Deferred ED.....Think I can make it RD?

construction
Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:44:29 +0000

Well, I don’t really have many match schools. I know that Cornell was to be a high match or even reach school, so on one side I was enthusiastic about hitting the sweet spot for the match but didn’t get cocky because I knew it was still a reach.

Point is, I got deferred. Not the end of the world…but disappointing nonetheless. I don’t have too many other match schools (do I?) but hoped I’d get Cornell. Do you guys think I can make it RD?



Senior attending semi-competitive HS in South-Central Jersey (sends one Ivies, three-ish to top 40 schools)

Plan to major in Civil Engineering, if that doesn’t work, it’ll be architecture.

SAT: Superscore 2060 (700M 660CR 700W 10 Essay)
ACT (good s**t): Composite 33 - 34 English, 33 Math, 31 Reading, 34 Science, 32 Writing
(Is Cornell biased on which test to accept? I mean, they’ve got my SAT’s and SATII’s, and I sent them my ACT’s two weeks ago. I hope that they get my ACT’s in time and will take those scores)
SAT II’s: Physics 650
Math IIC 690
(Unrealistic because I realized I had to take them a week before the test date, don’t think they accurately measure my skills and I mentioned this in Addt’l. Info. I’ll retake, but will Cornell take Jan scores?)

GPA: Right around a 4 weighted, 3.7 unweighted.
Classes: Most rigorous curriculum: All honors and AP classes.
APs: Soph: AP Macroeconomics-4
Junior: AP Spanish Language-(Couldn’t take test)
Senior: AP Physics (Well, it’s not AP, but its the same coursework/load and I plan to take the test)
AP Calculus AB
AP USH or gov (what’s easier?)
AP Microeconomics

EC’s- National Honor Society
Spanish Honor Society
F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Team, member of founding team as senior
designer/engineer. We won the NJ regionals and won a Rookie
all-star award, after which we went to the world champs in Atlanta.
Morning TV show, I created a lot of attractive, professional grade Flash
Intros which really got everyone talking!
Habitat for Humanity
Volunteered about 200 HRS at School Library and did some database management, etc.
Perhaps one or two more as the year goes by.

Work experience(significant!)

Worked in a construction company all four years of high school. I started as skilled labor(electrics, plumbing, carpentry) and moved up to more professional jobs. I am now a project manager, sales consultant, in marketing, and I’ve created a website for our firm. It’s a serious job in which I’ve used a lot of stuff I learned in school. I’m also given full-scale responsibilities, like some sales presentations and crew management, no easy stuff. I can run most machinery, including excavators and large tractors, and tools. I hope colleges look at this as a much more involved employment as opposed to something like working in a supermarket (nothing wrong with that, but my job’s way more intensive!)

Special considerations, if any:

Come from a low-income family for where we live, I think. I work very hard to support the income. I used to work around 30-35 hours a week before, now due to the housing slump, that has increased to near 35-40 hours, taking away some time I could’ve used to study, play lax, etc. I heard the Ivies+top schools have a hard time attracting lower income kids, so I’m hoping mentioning this will help me. I worte about it in the extra info section and mentioned a snippet in my essay. But then again, what Ivy League college gives a flying fuschia about some poor guy whose folks won’t be able to donate to the new library?



GL to everyone, and congrats to the losers who got accepted :)