What are my chances

czechhoslovakia
Sat, 20 Aug 2005 23:17:56 +0000

Some background: I’m a graduate of a very small parochial (baptist) school. I applied regular decision to dartmouth for the class of 2009 but was waitlisted. Due to the utter lack of college guidance at my school, i didn’t apply to any safety schools, an oversight for which i am daily flogging myself. So i’ve decided to re-apply ED for the class of 2010, and i’d like an objective appraisal of how badly a year off will hurt me. I’m also applying to UChicago, Holy Cross, and Juniata and probably more.

GPA:3.43 unweighted
Class Rank: 1 out of 4 (this really kills my academic index, which would be a ‘9’ with quartiles but is instead a ‘5’)
SAT: Verbal 800, Math 740
SATII: Writing 800, Math II 760, Latin 720

Extracurriculars:
Soccer-4 years, couple awards, captain in senior year
Volleyball-no awards, school had no team, but pursuit outside of school
Band/Choir/Bellchoir- several band/choir awards, band captain, and our bell choir performed at 2 inaugural balls for 2004
Trumpet-teacher is first in the Hartford Symphony, and I’ve won a couple national competitions (in baptist circles, to be sure). - sending a tape in
Piano-finalist a national competition - sending a tape in
Church-15 hours a week, assistant choir director, choir pianist, congregational pianist, orchestra, choir

Community: none, because of church

Academic Awards/honors:
First in high school for: Math, Science, English and History
Valedictorian (of 4…)
Placed third in Algebra/Geometry in national competition
Placed third in Extemporaneous speaking in national competition
National Merit Scholarship Commended Student (in CT)
Honor Society member.

Academic activities of note:
I taught myself 2 years of Latin and scored a 720 with only 3 semesters under my belt. (recommended 3-4 years)
I taught myself Algebra II in the summer because the teacher was less than talented.

Lets say I write a good essay, given my verbal and writing scores, excellent recs from my english, math/music, and trumpet teacher, and have a good interview.

In my year off I am working a 40-50 hour job, taking spanish and maybe french at a community college, playing soccer and volleyball in leagues, attending/ministering at church, translating the Gallic Wars by Caesar and doing as much critical historical reading as I can (I’m working through Heroditus and Thucidydes right now)

I intend to major in business and minor in music while taking as many language courses as i can.

So there it is. I’d appreciate any opinions or advice from this group, since I’ve learned so much already from their evaluations of other peoples’ circumstances.