Asian, painfully banal, craptastic junior year grades. Do I still have a chance?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Basics:
Asian-American
Junior 2011
Very competitive public high school with high Asian population (our sen10r class went to top-tier UCs with a few Cs on their report cards though)
Female </p>

<p>My biggest, fattest, hugest, disgusting-est problem when it all comes down to colleges?
I'm Asian. That's pretty bad already. But on top of that, I'm not very intelligent academically (stats below). I did TERRIBLY junior year first semester because of many reasons, but I was going through personal struggles and family problems. I know, that's no reason for my grades to take a giant dip...</p>

<p>Apparently I'm also too idealistic when it comes down to all this. Ouchness. Should work on being cynical a bit more! </p>

<p>So, where do I REALLY want to go?
A lifelong dream would be fulfilled if I could become a USC Trojan, attend school in sunny Southern California, and major in business and communications there. I've been mentally committed to going to USC since eighth grade...at this time next year, I hope to be filled with inexplicable joy as I reach into my mailbox and pull out a fat, bright cardinal red-and-yellow gold packet of ACCEPTANCE...</p>

<p>See, there goes my idealistic self again. I doubt with my current stats, I'd even be considered.</p>

<h2>Anywho, my other schools are listed below! </h2>

<p>GPA:
Freshman Yr - S1: 4.0, S2: 3.85 (UW, all regular - no weights allowed freshman year)
Sophomore Yr - S1: 3.741, S2: 3.741 (UW, 1 AP 1 Honors)
Junior Yr - S1: 3.1667, S2: TBA (UW, 2 AP 2 Honors)
--> Total UW: 3.66 (?)</p>

<h2>--> Total W: 3.91 (?)</h2>

<p>SAT/AP Testing scores:
-SAT Reasoning: 2070/2400 (700 W 700 M 670 CR) - Nov. 2009
-SAT II Korean: 750/800 (this fails because I'm Korean) - Nov. 2008
-PSAT: 223/240 - Oct. 2009
-AP Euro: 3/5 - May 2009</p>

<p>Pending/future SAT/AP test scores:
-SAT Reasoning: ????/2400 (??? W ??? M ??? CR) - March 2010<br>
-SAT II Math 2C: ???/800 - May 2010<br>
-SAT II United States History: ???/800 - June 2010<br>
-AP United States History: ?/5 - May 2010</p>

<h2>-AP English Language: ?/5 - May 2010</h2>

<p>Potential Colleges I'm Applying To*:
-USC (most like College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences or Marshall)
-Carnegie Mellon University
-Northeastern<br>
-Barnard College
-Pitzer College<br>
-UC Los Angeles
-UCSD
-UC Irvine
-Any other suggestions?</p>

<h2>*I know these are all out of my league! </h2>

<p>Extracurriculars:</p>

<p>-Interact Club: Secretary (fresh/soph yrs), VP (junior year), President (guaranteed, senior year)
-National Honors Society: member (jr/sr year)
-UNICEF Club: Member (jr/sr year)
-Newspaper Club/Staff: Features Editor (soph yr), Editor-in-Chief (jr/sr yr)
-City Teen Council: Councilmember (jr yr, hopefully sr year)
-City Arts Committee: Student Liaison (jr yr)
-Valley Times: Teen Correspondent (soph yr)
-The EcoNews: Editorial Board Member (soph, jr, sr yrs)
-School Tennis Team: Junior Varsity (fresh yr), Varsity (soph, jr, hopefully sr yrs)</p>

<h2>-School student council: Class rep (fresh yr)</h2>

<p>Volunteer experience (300+ hours):
-Local County Jail: I read and give out books to children of the inmates while they are waiting to visit. Every Saturday and Sunday, 2 hrs each. (fresh, soph, jr, sr yrs)
-Local math academy: I perform basic office duties as a volunteer. Every Thursday, 3 hrs. (soph, jr, sr yrs)</p>

<h2>-Elementary school book club Leader: I lead book clubs for elementary and middle school kids. Once a month, 3 hrs. (fresh, soph, jr, sr yrs)</h2>

<p>Awards/Recognitions/Other:
-Nominated as Funniest Freshman of 2011 (freshman superlatives). Did not win however ):
-University Alumni Club High School Essay Scholarship Contest - 1st place ($200)
-District-wide high school recognition project: Honorable Mention, Financial Planning/Investment
-Nominated for Kohl's Cares for Kids scholarship at school
-Honor Roll, Scholar athlete, Scholar musician (when I did band)
-Volunteer of the month @ local math academy: 5 times
-Participant of school's Poetry Out Loud competition (soph yr)</p>

<h2>-Scholarship to local Rotary Club's prestigious high school summer leadership camp (summer 2010)</h2>

<p>Other stuff:
-Applied to Bank of America Student Leaders Internship (I HOPE I GET IN!)</p>

<h2>-Applied to Meg White for 2010 Internship (I HOPE I GET THIS!)</h2>

<p>Job Experience:</p>

<h2>-Worked as a private tutor during summer 2007 and 2008</h2>

<p>Recommendations:</p>

<h2>Will seek recommendations from my Interact Club advisor, trig teacher, Spanish teacher, APUSH teacher, future AP Econ teacher, my counselor, tennis coach, math academy CEO, and possibly vice principal and principal. </h2>

<p>Essays:
I am a bit worried about this, but I hope I can do myself justice! I have figured out what I want to write for my UC personal statement and USC personal statement. </p>

<p>Thanks for reading this ridiculously long thing! I will chance you back, leave a link (:</p>

2

<p>Wow really similiar to me
I’m applying to USC (top choice) for IR.</p>

<p>Boost your gpa this last term of junior year! (I’m going for a 4.5) and you should meet the average for USC. If you can also retake your SAT1 and use score choice to get a good superscore. However they really like applicants with a lot of EC’s as you can see by their scattergrams.</p>

<p>-USC Low to Mid Reach
-Carnegie Mellon University Low Reach
-Northeastern No idea
-Barnard College No Idea
-Pitzer College No Idea
-UC Los Angeles Reach
-UCSD Low Reach
-UC Irvine High Match</p>

<p>CHANCE ME BACK PLZ :slight_smile:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/894607-chance-me-i-always-chance-back-i-guarantee.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/894607-chance-me-i-always-chance-back-i-guarantee.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>-haha 4.5 for semester grade. it’ll probably up my cumulative by just .5 though</p>

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<p>^ WOW, 4.5. That’s freakin insaneee.</p>

<p>EDIT: Yeah I’m going for a 4.5 too (: Lol</p>

4

<p>Jenni0z, I feel like you are very close to being a “shoo in” at your prospective schools. Notice, however, the quotes around shoo in for the college admission process is an enigma. I feel if you push Your SAT score past the 2100 mark you will not have a problem with any of your schools. Excuse me for my ignorance, but I know about CMU more than the others and that is why I reccommend taking the SAT again.</p>

5

<p>Don’t be so hard on yourself - do you realize that a 2070 on the SAT places you in the 96th percentile? <a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat_percentile_ranks_composite_cr_m_w.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;
I’d say that’s pretty good. However, if you can get your scores up a little higher you’ll have a chance at many of your schools.
How about UC Davis or Santa Barbara? Or perhaps Redlands, Occidental, Chapman or Pepperdine?
Good luck!</p>

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<p>I don’t know much about a lot of your schools but I do know about USC and CMU
You have solid (but not amazing) grades, your standardized tests are good (considering you do well on your APs and Subject Tests) but your ECs look a bit like a laundry list
However, if you get one of those internships, I’d say that would buff up your ECs a lot because it would show passion for business
But right now, ECs need work.</p>

<p>Therefore, I’d say USC is 75-80% and CMU is 50%
These numbers will go up considering you do well on your tests.
Good luck!</p>

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<p>well, first of all i love how well you organized your post haha :slight_smile: it really does help.</p>

<p>i think you have a great chance at USC. and you are instate, right?</p>

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<p>Yup, I live in NorCal.
@Sarsfield, thanks for the suggestions (: I purposely left out UC Davis because I stayed there for a weekend with a friend in her dorm, and it’s too rural/small of a town for my liking, so I could never be fully happy living there. But the others, I will consider for sure!</p>

9

<p>Yeah, you are really hard on yourself. I’m not familiar with California schools in general, but your credentials stand out to me very boldly.</p>

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<p>-USC (most like College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences or Marshall)-37%
-Carnegie Mellon University (avg. applicant)- 38%
-Northeastern- 79%
-Barnard College- 50%
-Pitzer College- 61%
-UC Los Angeles- 25.51%
-UCSD- 73.1%
-UC Irvine- 94.99991%</p>

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<p>lol IvyLeague, did you put her stats into MyChances . net or something? haha</p>

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<p>50% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
31% had h.s. GPA between 3.5 and 3.74
13% had h.s. GPA between 3.25 and 3.49
5% had h.s. GPA between 3.0 and 3.24
1% had h.s. GPA between 2.5 and 2.99</p>

<p>From collegeboard.
-If your from Norcal do the nordstroms scholarship.</p>

13

<p>hey thanks for the chancing! and tbh you have a much better shot at usc than i do hahah</p>

<p>-USC (most like College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences or Marshall) : match-ish?
-Carnegie Mellon University : low-reach
-Northeastern : not sure how hard this is out of state, but it seems to be like a safety school for kids from my HS (albeit both NEU and my hs are in MA so it may be much more difficult for OOS)
-Barnard College : don’t know anything about this one… one person accepted from my hs, had a 4.8-ish weighted, 2040 sats so i guess slight reach?
-Pitzer College : seems to have the lowest admission stats of the CM consortium so i’d say match easy
-UC Los Angeles : match? not sure how difficult it is for in-staters
-UCSD : same as UCLA i guess
-UC Irvine : probs match-safety</p>

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<p>Thanks so much everyone! :smiley: </p>

<p>@7evexel, yeah. I plan on applying to the Nordstrom scholarship. Though I thought you needed to show legit financial aid? Like legally in the lower classes or something</p>

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<p>Davis Davis :3 I had very similar scores/ECs to you, and I got into Davis without a hitch. I do suggest applying for a major that aligns with your stats/ECs though. I applied for undeclared life-sciences, with a double A in AP Bio, 780 SAT II, and 5 in AP Bio. My second major was English, and I had a lot of creative writing/art awards/programs/ECs to back that up. It’s something to chew on, since I know that people can get rejected if they don’t have tangible ties to their major through their resume. Just to note!</p>

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<p>@Serafina: Thanks, Lol, but I’m pretty sure I can’t go to Davis. I want to go somewhere I could be happy in, not just in terms of school but in terms of the environment there, and I am not a Davis person as previously stated. </p>

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<p>March 2010 SAT score: 2030 (600 CR, 700 M, 730 W)</p>

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<p>Do you want a realistic answer or an idealistic answer?</p>

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<p>You say it as though being Asian is a problem – it’s not. You have a very impressive transcript and a volunteer record that will set you apart from most people who are applying to the same schools.</p>

<p>-USC (no specific college within the university): Reach (it’s a reach for EVERYONE)
-Carnegie Mellon University: Low reach (good chance, I think)
-Northeastern: Definite MATCH
-Barnard College: MATCH
-Pitzer College: MATCH
-UC Los Angeles: reach (just simply because of the selectiveness)
-UCSD: reach (again, selectiveness)
-UC Irvine: On the lower side of the matches</p>

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<p>Hey Jenn </p>

<p>Oh my gosh my grades look EXACTLY like yours. Except maybe just a tiny bit higher weighted, and I think we live in a relatively similar area (SJ for me) </p>

<p>I saw you also applied to BoA ^^’ Good luckkk!</p>

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<p>Hi there! Haha my name is also Jenny, with a “y”. :3
Anyways, I’m going to say while overall you’re a pretty well rounded individual, it really might help to boost your scores/grades even a LITTLE!
Be careful that your EC’s really don’t look like a laundry list: focus on those that are most important to you, or at least on your application take care to really explain them so it seems like you have passion about everything you do.
I hope you get those internships too! They’ll really help.
Though I didn’t have a job myself XD EC’s took up too much time.
SAT II’s, I sometimes doubt there’s a lot of emphasis placed on it. My best score was like 730 on Literature and everything else was crap (not completely, but like 680/660 and below).
Nor did I have that many awards because what I participated in wasn’t the type to give awards. I’m not a competitive type of person.
You really don’t need that many people to write recommendations for you, I’m going to be honest. :slight_smile: I say this because they’ll probably all talk about the same achievements (brag sheet! ;)), which could be unnecessary. Haha I think I only sent in the one that was required, possibly 2. The 3 people who I used were my Renaissance leadership adviser to whom I was REALLY close (I called her big sister), my junior year AP Language teacher (really connected to that class; always participated in discussions, made pun jokes, etc.), and my counselor (she knows me fairly well and wrote a glowing letter of recommendation, I kid you not, it was amazing!). As you can see these were people to whom I’m really close and knew my capacity as a leader/involved student on campus. All also were very experienced with writing letters of recommendation.
Don’t get them from someone you don’t know well, like your AP Econ teacher (unless you do really get close in that 3 months time between school starting and applying), in case it sounds generic. They should showcase your personality well.
You say you were nominated for funniest freshman. I say utilize your humor then, to the best of your ability! One of my strengths I’d say is being known for being funny, so I attempted to reflect this through my short answers (while staying true). Looking back on my application I’m chuckling to myself because I can’t believe some of what I put…
Sorry if I wrote too much! I just remember how stressed out I was over college applications. Don’t over analyze everything like I did, because it’ll only make your head hurt. T_T Definitely ask your friends to check essays/answers/etc. for you, because they should know you the best!
Even though this is somewhat early, good luck! :smiley: Haha FYI the envelope itself is not maroon and gold, but when you open it up and take the folder out, it is NICE. :slight_smile: Probably my favorite out of all my acceptances (gotta love UCLA’s car decal though!). They will definitely make you feel as if you’re a Trojan already (this is coming from a girl who was always determined to be a Bruin btw). I only hope you can feel the happiness I felt around this time next year.</p>