An Honest Assessment Sophie Rubin
Sophie trades the West Coast (Menlo Park, Calif.) for the East, heading to Smith College in Northampton, Mass. After her sophomore year, she also traded her public high school for a private Jewish school to get "an upper hand getting into colleges." Looking back, she doubts the move boosted her chances, saying: "You learn more from the everyday life around you and the adventures you create than you do in the classroom." Her self-assessment: "I'm not exactly a weak student; I'm just not perfect. Smith has enough room and few enough applicants to be lenient with a student who is less than perfect in terms of numbers."
SAT scores: 610 math, 680 critical reading, 740 writing
GPA: 3.46 nonweighted
Extracurrics: Ice skating, playing fiddle, YMCA Youth and Government
Essay topic: The process of discovering myself
Worst part: The testing. Did well on PSATs, but scores dropped between 100 and 200 points when she took SATs.
Advice to 11th graders: Arrange teacher recommendations months ahead.
Biggest challenge: Dealing with information overload
Most annoying experience: "The parents who say, 'We applied to MIT, we applied to Yale'—it's not the parents who are applying; it's the children."
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