What are my chances at the Ivy Leagues, Stanford, or Williams?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
Income: Middle Class
High School: Average public school
Class Size: 500</p>

<p>GPA: 4.0</p>

<p>Courseload
By the end of my senior year I will have taken all 11 APs offered at my school minus AP French, because I'm taking Spanish. Also, I have self studied for AP European history, which is not offered at my school, and for AP Calculus, which did not fit into my schedule, and gotten 5s on both. Every year in school I have taken four core classes, a spanish class, and orchestra, along with filler classes to meet the graduation requirements for technology/careers/PE.</p>

<p>Of the APs I've taken classes for, (US History, Psych, Chemistry, Statistics, English Lang) I've gotten all 5s.</p>

<p>Standardized Tests
SAT: 780 Math, 800 Writing, 800 Critical Reading
SAT II: 800 Math IIC, 800 United States History, 790 Chemistry
PSAT: 80 Math, 80 Critical Reading, 76 writing</p>

<p>AMC 12: 111.5 (plus school winner for 3 years running)
AIME: 7</p>

<p>Leadership Positions</p>

<p>Captain of School Math Team: I led a statistical project about standardized testing that got 1st in the state competition. I wrote the survey, made the powerpoint, wrote the paper, and analyzed most of the data, because nobody on the team knew much about statistics except me. </p>

<p>Captain of School Knowledge Bowl Team: Our group got 2nd place in the state competition... though admittedly "Captain" doesn't mean much in knowledge bowl</p>

<p>Principal Violist of School Orchestra: This involved coordinating with the other principles, writing bowings, playing solos, leading sectionals, etc.</p>

<p>President of National Honor Society: This group has been stagnant at my school for several years, I hope to rejuvenate it somewhat by doing some big service projects my senior year. </p>

<p>Extracurricular Achievements/Activities</p>

<p>-Member of Local Youth Symphony for seven years. I don't see myself being any lower than the 2nd chair viola my senior year.
-Principle Violist in local youth symphony music festival
-Member of string quartet that won the regional competition and got a top score at the state competition
-Member of all state orchestra, probable member of all-northwest orchestra this year
-3rd place in local viola competition
-Member of Track for 6 years by end of senior year
(got a Varsity letter in 9th grade)
-member of Cross Country for 4 years by end of senior year
(will get Varsity letter this year, won "most improved" in 10th grade)
-Won presidential fitness award in 9th grade
-Member of Key Club for 3 years- won Varsity letter for doing over 100 hours of community service, including tutoring and helping disaster victims
-will have volunteered 50 hours for Obama campaign by end of summer
-participated in two music camps over summer
-1st place in local teen short story contest in 9th grade (contest with about 1000 participants)</p>

<p>Work Experience...?
-Helped elderly neighbors with yard work
-did viola teacher's yard work to pay for music lessons
(this probably isn't even worth including on my application)</p>

<p>Reccommendations
My chemistry teacher (also my knowledge bowl coach) and my english teacher have volunteered to write recs for me (without my asking them) and my spanish teacher says I am one of her best students ever. So they should be good, I think.</p>

<p>Essay</p>

<p>I am thinking about writing an essay about how I tried to learn the Bartok Viola Concerto for a solo contest (it is widely considered to be one of the single hardest pieces in the viola literature) and ended up doing quite poorly at the contest (3 out of 5). I would talk about how this was a humbling experience for me, and how it taught me not to expect everything in life to be easy. I'm not sure if this is a cliched topic or not.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>You are competitive at all…just write good essays.</p>

3

<p>Your grades/scores are OBVIOUSLY good. Your class rank is absent but it’s possible your school just doesn’t rank. I’m sure you’re up there anyway.</p>

<p>Your ECs are good as well. Your statistical paper helps you avoid that “jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none” syndrome with your extra-curriculars.</p>

<p>So obviously you’re pretty set to go.</p>

<p>THAT SAID, ivies are (as I’m sure you know) highly unpredictable. But to increase your chances I’d suggest picking something that you want them to view you as “passionate” about. You seem gifted in both math/science and music, but I’m not seeing you having a passion for either at the moment. I’m not saying you don’t have it, you just want it to come across in your application.</p>

<p>As for your essay, it suffers from half-clicheness. You picked a very unique circumstance, but saying that it taught you humility is just like all of those “I saw starving children in Africa” where the writer experiences this huge turnaround in thought because of a single event. Even if it’s true, it’s overdone.</p>

<p>What I would suggest doing is maybe showing your passion for music in your essay. Instead of saying it taught you humility, explain how getting 3rd made you want to succeed even more. Maybe even link it to your math team accomplishments. Instead of talking about how you learned that not everything is easy, instead talk about how this was the first time you were really truly challenged, and that the taste of this challenge whet your appetite to take on more challenges in the future.</p>

<p>Just a few ideas.</p>

<p>I think you know that your on-paper app is stellar. Now just work on really selling yourself. Otherwise, your chances seem about as high as anyone.</p>

4

<p>For class rank, I am tied for first (4.0 is the highest possible GPA) with two other students, but I have taken as many APs as both of them put together, so yeah :p</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice on my essay, that really helps a lot. The idea of linking math and music together is a great one, I seriously think I could go somewhere with that. </p>

<p>I was also wondering if there was a good way on my application to indicate that I had self studied for two AP exams; would the college notice that the AP classes on my transcript and the AP tests I’ve taken aren’t one to one, or would I have to do something special?</p>

5

<p>Don’t put yard work on your app.</p>

<p>Otherwise you are fine.</p>

6

<p>Maybe it’s just me, but I like the yard work for the elderly neighbor and the music teacher. It shows you’re real. Don’t know where to slip it in, though.</p>

7

<p>In terms of the APs that you took the test for but not a corresponding class:</p>

<p>What I did in a similar situation was used the “other information” section on the application. On the common app, it’s in the writing portion. It’s different for every situation, but in your case I’d probably put,</p>

<p>“- Due to schedule limitations and course selection restraints, I was unable to take the courses ‘AP European History’ and ‘AP Calculus’. However, I still took these exams and scored the corresponding 5s.”</p>

<p>That’s just what I came up with off the top of my head. Putting information like this could POTENTIALLY be taken the wrong way (trying to brag, insulting their intelligence, etc), but usually is pretty safe. That section is there for a reason. However, a more subtle way to do it is to briefly mention it in one of your essays. For example on your essay about challenges and ambition (if you decide to go that route), maybe mention that you took the tests and scored well even though you couldn’t take the courses.</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

8

<p>Are you a human being or a machine?
lol jk but many those are AMAZING stats.
In at most, but ivies, particularly HYP, are very unpredictable</p>