<p>Hey guys! Wes is absolutely my first choice and I’m applying ED. I LOVE the school and would love to know what to emphasize/do to make my application as strong as possible. This is half a chance post and half a help me get into my favorite school by telling me what seems dumb and irrelevant and what I should emphasize post. Any help is much appreciated! (And, of course, if you’d like me to look over any of your threads let me know! I’d be happy to help!)</p>
<p>A few things/stats about me:
-Upper middle class white Jewish female
-GPA: 4.25 weighted
-ACT: 35 but Wes superscores so it’ll look like I really have a 36
-5s on AP U.S. History, English Lang, Psych, and Calc BC. I’ll be taking Lit, Chem, and Euro in the spring.
-sat ii: 750 Math ii, 750 Lit, 760 U. S. history. (Should I show these or do they just make me look like a weaker student?)</p>
<p>I have pretty strong extracurriculars, too, I think.
-I’ve been involved in every theatre production that my school put on since I’ve been there (18 and counting!) as a writer, stage manager, scenic designer, and actor. It eats up a ton of time but I love it and I have some other leadership things on my application that are part of my theatre resume.
-I’m also very involved in the Jewish community and founded my synagogue’s youth group. It’s now one of the biggest reform youth groups in the region.
-I founded a feminist club at my school.
-I’m also really politically active and into international affairs. I participated in an exchange program in Northern Ireland to study conflict resolution. I’ve also participated in a summer program that brings Israeli, Palestinian, and American teens together for dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
-Last summer, I interned with my congressman all summer, which was an amazing experience.
-There are some other, smaller things too, like being the student liaison to the board of my public library and organizing a social justice in the arts component of an arts festival my school hosts, but those aren’t the biggies so I’m not quite sure how to handle them in the context of my application. </p>
<p>I consider myself a really strong writer and my Common App essay is about confronting my preconceived notions and how difficult/painful it is to admit that you were wrong. (But, of course, talking about it as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than be immature and bitter.) This is in the context of my work with the Israeli/Palestinian dialogue group and sort of navigating what my role is with that. My Wes essay is a response to the “describe a collaboration/conversation” one and it’s about a musical that I wrote and edited over the summer. I’m going to contrast my role as an editor with my role as the stage manager of said musical. It won’t be performed until early October but I’ll probably emphasize the work it took to synthesize people’s ideas and create a cohesive script and then contrast that with the trust that a stage manager has to have in her team’s ability to put on a damn good show.
I have an AMAZING relationship with the teachers that wrote my recs so I’m going to assume that they’re pretty solid.
I haven’t interviewed yet, so any tips for that would be amazing. </p>
<p>I have one last thing, and then I’ll let y’all go. Sorry this is so long!
Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to work with a director from a very well-known theatre company to create a film about the experience of young people in the Holocaust. It’s something I’m incredibly proud of, but because it wasn’t one of my main extracurriculars, I wasn’t sure if I should use a space on the common app for it. I would absolutely love to share it with someone but I’m not quite sure how. Is it even worth doing? It definitely doesn’t seem like much in comparison to other things I’ve done, but like I said, I’m really proud of it. </p>
<p>Okay, so, to recap: White/Jewish girl with high test scores but an eh gpa who adores Wes wants to know if she can get in, what she should emphasize, if she should drop her sat ii scores, whether she should include extracurriculars she doesn’t care as much about, how to rock the interview and how to integrate something she’s proud of. </p>
<p>Like I said, thank you so much for reading all of this. I’m really anxious about the college process and so any response is much appreciated. Even if you don’t respond, kudos to you for getting through this. I know it’s a lot. But yeah, thanks in advance for the responses! I really, really appreciate it! </p>