International Student from Pakistan.
Not applying for aid
SAT I: 2070 - 750 CR, 660 M, 660 W (retook in May, hopefully much better score)
GPA: not calculated at my school but if it were it'd be 3.87 UW
GCSEs: 11 A's
Class Rank: Again not calculated, per se. Was 8/176 in the GCSE results at my school. Definitely top 10% if not Top 5%.
My school sends a great deal of people to Ivies and other top universities each year. This year we had Princeton, Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Middlebury, amongst others. Last year, we had Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Chicago, Vanderbilt, etc.
Essay: I topped in my school in English Language, and I won the award for best essay writer so I think they'll be reasonably good, hopefully.
Recs: Will be very good, fingers crossed
I'm President of the Drama Club, Lead Role in the Play, done 3 years of debating, won numerous tournaments, shortlisted for national team, MUNs nationally and internationally, won the best english declamation speaker and parliamentary debator awards at school. I've been a regular freelancer for a national newspaper for the past year. Chief Editor of literary magazine.
on the school tennis team this year.
I would say that you have a great shot at getting into Colby! However, nowadays, a lot of the process is based on a "holistic" review - so really put effort into those essays. It could make you or break you. But you sound like a competitive candidate, so as long as you put effort into those essays, I'm sure you will be fine.
Thank you! so is Colby a match for me? or would you say a safety? just trying to understand this business of matches and safeties and where to draw the distinction! thanks!
To be honest, I don't know what is a match and what is not. What I do know is that my daughter got into some of the schools we felt were a match (like Colby, Macalester, Colgate), but her Composite SAT score was at least 100 points higher than yours, but got wait listed at other schools that we felt strongly were safety schools for her (like Connecticut College). We felt strongly that she was a match at Middlebury and Bowdoin (though not a shoe in), but she was waitlisted there as well. You might consider taking the ACT. Our daughter did much better on the ACT than on the SAT.
I think the bottom line is that when dealing with top liberal arts schools and trying to figure out what is and is not a match, it can be something of a guessing game.
So I went back to the Colby website. The freshman class of 2015 had median SAT scores of: 700 for CR, 700 for Math, 710 for Writing. The only place where you are above that median is critical reading. You would be more of a match if all of your scores were above the median, but they are not, but you are in the middle 50th percentile. Having said all of this, if you like the school, you should present your best case in your application and go for it, but be sure you have applied to other schools where your SAT scores are in the top quartile, or at least above the median scores in all three components. Make sense?
I agree with you GDMACK. In looking at the where our Colby freshman (rising sophmore now!) got in, it required being at or in the top quartile. I do think that girls have to have better credentials since so many more girls than boys are applying for college admission and the colleges are looking for as close to a 50/50 male/female class as possible. I also think it helps to have superlative essays as an earlier poster mentioned and a strong hook - recruited athlete, URM, first generation college student or leadership skills beyond the obvious resume padding type. It also may be that the Princeton 2017's international student status, especially at Colby, may be a plus. I think Princeton 2017 has a good shot but should look at Colby as a target school, definitely not a safety.
