Asian Computer Scientist -- What are my chances?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>My main concerns: Lack of research and awards.
Strong points: Extracurriculars in the scientific field I am passionate in, but good at humanities as well.</p>

<p>Gender: Male
Nationality: Asian-American (how much does race affect my application?)
Location: New Jersey
School: Good, top-15 U.S. private school, competitive. (is this a good or bad thing?)</p>

<p>GPA: 4.1 (out of 4.3)
Sophomore year: Took Calculus BC.
Junior year: AP Chemistry, Physics C, Honors Calculus-based Statistics
Notes: I tend to get A's, with A+'s sometimes. My lowest grades from Sophomore to Junior year are A-'s. I have a few A+'s in math and english. I like to think of myself as a humanities and science kind of guy. Though my school does not rank, I am probably in the top 10 students of my class.</p>

<p>SAT scores: (taken in Soph. year -- currently waiting for results from a retake)
Crit Reading: 770
Math: 760
Writing: 800</p>

<p>SAT II:
Math: 790</p>

<p>PSAT: 223</p>

<p>AP scores:
Calculus BC: 5</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:</p>

<p>Co-CTO and Developer of a student-run startup company -- unnamed for privacy reasons. This company was among the top 5 finalists for the Intel Innovators competition. In my work, I implemented backend features in Ruby on Rails 3, including a post ranking algorithm, user post submission, user profiles, commenting, and voting (including voting on comments).</p>

<p>President and Founder of my school's programming club. Host weekly meetings to teach programming, algorithms, and web development to members. Taught Python, Java, and C#. Led projects and prepared members for competition programming. In addition, I'm planning on taking the AP CS exam independently this year.</p>

<p>Wrote Java applications for basic card games, tic-tac-toe, and ball bouncing in Android SDK. Developed a fairly sophisticated two dimensional platform game.</p>

<p>Participated in the 2011 AI Challenge -- Created a solution for an ant robot using pathfinding and collaborative diffusion (i.e., weighted goal-finding).</p>

<p>USA Computing Olympiad – Active Competitor. No rewards yet, but planning on reaching Silver/Gold in senior year.</p>

<p>Participated in Princeton University Math Competition (PUMaC), Harvard-MIT Math Tournament (HMMT), Delaware Valley math competitions</p>

<p>I am also planning on working a computer-related internship at a company this summer.</p>

<p>Also: Princeton U offers classes for high schoolers to attend. Would it be worth it to sign up for a computer science class? Doing so would probably wreck my senior-year schedule.</p>

<p>Thank you! Please be harsh if need be -- is Harvard a "reach" for me?</p>

2

<p>lol, u neurotic asian kids always pulling our legs with ur high stats and ur impressive EC’s
Good a chance as any, i’d say</p>

<p>But only 4 AP’s as a junior will hurt you as an asian. And i’ve seen more impressive stats with other serious potential computer science majors. Not much awards in mathematics competition or CS competition, for someone interested in CS, but then again you are a junior. </p>

<p>All in all, good a chance as any</p>

3

<p>“Only 4 Ap’s as a junior will hurt you as an asian”–don’t listen to this guy. Many schools don’t offer that many Ap classes, and there’s only so many that you can feasibly take. Not because of the workload, but because its not possible. I’m sure you are taking more AP’s than the average applicant. If it makes you feel better, my school has a majority Asian population, and no students that I know are taking more than 4 APs. </p>

<p>Starting your own company? Amazing. Starting your own club is impressive as well, especially since you do so much in it. I’m sure you have a great chance, not just “as good as any.” Although I’m not in college and I don’t have much experience, compared to the applicants who post online you are in great shape–much better than most.</p>

<p>PS Good Luck on the AP CS exam! I played games all year and still got a 5. I’m sure you’ll get, like, a 6! Also, I know a guy who has the exact same name at me who is now at Harvard. He was 2nd in the Intel Science competition. Being in the top 5 for the Intel talent search is definitely impressive to the recruiters!</p>

4

<p>Oh yeah, I don’t think you need me to add that your SAT score and GPA are stellar. No problem there. I think your EC’s are impressive as well. Harvard might still be a reach for you as well as for everyone else, but you should definitely apply. Maybe we can go there together…(dreaming. yeah right i doubt i’ll get in). I’m a junior too! But is Harvard your first choice? Considering your (extreme) devotion to programming, I feel like some of the other schools could be much better for you in the long term.</p>

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<p>The important thing is that you took advantage of all the advanced classes your school offers. If your school did offer considerably more AP courses, that might be bad. The company though… damn.</p>

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<p>How can you say you lack EC’S?? Your ECs sounds fine. The company, the competitions— even though you didn’t necessarily “win” any of them, you still have plenty of experience in the science field. In my opinion, it’s more of an aptitude thing.
Also, if you do well in the Humanities… shouldn’t you show them? I’m sure that Harvard sees a lot of CS engineers (or wanna-be engineers) who apply, who’ve written fancy programs and such, but don’t you want to show them how well you can do in the Humanities as well?
It’s probably too late already, and I don’t know if you’ve done it already, but I would have sent in an essay regarding something interesting in Computer science, or written a simple program demonstrating the arts, etc…</p>

<p>Your scores are amazing. Also, did you take AP classes that you were interested in, or did you take all the AP classes possible? I’m sure you can justify either.</p>

<p>Harvard’s a reach for all of us. It wouldn’t be an elite school if it wasn’t.
Also, here’s my thread (I didn’t post it in the Harvard forum because I thought it would be too presumptuous) :
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1304390-little-distinction.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1304390-little-distinction.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you want to chance back! (:
(lol I wish my SAT scores were like yours, first sitting. I took mine soph year as well. )<br>
Oh, and just saying—race doesn’t affect your “application” so much as your admission.
I don’t know how Ivies chalk it up, but West Coast schools seem to favor URMs a lot. (Then again, which school doesn’t?)
There are some times when I wish I was half Cherokee or something.</p>

<p>Also, if you like CS and stuff, why don’t you apply to MIT? IMO, it carries the same weight as Harvard, except with a little bit less prejudice.</p>

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<p>@kyothine, you can’t write on your app that you “participated” in a competition… it only counts if you actually place</p>

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<p>You’ll be fine, don’t worry. APCS isn’t hard at all if you’re an experienced programmer already.</p>

<p>Harvard would love you.</p>

<p>Also, what the heck is a Co-CTO. You’re not RIM ;)</p>

<p>(thought i did once see a title that was something like “Assistant Vice President”)</p>