<p>My friend, filipino, had great extra-curriculars. He was ASB president and volunteered at a hospital all summer. His gpa was the same as yours. In addition he was an in-state student. His SAT was the same as yours, a little higher.</p>
<p>Me, asian, 2-3 extra-curriculars, nothing spectacular, 3.5 gpa, 1950 SAT score.</p>
<p>I got in, he didn’t. I didn’t get to see his essay, but I think you should aim on improving SAT score, all that stuff about how “heavily weighted” extra-curricular stuff is overblown, in my opinion. Everyone I know who got accepted was 1900+ sat, with the exception of one girl who had 1400 sat but 3.95 gpa. </p>
<p>You may also take into consideration that I took 5 ap courses, whereas my friend only took 2-3. Everyone I knew who got accepted was 4+ ap courses. So, I feel you definitely take the hardest courses you can, but don’t kill yourself. Study your ass off for the SAT (I didn’t study), I used to think sat is a test you can’t really study for, but infact you can, its not so much studying, its about reviewing, practice to become faster, and accuracy. Ap gov really improved my reading score by introoducing me to difficult reading. So, for the sat, read difficult material, drill math, master grammar. I genuinely believe anyone is capable of a 2000+ sat score, people just don’t study enough. </p>
<p>This is not scientifically proven, but I heard college admissions prefer quality of activities, not quantity. They want to see passion, depth, interest in whatever you do meaning you should focus on one subject/activity and excel at it. I can see where this theory comes from because it foreshadows your ability to major in a certain subject, and not just be switching around. </p>
<p>Last piece of advice. For the essay, answer the question short and sweet, don’t be superfluous, poetic, flowery, to impress. This is not creative writing. They read 10k+ essays, they know when people bsing and when people being honest. Really, heed my words, answer the essay question, don’t go off topic, they are testing your capability to conform to the “system”, not to be a poet. Use words you know, words you use on a day to day basis, aim for precision and accurate usage, not wordy, lengthy, unpronounceable words you google searched for or looked up in a thesaurus. Also, don’t beat around the bush, take a stand/position, support it. Oh, and don’t write one one of those dysfunctional family, difficult problems, hardships, like 90% of applicants do(just my guess unsupported), negative emo essays, focus on the positives. I think the essay question with hardship/challenge is a bait, don’t answer it aiming for people to feel sorry for you, don’t use it as an excuse, use this as an opportunity to showcase praiseworthy traits you have that have come from those hardships or as how education is the remedy to such problems in our society. Pretend its a job interview where they always have bait questions to test your personality/character. </p>
<p>Write your essays now, because essays sound great when we read them a day or two after writing them. Sometimes the ideas we have in our minds aren’t communicated properly in written form. After losing that fresh memory of that thought in our minds, re-reading it a week later, you notice how awkward or badly written something is. So write it now so you have time to make changes, not the 10 minutes before the application deadline like I did.</p>