<p>Highest USCF rating held: 1708. Sucks balls, I know.</p>
<p>Average high school rating is <1200. If you include everybody who plays chess (those who don’t compete) then it won’t hit 1000.</p>
<p>I guess I’m good for my age, but nowhere near very good or great.</p>
<p>But I’ve read lots of books, mostly positional books. I am the kind of guy who knows a lot more about chess than it shows up on the board. But I still know very little compared to masters.</p>
<p>Posting a number gives a better idea of whether or not it will help you significantly. Just from anecdotal experience, probably not. A friend of mine in high school sat at around 1900 and his acceptances/rejections were probably what they would have been if you substituted in some other activity. However, chess is a legitimate EC and it shows you’ve been committed to something. Don’t undervalue that. </p>
<p>I don’t know what year you are in high school, but if you have time left before you start applying, have you considered starting/developing further your school’s chess club? That’s one way to use your skill in chess to help your application, without necessarily requiring you to be exceptional. Try to get some new players to join, help them out, bring them to those high school tournaments of which you’re so disdainful. It might help you more than your victories themselves, especially if you can get a good recommendation out of it.</p>
<p>I can’t do that. I got a lot of transportation and family restrictions that prevent me from paprticipating in schoo-related EC. I got a good amount of outside-of-school EC but I can’t do on-campus stuff. I did as much ECs as my community offers, but my school offers more so it kinda sucks.</p>
<p>My counselor and I addressed this in my applications so it should be ok.</p>
<p>K, back on topic.</p>
<p>If you’re good at chess and you’re a girl, it SHOULD set you apart tremendously in college admissions. I’ve played chess tournaments state-wide and it’s always the same two girls competing in those big open tournaments, considering that Florida is the #3 most populated state in the US. One of them is cute, the other… </p>
<p>Now this is something the women suffrage advocates would not be protesting against.</p>
<p>UMBC (univ maryland baltimore county) and UT Dallas are two schools that do give chess scholarships. However your USCF rating in the 1700s is way too low to matter. I knew someone who was ranked in the top 10 in the country who got a UT Dallas scholarship by winning a K-6 open (2200+ by the time he graduated). </p>
<p>He was quite disillusioned by the chess scene there, though. His opinion was that while the school really was focussed on being the best chess school in the country, they really spent their resources on the East European kids, and while there were several Americans who had scholarships, he said they didn’t spend much to develop them further.</p>
<p>My S, who was briefly the state champ in his younger days, didn’t try to score points saying how good he was at it. Rather he used it to illustrate two points: one was about starting a chess club in our local library which he ran for four years, and the joys of seeing little kids and their parents as the celebrated winning trophies in local tournaments. The second was about how his childhood experiences of beating adults in chess tournaments while he was in 2nd or 3rd grade helped him understand that adults weren’t better than kids in everything at an earlier age than his peers.</p>
<p>My friend is a Grandmaster at chess. He is nationally ranked 2nd and his ranking thing is well into the 2000+, possibly 2500?
He said he can probably get into any college he wants. Is this true?</p>
<p>Because of his chess skill? Probably not. Depending on other factors, perhaps.</p>
<p>A person who I used to know was a NM at age 14 and also a concert pianist and math whiz. He got into Princeton as a junior. </p>
<p>Me? I’ve been playing since I was a kindergartener, but I can’t list that (or can I?) I sort of quit after seventh grade, at which point I was top 10 in the state of Washington. Just lost interest in all the opening/theory/pawn structure/endgame books. Junior year rolls around and a friend (1700+) and I decide to start the chess club at our school that’s been defunct for a decade. We find a couple more players who haven’t played since middle school and a math genius who learned chess strategy in a month. </p>
<p>In our miniteams league, we placed second to Interlake high school (I’m sure you’ve heard of them) and got sixth at state- I’m rated 1500 and almost beat a 2100, but I missed some tactics. This next year, we’re going to reach out to the local middle school and try to get students interested in chess.
It’s not going to be a big part of my application, but it’s nice to talk about chess here.</p>
<p>How much does it help if the rating is above 2300?</p>
<p>^Please use the New Thread button to ask your question.</p>
<p>Closing old thread.</p>