Am I delusional for considering SCEA to Harvard or should I be more realistic?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

I am male Asian. Immigrant from Vietnam, poor, and first generation.

ACT: Current:33. Superscore: 34. Can get one-sitting to 35+ by September.

SAT II: Math 2 will be 800. Lit will be 700+

SAT: 1470(760M 710R). Not submitting

PSAT: 1450/1520. Guaranteed commended scholar. Maybe SF national merit.

Uweighted GPA: 3.85/4.

Weighted: Current: 5.25

Rank: Top 10 out of 753

Family situation: My dad is a veteran and he suffered from PTSD. Sometime I have to forgo after-school activities so that I can take care of him. He is the reason why I volunteer at the Veteran Affairs Center.

ECs:
Opened a small online shop selling in-game items. Revenue about $30k and profit about $6k. Gave part of the money to my parents so they could pay their loans. Used some of the money to buy a bike so that I can do ECs at school.

Wrote a Java program to help with my game business.It calculates the market values of my items so that I always know roughly how much I have in my inventory.

Hired by other people to do different things. One of the things I did was translating documents such as business plans, book segments, and advertisements for websites and mobile apps. I made about $2100 doing this

President of ACT Prep Club: Prepare students for the ACT. Helped to bring a few people’s score up to a 29+

Treasurer and Media Specialist of SAT Prep Club: Helped raised money to buy SAT/ACT prep books for less fortunate students in addition to tutoring them.

Vice President of Finance club: Teach and debate about economics and public policies. Bring in professionals to talk about tax, social security, and investments.

Secretary of UNICEF: Organizing donation drives such as Pasta for Pennies, Caroling during Christmas, and Unicef Trick or Treat. Raised about $1000 last year.

National Honor Society: tutor other students during lunch as well as doing donation drives.

CAS hours for IB(A mix of community service and self-growing activities) 100+ community service hours at local library and Orlando Veteran Affairs Center.

Computer Science Summer Program at University of Central Florida. Learn how to code different stuff(retro games, brute force, floodfill) using Java. Very intensive as UCF has one of the best CS programs in the state. Wrote a game from scratch using Java Graphical User Interface for our final project.

Baking: I have been baking every Sunday for the past 5-6 years. I bake pastries for family members’ birthdays, death anniversaries, and other events. Self-taught using cookbooks.

Awards: AP National scholar. Possibly national merit SF, award at school for being a kind/helpful student. NHS, Math Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Social Studies Honor society, and English Honor Society.

AP Scores:
5: Macro+ Micro. HGeo. Psychology(predicted), AP Calc AB
4: Stats, EuroHist, USGov, Eng Lit(predicted) 3: Physics 1

IB:
6: HL Psych(predicted), SL Math, SL Bio
5: HL History of Americas(predicted), HL English B(predicted)
4: SL Spanish.

2

You are not “delusional.” You are certainly in the ballpark… but it is a crapshoot for even the most qualified candidates. By all means apply, but most certainly be prepared to submit other applications.

3

Maybe better to ask yourself the reasons why H has risen to the top of your list and see if these reasons make sense.

4

@snarlatron Well, I am considering between ED Wharton vs SCEA Harvard. I want to do ED Wharton for the longest time but the more I read into it, the more I feel like they are catering specifically toward banking and WallSt(with their intership and alumni network). Although I love business and econ, I don’t know if I am willing to live a banker’s life where 100hrs/week is the norm. Hence, I am considering Harvard because I believe it can help me build a broader foundation for any future career and not specifically toward banking. Also, I like Boston.

5

This doesn’t really clarify your reasons. I think that you need to dig deeper than schools at the top of USNWR.

You can do this at hundreds of fine schools.

There are 50+ colleges/universities in the Boston area. Also there are many other cool cities across the US.
Best wishes and good luck!