Resume Guide - Dartmouth College: Fill & Download for Free

I applied to 15 colleges, yes, 15. This was mainly because, while I am a top student and I was certain I would be accepted into a good college, I knew that college admissions are incredibly competitive and therefore I could not bet on any specific prestigious college to accept me. My family is relatively lower-middle-class, though not poor. My retired mother, my disabled sister, and I live practically paycheck to paycheck with financial help from my grown-up siblings. Because of this, I knew that I would not have really any money to pay for college, so I only looked at colleges that met full-need, all of which are very selective.My StatsSAT: 1540/1600, 1460/1600, 1480/1600 (in that order, sadly)SAT 2: Math II (770/800), Physics (770/800)GPA: 4.405/4 Weighted, 3.96/4 unweighted (one B in freshman year English)Other GPA: 4.0/4.0 (I took a multivariable calculus class at a local community college)Extracurriculars:I have been self-teaching programming since 5th grade, publishing 8 apps and games to both Android and iOS. 3D modelling was another activity I enjoyed, and I published several models online. In school, I was also active: president of both Republican Club and CyberPatriot Club, officer for Vex Robotics Club, member of FCA. I also am a sub-mediocre pianist. I had a job as an office-assistant for my sister’s law-firm over the last two summer breaks.Essays: While, I got A’s in my AP English classes and a 5 on the AP Language and Composition Exam, my writing is choppy and unrefined. Additionally, some of my essays for specific schools were literally finished last minute. Still, some of the content was notable: me self-teaching computer programming, me restarting a dead club at my school.I applied to all my schools for Computer Science.Here are my acceptances and rejections in the order I received them along with some commentary:Stanford University - Rejected Early-Action - This was my first-choice college, as it is consistently top-ranked for computer science, my sister’s Alma Mater, and in my state (CA). I was not too surprised that I was rejected, but I was disappointed, especially since a lot of my peers were confident I would be accepted. Before my rejection to Stanford I really had not started to apply to any other schools, maybe I was subconsciously confident that I would be accepted, maybe I was just lazy. I told myself I just did not want to waste money.Northeastern University - Accepted - Northeastern accepted me in February into their Honors program. This acceptance wasn’t a surprise (had the highest acceptance rate out of all the schools I applied to), but their timing and financial aid “full need met” policy is most definitely was; my expected family contribution was $25,000, more than half what my mom made before she retired. All other colleges were at least half of that and one said my family contribution would be $0.MIT - Rejected - Starting in 5th grade I made it my goal to attend MIT, however beginning in Junior year I began having doubts. Yes, it is a top 2 computer science school, but it is also notoriously difficult and has the highest rate of suicide. Additionally, when I visited the campus I was unimpressed, and my student tour guide seemed somewhat depressed, unmotivated and told our group that at MIT they “suffer together.” Still, I was disappointed that I did not get in, especially since someone else at my school did (though I was very happy that that person did get in).Cornell University - Accepted - The day after MIT gave me my rejection, I check my phone while brushing my teeth for school, kind of sad that I will have to answer all my peer’s “did you get in” questions. In the Promotions tab of my Gmail I see an email, “A Special Invitation from Cornell University.” Inside it says, “…you will be admitted to Cornell University’s Class of 2022.” I check again to make sure this wasn’t another plea from Cornell College to get me to apply, nope, it was legit. I was so happy! I told my mother then sent a screenshot only to my best friend. By the time I got to school everyone knew and congratulated me, not bringing up MIT. (Cornell technically did not accept me until March 28th because the Ivy’s have an agreement to release decisions on the same day, but they are allowed to send emails like Cornell did)Williams College - AcceptedColby College - Waitlisted - This was somewhat surprising. I considered Colby College a (relative) safety school since my stats were well above their average. I know that they consider demonstrated interest and they do not like to admit people they believe will end up attending elsewhere, so perhaps they waitlisted me because I was too computer-science-oriented, a field in which they are not very notable.Swarthmore College - Accepted - This college conducted my first college interview, and it went pretty well, and was very interesting. I expected my interviewer to ask me questions about my classes, grades, and SATs, but the alumnus who conducted the interview did not even touch on those subjects, instead asking me about my political beliefs (in a neutral and conversational matter) and some hypothetical questions relating to computer science and artificial intelligence.Colgate University - AcceptedWashington and Lee University - AcceptedRice University - AcceptedUniversity of Southern California (USC) - Rejected - At first, I was surprised at this rejection, but I must admit that my essays for this school were rushed and subpar, and I ignored their requests for additional financial aid documents after I was accepted into Cornell.Vanderbilt University - WaitlistedPrinceton University - Rejected - This was my first choice school after Stanford rejected me. I was not surprised that I was rejected, though I did think I might have a chance since I sent my resume with my apps and because my interview went very well. My interviewer and I really connected and like the Swarthmore interview he asked me questions about artificial intelligence ranging from practical to philosophical.Dartmouth College - RejectedUniversity of Pennsylvania - Accepted - I had my best interview with the alumna from Penn. She greatly appreciated my passion for programming and my desire to learn.Overall I was accepted to 8, waitlisted at 2, and rejected from 5.Currently I am trying to decide whether I should attend Cornell or Penn.I feel very blessed to have been accepted into all these places. Looking back, I see that I probably did not need to apply to 15, but I am glad I did. I don’t think I would have applied to Cornell or Penn if I had to apply to fewer schools.Edit 4/1/2018: I have fixed some grammatical errors. My college essays were at least better written than this post—I actually proofread them. I cannot reply to comments anonymously, so I’ll write a few notes here.Rice, Williams, and Swarthmore are very good schools, but the Ivy League schools are hard to compete with.I only meant to to take the SAT twice, but I took my second SAT after summer and did not study for it—the result can be seen. After I saw my second score score, I freaked out and tried to take it again in the next two weeks, another bad idea. My score rose, but not nearly as much as I hoped. Future college applicants be warned.I was able to apply to so many schools despite the cost thanks to my adult sister, who is rather well-off. For Christmas she encouraged me to apply to many colleges and promised that she would pay for them. Also, I also was offered a few fee waivers, and Colby College simply has no application fee.My political party preference may have or may have not influenced college admissions. Most likely not. I was admitted into Swarthmore, a very progressive college, despite it. I think colleges like Stanford and MIT had other valid reasons to reject me (SAT score regression, highly competitive applicant pool), so I cannot whine.Thanks for all the support and upvotes! I did not think that my post would get this much attention.EDIT: I ended up enrolling at the University of Pennsylvania

Online resources are great for learning very diverse and interesting practical skills such as programming.There used to be a time when educational resources were limited to the boundaries of a library or university. However, the internet has changed all of that, and nowadays, it is easy to find tutorials and helpful videos related to almost any niche or topic.So where can we go to learn not only academic lessons but practical skills that help us lead enhanced lives?The online resources listed below offer lots of education for just that.Explore each one carefully and dig for those bits of gold. They’re there, and the best part is they’re free.University of the PeopleUniversity of the People is a non-profit, tuition-free online university that offers higher education in multiple course streams, such as arts, commerce, science, and technology. If you have a flair for learning and wish to get higher education but cannot afford the costly colleges and universities, University of the People can help you out. There is no tuition fee, though if possible, you are encouraged to pay $100 examination fee at the end of the academic tenureKhan AcademyKhan Academy is hands down the one to beat for online learning. They continue to grow from their humble beginnings. They remain synonymous with most people’s notion of what ideal online learning resources should be. There are currently over 40 million people learning on Khan Academy. That is an amazing fact, isn’t it?Kahn is for everybody, and their course selection is great. Khan also features special portals for teachers and parents. Each section offers special guidance for helping children and students have their best online learning experiences.GCF Learn FreeGCF Learn Free is part of the Goodwill Community Foundation. It offers free courses in core subjects, along with technology. There are more than 1,000 lessons from their courses available, and they are of good quality.GCF Learn Free designs their courses using practical data. They keep an eye on trends in technology, workplace skills, and get input from learners through social media, support tickets, and exit surveys. In this way, they offer the best and most practical courses possible.EdExEdEx is one of the many new online learning resources working hard to bring free opportunities for learning to many. They feature content from top-level universities. Some of the names include Boston U, Berkeley, University of Queensland, and the University of British Columbia.EdEx lets you pick up official credentials from the institution you study from. These certifications are signed by the instructor. You can use them to profile skills on your resume or your LinkedIn profile.W3SchoolsIf you are looking to learn web development, look no further than W3Schools. The website has tutorials and learning resources related to every major aspect of web development, be it AJAX, HTML5, CSS3, PHP, jQuery, SQL or ASP. Beyond that, there is also an online certification program that can help you become an expert in the coding field of your choice.CK-12CK-12 caters primarily to school education. It has separate sections for students and instructors/teachers, and you will need to create an account to use the services. The learning is divided by subjects such as Science, Humanities and Mathematics, and so on.You can create lesson plans and learn modules for your students, and as a student, you have access to books and interactive videos as well as exercises.Academic EarthAcademic Earth offers online classes and learning videos for free. The content and tutorials are provided by some of the leading universities and institutions in the world, such as Stanford University, Yale University, Dartmouth College and MIT. The list of subjects covered is huge and includes History, Languages, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Maths, Engineering, Computers, Accounting, and so on.Hack DesignHack Design offers technology tutorials for Web design, mobile apps, and more.This site uses highly interactive lessons for teaching. Units include challenging games and puzzles that stretch the imagination and exercise critical thinking capacity.More thoughts: Improving Continuous Learning ... Check Out These IdeasE-Learning for KidsE-Learning for Kids focuses on essential skills in 4-core, health, life skills, environmental studies, and technology. It’s a fun and easy-to-navigate site that features rich and interesting content for kids ages 5–12.This is another highly interactive site with a great visual learning quality. It’s this colorful and exciting interface that keeps students interested.MemriseIf you want to focus on language, Memrise is the place to be. It features lessons on ten different languages, vocabulary studies, and more.Aside from language and vocabulary, there are many other courses available on Memrise. Explore art, design, fashion, film, theater, music, and philosophy. The lessons are highly interactive and rich in resources.BBC LearningBBC Online Learning portal has various resources that cover multiple subjects. It offers podcasts as well as online courses to help you learn new things at your pace. Plus, BBC has separate sections for school education and adult education. While the list of subjects is rather extensive, the USP of BBC Learning program lies in the language courses, which are available both online and in print.TreehouseTreehouse teaches you how to create websites and mobile applications. The tutorials offered cover topics such as HTML, CSS, jQuery, Ruby on Rails, PHP, and JavaScript, among many others. Furthermore, Treehouse also offers extensive guides for those looking to develop apps for iOS and Android devices. All in all, if you are looking to learn about coding and web development, Treehouse is a great resource!MIT Open CourseWareAs the name suggests, MIT Open CourseWare is a catalog of free online courses and learning resources offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most of the courses are in the form of audio or video lectures, and the topics covered include Life Sciences, Environment, and Technology. Plus, most of the content has been localized in various languages, including Chinese, Portuguese, Thai, Persian, Turkish and Korean.UdacityUdacity offers interactive online classes and courses in higher education. The topics covered are quite advanced, such as Robotics, Game Development, Artificial Intelligence, Cryptography and Parallel Programming. The course catalog is still in its initial stages, and more courses will probably be added over a period.Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

I’m of an opinion that there’s more beyond the “Brand”, coming to pursuing good quality education and career. I’m definitely one of those students who aimed and got into top brands, and had a decent education there. But, ever since i got into the business of guiding students for Master’s education abroad, my opinion has slightly changed.The Craze for Branded Universities-Most of the students aiming for a great master’s education want to get into one of those “Branded” universities everyone is talking about. I’m not just talking about the Harvards and Stanfords of US but even the next tier of Universities such as University of California, LA or SD or North Carolina, Chapel Hill or TAMU, college station etc.. Remember, even these universities have a huge number of applicants from all around the world, especially from the Subcontinent, China, Korea etc.. . Getting into such Universities of course takes a great profile with good GPAs, GREs etc.. An added hurdle is the sheer amount of competition the applicants face.For example, even after guiding multiple students over the years, for us it’s still quite hard to tell if a student with a great profile can get into CS program of North Carolina, Chapel Hill or not. It really depends on how competitive the Pool of applicants is.Moving Beyond…What I can safely claim is that there are Universities which are almost on an equal footing as the “Popular” ones in terms of quality of education, but have somehow missed the limelight. To be honest, a few reasons for them not being that popular could be High tuition fees, Location, limited intake etc.. However, one secret advantage these Universities enjoy is the “Relatively low volume of applicants”. This very situation can increase one’s chances of admit into a great graduate course. Note that some courses in such universities might be ranked higher than the popular ones.Also, one’s chance of getting on campus jobs or Assistantship increases owing to less number of students in the program, which in turn decrease your expenses.Branded V/S Not-Branded-For many students, the “Craze for Brand” is not just the driving factor to aim for such universities, but the opportunities that are created in terms of Job. I cannot deny that. Graduating from a “Maryland, college park” or “Columbia” definitely turns heads. The competition is crushing though.On the other hand, graduating from a good Master’s course offered by these Not-branded Universities can also positively impact one’s resume, because employers usually look not only at the “brands” but also the content in an applicant.In my opinion, if you are looking for an enriching education experience, do not limit yourself by just applying for brands. You should also give a shot to the other set of Universities.QS rankings for some Popular Universities-University of California, Los Angeles – 35University of Illinois, Urbana Champagne - 75University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill- 90University of Southern California- 129Texas A&M, College Station – 189University of Illinois, Chicago- 231UMass, Amherst- 305Northeastern University- 344Stony Brook University, SUNY – 359University of Texas, Dallas – 501-510University of Cincinnati – 561-570QS Rankings of some “Not so popular” UniversitiesNorthwestern University 31Rice University 85Boston University 98Case Western Reserve 167Vanderbilt 200Dartmouth College- 207Georgetown University- 226University of Notre Dame- 241Tufts University 253LeHigh University 551-560Drexel University 561-571College of William and Mary – 600+Of course some might not agree with the Universities in the “Not so Popular” list, but we have observed fewer students applying to them (from India).I also tried to include popular universities from different “Tiers” keeping all sorts of profiles in mind.