<p>UW GPA: 3.7
Ethnicity: sort of mixed; Spanish last name
Gender: Female
School: some really smart Ivy League material, many non-college aspirers; great disparity in class quality depending on whether a students takes CP or Honors/AP
Course Load: about 18 Honors and AP’s by senior year – good balance of sciences and non-sciences (like Government and English)
SAT: 1960 (CR: 640, M: 600, W: 750); will take again in May AND June to ensure at least 2000 superscore, hoping for 2100 superscore</p>
<p>Awards?:
PSAT Commended Scholar
Honor Award every year (for my school)
AP Scholar (probably since I doubt I’d get lower than a 3 on all the tests I’m taking this May)</p>
<p>School EC’s:
dabbled in Amnesty International, Academic Team, Cultural Diversity
Anime Club
NHS
Pres/Founder of Gay-Straight Alliance
Varsity Sabre Captain of Fencing Team</p>
<p>Outside Stuff:
Library
Women’s Health Care Center
After-school catechism teacher
Hospital (working with a pharmacist)
Went to summer school at Columbia for American Philosophy</p>
<p>Other:
For recommendations: teachers will talk about how well-read, articulate, and talkative – in a good or bad way I don’t know – I am
Very good at writing essays because I speak with passion I suppose
Got a novel deal with a publisher (Sort of smutty publisher…) that I turned down because of family reasons
Would be able to speak clearly and disingenuously in interviews
Intent on majoring in Chemistry, which I think isn’t really that popular in many liberal arts colleges (when compared to, say, political science or sociology)</p>
<p>What are my chances at Swarthmore, Bowdoin, and Claremont McKenna? I realize Swarthmore is exceptionally difficult to get into (my school’s very active valedictorian did not get in), but I don’t know.</p>
<p>A higher SAT would be better. At least 2100, if not higher. try taking the ACT as well. And if you don’t break 2150 on the SAT, I wouldn’t send it to bowdoin.</p>
<p>Other than that, you look good but nothing really jumps out. Essays can be a big factor at small schools like these.</p>
<p>I’d put all of them as reasonable reaches. No guarentees, but the chance is there.</p>
<p>Bowdoin was very hard to get into this last year- they only accepted 18% and it was even lower for women. I think it would be stretch for you to get in, but not impossible. Everyone who applies to Bowdoin has a good essay and gives a good interview. </p>
<p>The Anime club probably detracts from your overall application as it’s not a club admission people really like to see. Your PSAT awards and SAT scores are not outstanding- you might want to consider not sending them to Bowdoin. Also, fencing is cute and may or may not make a difference, it would be more helpful to you if you knew if those schools had fencing teams and had made contact with that team.</p>
<p>If you have a chance you should visit Bowdoin in person and see if you can connect with a professor or staff member who will send a note to admissions. The school is so small that little things like that go a long way.</p>
<p>Snowfort, I think you’re being a bit down on her ECs. And I also don’t think this is true: “Everyone who applies to Bowdoin has a good essay and gives a good interview.”</p>
<p>It’s good to try and be realistic (clove, your scores <em>are</em> rather low for these schools), but I don’t think it’s ever good to encourage someone to remove perfectly good/admirable extracurriculars from their list. The purpose of listing ECs isn’t just to give the admissions officers an idea of what activities you might be involved in at college - it shows them that you have an interest/passion in things other than academics, and if one of those things is anime, so be it - there’s nothing wrong with that (… and there is an anime club at Bowdoin, by the way).</p>
<p>PS - clove, there have been people at Bowdoin trying to pull together a fencing club since before I started here. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten it together, but if you wanted to do it (and got in here), you’d have Bowdoin’s full support, and possibly funding. Just FYI. Good luck with the application process - all the schools you listed are great schools, and I hope you get into one of them.</p>
<p>My team was 3rd in the state. Sabre squad qualified for squad states but ended up last (but at least we qualified, right?).</p>
<p>But I don’t see how being in a club for four years (anime club) could be bad; I doubt that those schools expect EVERYBODY to be interested ONLY in academia and the typical volunteer work and fundraising that most do.</p>
<p>So anyway, yeah, I’m taking my SAT’s again. Hopefully they don’t emphasize too much on them. Do you think they like good essays? Because writing’s pretty much all I can do. I mean, I could always try to get a contract back with Bloomsbury and put down that I published a novel…but I don’t know if I want to run the risk of my family finding my work and, um, not paying for college at all.</p>
Good luck with the application process - all the schools you listed are great schools, and I hope you get into one of them.</p>