<p>School type: public mediocre; offers only 8 APs, a couple of which are not being held b/c of limited student interest</p>
<p>GPA: 3.9
Class rank: top 1%</p>
<p>SAT II:
770-CHEM
760 BIO-M
730 M L2
-My low math score is due to poor foundations in algebra. Since then, I think I've definitely recovered though.
-I didn't really have time to study for any of these; the number of students at my school that take these can be counted on one hand. I wish my counselor would have mentioned some of these to me earlier.</p>
<p>AP scores:
BIO-5
CHEM-5
CALC AB-5
ENGLISH LANG/COMP-5</p>
<p>ACT 31 (2x)</p>
<p>-Do have good amount of involved research experience</p>
<p>-Recs:
should be very good</p>
<p>ECs:
-lot of community service
-Leadership positions in some clubs
-School does not have any math clubs.
-Participated in Science Olympiad</p>
<p>Awards/Honors:
-local math competition award; I hadn't even heard of AMC before coming on CC.
-many wins at the regional, state, and national level in one of my ECs </p>
<p>To what degree is context important? I don't think my school can compare with those of many CCers in terms of educational opportunities, student drive, and math/sci opportunities. I mean, I would have been interested in some of the things I see CCers are involved in…I just didn't ever know about them.</p>
<p>Hi STEM2012,
You might be a smart student judging from your description. You might even have a chance at some of the schools you had mentioned. However, here is the big downside: It seems like you are really finding excuses to justify a good number of your own shortcomings. So my advice is that when you write the college essays, be very very careful. The tone of your essays must be VERY VERY different from what you used to make this post. Otherwise, the reader might get the impression, even wrongly, that your nature is to complain about everything around, and normally most people don’t want to deal with such personalities. Anyway, keep working hard, and good luck with the appliaction process.</p>
<p>@mazewanderer
thanks for those links. I’ve read both all the way through and have had many of my questions answered, as you said.</p>
<p>@T.A.D
Thanks for your input!</p>
<p>I apologize if I sounded like I was making excuses. I just hoped to give a sense of my context. But I do take responsibility for all my shortcomings.</p>
<p>By the way, I know the whole “chance me” request is pretty ridiculous, which makes me a complete hypocrite I know. I guess it’s just a way we here at college confidential name a thread that’s supposed to read “Tell me what you think,” or at least that’s what I did.</p>
<p>More Questions</p>
<p>1)I ultimately should have asked in my original thread: how do I communicate my context properly to adcoms? </p>
<p>2)I read that Caltech (and many other top schools) look at each applicant in context of what they have grown around and by doing so they review school profiles. Where are these school profiles from? My school? Or is there some type of database?</p>
<p>How do you communicate: your grades, scores, applications, essays, recommendations, additional information. All of these communicate. If you have specifcs you or you GC needs to bring that to attention of the committee. </p>
<p>The committee has admissions officers who specialize in certain regions. They have a good idea about the school, its profile and demographics. If you school sends two people every year, then they know your school. If your school has never sent anyone to Caltech or Ivy’s, you need to bring that to the attention carefully. </p>
<p>Your GC for example might state “you are one best students in the last 5 or 10 years the school has produced”, or you may want to write an essay that you decided that you are going to challenge yourself has most of your cohorts do not seem to value higher education or something to that effect. </p>
<p>Saying I come from a mediocre school will not help. Saying in that “spite of the limitations of my school”, I achieved “this” portrays you in better light.</p>
<p>NEVER, ever, take advice from a public school guidance counselor. I mean that. All they care about is getting a certain percentage of their students into college, any college. They would be happy if everyone of their kids applied to the local community college, as that makes their job easier, and improves their stats. As you have noticed, it is a LOT of work to get a student into a top school, and very little work to get into a state school or local community college. Private high schools, OTOH, do pride themselves on the number of students getting into top colleges, so their guidance counselors do have a different goal.</p>
<p>Instead, go online to each school website, and peruse it thoroughly. And ask questions of us here on CC!</p>
<p>How were your poor foundations able to affect your current score? Either this is a poor excuse for carelessness (which I have as well, so I am not blaming you) or a true lack of fundamental math skills which will make Caltech hell for you (judging from what I heard about Caltech - don’t take it personally).</p>
<p>Chances of Getting Into Caltech?
Hi, I’ll apply to Caltech this year for the fall semester. Pls. assess my chances given that I took 14 AP classes since 8th grade. Here they are:
Environmental Science
Biology - now taking cell and molecular biology
Chemistry - done with thermodynamics, chemkinetics, nuclear chem, basic chem, etc.
Physics B- introductory physics
Physics C - mechanics
Physics C - electromagnetism, modern physics, etc.
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
Calculus AB - integrals
Computer Science A - programming JAVA, software planning
English Literature and Composition 1
English literature and Composition 2
Statistics - basic stuff
World History - until world war 2</p>
<p>Humanities:
Art
Filipino Language (4 years)
Values Education 1 and 2
Philippine History
Asian History</p>
<p>I am doing my own research now. I started it last year as a part of our curriculum. All those subjects I took are part of our curriculum.
Note, btw, i’ve been taking computer science,math, biology, chemistry, physics subjects for three years. since 7th grade(all in one year)
I’m applying for a chemical engineering degree.(undergrad)</p>
<p>I apologize if I sounded in any way “excusatory.”
I understand where you’re coming from. The reason why my somewhat poor foundations affected my current score is because I failed to correct those foundations, and so I bothered not with studying formulae for a standardized test. I guess I enjoyed my time studying more advanced math.</p>
<p>And about the weak foundations affecting my ability at Caltech, I don’t think they’re much of a big deal. After my algebra days, I have done very well in upper-level mathematics and have never encountered a hindrance b/c lack of lower-math knowledge</p>