Any hope for the non elitist?

What Are My Chances?
#1

<p>Hello, everyone. I go to a Yeshiva--a school for Orthodox Jews. We spend morning with Jewish stuff and in the afternoon we have secular classes. This translates into a 7:30 AM-8:00 PM schedule during the week. Obviously, there's not a lot of time for extra-curricular activities. We have a school newspaper (more like a humor magazine), but we have no advisor. I am the editor and chief. I play piano in a band for Jewish events (dancing on certain holidays and other happy occasions) and that same band has gone and played a few times as an oldies band at a bar. There's a few other things that I do--teach a class at the synagauge, play intermural sports--but that's pretty much as much as we can do. </p>

<p>I've gotten fives on AP Bio and Economics, and I'm taking AP Calc and English now. I took the SAT's last week, but I'm expecting a score in the 1500's. Let's say SAT II's are in the 700's. I look at everyone else in this forum, and they have a million things on their resumes to show off. Is there any hope for me to get into colleges like Penn, Columbia, Harvard?</p>

#2

<p>I meant Editor in Chief, not Editor and Chief. I'm tired, not retarded.</p>

#3

<p>I think you have a -5% chance of getting in. Go to community college.</p>

#4

<p>You have a great chance, being an orthodox jew, that's great diversity</p>

#5

<p>If your grades and scores are good, you'll have a chance anywhere. You should probably visit all the schools you are considering though and make sure that the environment there will be suitable for you if you are planning to stay orthodox. At many campuses you may feel pretty lonely (I am sure you are aware of that...)</p>

#6

<p>Puffy,
you don't have a million EC's, but you are doing more than just HS and video games. So it will be up to you to present you and your activities on your apps in such a way that the adcoms can see you are an interesting and motivated person as well as a good student and all-around smart kid. If your gpa/rank is decent, by all means include the top schools in your list. Also include excellent but less competitive schools as your matches - and a couple of safeties.</p>

<p>If you gpa/rank needs a little work, you need to be more careful of including schools that take a reasonable percentage of kids that are out of the top 10%.</p>

#7

<p>Just read nngmm's post and he (she?) makes a very good point - but I think it depends a lot on the type of person you are. If I were orthodox, I would want a community - but others wouldn't. Sometime being different opens doors - like Evil_Robot at Vandy.</p>

#8

<p>Hmm....Have you considered Brandeis?</p>

#9

<p>Thanks everyone. Yes, I have checked up on the schools I'm applying to and all of them have a strong orthodox presence. That is a priority for me. And I am considering Brandeis.</p>

#10

<p>The big center for orthodox Jews is UPenn, though its of course hard to get into.</p>

#11

<p>We visited Brandeis in April - one of the dining halls is kosher by tray so everyone can eat together - very cool, my son thought (agnostic with heinz 57 religions in family background). </p>

<p>Macalester might also be interesting - Minnesota is kind of a populist state, Mac seems to have an interesting mix of folks.</p>