module9

I'm just wondering what kind of school Brown is, from the student perspective and not the historical/other perspective you find online at their website and in the news etc. What kind of students does the university look for, and what should one do if he or she wants to get into Brown? Thank you guys!

Do I have a chance?
I'm currently a sophomore with a 3.67 unweighted GPA. This will be 3.83 by senior year. I scored 2000 on the PSAT (600 reading 600 writing 800 math) and expect to receive 2250-2300 on the SAT. I took the SAT Math IIC and got an 800 on my first try. I plan on majoring in either engineering (possibly mechanical) or mathematics (to become an actuary? truthfully not sure yet). I'm playing no sports this year, but will next year. I ran cross country, track, played tennis, and wrestled last year. I will most likely attend Harvard's SSP Summer Program this summer and Oxford's Summer Program next summer. I'm attending the HOBY leadership conference this summer and plan on attending West Point's Leadership Seminar and Boys State next summer.

This year's classes: Chem Honors, World History Honors, Precalc Honors, English 2, Leadership, Korean 4, Leadership
Next year's classes: Physics AP, Calc AB AP, English 3 Honors, US History AP, Korean 5, XC/Track, Leadership

Who I Am: Vice-President of Sophomore Class, Vice-President of church Student Council, Secretary of District's Youth & Government [state-wide club that is recognized by the government (the governor of CA comes to our last convention)], Short-term missionary (I went to Kenya for a month for missions), Music Volunteer for Kaiser Permanente (200+ hours), Snowboarder (started when I was 7 years old)

I don't have a ton of leadership positions yet, but in the next two years I plan on being...
Junior Year: Junior Class President, CSF Secretary, Youth & Government Secretary/President
Senior Year: Student Council President, Youth & Government President, Officer in Civil Air Patrol, CSF President/Vice-President

Please tell me what I need to work on. I'm trying to be as well rounded as possible.

ZRealMadridZ

look. im sure all of that is great, but you really shouldn't be "aiming" to be well-rounded. just be yourself. be genuine on your application when the time comes, because colleges aren't necessarily looking for the people who are in a zillion activities. harvard and brown and places like that have more than enough people like that to fill their class. but they want normal people, good people, people that are as enthusiastic about contributing to society as they are about learning; in essence, looking like a "packaged deal" or being the "perfect applicant," especially with ivies, is really a crap shoot. i would stop worrying about that and just be yourself.
you run cross country! so do i. times?

mattgriffin

Not going to contribute more than ZRealMadridZ as much as embolden it, but I think that he's pretty much right. You're just going to have to convince Brown that you really love the idea of engineering and you want to use it to help make other people's lives (as well as your own) better. My goal in applying was to be as passionate as possible about what I did, even if it didn't seem all that great to other people.

Besides that, all your test scores and classes are better than mine were already , and you're probably much better in Korean than I am (ㅠ.ㅠ).

module9

ZRealMadridZ: Alright, I'll try to be myself. How exactly would I show that I'm passionate about my interests though? Our school doesn't have a robotics program or any engineering-related program. I ran last year. My mile time was 5 39. I can't remember my race times, but they really weren't that great. Around 20 x)

mattgriffin: Haha I'm not so sure if I'm better at Korean than you are xD I'm not that great. I'll ask the same question to you though: How do you think I would express my passion for engineering/math?

mattgriffin

I don't know why you're interested in those fields, nor what you plan to do with them, so I couldn't answer that question. One of the things that makes the application so challenging is there is no set way to do anything, and you have to find a way to express your passion as best you can. All I can really tell you is fairly generic, like make sure you have a close friend or parent read it and ask them if it really reflects your personality. Don't be afraid to really show yourself when writing the essays though, I don't think it's very hard to tell if someone is trying to cover something up in their writing.

module9

Well, I either want to go into mechanical engineering (robotics/programming) or physics (extreme sports physicist-winter sports). I lovee snowboarding, and am going to try to study the shape of snowboards and just learn everything there is about snowboards. Maybe then, I will find something I can work on (ex. snowboard is too slow, what shape of the board would reduce surface area and thus allow the snowboard to slide on slow with the least friction?) That's really a basic question, but you know what I mean. How do you like the idea? I could do the same with robots, but I truthfully wouldn't be as passionate about it.

one_proud_Korean

I've noticed that SO many koreans are interested in applying to this university (including myself >ㅁ<;