Am I Ivy League material?

Applying to College
1

<p>I am currently a junior in high school! Can you tell me if you think I'm on the right track for an Ivy/whether I have a chance of getting into one? My DREAAAM school is UPenn or Columbia, but I also really love Princeton, Brown and of course Harvard. Other than Ivies I would love to go to a top private college on the east coast, such as NYU, Boston College, Uchicago, Northwestern, Georgetown, etc. I'm from California and think I have a pretty good chance of getting into top UCs but I really do not want to go to a UC or stay in CA for college...an east coast private school is my dream! I go to a very good public school in a pretty wealthy suburb in the Bay Area.</p>

<p>Grades: All A's so far with a few A-'s here and there (one frosh year, two soph year, two so far junior year). The classes I took:</p>

<p>Frosh year-Band, PE, Biology, Health, Spanish 2, Honors English, Honors Global Studies, Honors Algebra 2 (mostly required courses)</p>

<p><em>Took Honors Chemistry over the summer</em></p>

<p>Soph year-Band, Spanish 3, Honors english, Honors Precalc, AP World, AP Biology</p>

<p>Junior year-Band, AP Spanish, AP English Lang, AP Calc BC, AP Chemistry, AP US History</p>

<p>Senior year (what I plan to take)-Band, AP English Lit, AP Statistics, AP Gov/Econ, AP Psychology, Physics (possibly AP)</p>

<p>GPA: UW 4.0, Weighted 4.2 something? It's low because I took that extra summer course, though I have 7 APs so far.</p>

<p>Test Scores: SAT I: 2330 (One sitting, Oct 2011) One stupid mistake from a 2350. Oh well life aint perfect. :'(
SAT II: Biology-760 Math II-800, going to take Chem (hopefully better than 760 so I'll replace the Bio one) and Spanish
PSAT-237, probably going to be NMS
ACT-Going to take in June, pretty confident I can get a 35-36</p>

<p>ECS: Marching band all 4 years, first chair flute soph year, got into the highest band at our school this year, trying to get first chair again next year in the highest band, also trying out to be a section leader next year (I think I will get it)
Also this year I started teaching flute to some local middle schoolers every week! Probably will continue teaching throughout the year.</p>

<p>Volunteer work-I have 50+ hours at the local soup kitchen, also I volunteer at our hospital every week and will probably have 100+ hours when I apply.
I really want to take a trip to somewhere in Latin America this spring break and volunteer there, helping out the people in a small town. (Also hopefully it will help improve my spanish for the AP test hehe). In the process of planning the trip.</p>

<p>My BIG EC and main focus in high school was DECA-I joined the club frosh year and have regularly qualified for the International conference, and have won many awards (1st, 2nd, 3rd) in numerous events and district and state level every year. It would be long and boring for me to list out every award so I am not going to. Also, soph year I tried out to be a state officer and got the position, so I have been state officer of CA DECA (Northern California VP) this past year. My term is almost up, not sure if I am going to re-run because of how busy I am + how much it conflicts with other activities. </p>

<p>Part of other small clubs in my school like UNICEF (do a lot of volunteer work with them too), Linguistics, and helped start an MUN club at my school (was VP of it last year)</p>

<p>Soon going to start Interning for my city's local Newspaper, shadowing, writing articles, etc</p>

<p>Last thing whoo! Currently applying for summer internships such as SIMR (Stanford), BLIPS (US Berkeley), COSMOS (UC Davis), one at UPenn, etc, so hopefully I'll get into at least one of those. (Will doing the UPenn summer program give me any advantage to getting in? I know two people who did it, both not AMAZING but still above-average students, and they both got into Penn..) I might possible enter a project in Siemens this upcoming year if I get into a good program and do some good research!</p>

<p>My main interests are Business/Media communications, and Biology. My absolute dream job is to work in media (be a sportscaster for ESPN, hehe I love sports) but I know that's not very realistic...since I also love biology, I'll probably end up going to Bio research or Biotech or something.</p>

<p>Sorry this is so long...what do you think? Where do I have a chance?</p>

2

<p>Also, here is a list of prospective college I will be applying to: Cal Poly/SJSU/SDSU (safeties), USC, all the UCS except for Riverside and Merced, Stanford, Uchicago, Northwestern, Boston College, NYU, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, Princeton, Harvard…the list will probably get smaller as I get closer to actually doing the apps.</p>

3

<p>Your transcript sounds great. I have no real advice except, avoid AP Physics since you did not do Physics. You might end up getting a C or worse.</p>

4

<p>Sure, your resume is quite impressive.</p>

5

<p>No I would take Physics over the summer and then AP Physics, or just take Physics senior year (would that look bad though?)</p>

6

<p>Sure, you are Ivy material. Unfortunately, there is not enough room in the Ivy League for all of the applicants that are Ivy material, so work hard on those essays and throw your passion into your ECs. Best of luck. (Remember, there are lots of other good schools too)</p>

7

<p>Going to the UPenn program won’t give you a specific edge at Penn, but it will help you overall simply because it’s a good program, so ignore what colleges each program’s at and do the one that you find most interesting.</p>

<p>As for if you’re Ivy League material, yes, you’re up there. You don’t have anything super-amazing that will give you an extremely high change of getting in, but you’re certainly a solid candidate for the Ivy Leagues (and remember that are schools that aren’t Ivies but are better) and with good essays, you stand a decent chance.</p>