Am I doing good so far?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm going to be a h.s. sophomore next year('12-'13)
My GPA
W: 4.2
UW: 3.63
PSAT: 157(going to improve and study, obviously)
4 Pre-AP classes, 3 standard</p>

<p>My ECs:
Bingo at Nursing Home: 20+ hours.
Going to volunteer at a children's hospital this summer: expected - 36 hours
"Internship" at a music lesson place: 18+ hours
Going to be StuCo Secretary and get to be in Leadership classes
At least 4.5(45 hours) Continuing Education credits at a community college, (learning Vietnamese)
Key Club, Student Council, Art Club</p>

<p>I plan to go to Boston U, Rice U, or Tufts U, hopefully pre-med but I might go undecided. (UT Austin is my safety)
Should I do more? If so, please tell what else I need.</p>

2

<p>First off: are you Asian (wish I could learn Vietnamese…)</p>

<p>Now for advice. You might have a good chance to go into BU, considering that admissions are not very competitive. However, your GPA is not very good for Rice or Tufts (hard schools to get into), and your PSAT, if anything indicative of your SAT, really needs to be improved.</p>

3

<p>Yes, I’m Asian(Chinese-Vietnamese).
I did take the PSAT WITHOUT any prepping or studying, so keep that in mind.
What GPA should I aim for if I want to get into Rice?
Also, I plan to learn Mandarin(haven’t found a place yet, however). But right now, I know **Cantonese<a href=“speaking”>/b</a>, **Spanish<a href=“writing,%20speaking%5Bweak%5D,%20and%20reading”>/b</a>, **Vietnamese<a href=“listening%20and%20very%20very%20basic%20reading”>/b</a> and obviously fluent English.</p>

4

<p>UT Austin is NOT a safety for anyone NOT in the top 8% of their class; in-state (8% rule)</p>

5

<p>First of all, focus on just those languages. You can’t just say “hey, let’s learn Mandarin.” Even if you have a parent who speaks the language, Mandarin is among one of the hardest languages to learn. Of course, if you are truly a natural polyglot, by all means. I am just a guy who is quality over quantity, </p>

<p>Even if you didn’t study, that score still is mediocre. I don’t think a lack of studying is ALL that contributed to the bad score.</p>

6

<p>Rice wants 3.85+ GPAs 2150+ SAT/32+ ACT</p>

7

<p>barrk123 is right. Try to get over a 2150 on the SAT, and you’ll most likely get into Tufts and Rice.</p>

8

<p>Doing *well</p>

9

<p>in that case, does anyone recommend a psat/sat prep program or psat/sat prep book?</p>

10

<p>You need to raise your GPA if you want to get into those schools.</p>

11

<p>Well what is your class rank? You said pre-med and from what i saw on your resume, UT Austin is not your safety. Do you live in texas? </p>

<p>GPA weakkkk, PSAT bad, hopefully will improve</p>

12

<p>It’s a freshman PSAT. My sophomore PSAT was a 164. I improved to an SAT of 2180 and it should be better. Believe me that improvement is more than possible</p>

13

<p>My conselour hasn’t posted class ranks unfortunately. Why can’t UT Austin be my safety? (Sorry if its common sense or something, I’m still a newbie)
And I’ll definitely try to improve on my PSAT scores but GPA will be more difficult to raise.</p>

14

<p>And yes I do live in Texas.</p>

15

<p>I said earlier in the thread if you are not in the top 8% of your class, UT is extremely hard to get into (8% rule)</p>

16

<p>PSAT score is pretty mediocre, I gotta be honest with you. It depends what you’re aiming for but that still seems quite low. As Divy said, improvement is possible but you have quite a far jump my friend! My freshman PSAT score was 194 (no studying) and I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to score in the 2300 range on the SAT. </p>

<p>Decent EC’s, try to get some national awards or something in the next two years.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

17

<p>@barrk- I’m aware of the 8% rule, but I researched the school and read that the acceptance rate was 50/50ish or is the rate just influenced by the 8%?
@reeses - any awards I should be looking out for?</p>

18

<p>60% of UTs freshman class will be admitted thru the 8% rule, the last 40% will be highly competitive to get into. (2050+ SAT, Top 9-13% of class to get in)</p>

19

<p>Ughhh, damn it. There goes my future.</p>

20

<p>I’m Canadian so I don’t really know any, sorry :confused: The only American ones I know are National Merit, Intel, and all the various science olympiads but those are impossible.</p>