<p>SAT I: 1540 (Math-780, Verbal-760)
SAT II: Writing- 800, Math IIC- 790, US History- 700</p>
<p>GPA: 4.6 something or other, but it’s weighted, so it doesn’t mean a thing
Top 5% of class at a very competitive high school
Grades/coursework: most advanced levels of everything, 1-2 bs per year out of a full schedule (7-8 classes). ap classes taken: last year b/c calc, art history, physics b, us history, german; this year chem, euro, english, music theory
College classes: physics, calc, german</p>
<p>Intended major: Astrophysics
Related experience: research in Penn State’s Astronomy Department; volunteering at Astrofest, Penn State’s astronomy outreach program; space camp volunteer, 3-5 grades; Science Olympiad middle school coach; Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth Astronomy camp</p>
<p>Extracurriculars/other activities: Science Olympiad Captain (state medalist in various events, including astronomy), Quiz Bowl Vice President and Treasurer, German Club President, Varsity Volleyball Captain, Science Bowl and Ocean Sciences Bowl, Thespians, Girl Scouts (silver award recipient, halfway to gold award [like eagle scout award]), Special Olympics volunteer.</p>
<p>About the ECs: Great activities. I would have to say that you have a reasonably better chances than others. </p>
<p>About the stats: Are you gonna retake the US History 700? If so, then you are invincible. About the APs… did you take the AP exams? then… scores please. Also, since you want to study astrophysics, aren’t you going to take Physics AP C?</p>
<p>Hope this helps… but i am not an adcom… i am only a stressed out senior :)</p>
<p>aps- horrible scores. us history-4, german-3, art history-3, b/c calc-3. should I even report them? I don’t know how much I’d improve if I retook the us history sat II. Hadn’t planned on it.</p>
<p>The college physics course I took over the summer covered the newtonian mechanics part of ap physics c, and I was considering taking the e&m part of c at my school, but it’s the same period as my chem class.</p>
<p>If I have three decent SAT IIs, (790 IIC, 760 Writing, 760 US Hist), will sending two more tests - 720 IC, 710 Chemistry - which i took a long time ago (excuse for the lower grades) - hurt me in the admissions process…</p>
<p>I know it might not help…but i want to send them as long as they wont hurt…</p>
<p>after looking at their webpage, it seemed that they don’t take people just as defensive specialists, which is the position I play, as I’m only 5’5". I wish I could play for them though.</p>
<p>most ds in d1, at least here at penn state, which is consistently among the top ten teams in the nation, are my height. harvard, however, hasn’t had anyone in the past 2 years that has been under 5’7", and all of the dses also set. </p>
<p>so, volleyball aside, what do people think? also about those ap scores… is it better to leave bad ones off?</p>
<p>“If I have three decent SAT IIs, (790 IIC, 760 Writing, 760 US Hist), will sending two more tests - 720 IC, 710 Chemistry - which i took a long time ago (excuse for the lower grades) - hurt me in the admissions process…”</p>
<p>The admissions office receives every score from every sitting of every college board non-AP test you’ve taken. They officially only acknowledge three, but they see them all. So, if you think the 720 and 710 are bad, then it’s unfortunate that the adcom will see them.</p>
<p>However, anything above a 700 on an SAT II test is not a bad score, and certainly do not require an “excuse.”</p>
<p>It’ll look horrible. Seriously, they’ll automatically reject you because you didn’t take full advantage of every question on the test. </p>
<p>Ok, sarcasm aside, I think it depends more on percentiles rather than scores. For example, an 800 on Chinese w/ Listening will put you on the 56th percentile. While on the other hand, an 800 in German will put you in the 96th percentile. It’s the same way for the all of the more commonly taken tests . . . 700 on US = 76%, while the same score = 85% for World History.</p>
<p>I say report the AP scores–if you don’t, it looks like you were just lazy and didn’t take them. If you report not so hot AP scores but reasonably good SAT II scores, maybe they’ll conclude you had a bad week during AP testing.</p>
<p>To be frank, I don’t think AP test scores matter as much as everyone says–I blew them off last year and I only reported US History (4), but I got in EA.</p>
<p>I disagree sunglasses. AP scores… I don’t think he should report them. An adcom I talked to said that there are too many people with 10+ APs (all 5’s) that AP scores don’t make much difference. If he doesn’t report them, it will be just fine. If he does, it will look bad.</p>
<p>i actually did better on the AP US than the SAT II (5 as opposed to 720). </p>
<p>and to MzLover, that was why i didn’t do the SAT II chinese. i figured that, heck, i’d probably mess up and be the only person who gets below 750 or something. and for the percentiles, i don’t think they really make that big of a difference (76% vs. 85%) since i got the same score on both.</p>
<p>is it possible for astrophysicist to just report the AP US and omit the others? or would that just look suspicious?</p>
<p>So did I!! <em>gasp</em> (5 as opposed to 690). But did you take the SAT II in May/June? I figured that my SAT II score was due to all the AP people taking it right before/after the AP exam… so I retook it and got a 790 on November exam. Maybe you should consider retaking… :P</p>
<p>There isn’t any way to report just one score. He could, in fact, cancel all the 3 scores and then report the remaining AP 4, but since he could get credit for the 3’s, maybe he should leave them. Maybe he should just not report the scores and ask the guidance counselor to include only his AP US score on the official transcript, since exam scores on the official transcript are equivalent to “official score report.” (only for APs…)</p>
<p>To others…
you know…adcoms don’t get our percentiles, if you are curious. They get our scores, and a little information package that has all the percentiles for all the exams, which I doubt they will take more than a glance.</p>
