Admission Chances just for a young friend with AS

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ruennsheng
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29 Jun 2010, 7:04 am

A young Singaporean (of Chinese descent) guy who is planning to start his studies in an Californian public high school that is competitive and ranks students... He's in Grade 8 asked me, 'can you get into Princeton or Stanford alone just by having

- 2400 on SAT ("I will practice, practice and practice!")
- 790, 780, 780 for SAT Subject Tests
- 35 ACT
- 8 AP '5's
- GPA 4.0, taking the hardest course load that the school district can offer
- At the bare minimum, 3rd in 300
- Good recommendations, judging from teachers (this guy can not only skate! I didn't know skaters are intellectual too!)
- Some volunteering work in a special school in summers, teaching them skateboarding
- Some work experience in skate shop
- Plans to Organize Skateboarding club (he says he will try his best to push for it, but what if it comes to fruitation?)
- Planned 'Skateboarding and Culture' Seminar in Jr. High
- Strong interest in Skateboarding and Sociology
- "Decent writing abilities," as he aptly puts it, "that can convince others."
- And this guy wonders whether or not he should reveal his AS (Asperger's) or not. Otherwise he's doing fine.

If all of the above really happens, just by judging what is above, are they enough for the Stanford/Princeton aspirant to go to Princeton?

I hope you can help me (who knows nothing about college admissions, coming from Singapore --- I am even surprised by his abilities to give me a lot of information on American university admission as a young kid) and that young fella assess the conditions by themselves, on whether they are good enough for Princeton/Stanford?

This young lad can write all these all by himself, but I decided to just plunge at this curious 'chances' opportunity to see the answers for myself too.

Thanks.


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DerKodeMeister
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29 Jun 2010, 2:54 pm

ruennsheng wrote:
A young Singaporean (of Chinese descent) guy who is planning to start his studies in an Californian public high school that is competitive and ranks students... He's in Grade 8 asked me, 'can you get into Princeton or Stanford alone just by having

- 2400 on SAT ("I will practice, practice and practice!")
- 790, 780, 780 for SAT Subject Tests
- 35 ACT
- 8 AP '5's
- GPA 4.0, taking the hardest course load that the school district can offer
- At the bare minimum, 3rd in 300
- Good recommendations, judging from teachers (this guy can not only skate! I didn't know skaters are intellectual too!)
- Some volunteering work in a special school in summers, teaching them skateboarding
- Some work experience in skate shop
- Plans to Organize Skateboarding club (he says he will try his best to push for it, but what if it comes to fruitation?)
- Planned 'Skateboarding and Culture' Seminar in Jr. High
- Strong interest in Skateboarding and Sociology
- "Decent writing abilities," as he aptly puts it, "that can convince others."
- And this guy wonders whether or not he should reveal his AS (Asperger's) or not. Otherwise he's doing fine.

If all of the above really happens, just by judging what is above, are they enough for the Stanford/Princeton aspirant to go to Princeton?

I hope you can help me (who knows nothing about college admissions, coming from Singapore --- I am even surprised by his abilities to give me a lot of information on American university admission as a young kid) and that young fella assess the conditions by themselves, on whether they are good enough for Princeton/Stanford?

This young lad can write all these all by himself, but I decided to just plunge at this curious 'chances' opportunity to see the answers for myself too.

Thanks.


As long as he throws some good EC's in there with some leadership opportunities, and sounds like an interesting person (has a good writing style) on his app, then yes probably. However, make sure he realizes that a perfect score on the SAT, ACT, and 8 (wow) AP tests is quite a reach and he will not have a great amount of free time to spare if he really wants to reach his goals. Also make him realize that he's fairly young; what does he want to do with his life?

When I was younger I was also obsessed with colleges and music, and was dead sure that my dream college would be Julliard. Teenage years came and I realized that music wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, more like a lifelong hobby. I wouldn't be able to bear having to reduce my love of the art to a daily routine with strict scheduling. I eventually fell in love (again) with the sciences and mathematics and am pretty positive on attending university through the Ph.D level in physics (and math through a bachelor level.)

It is my personal opinion that general education is emphasized too much in America, and there's no real quality option for people like me who want to specialize a bit more to get a head start before going to college. I did ECs and got good SAT scores and have a decent GPA, but right when I entered high school it hit me hard that half the stuff I was studying was absolutely useless (for me). It was (sometimes) intellectually enriching, but I was already decided on what I wanted to study; so I spent a lot of my early high school days studying what I was interested in instead of trying to just get the highest numbers for no obvious goal.

Make sure that your friend has an idea as to what he wants to get out of school before he takes a step further.


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astaut
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29 Jun 2010, 4:02 pm

http://www.cappex.com/
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/

Those are two sites that can give you an idea of your chances at a school. You can ask on yahoo answers as well, but you'll get answers all over the place.


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ruennsheng
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06 Jul 2010, 1:07 am

Thanks a million.


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TheBear
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06 Jul 2010, 2:23 pm

*jawdrop* Man, I wish my academics were that good when I graduated high school, the heck with 8th grade...



kraken
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07 Jul 2010, 3:53 pm

While your friends goals are attainable, they are unreasonably high for most people. Practice is all well and good, but you have to remember that places like Princeton and Yale routinely deny admission to most of the students who apply with perfect or near-perfect test scores. The secret, of course, is that you don't have to attend such a school in order to receive an excellent education.