Will I look like a "one trick pony" to Ivy League Admission boards?

Applying to College
1

<p>Ok so here's my story sweet and simple. I was attending a public Highschool until the end of my sophmore year when I had a disagreement with my counselors about which classes I could take, long story short I dropped out and started college and here are my course loads for each semester.</p>

<p>1st Semester.</p>

<p>Trigonometry - 3 cr hrs
College Algebra - 3 cr hrs
Honors College Algebra - 1 cr hr
Intro Physics - 4 cr hrs
Statistics - 4 cr hrs
Honors Public Speaking - 3 cr hrs (had the highest grade in the class)</p>

<p>Total Credit Hours: 18 GPA: 4.0</p>

<p>I also taught myself Calc I during this first semester and cleped out of it.</p>

<p>2nd Semester:</p>

<p>Statics - 3 cr hrs
Dynamics - 3 cr hrs
Calc II - 4 cr hrs
Engineering Physics I - 3 cr hrs
Physics Lab - 1 cr hr
Linear Algebra - 3 cr hrs</p>

<p>Total Credit Hours: 18 GPA: 4.0</p>

<p>Dynamics has statics as a prereque, and statics has Calc II and Physics I as a prereque, but I took them all in the same semester under one of my prof. guidence (my other prof. thought he was crazy.) Linear Algebra also had Calc II as a prereque but the prof. let me take them simultaneously.</p>

<p>I only ever got one test below a 100% in Calc II which made my professor APPROACH ME and tell me to let him know before I started appplying so he could write me a letter of rec. (he graduate from yale and doesn't write letters for to many people.)</p>

<p>I never got a test below 100% in Physics so my Physics prof. is writing me a letter as well.</p>

<p>This summer I also completed an Ordinary Differential Equations course through BYU in about 3 weeks with an A+</p>

<p>This is my last semester</p>

<p>3rd Semester</p>

<p>Honors Calc III - 4 cr hrs
Eng. Physics II - 3 cr hrs
Physics Lab - 1 cr hr
Gen Chem I - 4 cr hrs
Intro to Progamming - 3 cr hrs
Engineering Circuit Analysis - 3 cr hrs</p>

<p>Total Credit Hours: 18 Expected GPA: 4.0</p>

<p>I know this semester is a little weak but it's all they have left for me to take.</p>

<p>And during all three semesters I have worked 20+ hours a week at the tutoring center here at the college.</p>

<p>I also have really good letters of rec, in one of them my prof. wrote;</p>

<p>"-my name- is the most gifted student I've had in 11 years of teaching."</p>

<p>In one of his classes he said;</p>

<p>"Now if you can't figure a problem out, bring it to me. And If I can't figure it out... go show it to -my name-"</p>

<p>My question is are admission boards going to look at me and say; "Wow, that's nice, you can solve hard math problems, but that's about all you can do."</p>

<p>I don't take several math classes every semester because I want to impress colleges, it's because I have a passion for learning that I can't even begin to express. I honestly enjoy studying Math and Physics as much as any thing else. I am 17 and I know I'm good at Math and Physics, best in my classes. But I'm affraid I'll come across as a kid who has no life and has spent my time doing nothing but trying to impress colleges.</p>

<p>Am I going to appear as a "one trick pony" who can't do anything besides math?</p>

<p>if needed I'll list my E.C.s but right now I'm in a little bit of a hurry (headed to church).</p>

<p>P.S. I'll be applying as a transfer student.</p>

2

<p>Bump. Sorry it’s so long, I just know usually people say they can’t accurately reply because lack of information, wanted to avoid this.</p>

3

<p>It would be advantageous if you could show some mentoring, tutoring, or volunteer work on your resume.</p>

4

<p>You’ve had some great achievements in math/science, but they’re not extras; they came at the price of neglecting the basics in other areas. You need to work on English, reading and writing skills, etc. That’s crucially important to any real university, and it’s clearly your weak point. It appears that you’ve eliminated that whole area after leaving HS, along with all Humanities. That’s going to be a serious problem unless you’re going to a pure technical school.</p>

5

<p>Sit down with your profs, and get their advice on where you should go next. You need more expert help with your situation than you are likely to get here at CC. One math major who is active here is b@r!um. You could try sending her a PM for advice.</p>

<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>

6

<p>What jumped out at me is what MisterK said: It looks like you have had very little English or History education, and I am assuming that you took both English and History in 9th and 10th grade. I’m wondering whether any of the Ivies would consider you prepared enough in those areas. Did you take the SAT/ACT and how did you do in the CR/English/writing portions of it?</p>

7

<p>You’ll have to see if the colleges you have in mind will accept either no hs degree or a GED. *</p>

<p>And, yes, your academic background is lopsided. There are cases where complete outliers are admitted- kids who have narrowly focused. But, these same kids first met the ordinary expectations of hs and the ordinary college prep expectations of the college in question: x years of English, social sciences, language, etc. Your ability to take on challenges and do your darndest to master them- not walk away- is critical to adcoms at Ivies- and all top colleges.</p>

<p>And, btw, at highly selective colleges, it is not unusual to receive an LoR that states a kid is one of the best that teacher ever taught.</p>

<ul>
<li>and whether your path qualifies you as a transfer- or a freshman applicant.</li>
</ul>

8

<p>Thank you everyone for the responses. </p>

<p>So if I were to get a 32-34 on the ACT, how would that affect my chances?</p>

<p>I realize a 34 ACT is nothing special to Ivy league schools and is usually the average, but would you show that I’m on par with everyone in the basics AND ahead in math? Or am I wishfully thinking?</p>

9

<p>It** not you</p>

10

<p>Could you explain your situation a little more clearly? Are you actually enrolled as a college student?</p>

11

<p>I Apologize if I have been unclear.</p>

<p>Yes, I am enrolled as a full time college student. This is completely indpendent of any highschool program. At the end of my sophmore year my councelors refused to let me skip pre-cal so I dropped out, recieved my GED and started attending our community college here full time.</p>

<p>So now, this should be the start of my senior year, but it is my 3rd semester as a full time college student. My semesters were such</p>

<p>1st Semester.</p>

<p>Trigonometry
College Algebra
Honors College Algebra
Intro Physics
Statistics<br>
Honors Public Speaking </p>

<p>2nd Semester:</p>

<p>Engr. Mechanics: Statics
Engr. Mechanics: Dynamics
Calc II
Engineering Physics I
Physics Lab
Linear Algebra </p>

<p>This is my current and last semester before I transfer.</p>

<p>Honors Calc III
Eng. Physics II
Physics Lab
Gen Chem I
Intro to Progamming
Engineering Circuit Analysis</p>

<p>As stated earlier, I cleped out of Calc I my first semester and just finished Independent Study ODE course through BYU.</p>

<p>I’ve taken 18 credit hours every semester (even my first one at 16) and worked 20+ hours a week, at the tutoring center here at the college through work study (started my first semester at 16), and maintained a 4.0. I’m now 17 and finishing up my last semester here at our community college.</p>

<p>I’m wondering if I have any type of chance with Ivy League admission boards. Specifically MIT. MIT would deff. be my number one choice.</p>

12

<p>I missed your note in your first post that you’ll be applying as a transfer student. Honestly, I think transferring to an Ivy is going to be very tough, because you don’t really have a full high school education. For example, I assume you don’t really have a foreign language. How all this might play at MIT I have no idea. As somebody else suggested, you needed to get some very specific advice from the profs at your current college.</p>

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<p>First of all MIT isn’t in the Ivy League. I mention that only because your lumping it in with the Ivys made it impossible for me to construct the sentence that I wanted.</p>

<p>They might be willing to take a chance on someone whose background has so much math and physics at the expense of English and history.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>This can’t be right. You had a disagreement with a guidance counselor so you dropped out of school? Is it possible you were bored in high school and that might have had a lot to do with you dropping out?</p>

<p>This might be an important point. A college would rather take a chance on someone who dropped out of high school because he or she was bored rather than someone dropped out because they got mad at a guidance counselor who was just doing their job.</p>

14

<p>Ok thank you for the advice</p>

<p>Yes to some extent it s because I was bored and I was continually not allowed to as challenging courses as I wanted. I try to avoid saying I was bored due to the fact that many use this as an excuse for bad grades ect. because it makes them sound smart. I just didn’t want to fall into that group. I’ll be sure to reconsider how I approach my story though thank you. Would Yale be considered Ivy League? I would like to study mathematics there as well.</p>

15

<p>[Ivy</a> League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League]Ivy”>Ivy League - Wikipedia) - you can’t be “considered” an Ivy League school; either you are or you aren’t. Also, the Ivy League is an athletic conference.</p>

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<p>ImNoobOhYeah,</p>

<p>Since you are a transfer student, pop by the transfer counselor’s office at your CC and get some specific advice about the transfer process. In particular, you need to find out whether or not taking a fourth semester there so that you can complete a full AA or AS will make a difference in your prospects. In many states, it would guarantee direct admission into at least one of your home-state public universities, so you would have a solid back-up plan.</p>

<p>You also should read through some of the threads in the Transfer Forum. Start with this one: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/transfer-students/390861-transfer-admissions-101-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/transfer-students/390861-transfer-admissions-101-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

17

<p>You are likely to find yourself with limited prospects without more english, social science, and foreign language training. I know that Yale doesn’t even require a GED or high school diploma but expects some broader academic exposure before matriculation.</p>

<p>I definitely agree with Pea that you need to “spin” this as leaving high school because you were bored with all math/science opportunities there. You are going to need to take the SAT plus subject tests or the ACT. Perhaps a strong showing on the reading/writing components can impress the adcoms that you are not a “one trick pony”. Perhaps the placement/guidance office can call over to your top few choices and see how the adcoms would evaluate a promising math/science transfer as focused as you present yourself. Understand that transferring into these schools is harder than getting admission out of high school and I suspect that a good number of the successful transferees would have made it based on their high school academics but chose to matriculate elsewhere for a year or two.</p>

18

<p>Haha thanks Jake, I feel like a total noob now.</p>

<p>Thank you happymom. Yes if I wanted to I could get my AS, in engineering, mathematics, and physics if I stayed for one more semester. But I’m not to interested in my states school (I’ve already been offered a full ride and paid research position at my states tech school, but they’re not that good.) But I will take a look at that website when I get home.</p>

<p>Right now I’m looking at Yale, MIT, and Colorado School of mines. Any more suggestions or opinions about whether I have a shot at Yale and MIT? Really appreciating all the responses.</p>

19

<p>Thanks YaleGrad, I’ll talk to my prof. Who graduated from Yale tomorrow to see his advice on all of this.</p>