Acceptance Chances

Colleges & Universities Stanford University
1

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I’m a Junior in Suffolk County, NY. I’ve taken the hardest course load in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, and will be taking the hardest in 12th as well.</p>

<p>Intended Major: Computer Science / Software Engineering</p>

<p>GPA: (UW) is about a 3.7
APs: AP World History (4), AP Statistics (3), AP Computer Science (3), AP US History (Expecing 4/5), AP Physics B (Expecting 4/5), AP English Language (Expecting 5). </p>

<p>Next year I’ve lined up AP Calculus, AP Microeconomics, AP US Government, AP Environmental Science, AP English Literature. </p>

<p>EC: In the past year I’ve founded a successful software company, which is on the road to creating what has already turned into a highly visible and highly successful product on the Mac Platform. Expected Revenue/Yr is around $700K. I am also a very (40+ hours a week) active contributor to a multitude of open source projects (think of it like community service, but people actually appreciate it, and the work I do is used in products you probably use today.) Additionally, I speak publicly (daily) about the future of American Education, as well as write for a weblog (which I started) in topics including (but not limited to): Software Engineering, User Experience, as well as increasingly more common American Education Outlook topics.</p>

<p>I’ve won numerous awards (both nationally and locally), including the Student of the Year for NY in technology-related fields. </p>

<p>My recommendations are from my computer science teacher, as well as from the principle of my school. </p>

<p>Prospects on my chances of acceptance at Stanford?</p>

2

<p>-macsoftware.</p>

<p>I don’t know, stanford is a crapshoot no matter which way you look at it, but I’ll give you my stats (and I got in) and you can work from there.</p>

<p>White/Japanese</p>

<p>intended major :Environmental Engineering
GPA 4.0/4.6
AP: English Lang (5), French Lang(4), Calc BC (5), Physics C (e/m) (5), Physics C (Mech) (5), Euro (5), French Lit (exp. 4), English Lit (exp. 5), US gov (exp. 5), comp gov (exp. 5), Bio (exp. 5)</p>

<p>State university coursework: United States Foreign Policy (A+), Symbolic logic (A), Mathematical logic (A), Linear Algebra (A)</p>

<p>Sat: 2390</p>

<p>recs were from my Euro teacher who adored me, and my math teacher who i’m pretty sure has a form letter.</p>

<p>ECs: Boy Scouts, Rec. Fencing, Special Olympics Ski Coach, state-level awarded photgrapher, some volunteer tutoring, work 20-30 hrs/week at Nordstrom in sales.</p>

<p>my dad went to grad school there, but I dont know why it would have affected anything since he hasnt given a dime to the place since. plus, he did Ugrad at Cal. maybe it did though.</p>

<p>yeah so, assuming equally competitive high schools, I did a little better than you (but my HS may be easier and more grade-inflated), but your ECs smoke me…so much. plus they’ll really like that entrepeneurship you have going.</p>

<p>so, you have as good a shot as a lot of people who apply. i mean, this year, a friend of mine at a prep school, the kid 1st in his class, capt. of debate team, creator of a big-ass hurricane katrina charity, etc. etc. got rejected from stanford, …and wustl…</p>

<p>so…make sure those essays are good. my reccomondation is to get them done over the summer because stan hasnt changed its application in about 5 years.</p>

<p>“chances” are hard to judge because it truly is a holistic process. I’ll say you definitly pass the threshold to get past the initial app reader’s desk tho.</p>

3

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<p>Just wanted to make sure you knew that Stanfords essays may change next year with its switch-over to the Common App.</p>

4

<p>if u have 700k in revenue a year you dont need stanford</p>

5

<p>Dam… just… wow. Spectacular ec’s.
I think Stanford would be on crack to not admit you. </p>

<p>GOOD LUCK!</p>

6

<p>I second Quantum. You don’t need Stanford or any school for that matter. What is surprising is that you got a 3 in AP comp sci.</p>

7

<p>amazing EC…i would think that you would get in…</p>

8

<p>Why are you going to school…? Most adults with a college education barely make 80k.</p>

9

<p>You’ll almost certainly get in.</p>

<p>As for the people that are saying “why are you going to college?”, remember 3 things:</p>

<p>1) revenue is not profit. 700k revenue might not actually translate to tons of profit. if the profit is low, the amount of money he makes will be low.</p>

<p>2) it’s EXPECTED revenue - may or may not turn out that way.</p>

<p>either way, university is still good.</p>

10

<p>You’ll probably get in if you have stats (SATs, etc.) “in the range”. Based on your AP scores, you are not a good test taker, so you should practice for the tests.</p>

11

<p>you know you can slip in some of you revenue into your application</p>

<p>jk of course</p>

12

<p>I know this thread hasn’t been touched in ages, but I’d just like to respond to a few things that have been said here.</p>

<p>(a) I’m not really interested in college for the piece of paper at the end of the road. It’s all about the experience for me. The idea of being surrounded by passionate, intelligent people 24/7 is what really gets me.</p>

<p>(b) The “700K” number is, as 1of42 suggested, a target figure. Consider it a meter of the “potential” of the stuff I’ve been working on.</p>

<p>(c) The 3 in AP CS is because I didn’t actually take the class for it, nor did I know Java at the time. Since the time I posted that, I actually learned quite a few object oriented languages (Objective-C being my main language I write in, in fact), so if I were to take that today, I think the result would be quite different.</p>

<p>Lastly, I’d just like to say, having heard from Caltech and MIT thus-far, I don’t expect to be admitted to Stanford, or Berkeley for that matter. I’ve sort of come to accept the fact that colleges in general would rather see me spend time on my grades and formal education than informal experience outside of school. That is their field, after all. Unfortunately, I (personally) know that my lack of enthusiasm for what’s offered for high school students (monotonous, repetitive AP work) is something that, in all likelihood, wouldn’t be reproduced in a collegiate setting. I’m not sure I can blame a university for not knowing that, even though it was, in fact, a significant part of my application’s essay.</p>

<p>We’ll see tomorrow though. Stay tuned.</p>

13

<p>What did you get on your SAT macs?</p>

14

<p>1970 –– sucks, I know. </p>

<p>Like I said, I’m not going to be surprised at all tomorrow. It’s very unfortunate that my grades don’t really reflect my ‘intellect’ (I know that sounds arrogant, but phrasing it any different dilutes the point I’m trying to make here.) </p>

<p>In any case, tomorrow is something I’ll have to own up. Dedicating myself to my work instead of my grades was a choice –– a fully informed choice. Personally, I know that if I stopped working and dedicated myself to school I could have achieved near “perfect” grades like many Stanford applicants achieve, but that’s just not appealing to me. I didn’t spend my time the way I did to get into Stanford. I’m dedicated to my work because I believe in it.</p>

<p>Bah, I’m rambling here. My main thing with all of this was to see whether or not the selection process (of any of the “top” schools) could be flexible in terms of how it valued things. I understand that being (very) intelligent is entirely necessary for a school like Stanford, but it was my hope that an applicant could demonstrate that in more than one way.</p>

15

<p>Just wanted to update this. Got rejected as I suspected, today.</p>

16

<p>Whatever…Stanford’s loss! I would’ve accepted you. Do you know where you’re going?</p>