<p>I am an international student that applied RD last year and got put on the waitlist. Thinking of reapplying this year (serving mandatory 2 years in the army) as an ED applicant. </p>
<p>Here are my stats:</p>
<p>Old SAT I: 1450 (710V/740M)
SAT II: 800 physics, 800 Math IIC, 720 Writing
I did relatively well for the GCE A-levels I sat for, am one of the top English Literature Students, while taking higher level Math and Physics papers (S-papers)
I had one pretty good rec plus one that was not bad but projected me as rather laidback.
My essays I think were good.
I represented the college in Basketball, participating in numerous competitions out of school as well.
I was the asst class rep, was part of a committee that organised and ran a leadership camp for a primary school, represented my country in taekwondo when I was young and used to swim competitively at a national level (6 years ago). I have 100 hours of community service. </p>
<p>My ECs are rather weak (no leadership positions), and now I read that applying ED to Amherst is not as favourable as other colleges. Advice please???</p>
<p>i wouldn’t stress on stuff i did 6 years ago and then stopped doing (because that’s what i gather from your post).
actually, i did play the guitar and sing for ~5 years and then stopped both around the year 2000. i never even mentioned this in my application, because i do not consider it a current activity of mine.
besides, i believe that if you put something as old as this in your application, it will only give people the impression that you have no current and significant activities to mention and are just trying to list as much stuff as possible for cover-up.</p>
<p>instead, focus on the stuff you do now and show some persistence in it</p>
<p>by the way, did you simply drop swimming and taekwondo? did something force you to? or did you only stop being successful in them, while continuing to be involved?</p>
<p>and which country are you from, if you dont mind me asking ?</p>
<p>Yeah, I know what you are saying and in fact I didn’t include these activities when I applied to Amherst last year because I didn’t think it was right. I did however mention the taekwondo thing cause I thought representing the country (Singapore, by the way) in a tournament in Korea might pull some weight. As for showing persistance, I have played and still are playing in basketball tournaments. In fact I played in one even though it was a week away from a major examination. However, I have nothing much to show for it. As for you question as to my non-continual involvement in the sports; I stopped taekwondo cause I achieved a junior black belt and had to wait a few years to convert it to a senior black belt. As for competitive swimming I became disenchanted by it because of some mix up that prevented me from competing in my pet event in the national competition when I had the best time that year. Eventually, I lost interest in swimming because training 2 times a day was no joke and it was getting rather mundane. However, I was in fact doing not too bad, my heat just wasn’t there.</p>
?</p>