blair961

Haha, I'm not that much of a cookie cutter Asian, but please chance me!

Asian female from Rochester, NY
Intended Major: Geology/Environmental Studies

WGPA: 97%
Class Rank: None.

Courseload:
AP:
World History-3 (self-study, not available at my school)
Psychology-3 (self-study, not available at my school)
US History-4
US Government and Politics
English Literature
Chemistry
Calculus AB (maybe)

Honors:
World History I
World History II
French III
French IV
English 11

College Classes:
152 Cultural Anthropology
101 Geology
105 History

Test scores:
ACT: 29 Composite (32 E, 27 M, 26 R, 32 S, 30 E/W, 9 essay)
Will retake in September

Extracurricular activities (really bad):
Volunteer Genealogist at local museum (Gr. 9-12)
Volunteer Genealogical Database Indexer (Gr. 10-12)
Junior Prom Committee (Gr. 11)
Envirothon Team (Gr. 11)
National Honor Society (Gr. 11-12)

Awards:
Won an international handwriting contest (Gr. 10)
Won bronze medal at International High School Environment Project Olympiad (Gr. 11)
Questbridge College Prep Scholar (Gr. 11)
Got creative writing published on Yahoo! Voices (Gr. 11-12)
John Muir Environmental Conservation Award (Gr. 12)
RIT Computing Medal (Gr. 12)
Regional Scholarship (Gr. 9-12)
School scholarship (Gr. 9-12)
High Honors (Gr. 9-12)

Colleges:
1) Lafayette College
2) Syracuse University
3) SUNY Oswego
4) SUNY Buffalo
5) Alfred University

Some suggestions would be great!

ArtsyGirl13

Post your unweighted GPA (it is usually viewed as more important then weighted), I can chance you after...

blair961

Unfortunately, my school doesn't calculate an unweighted GPA. All I can tell you in terms of "unweightedness", is that I have gotten all A's besides one B unweighted.

ArtsyGirl13

That means you have a 3.9 (probably 3.95-3.98) which is high enough for all of those colleges. Get your ACT to a 30-31 and you should be OK. Though I want to address your EC's (I am lazy and just pasting them into here and including my comments).

Extracurricular activities (really bad):
Volunteer Genealogist at local museum (Gr. 9-12) - Good because you have a similar EC, shows passion
Volunteer Genealogical Database Indexer (Gr. 10-12) - Same for this, but this is assuming you have at least like 150 hours between the two.
Junior Prom Committee (Gr. 11) - In my opinion not worth listing.
Envirothon Team (Gr. 11) - Might be worth listing, probably is (I am assuming you have good hours)

Awards:
Won an international handwriting contest (Gr. 10) - Sort of random, maybe list it?
Won bronze medal at International High School Environment Project Olympiad (Gr. 11) - Very strong EC
Questbridge College Prep Scholar (Gr. 11) - Don't know enough information about it to comment.
Got creative writing published on Yahoo! Voices (Gr. 11-12) - Sort of random but good
John Muir Environmental Conservation Award (Gr. 12) - Don't know anything about it, but it goes along with your love of the environment so it is good
RIT Computing Medal (Gr. 12) - Again sort of random
Regional Scholarship (Gr. 9-12) - Not sure what it is, might be good
School scholarship (Gr. 9-12) - Same with this (if it is unique to your school/region you need to describe it).
High Honors (Gr. 9-12) - Totally pointless, it is implied by your grades.

Anyway the point of that was to show that you have good EC's. I think you have a good shot at all the schools you are looking at.

blair961

Hey ArtsyGirl,
I actually have 300 hours+ between the genealogy stuff. Well thanks for your comments! I always thought I had bad EC's, because I have friends that are in so many clubs, jobs, volunteering activities, etc.

ArtsyGirl13

If you have over 300 you are more then fine. It is more important to be dedicated to a few things then spread out too thin and in 20 million clubs...

blair961

bump. Please chance me and suggest some colleges!

blair961

really there is no one out there? Should I be adding some harder colleges onto my list?

zobroward

Lafayette College is a great choice !
add muhlenberg college and bucknell and ..you have a good list!

kaytaypops

Your GPA is excellent, and I don't know if you can put down self-study for your AP scores on your apps (though I suppose admission officers would notice that you didn't take it as a class). Volunteer jobs and the amount of hours you spent on them are solid.
On your app, maybe illustrate a little more on what you did for Prom Com.
Your ECs are good, but you don't seem to have a lot of experience in them (1 year, 2 at tops, any leadership positions?)

Some of your awards seem a little random/need more info, but your Olympiad Medal, Scholarship and Conservation award seem steady. You don't need to put down high honours.

You have a really good shot at all of the colleges you listed. I don't know what good Enviro/Geology colleges are so I can't suggest any.
In the meantime, how'd bout chancing another cookie cutter Asian like me? (Chance for Vassar/Columbia/Tufts/etc?)

blair961

Thanks Zobroward! Yeah, Lafayette College is seriously my favorite. I was thinking of adding Hamilton College and St. Lawrence University, but I'm unsure if I should.

Thanks Kaytaypops! I probably won't put Jr. Prom Committee, because helping my class prepare for prom wasn't really special and besides all members only put max. 10 hours into it. I'll probably omit the RIT Computing Medal too (because it's a book award), many school scholarships (because I personally know that many not super achieving kids get too, but I'm not going to say anymore due to identification reasons).

No, I don't have any leadership positions, but none of my ECs offer any.

Oh yeah, I forgot to put down a program that I'm in. I'm in the U.S. Geological Survey-North American Bird Phenology Program and another phenology program. Again I only did it from Gr. 11 to now, but I have reasons that I can't disclose online about why I couldn't participate in ECs before then.