an Excel sheet as it is hard to remember all these numbers. It is fine to post stats if you want advice on what to focus on next…ie I posted that the Original Poster here should refocus on senior year fall grades and time out for essays for merit scholar applications. She should only do ED at Cornell if she is happy with her predicted financial aid package there. She may be competitive as a high performance African American female senior for big merit packages-- run for Merit Dollars is a difficult big effort and it is a moot issue if she is going to get a great need aid package from Cornell ED. (If Cornell is going to cost a lot, would NOT do ED there in this economy…especially if Original Poster has goals of getting graduate studies done as well. Graduate school equals Loans for almost everyone except the wealthy)
As a senior with another month at home, you have to decide if you are still on the Testing Game track. Original Poster has a great record on secondary subject tests like SATIIs and APs. The adcoms know she can do rote learning at the college level.<br>
The Run for the Roses for merit money is a whole different game. You are likely not going to win but you won’t know if you don’t try and for families with a high COA…it is a worthy effort. The effort and the additional essays can make you a more compelling admission read even if you are offered only your COA financial need package in the end.</p>

9

<p>That is excellent advice. I will never give out where I go to school, and have always limited myself to my state. I really regret that I put my parents professions down once, but I made sure to bury that thread.</p>

<p>In your opinion, does my screen name reveal too much?</p>

10

<p>Lots of seniors will ID themselves on chat boards by their passions and talents…dance, music, biology, research, debate. Not an issue. My son was an extremely undertrained, fledgling Debater in high school with poor graduation rates. The team didn’t even understand the rules very well and was in its first year of existence. However, his letter of reference from this coach made a huge difference in his outcomes. He was portrayed as the student who was most generous and most welcoming to all students from different socio economic backgrounds…as the person who encouraged and built confidence and courage. As parents we really had no idea that he was perceived this way. Funny story. He was asked in a forensics competition to make a 7 minute speech on the clue Heidi Klum. He had no idea who she was. So he had seen someone in second grade reading the abridged version of the old classic Heidi. And he started with that and went on to a big exposition on the fallacy of reading abridged versions of novels. </p>

<p>Ribbons and Trophies are not always the thing that matter the most in your events in sports or the arts. </p>

<p>Be young, be human. He did audition and was part of Vandy’s Mock Trial team for a while but the weekend travel didn’t suit him and he quit and went on to other activities there.</p>

11

<p>@Faline2 thanks for all the advice it was really helpful</p>

12

<p>@kaukauna and Debater1996 thank you also for the great advice</p>

13

<p>my pleasure, and use this process to grow and to appreciate all the great college communities in the USA</p>

14

<p>You are a very strong candidate and will have many options come next spring. Visit the universities on your list and talk to as many students as possible. Good luck!</p>

15

<p>Thanks ! I finalized my college list</p>

<p>Cornell Engineering
University of Michigan
Vanderbilt
Wake Forest
Georgia Tech
University of Maryland,College Park
NYU
Johns Hopkins
University of Pittsburgh
George Washington</p>

16

<p>And notre dame</p>

17

<p>You’re welcome Calleva. You’ve put together a very intelligent list in my opinion. Good luck to you.</p>

18

<p>Thanks ! I finalized my college list</p>

<p>OK, my comments are…can you</p>

<p>A. Afford what you deem to be your safety colleges on this list financially?
B. Can you see yourself socially/academically fulfilled at your safety college(s) on this list?
C. As a high stat African American senior, have you thoroughly vetted out Merit Money pathways? Johns Hopkins has an excellent board on CC and a great prospective student website. Get acquainted with people there.
D. Swarthmore tends to be the wrong place for some and the right place for others. I love love it. They have an undergrad engineering track and deep pockets for need aid but you will pay your COA. Tippy Top school where there are tiny classes, close community, great access to Philly, on gorgeous historic campus where abolitionists and civil rights leaders were educated. Leader of women’s right to vote movement is a grad. Yeah…this is one of the little Ivies our son was admitted to attend but in the end he took his merit money and couldn’t afford his Swat COA. They rejected Obama. </p>

<p>Cornell Engineering–I hear it is great. Financial aid is likely good. Do they offer merit money? I think all Ivies do not offer any merit or athletic money. So prepare to pay your COA</p>

<p>University of Michigan —check into OOS rates, class sizes in engineering program and compare to Georgia Tech in costs and in soft issues like teacher student ration. Fun college town, fine engineering program</p>

<p>Vanderbilt Merit and Need aid outstanding, great all round college experience not sacrificed if you do premed or engineering…you get a good liberal arts base here as well</p>

<p>Prepare apps to A. Chancellors B Cornelius Vanderbilt C. Ingram Scholars. You never know!</p>

<p>Wake Forest one of my sons was admitted to this fine mid sized rigorous college. Work Forest. Not sure if you know that they cannot offer financial aid need packages without loans included. Merit money is there but very limited, although you should apply! Do they prep engineers as well as they prep accountants and premeds (they are renowned for getting undergrad accountants employed). Son had your stats, got a hand written recruitment note and his invitation --to pay full price. Do not acquire loans if you want to be an engineer if you can help it. Does Wake run one of those three two programs where you go there three years and transfer into a mega engineering school for your masters?</p>

<p>Georgia Tech father’s alma mater. Prepare to cry…haha…they almost made him cry many times and he was a grown up pilot in a masters program. Also prepare for a very good job outcome…this is the school where As don’t matter so much as immersion and effort and taking advantage of their incredible outcomes in the job market</p>

<p>University of Maryland,College Park assume this is your flagship honors college option with perks likely offered to you</p>

<p>NYU</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering is number one in the nation, Duke is second</p>

<p>University of Pittsburgh </p>

<p>George Washington ummmm very expensive school for a scientist unless you win the Merit Money Lottery. Not very cohesive campus…a great place for policy students of course, couldn’t be more diff than Georgia Tech/Michigan in all respects</p>

<p>The school we were most in love with that has incredible access to jobs in engineering while giving you a tip top residential life among the coolest kids ever…no Greeks, stay in same house four years just like at Yale…is RICE. Watch some videos and you will see that they are an engineering powerhouse on a gorgeous Robber Baron Campus (I call Duke, Rice and Vandy the Robber Baron schools) but they all also offer Merit money.<br>
Rice gives smaller amts of money to more freshman as merit. Our son got zip…would have gone if he had been chosen. Makes a great trip by the way…what a campus!
Go to Jai Ho Dance - MTVu Finalist Round on youtube is a happy commercial for life at Rice. Their residential life is so great.</p>

19

<p>Thanks for the tips !</p>

20

<p>I am a white male with lower stats than you and I got in. You will get in: plain and simple.</p>