Is it worth it for me to apply here?

Anonymous5313
Thu, 31 Oct 2019 04:01:45 +0000

What’s up guys, I’m still deciding whether I want to ED to Northwestern or a safer school like BU just to get the process over with. I know Northwestern is really hard to get into, and looking at my school’s history a lot of people with stats better than mine have been rejected, so I’m worried that I’m wasting my ED by applying here. Here are my stats, I’d appreciate brutal honesty.

Desired Major: Undecided (Weinberg) ** if applying undecided hurts me I’d be willing to change this to history or english
SAT Score: 1490 (760 R/W, 730 M)
** I’m retaking this in November because I know I can get my math score up (this score was from a year ago with almost no studying). My Admissions officer told me I can self-report this score when it arrives and they might consider it.
Unweighted GPA: 3.7
Weighted GPA: 4.25
SAT II: None (Never got around to it: I go to a pretty high income school so this may reflect poorly).
Past AP Courses: AP Computer Science A (5), AP Calc AB (5), AP Physics 1 (4), AP Microeconomics (5), AP Macroeconomics (5)
Current AP Courses: AP Physics C E&M, AP Biology, AP Statistics, AP US History

Awards: Ap scholar with distinction, National merit commended student (I’m in NJ), national honor society (nothing special I guess)

Extracurriculars: (I think these are pretty weak, I’m not a very involved person)
I created and maintain the website for a local nonprofit that has an outreach of almost 300 local families.
I’ve spent two summers as a full time lifeguard, I have a senior shift leader position which puts me in charge of a shift of 8 people.
I participate in varsity swimming, have several individual medals and our team won states last year
I played club soccer for 4 years and am a captain this year.
For my senior year I’ve been volunteer tutoring at the public library a few hours a week.
Finally, in my sophomore year I did some technology research in Java Graphics Libraries

Recommendations: I have two teacher letters, one doesn’t know me super well and will probably write a pretty generic letter, the other knows me a little better and is a great writer but I’m not expecting these letters to make or break my application. (5-6/10??)

Essays: I consider myself a pretty good writer, for my personal statement I wrote about saving a little girl at my lifeguarding job and how it helped me to be more confident in my abilities. (7-9/10)?
Why Northwestern: It was pretty rushed but I think I got my point across about how I love the academic flexibility and huge range of opportunities that NU offers. (6-8/10)?

I also should mention that I didn’t really maintain a consistent 3.7, my grades for this and sophomore year were almost straight A’s, but Junior year I kind of slacked off (I know, I’m an idiot) and got a couple Bs and a C+ in Spanish. This is kind of freaking me out because I know ED they won’t see my senior grades, so their last impression of me will be this slacker with a downward trend in grades.

anyway- thanks for reading all this, it was pretty cathartic to write out. I’d appreciate any input