The PERFECT applicant; what you should look like if you want to get in anywhere.

As most of you know, users on College Confidential often times engage in Results pages for the colleges they applied to where they post their stats and whether they were accepted, waitlisted, or rejected. Here is a sample profile of what yours should look like if you want to get into all of your dream colleges. Notice how, including the jokes, this applicant is able to spread himself wide yet be just as deep. He is a jack of all trades, master of all.

Decision: Accepted Everywhere

Objective:

• SAT I (breakdown): 2400 (…first try of course)
• ACT: 36
• SAT II: 800 Math II, 800 Biology, 800 Chemistry, 790 Physics, 800 Literature, 800 World History, 800 French w/ List, 800 Japanese w/ List.
• Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
• Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/666
• AP (place score in parenthesis): 5s on 12/12 tests
• IB (place score in parenthesis): NA
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Macro/Micro, 2D Art, Orchestra, Environmental Science, Intro to Biomedical Engineering (at local college), AP Computer Science, Cooking, Film Studies (had no difficult classes left by senior year…oops!)
• Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): USAMO finalist, Intel National First Place winner, Siemens National First Place winner, World Piano Competition Level 12 winner, National High School Cheerleading Championships winner.

Subjective:

• Extracurriculars (place leadership in
  parenthesis): Basketball (team captain), Golf (team MVP), Cheerleading (team captain), High School Musical / Drama Club (pretty much Troy Bolton), Dance Marathon (choreographer), HELP-Helping Elderly Learn Polish (service group leader), TEACH-Teaching Elderly And Children Hopscotch (founder and CEO), Aeolian Harp player (10 years + soloist), Organist (horror movie soundtrack recorder)
• Job/Work Experience: bookstore merchant, student journalist for Puffington Host, internship at The Onion, lifeguard, McDonald’s hashbrown fryer.
• Volunteer/Community service: teaching elderly how to do various things (as noted above), petting dogs at the pound, 400+ hours volunteering at local hospital, school service organizations, putting on musicals for homeless people.
• Summer Activities: Noodling, storm chasing, counting down to Shark Week, inventing a kitchen utensil, creating Android apps, helping the elderly play bridge at local hospital.
• Essays: About my trip to Namibia where I met an Egyptian who showed me a rare chemical derivative from the yew tree that could potentially cure cancer, which I eventually wrote a book about that became an international best-seller. And how this changed my life and way I look at the world.
• Teacher Recommendation: Absolutely astounding! Read them all.
• Counselor Rec: Talked about my charm and good looks and how it affects my extreme affability.
• Additional Rec: From Obama.
• Interview: Took her for some afternoon tea.
• Supplementary Material(if any): My published best-seller, a soundtrack of my organ playing, a video of my harp solos, my research project abstract on curing cancer with paclitaxel, another rec letter from Hilary Clinton.

Other

• State (if domestic applicant): New York
• Country (if international applicant): US
• School Type: Private
• Ethnicity: Hispanic
• Gender: Male
• Income Bracket: Millions +
• Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): see above

Reflection

• Strengths: My application.
• Weaknesses: My lack of weaknesses.
• Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: probably luck.
• Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Accepted: you name it.

General Comments: It’s a blessing to have been so fortunate to have been accepted by the entire Ivy League and more! Whichever college’s campus I grace in the coming year will be as lucky to have me as I it. Oh the joy!

Questionably sized fish in a little pond full of big ones: Dartmouth College

As you stated, going to IU will allow you to stay close with old friends while having an unending pool of fish from which to choose your new victi–I mean, friends. I have to say that I envy you in that respect. (Have I ever said that before?) Meeting with a West Side alum will be just a matter of walking to another dorm building for you.

I, on the other hand, will have virtually no one from West Side attending with me at Dartmouth, with the exception of one senior who will be graduating soon anyway. The closest West Siders will be at least a two hour bus ride away for me, though I’m not sure whether Harvardists and Princetonians will have time for a Dartmouth student (jk).

Thankfully, I was able to make a couple close friends during Dimensions, Dartmouth’s program in April for prospective students. The weekend featured nonstop activities, food, and presentations that were. (SPOILER! SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED AT DIMENSIONS) A real surprise came when the upperclassmen gave a final show/musical for us ‘prospies’, or prospective freshman. In the middle of the rewritten “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” a bunch of prospies stood up from the audience and started singing along. Turns out that these thirty or so people that we befriended during the weekend were actually sophomores pretending to be upcoming freshman. MIND = BLOWN. So I think the point of the story is that I have to make friends but luckily I have some made? I don’t have a 40,000 people pond to choose from like you, though; Dartmouth has about 4500 total undergraduates.

On another note, I’ve been lazily getting back into reading grind, which, thanks to AP English, is all too familiar. This year, Dartmouth has given us a summer reading list of one book, which consists of The River Why by David James Duncan. I’m only a third of the way into the novel, but so far it’s rubbing off as a slightly more introspective yet crude version Moby Dick, missing in cast only the lunatic that’s chasing after a demon whale, though the search for knowledge and meaning of life is still ever present and just as elusive. Sadly, after AP English, I can’t just read a book for the sake of reading it and I either find myself not reading it at all or trying to extract the true meaning out of every page. It’s very daunting to say the least.