Yet another "Chances" Thread

[HVSahin]

*Edit: Cross-Posted.

My rank is horrid, this I know. Top Quarter of my class (something like 21% out of a class of a thousand). My school is also one of the most well-known public high schools in the Nation. Among other things, we have put five people into MIT, three into Stanford, and three into Yale last year if I'm not mistaken.

SAT: 1520 (740V / 780M)
SATIIs: 700W, Registered to take MathIIC, Biology-M, and Physics in October.

AP Courseload:

AP Human Geograpy (10)
AP English III (11)
AP Chemisty II (11)
AP Comp Sci A (11)
AP US History (11)
AP Latin III (11)
AP English IV (12)
AP Biology II (12)
AP Physics C (12)
AP Calculus BC (12)
AP Comp Sci AB (12)
AP Latin IV (12)

That's all I can think of right now.

ECs:
-Nat'l Latin Honor Society
-Latin Club (President)
-Selected Member of UIL Science Team
-Students Organizing Community Outreach (Officer)
-Technology / Scientific Research Club (We build robots and mechanisms and enter them in competitions).
-Computer Club ( Responsible for organization of Fundraisers)
-Math Honor Society (Ironic as math isn't a strong point for me) :P.
-NHS
-Active member of the Turkish-American Association of North Texas (We host a huuuuge TurkFest anually and do volunteer work to promote cultural integration deep in the heart of Texas).
-SAT / Science Tutor
-Started a Film Productions "organization." My twin, my best friend and I wanted to make some cash and have fun in the process so we started to film, edit, and produce DVDs for people (ex. Our largest project was a compilation video for a local Volleyball team that took the gold medal in the International Junior Olympics). I don't know if this counts or not.

Work:
I work a 15-20 hour week on schooldays and a full 40 hour week during summers when I'm not attending summer school to get required credits out of the way. I started out doing Office Monkey type jobs (Filing, Data entry) but moved up to Income Tax Preparation. On my resume it appears as something along the lines of:

-IT/Networking Specialist, (Liberty Tax Services, USATax)
-Technical Specialist (Kaizen Foods)
-TURANT Turk Festival (Volunteer work)
-Co-Founder/Media Technician, Three Brothers Productions. Responsible for web sites, video editting, etc.

Trilingual:
English, Turkish, and Spanish (I took Spanish up to Level III in High School. I also work with spanish speaking customers on a regular basis. I don't know if I can really call this fluent or not, but I manage to interact and converse with them and get their taxes done =) ).

Also, I skipped a year of high school latin (went from Latin I -> Latin III AP) via Credit By Exam test. I was considering majoring in classics / biology, so I hope this will be a boon.

Aaand that's about it. Thank you for your input, whatever it may be. =)

[janesmith]

HVS - I'm the parent of WashU frosh so I guess I can pass on insights from last year.

First a couple of questions: What's your score on the new SAT (out of 2400)? What are your results for the APs you've already taken? What's your GPA? Is your school a Wash U feeder? Does your GC feel Wash U is a good match for you?

I assume you're looking at Arts and Sciences. Wash U is a premed factory so it would make you stand out if you emphasized your interest in classics rather than biology. Your background and fluency in Turkish seems unusual also and worth emphasizing. Think about what you can bring to the campus--in and outside of class--and communicate that to the admissions reps, interviewer, etc.

You will hear this a lot, but with Wash U it's all about showing interest: visiting, e-mailing, interviewing, applying early if possible. Wash U offers a number of merit scholarships: applying for those, even if you don't win any, is another way to show interest.

Good luck!

[missmolly]

Btw, Wash U only allows 15 credits max for AP courses taken is high school.
If that matters, you may want to consider another college. Looks like you could go into most state schools as a sophomore or junior with 12 AP courses.
Did you take some of the AP exams? How did you do?

[baseballstud]

the max is 15 ONLY if you're artsci. engineers (like me) can have unlimited. i have 30 credits already from AP

[missmolly]

That's great news!

[laurezer]

yeah, but unfortunately not all the credits are very helpful for engineers, since we only need a limited number of humanities/social sciences (although phys, chem, and calc are very helpful)

[baseballstud]

thats the stuff i have

[laurezer]

30 credits is pretty impressive!