Updated chances thread. Please Chance me!

mcfly
Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:42:22 +0000

Hey everyone. I am a junior in high school from illinois looking at some pretty selective schools for college. I think I am pretty qualified for all of the ones I am looking at, and my couselor tells me that as well, but I also understand that at the level these schools are at, almost all the applicants have terrific grades and test scores. I posted this a while back (about 2 months ago, but I have since received some test scores back and made some athletic accomplishments).

Male, White, from suburb in Illinois.
Go to a very large public school (2700 students) ranked as one of the top 5 public schools in the state.

My GPA weighted is 5.93, not sure what it is unweighted, but I am ranked 5/691
I have yet to take the SAT, but my PSAT was 224, so I will be a National Merit semi finalist (and hopefully a finalist as well).

I recently took an in school ACT (state mandatory) and got a 34. My reading and english subscores were 35, and math and science were both 33. I am signed up to retake it in June and hope to raise my math and science scores (which I consider to be my strongest subjects).

AP tests
US History- 4
Language and Composition- 5
Calculus BC- 5
AB Calculus subscore- 5

I took SATII in chemistry, math II, and US history and received scores of 730,800, 720

Here is my course load over my high school years

8th grade- (taken at high school for credit)
Geometry Honors

9th
Algebra II Trigonometry Honors
English I Honors
World History Honors
Biology Honors
German I Honors

10th
Accounting honors
German II honors
Pre-Calculus Honors
English II Honors
Chemistry Honors

11th
Physics Honors
AP Calculus BC
AP US History
AP Language and Composition
German III Honors
Latin I Honors

12th ( scheduled)
AP Chemistry
German IV Honors (independent study AP test)
Latin II Honors
AP Literature and Composition
AP Statistics
AP Microeconomics (semester course)
AP Government and Politics (semester course)

Thus far I have received A’s in all of the courses I have enrolled in with the exception of first semester calculus which I earned a B.

Athletics:

2 Years Varsity Swim Team. 5 x conference champion, and set 2 conference records.
1 Year Baseball- played for the freshman team
2 Year Varsity Cross Country- Scholar Athlete and Conference All Academic. Time of 16:40 for 3 miles (first season)
3 Year Varsity Track and Field- times of 4:47 for mile, 2:07 for 800 meters. Been injured almost all of my running career including this track season. I will hopefully be able to really dominate my cross country time this fall, as I know I am good enough to compete for all DIII and a good amount of DI schools. I spoke to the coaches who understood I had been injured and was making the transition from swimming to running. Because I am an “undeveloped talent” as they call me, I have much higher recruiting stock than someone who had been running say, 3 years would. I have been running for about a total of 1.25 years. (3 years track and 2 years cross country was including the upcoming 2 seasons that I will compete in).

In addition, our captains for cross country will be named this summer and there is a pretty good chance I will be chosen as one.

Also I compete for the Mideast Team Elite, a national elite triathlon team, one of the strongest teams in the nation. Recently placed 3rd in my age group in the Schaumburg triathlon, and I will be racing at nationals later this summer.

Extra Stuff

2x AATG finalist. This is the German National competition. Scored 92,95 respectively on my last two national exams.
1x Latin National competition “gold medalist” 95%
1x Latin State finalist. 165/180 qualifier to state meet with superior honors.

Won American Legion Boy’s State Scholarship for the summer of 2009. Will represent my school at Eastern Illinois University as one of two representatives.

Volunteer Work/Work:
4 year Peer Juror for the Downers Grove Peer Jury. Named a Senior Juror.
3 year Youth flag football coach for the community house.
Also worked as the scorekeeper and field setter for the community house.
5 year Umpire for the little league. One of the Senior Umpires.
Working downtown this summer at a lawfirm, and worked maintenance (gardening etc.) the last three years at an expensive country club (not one my family could even dream of joining lol.)
I also worked for a year as a short order chef at a restaurant in town.

Other Hobbies/Activities.
I have been in habitat for humanity all 4 years of high school, though il be honest, I do not do much for the club and would probably just as well leave it off my resume.

Sports writing. Write sports articles online for different sites. Have published over 100 articles with over 200,000 views. Full time writer on a few sites (www.thesportingtruth.com,www.sportsguysblog.com, Fantasy Football Maniaxs: Your daily guide to victory!) but publish my work on numerous other sites. A few of my articles have appeared on “big name sites” such as sporting news, CBS Sports, USA Today, and Fox Sports, which is pretty cool.

My essays should be very strong. I prize my writing and have done very well in the writing sides of all my english classes, as both my parents have Phds in English Literature and really started me off on the right path when I was in elementary school. My letters of rec should also be strong, one is from my German teacher who I have had for 3+ years and will have next year, and the other is from my english teacher who really likes having me in class (or at least she gives off that impression).

University of Michigan
Princeton
Dartmouth
Cornell
Georgetown-
Northwestern-
Williams-
Pomona
Stanford

As far as legacy goes, My mom and sister went to williams as well as 4 other members of my extended family. I thank everyone for all of their help.