Applying to college

Stratos

Banned deucer.
2270 on sat but 3.4 GPA... smoked/partied too much to bother with high school. Took 6 ap classes.

anyone applying to Rutgers? Already got in and will probably go.

Anyone have advice on where else I should look? Live in nj
Well UMD seems to be the nj's state university so there's that possibility. Also I'm pretty sure you could pass our campus president a joint and still not face any consequences which is a plus if you wanna keep livin the party life in college zzz
 

Expulso

Morse code, if I'm talking I'm clicking
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1. Weighted GPA doesn't matter. Only unweighted + class rank + hardest courseload possible. If by "elite" you mean Ivy, Duke, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Caltech, Hopkins, etc then you should ideally have an UW GPA of 4.0 and a class rank of top 3 (not even kidding on this one - at my school, 40-50% of students were valedictorians and another 10% were salutatorians). If you're not top 3 as a freshman, don't worry. Usually the AP courses separate the men from the boys. I wasn't ranked second until halfway through my junior year.

2. PSAT score and SAT score don't correlate very well. You're going to want to aim for 2300+, so make sure you study hard. Also get 750+ on 2-3 subject tests (unless they are Math 2 or Korean, in which case you're going to want an 800 since that's like 85th percentile and 60th percentile, respectively). 211 PSAT isn't a bad place to start, but it's not a great place to finish (for reference, my PSAT as a junior, which was my 3rd time taking it, was somewhere from 200-210, idr exactly, but my SAT scores were much higher, so you're starting off well).

3. Your ECs don't matter unless they're absolutely ridiculous (publication, founded a successful organization, USAMO whatever shit, etc). You just need to show that you've spent your time doing something other than playing video games. Having something meaningful to write your personal statement about is also a huge plus.

THAT BEING SAID...

The best thing you can do now as a freshman is keep your GPA up, take the hardest classes you can, and in a year or so, start to prep for the SAT (which you should ideally take twice). Get to know 2-3 teachers very well (preferably teachers in core classes like english, history, science, math, etc) and 1-2 adults in charge of your favorite ECs (so in this case, your basketball coach and either your Latin teacher or your Taekwondo coach) - these will be your letters of rec writers. Very strong LoRs can help you stand out from the thousands of 2300+ valedictorians while weak or mediocre ones will make sure you get glossed over.

At the end of all this, keep in mind that most of it comes down to chance and even if you do everything right you can get royally fucked, so apply to anywhere you think you'll be happy going to. Count your blessings if you're accepted and don't feel bad if you're rejected. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.
1) Yeah, I'm literally taking the hardest courses possible as a freshman, including 3 honors courses. My unweighted GPA is going to end up anywhere from a 3.76 to a 4.0, depending on how I do on my finals and whether an A+ counts as 4.3 or 4. Still, it'll probably end up around 3.85 unweighted and 4.0+ weighted this semester, which seems fairly solid. In addition, my school is an extremely rigorous private school (top 5 in Ohio, I believe) and I'll probably end up around top 5 in my class of ~90, which seems all right.

2) Yeah, 211 is all right for my PSAT; I could probably get up to 220+ (215 is the threshold for National Merit Scholarship eligibility, iirc) if I studied enough, and should be able to get a 2350 SAT. The bigger problem will probably be getting a decent GPA, as I've never been the best at time management.

3) At my school, we have something called a "Challenge Project", which is an EC project requiring 40+ hours of work; I feel like I have the potential to make this something that could help me a lot in admissions, but I'm still struggling to find inspiration here.

Thanks for the advice about the LoRs! I'm already on favorable terms with my biology and history teachers, so that should serve me well, but I really wouldn't have thought of that without your help, haha. Also, thanks to everyone else that helped me, and sorry I didn't get to address everyone!
 
Well UMD seems to be the nj's state university so there's that possibility. Also I'm pretty sure you could pass our campus president a joint and still not face any consequences which is a plus if you wanna keep livin the party life in college zzz
cant party anymore spl is soon silly!

nah haha ye ur right ton of kids go to umd even though i dont really see price justification compared to that of rutgers bc im instate but im def applying thx

is it a much better school then rutgers? dw im not expecting any bias :O
 

Ender

pelagic
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cant party anymore spl is soon silly!

nah haha ye ur right ton of kids go to umd even though i dont really see price justification compared to that of rutgers bc im instate but im def applying thx

is it a much better school then rutgers? dw im not expecting any bias :O
They are approximately on the same level academically overall. Not sure how different departments compare (I know umd has strong engineering and comp sci).
 

Empress

33% coffee / 33% alcohol / 34% estrogen
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Don't go to Rutgers. It sucks so much ass. 3.4 and 2200+ SAT can definitely get you somewhere decent imo nyu.
Seconded. This is coming from a guy with a 3.4 and 2200+ himself.

Henry, there are very few schools that match our criteria (kinda low GPA, solid SATs). A few do exist, though. Try looking at Brandeis, Wesleyan, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Haverford, Notre Dame, Emory, or Wash U St. Louis. (However, if you're looking for a big research university, disregard Wesleyan and Haverford.)
 

Empress

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Not Wash U. That shit's hard to get into with w 3.4 gpa.
Several kids from my school have gotten in with a 3.4 gpa, which is what I based that judgment off of. Then again, I don't have the biggest sample size to work off of, so you're probably more accurate.
 
Several kids from my school have gotten in with a 3.4 gpa, which is what I based that judgment off of. Then again, I don't have the biggest sample size to work off of, so you're probably more accurate.
That's really funny, my uncle is actually a professor at washu in the medical school.

Regardless schools like nyu are really stingy with aid, so I'll apply but it depends on what I get.

Eaglehawk, are you saying that the academics or school itself suck?


Thanks everyone :)
 
That's really funny, my uncle is actually a professor at washu in the medical school.

Regardless schools like nyu are really stingy with aid, so I'll apply but it depends on what I get.

Eaglehawk, are you saying that the academics or school itself suck?


Thanks everyone :)
Rutgers is just a bad school for your money, even if you're in state. The only good program at Rutgers is pharm. However, one of the biggest downside of Rutgers is the inability for students to do honors and pharm simultaneously.
 
Rutgers is just a bad school for your money, even if you're in state. The only good program at Rutgers is pharm. However, one of the biggest downside of Rutgers is the inability for students to do honors and pharm simultaneously.
Really? I knew rutgers wasn't the best school by any stretch of the imagination (going to undergrad business school if anything), but how does it not match up with other state schools like umd, penn state, umass etc? Would TCNJ be a better alternative? I assumed that Rutgers had a better reputation when you leave NJ.

I dont think school of business has honors program either ;_;
 
Really? I knew rutgers wasn't the best school by any stretch of the imagination (going to undergrad business school if anything), but how does it not match up with other state schools like umd, penn state, umass etc? Would TCNJ be a better alternative? I assumed that Rutgers had a better reputation when you leave NJ
TCNJ surprisingly has a number of better programs there. Although your GPA isn't very indicative of qualification, their 7-year med track is very good. They also have a strong biology undergrad program.

Finally, just to clarify, weighted GPAs do matter. At my old high school, the max GPA a regular student could earn is a 4.4. An honors class has the GPA scale increased by one point, so an A+ would be 5.4, an A would be a 5, and so on and so forth. Although some schools like UMich do GPA recalculations, they do take weighted GPA into consideration, since those are indicative of high-intensity courses.

So Henry , if you could clarify if you were in Honors/AP level courses, that would help narrow down what schools are good for you.
 
TCNJ surprisingly has a number of better programs there. Although your GPA isn't very indicative of qualification, their 7-year med track is very good. They also have a strong biology undergrad program.

Finally, just to clarify, weighted GPAs do matter. At my old high school, the max GPA a regular student could earn is a 4.4. An honors class has the GPA scale increased by one point, so an A+ would be 5.4, an A would be a 5, and so on and so forth. Although some schools like UMich do GPA recalculations, they do take weighted GPA into consideration, since those are indicative of high-intensity courses.

So Henry , if you could clarify if you were in Honors/AP level courses, that would help narrow down what schools are good for you.
GPA is on 4.0 scale so equivalent of unweighted. I took 2/3 honors classes when i was an underclassmen? can't really remember, but through junior/senior year i took 6 aps. is business at tcnj better? that's what I'm most concerned about knowing
 

supermarth64

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It depends on what you want to major in. Honestly, if money is an issue, Rutgers isn't that bad for the cost. NYU is honestly super expensive if you're looking for financial aid and with your stats, it's highly reliant on your extracurriculars and your essay questions at that point (I had 3.7 and 2350 and got waitlisted for Stern).

UMich and UVA might be your best options but don't feel bad about going to Rutgers. It's only people that live in NJ that think that Rutgers is bad, it's actually decently respected elsewhere (especially the west coast for some reason).
 

Shrug

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eaglehawk said:
weighted GPAs do matter.
nope. pretty much every school recalculates the GPA considering the differences in school difficulty / systems used. They'll rarely look at your weighted GPA as an indicator of importance.
 
I'm 8/8 on my college letters so far, including an acceptance from Michigan on Early Action. My dad was an alum, anyone think that alumni relations are a relevant factor in the admission process?
 
I'm 8/8 on my college letters so far, including an acceptance from Michigan on Early Action. My dad was an alum, anyone think that alumni relations are a relevant factor in the admission process?
Children of alumni have a 50% increased chance of getting in while siblings have on average a 19% increased chance of getting in to the same school as the one the older sibling goes to.
 

KM

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Children of alumni have a 50% increased chance of getting in while siblings have on average a 19% increased chance of getting in to the same school as the one the older sibling goes to.
which, while perhaps partly determined by the legacy, is far from evidence of a causal relationship. It may simply be that children of college graduates tend to be more qualified anyway by means of nurture, and that students pay extra attention to the application and qualifications needed to attend the school their parents went to.

I'd like to see a source for this information, as well as a description of what the control is. Is it just "acceptance rate for children of alumni is 50% higher than the average acceptance rate" or is it a (far more meaningful) comparison between two people of identical qualifications, the only measurable difference being that one has legacy? The two are vastly different.
 

Ender

pelagic
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which, while perhaps partly determined by the legacy, is far from evidence of a causal relationship. It may simply be that children of college graduates tend to be more qualified anyway by means of nurture, and that students pay extra attention to the application and qualifications needed to attend the school their parents went to.

I'd like to see a source for this information, as well as a description of what the control is. Is it just "acceptance rate for children of alumni is 50% higher than the average acceptance rate" or is it a (far more meaningful) comparison between two people of identical qualifications, the only measurable difference being that one has legacy? The two are vastly different.
Here's some data for Princeton: http://www.princeton.edu/pub/profile/admission/undergraduate/

Look at the data table second from the bottom:

Total admit rate was 7.4%. Alumni legacy admit rate was 30.8%. Thats an enormous difference.

From Dartmouth: http://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/“nuanced-decisions”

"We give all legacy applicants at least one additional review in this process. The dramatic increase in selectivity that we’ve experienced makes the admissions process more competitive for everyone, but our legacy applicants are admitted at a rate that’s roughly two-and-a-half times greater than the overall rate of admission. It’s never easy to turn away the children of Dartmouth alumni." - Dean of Admissions for Dartmouth

From Columbia: http://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/ask/faq/question/2412

Just click the link

From Stanford: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=66225

Every legacy applicant is guaranteed two readings of his or her app while all others are only guaranteed one.

Both Dartmouth and Columbia explicitly state that they favor legacies at least a bit. The Stanford article highly suggests they do. I didn't look for a source for Princeton, but I'd wager it's the same way.

That being said, I'm sure that nearly all legacy applicants are competitive applicants even without the legacy status. However, if Person A is 4.0/2250+ and Person B is 4.0/2250+ but is also a legacy, everything else being roughly equal, it's more likely that Person B will get the yes if they are competing for one seat. I think it is naive to think that legacy has no bearing on the college admissions process.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/24/opinion/yang-harvard-lawsuit/

This is one of the articles that was centered around a lawsuit about racial profiling in college applications. Although it is just an opinion article, I believe that the author has enough credibility to convince me of such a situation existing.

As for all of you current college applicants, here's a New York Times article that breaks down the acceptance rate illusion for colleges. It's a good read, and I'd highly suggest you all give it a look.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/u...ng-a-top-college-isnt-actually-that-hard.html

However, that doesn't mean that there are people who pay their way into college. I remember reading an article written by a former college adviser who was paid $20,000 a session to help write and prepare the applications of high school seniors from high-income families, and thus into the "money game" side of college. One of her personal stories chronicles her experience working with this girl applying to Yale. She attended a private school but had a GPA of around 2.9 to 3.0 (which is way below Yale's non-athletic standards). However, her parents were very big donors to Yale, and thus she had a very high chance of getting in despite her grades. After hiring a college counselor to help craft her essay, she was eventually admitted early decision. I tried finding this article again today but am coming up with negatives, so if anyone here is familiar with the story and has the link to it, please post the URL here. It's also a great read.

Arguably, one of the biggest examples of college legacy is the Bush family. We all recognize the younger Bush as a sort-of bumbling fool who is well known for his somewhat poor public speaking skills. Despite not being anywhere near qualified for Yale, he was still admitted into Yale via family legacy since the older Bush was an alumnus.

If anyone's going to question me on the younger Bush's academics, many news sources have his SAT numbers floating around. Although the numbers vary slightly from source to source, they all illustrate the same notion that Bush's SAT 1600 scores were significantly lower than the average Yale applicant. Although these numbers tend to pop up more on liberal news sources, a number of traditionally conservative news sources, such as Forbes and BusinessInsider, all bring up Bush's SAT scores.

Hope this does give you applicants something to think about. Much like competitive battling, the more information you know about the game of college admissions, the better off you are in preparing for your college application game plan.

EDIT: It is to note that just because your parent(s) is a/are graduates of a certain university does not mean that you'll get in easily. Remember, 150% of zero is still zero, so if a legacy applicant is completely unqualified to apply, his or her application will still be thrown out and be denied admission.
 

Ender

pelagic
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As for all of you current college applicants, here's a New York Times article that breaks down the acceptance rate illusion for colleges. It's a good read, and I'd highly suggest you all give it a look.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/u...ng-a-top-college-isnt-actually-that-hard.html
Just a couple things to note about the NY times article:

1) WashU, Notre Dame, and Michigan, while all very good and well-respected schools, are not Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

2) That 80% figure is the percentage of top students who applied to one of the 113 most selective schools in the US and got in. Not top 10. Not top 25. Not even top 50. Top 113.

Here's a direct quote that uses this figure: "The most important elite college admissions statistic, then, is not the percentage of applications top schools accept. It’s the percentage of top students who are admitted to at least one top school. And that number isn’t 5 percent or 20 percent or even 50 percent. It’s 80 percent. It turns out that four out of five well-qualified students who apply to elite schools are accepted by at least one."

That's horribly misleading journalism and this is an exceptionally inflated statistic.

EDIT: It is to note that just because your parent(s) is a/are graduates of a certain university does not mean that you'll get in easily. Remember, 150% of zero is still zero, so if a legacy applicant is completely unqualified to apply, his or her application will still be thrown out and be denied admission.
Yes, it doesn't make it easy, just easier.
 

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