you guys are liars

Colleges & Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

<p>I'm having second thoughts. The deadline is looming and I just read an amazing chance thread. So I'm going to do this again (I hate myself for it), and this time don't lie. I can take it.</p>

<p>My dream school is Stanford. Is it worth doing SCEA for me?</p>

<p>Other Schools I will be applying to:
- Reaches - NU, NYU, Wash U, Duke, Notre Dame
- Safeties - UW Madison (legacy), Marquette and Tulane, small christian colleges (Wheaton, Northcentral, etc)</p>

<p>Senior
Male, Caucasian
Location: Extremely small town, Wisconsin
School: Public, top students go to Madison, a few in the past have gone farther
Financial Aid: Yes</p>

<p>Academics - this is where uncertainty settles in my gut
- UW GPA - Around 3.9
- W GPA - Don't know, did max AP course offered at school and 12 credits at local university
- Rank: 5of100, will be better at the end of this year</p>

<ul>
<li>Noteworthy: Will have taken 2 UW Extensions courses (Latin, Hebrew) and 4 classes at local university (2 semesters of English and Philosophy)</li>
</ul>

<p>Scores - ugh
- ACT - 32(C), 36(R), 34(E), 31(S), 28(M) - retook this month, legendarily hard science<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/act-preparation/586256-october-25-2008-act-discussion-science.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/act-preparation/586256-october-25-2008-act-discussion-science.html&lt;/a> should improve
- SAT II - Lit (730) and Math 2 (590), hahaha, i'm really very mad about this. Retaking in December (earliest). Ridiculously uncharacteristic enough to be ignored? Wait for improvement than do RD?
- AP - US Hist - 4, Land and Comp - 4, Lit and Comp 3 (sophmore yr), Will take AP Calc test this June. Those are all of the AP classes offered, and my scores aren't even good.</p>

<p>EC's
- 4 year FBLA Member - held officer positions
- 4 year varsity soccer, 3 years competitive club soccer, 1 year wrestling
- 3 year Math team, 4 year Classics Club, International Club, Spanish Honor Society
- 2 year (max allowed) National Honor Society
- Also: City-wide Robotics team, Companion Program (needy kids), Youth group, significant mission trips, many hours of community service, started church ping pong club</p>

<p>Volunteer Experience: Good, won't take up space with it though, sorry if that's not PC</p>

<p>Employment - hook?
- Own and maintain successful web design firm. Have gotten significant local recognition, plenty of commission. Life-altering commitment, I madly enjoy it.
- IT assistant at school, work during the school day, made website, etc</p>

<p>Honors and Awards - bit meager here
- Won State for FBLA Competitive event, Top 20 at Nationals, fully expect nationals again this year, hopefully in Top 5,
- Evan Baxter Creativity Award, sort of a big deal
- Dozens of stupid sports awards (letters, scholar award)
- School does department awards at the end of the year, bound to get at least one
- High Honor roll, school achievement awards
- Homecoming court? just kidding</p>

<p>Recs and Essays
- Recs should will be as good as possible, English teacher that is like family, History teacher that loves me
- Essays should be good, I've written competitively before and my dad will help with editing, he has lots of published work</p>

<p>Other - English is a second language (since 3 years old, does that even count?), fluent in Italian, spoken at home. Consider myself thoroughly Italian, often visit relatives in Northern Italy. Both my parents are methodist pastors, my faith is big part of me. Also, like I said, my dad publishes work, maintains a popular(among Hebrew scholars) blog, and is deeply ingratiated in the university community.</p>

<p>Should I wait for better scores then do RD? Would it make a difference?</p>

2

<p>Nothing seems exceptional in the stats, but maybe faith will get you in.</p>

3

<p>what do you mean exactly? faith, as in my involvement in youth group?</p>

<p>just kidding, i know what you mean - this is just an elaborate bump post</p>

4

<p>Oddly, what stood out to me was your use of the word “madly” in your posted profile. And I think that you need something much more substantial than that to strike the memory of the admissions folks at Stanford. There is nothing offensive about the word “madly”, it just won’t help your cause.
My advice is to use your ED/SCEA carefully as it can substantially increase your chances of admission at many highly selective colleges & universities. But you will need more for Stanford, in my opinion.</p>

5

<p>Sorry I meant no offense</p>

6

<p>coldwind,</p>

<p>Either that was extraordinarily mean, or just random</p>

<p>the thing that stood out? the only thing…</p>

<p>c’mon people, you must be feeling unusually non-committal tonight, how about some chances?</p>

7

<p>Stanford seems to be a reach so I would advise you to wait and apply RD. Your application would be strengthened with better test scores and solid first-semester grades. SCEA doesn’t give much of a boost anyway, and you may be more competitive in the RD round.</p>

8

<p>the only thing that stood out to me was the title. </p>

<p>oh, and the use of “madly” of course.</p>

9

<p>No, I did not intend to be mean or unkind in any way. I am an adult college parent who read your post and thought that you wanted honest feedback. Stanford & Duke are serious reaches for you in my opinion, and applying ED/EA/SCEA will not be enough. Notre Dame is unlikely without substantial community service. NU & WashUStL are possible if you apply ED. NYU is not a reach for you.</p>

10

<p>thanks, i had only read the pre-edited version of your post when i replied, </p>

<p>i’m glad everyone’s being honest this time around, last time i was given the impression that I had a decent shot, that was before the 590 om Math 2, though</p>

<p>any suggestions for better colleges to apply ed for?</p>

11

<p>Your numbers (GPA & ACT) are fine for all of your schools, however, the 590 SAT II & moderate to good APs paint you as a somewhat lesser student than is exemplified by your strong GPA & ACT. What your posted profile lacks is a credible passion. Additionally, for highly selective schools such as Stanford, you want to write a compelling & convincing application that shows you are a strong match for that school and/or program of study since there is no apparent URM or other diversity status to help your application. Recommending schools to you is a bit meaningless now if you can’t recommend yourself to schools by putting together a more compelling & convincing profile.</p>

12

<p>The 590 Math2 will not kill your chances by itself. However, your test scores as a whole (ACT, SATII, APs) could. I don’t think your chance was lessened by the math score alone…</p>

13

<p>If you are from California you may want to try ED. Honestly my S applied and was deferred. He had 2340 etc. great recomendations/EC’s and graduated second in his class. Before he applied I spoke with counselors at his HS and asked them about their record of getting kids intio Stanford- one in fifteen years. In that same time kids got into Princeton, Harvard, Duke, U-Penn, Brown, Cornell…great schools. Stanford just really never took kids from this HS and it is a top 125 in the US. They tok kids with lower scores …and Alums. They turned down our schools Valedictorian and that person was as perfect a student as is possible on paper. Stanford like Harvard and Yale are real stretches for anyone and being perfect as a student does nothing to get you in. Saying you want to attend does nothing to get you in. If I had to advise someone I would say that unless you have a holy grail of a hook, apply RD and save the ED for a reach school your HS counselor feels is best and one that has a good history of knowing your HS and taking kids from there. With that said- lots of great schools and if you are a great student you will do well in one of them. Don’t think that if you don’t get into your first choice you won’t love the school you attend. Now I will admit that Stanford has one of the nicest Campus lay outs I have ever seen, coupled wth great weather. God Luck</p>

14

<p>i say no chance. work on those SAT IIs</p>

15

<p>to begin with, the common app is badly designed to facilitate the indication of a passion, or to be compelling overall. From the looks of it, you fill in the blanks, and it prints out a very standardized profile for the admissions. The essay section provides a chance to indicate a passion. I plan to do this, though I’m not sure I should focus on my background or my web design firm. </p>

<p>In any case, I cannot put together a more “compelling & convincing” profile without making things up. And a person with my exact stats/ec’s/awards cannot somehow “write” a better application than me unless he/she writes a better essay</p>

<p>am I missing something? When people say they poured over their application, I always took that to mean their essay. I just doesn’t seem like the common app leaves much room for creativity otherwise.</p>

16

<p>additional information, supplement questions (not essays), activity descriptions.</p>

17

<p>I think it’s really cool that so many high schoolers have websites nowadays, but that’s just it, a lot of the people with semi-lower stats also have a “huge website thing” going on. Maybe that is the new “I’ve heard this from a million kids” that officers say they don’t wanna hear anymore, and that wouldn’t stand out much. </p>

<p>But a passion is a passion and if that is yours then that is yours.</p>

18

<p>i took that act, legendarily hard science? i farted out a 35 on that</p>

19

<p>Are you sure you’re talking about the 10-25-8 ACT?</p>

20

<p>Farted out a 35… haha. :)</p>