<p>I’m going to second adummb05’s comment. MIT is not the ultimate judge, especially this year. I know a student who has exceptional statistics and real-life research under his belt who was also deferred.</p>
<p>As for you counselor recommendation, see having her as an opportunity! There may not be enough time left for you to do this, but I was in the same sitaution and I feel I made the best of it. When I met my new counseler this year, I made it my goal to tell (nay, teach) her who I am. I wrote about 16 pages, going to great lengths to fully answer every question she posed. It was a clean slate. My statistics, good and bad, spoke for themselves, but the rest was mine to determine. The attention I paid to this was returned ten fold. She took me far more seriously as both a student and fellow human being.</p>
<p>you look good. You have a very high gpa and excellent scores. Right away that should get you into cornell. Stanford is so unpredictable and i think its hard for eastern kids to get into. I think you have a decent shot at penn and duke and its very possible yale sends you an acceptance. Im not sure about stanford and princeton, a lot of people like those schools for the same reasons you do.</p>
<p>My counselor is just… dumb. This is her first year writing recommendations, so that should say something. Also, I too answered her questions with a ten-some page paper full of answers. But… who knows. And, whenever I ask her about anything college-related, she tells me to wait while she goes and asks another senior counselor. After my MIT defer, I asked her for her opinions on what I should do next. I expected a long list of things that included 1) send a nice letter 2) send new scores, etc etc, but she said (and this is no lie), that she needed to ask another counselor. So, I don’t feel as if I can do anything about this, sadly (she’s probably already mailed them all out, since I turned my couns recs in fairly early), so I’m really focusing on my essays and MY part of the applications to make me sound like an attractive student.</p>
<p>@SAMTROB: Does Cornell weight stats a lot? A lot of people have told me that Cornell is a good fit. I personally know a few people that got in last year (and my research mentor went to Cornell), and they all said that they’ve enjoyed it a lot. But, I’ve heard that Cornell has a reputation as a “party-school,” which is why I’m sort of reluctant. Can anyone verify (or not) this?</p>
<p>A guy at my school had good scores(1560, 800, 800, 780) and quite a few APs not that good essays and way less ECs than you but he still got accepted into Princeton. But you should take care of your relationship with your counselor because when things are close(like there are a lot of people like you who apply to Princeton, Yale, Stanford etc.) the counselor recommendations really count. If everything else seems pretty much the same, the admissions officers are bound to pick a guy with a counselor recommendation saying “YOU GOTTA PICK THIS GUY!” over a guy with a recommendation saying “well… he’s OK.” This kinda stuff can even make up for lower scores if they are good but on the other hand they can make you chances quite dimmer if they are bad. Don’t underestimate your counselor’s influence!! Even if your counselor seems dumb be nice to her Well, it might be too late now but you never know</p>
<p>thanks gaitz! Yeah, I’ve definitely made that extra effort to communicate with her at least once every two weeks. I’ve also given her a thank-you card and an xmas present (haha… brownie points). </p>
<p>I’m mostly worried that she can’t tell what my passions are about. She knows that I’m passionate about my clubs, but research and music I didn’t exactly stress in my answers. Should I go talk to her again about the importance of these two subjects? I’ve focused a good amount of my essays on them.</p>
<p>These admissions officers have really little information to evaluate you(at least that’s what they say) so it’s better to show different aspects of yourself in different parts of your applications. So if you emphasize something on your essays, tell your counselor to emphasize something important about yourself that you couldn’t tell on your essays or any other part of your application. The same thing goes for optional references. Tell the person writing those references to tell something about you other than what’s already on your application. If you think she doesn’t know much about you, you’ll just have to talk with her a lot. It’s not that your counselor hates you(which is a problem and was probably one of the reasons why I got deferred) so I think you’ll do fine. Good luck! :)</p>
<p>i dont know where ranger gets this stuff. Ur top of thel ine, and none of these schools are impossible. Its all luck at ur level.</p>
<p>I know a person who got in to stanford EA this week with a bad app compared to urs. If MIT didn’t accept u early, they eitehr gonna accept u RD, or ur really not getting something across in ur essays. </p>
<p>Remember, all these colleges are a toss up. Im applyin with similar stats. As long as u appear unique to those officers u have a great chance.</p>
But, I would NEVER EVER EVER EVER give up a chance to go to Stanford.</p>