<p>Hi to all in frozen Cambridge,</p>
<p>I’m a junior this year, but I’m in some pretty unusual circumstances and thought it would be wise to start asking about chances early. </p>
<p>Personal:
White F
Arizona (49th in the nation in education, at least we beat Mississippi)
CHARTER SCHOOL (this is unusual, see note below)
Class size: 50-55
Sends 0-1 to Ivies per class, 10-12 to good SLACs</p>
<p>*My HS is a very small charter school basically meant to imitate the curriculum of a place like St. John’s, or the Core of schools like Chicago, Columbia, etc. Every course except languages is mandatory (language you pick in 8th grade). Average SAT is about 1250-1280 (without writing). Every core class is labeled honors but there are no APs. See below. The school profile explains everything in extreme detail, so I doubt there will be any confusion for committees.</p>
<p>To illustrate this, junior year classes:
Precalc + first semester calc
Classical Greek (my 3rd year)
Physics E&M
Studio Art (1 semester), Drama (other)
History & literature seminar: classics in translation (2 hours daily)</p>
<p>Senior year classes:
Calc BC
Classical Greek (4th year)
Chemistry
Studio Art (1 semester), Drama (other)
History & literature seminar: medieval authors in translation (2 hours daily)</p>
<p>Stats and Tests:</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0/4.0</p>
<p>Rank: 1/57 but I share the rank with 2 others</p>
<p>SAT: I took the SAT in 8th grade and got 800v/650m (I knew no geometry). Practice tests all 2380-2400 (obviously no essay).</p>
<p>SAT II: have Bio E 800, Lit 800, USH 740. Will take Latin, Math IIC, World History. Predict 3x800.</p>
<p>ACT: not taking, predicted is about 34-35. Should I?</p>
<p>APs: This is where it gets sticky. As mentioned above, my school has no AP courses so I have to whine and complain to other schools & the College Board in order to take exams.</p>
<p>This year:
Latin Vergil
Latin Lit (doing both supervised study, which was hell to arrange)
Physics C E&M (may take B instead)
US G&P (took course last year, just reviewing)
English Language
Micro (independent study)</p>
<p>Next year:
English Literature
Comp G&P
Calc BC
Chemistry
German (studied abroad last summer and I read German articles for my research, see below)
Macro (independent study)</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
Speech and Debate: cocaptain, state finalist, double state championship team, prestigious award as sophomore (one of about 100 sophs nationally)</p>
<p>Cross-country and track: all-region cross, all-region and all-state track, triple state championship track team-- I run 1600, 3200 but want to drop cross and run steeple in college (or possibly 10k). Will captain both senior year.</p>
<p>Junior Classical League: president, very very numerous awards (see below)</p>
<p>Violin (six years, school has no orchestra so I take lessons)
College level Greek since 9th grade
Regional Science Bowl</p>
<p>Service:
About 150 hours peer tutoring in Latin and math (total)
About 50 hours volunteering cross and track meets (jr. high)
Write, organize, direct children’s Nativity play yearly- total 60 hours?
About 100-150 hours translating Greek tragedy for production I will direct and possibly perform in–play will be in Greek but audience will have my translation as “subtitles” (this is difficult to understand without seeing the setup)</p>
<p>Summer:
2xJHU-CTY (Greek and history of disease)
Study abroad in Austria
Debate camp (not prestigious)</p>
<p>I am applying to TASP and a non-pay-based study abroad program this year–will likely go to Macedonia because I really want to learn Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian. If I get neither, I will volunteer or work and take an intensive language course (in BCS of course).</p>
<p>Awards:
National Forensic League Outstanding Distinction (as soph, see above)
Won two local history/civics type essay contests
National Latin Exam 4xsumma, 2 perfect papers
Top 10 nationally on CAMWS unseen Latin contest
3x state JCL certamen champion, 1 second place (7th grade)
23x state champion in other JCL events (not a typo, seriously 23 times)
5x second place other JCL events</p>
<p>Research etc:
Work on tragedy mentioned above
National History Day paper (end of Peloponnesian War vs. Reconstruction, specifically about the Thirty Tyrants compared to Benjamin Butler if anyone knows classics)
Way too in-depth paper for the Concord Review about Makedonian politics before Alexander the Great (taking me forever and a day but fortunately they have rolling submissions)</p>
<p>As you can tell, I definitely, definitely will major in classics. As such, Cambridge MA is actually not my #1 (that belongs to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire). I would love it if anyone could </p>
<p>a) share their experience with languages (particularly classics if anyone has taken courses) at Harvard</p>
<p>and b) chance me for Harvard and the following schools:</p>
<p>Yale (ewww, I really do not like Yale but my parents want me to apply)
Barnard (legacy)
University of Chicago
Brown
Holy Cross (would like this much more were it not for the Jesuits)
Bryn Mawr
Virginia</p>